So I'm skimming like a mud puddle Jesus through another hunk of grammatically wretched hate mail, kindly informing me that both I and the city in which I live are godless, stinky insults to all humanity (yawn), that all of us here in Perverted Pelosiville are depraved sickos due in no small part to our pathetic liberal values (zzzz), our lack of openly displayed firearms and our obvious adoration of terrorists, immigrants, communism, anal sex, artisan coffee, organic produce and, of course, organic analterrorist sexcoffee.
All told, it's a rather uninspired, typically brainless hunk of Tea Party-grade spittle, true 2nd grade stuff that's nowhere near as nasty as some of the hate mail I used to get back in the 00's BAC (Before Anonymous Commenting) -- the absolute finest examples of which, by the way, I've included in my book, "The Daring Spectacle." It's something to see.
Yeah, yeah, Mark. I bought the sonofabitch. Button it. Like that'll happen. Notice how I cleverly linked the title to BuzzFlash instead of the trunk of your car. Heh. But I digress...
What if I were to trot out the irrefutable stats about, say, education levels, or teen pregnancy rates, or abortion? How about college graduation rates, marriage stability, or even adoption? What about general health? Obesity? What if I were to casually mention, with sufficient factual backup, how blue states tend to trounce nearly every red state across the board in these key markers?
Would it matter? Would the spittle-flecked bipeds who write to me (or comment down below) and misspell "commy" and "sodimite" listen or care in the slightest? I already know the answer.
An exercise in futility. Ya can't fix stupid.
Examples? Legion. You've probably already read about teen pregnancy rates in relation to religious belief (ref: this terrific piece from the New Yorker). It's a simple enough equation: the more religiously conservative a given state is, the more it's guaranteed to be lacking in quality sex education, easy access to -- and information about -- contraception and women's health, and the more it tends to wallow in fear of sex, the body and the stickier dynamics of human relationships.
Upshot: As the strict, antiquated religious codes of these states fail -- as they have for millennia -- a far higher number of those states' sad, uninformed teenaged girls get knocked up, marry far too young, get divorced, never get a real education, earn low wages and generally contribute to every unpleasant and downward spiraling statistic in America, right along with the slumpy males. Yay family values!
Of course, the instant I considered sending the depressed haters of me, you, this city, all "blue state" values a link to this or any of the other fine articles detailing the utter failure and bassackwardness of conservative "family values" mindsets, I just laughed and sighed and reached for my mug of analterrorist sexcoffee, remembering quite well my own hard-fought advice, dispersed not long ago.
It was a column titled, if you will, "How to talk to complete idiots" (also featured in the book, btw)(He never gets tired of, er, flogging that thing, does he? Heh. - G), which details the tragic failure of facts, science and research in the face of those real red state values, such as hysteria, alarmism and a childlishly literal interpretation of wonky Christian mythology.
But it gets better: Because even if they accept the data as partly true, the typical red state reaction is to argue that the real reason teen pregancy, abortion, divorce and so on are far worse in the "family values" states is not because the rules and religions are flawed and outdated, but because they aren't being enforced strictly enough. And for that, they blame ... you guessed it ... the liberals.
Ah, disingenuous doublethink. It's a family value.
Sometimes I think I quote his stuff at too much length, and that I could just put "Morford" and link to it and everybody would go read him anyway. Then I realize that that just wouldn't be as much fun.
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