Big Government? Big Lie! (And Other Matters of Note)
Terri Whitehouse August 1st, 2007
The Courier-Journal today ran an insightful piece written by E.J. Dionne Jr. on the myth of “big government.” Big government is, of course, a scare tactic used to justify lots of awful things, from lax gun control laws to not providing for the nation’s poor. Just exactly how big our government has actually gotten under the leadership of a Republican president, however, is worth a closer look.
In slightly unrelated news, Mark Hebert reports that nearly two-thirds of Kentuckians want some sort of U.S. troop withdrawal in Iraq.
Also, I’ve been meaning to blog about abstinence-only (mis)education for a number of weeks now, but Mary Q. Burton at the LEO does such a first-rate job in “Sex, lies and abstinence” that I’ll just quote in part:
Teri Lloyd was surprised when the sex education books her children brought home from school seemed woefully incomplete. The books omitted certain parts of the female anatomy — specifically, the clitoris.
“That’s got to be a shame, fear-based thing,” says Lloyd, 49, whose daughter, now 23, attended school at Myers Middle. “We just failed to educate them about their own bodies. What we leave out can be shaming, too. I wondered why that part wasn’t mentioned. I’m not opposed to teaching abstinence; what I’m opposed to is pairing it with shame or with lack of information about birth control and the human body.”
They can give enough of my tax money to fund religious anti-choice pregnancy centers, but can’t find a few hundred bucks for an accurate scientific rendering of the female anatomy? Nice.
- Anti-Science Agenda , Conservatism , Coporate Greed , Economy , Education policy , General Knowledge , Government Inefficency , Health Care , Homeland Security , Iraq War , Kentucky , Opinion Polls , Religious Fanaticism , Rural America , Same-sex Marriage , Sex , Sexism , War , wingnuttery
- Comments(5)
Speaking of conservative-filtered school textbooks, I heard on NPR this evening on the way home from work that the Texas woman who began the movement by conservatives to censor textbooks that didn’t conform to their ideology died today.
What’s the deal with Repub’s and sex. It’s seems They’re all a bunch of, viagra takin’ Rush Limpball dope addict perverts talkin’ about Jesus!!!!!!!!!!!!!
nope rep. just do it all behind closed doors until they get caught
I don’t care what they do so long as they don’t take my smokes and my guns!
Big government? I say let’s shut down American participation in the Iraqi war, and bring home American troops from most of the 130 nations where they are stationed, and that would reduce the size of big government. Half the savings should go for more liberal projects like better schools, better houses for the poor, and better medical care for the poor. The other half of the savings should go for more conservative projects like tax cuts and reducing the horrendous national debt. End the American deaths in Iraq, and both liberals and conservatives come out the winners. Big government? Little government? I’m against “stupid government.” Let’s Ditch Mitch.