Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Saturday, January 18, 2014

By Any Means Necessary

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/mtv-prevents-teen-pregnancy-by-shaming-single-moms

I get the point that these shows "shame" teenage moms.

But frankly, being a teen parent - especially a teen single mom - is pretty much to throw shackles around your future.  It disadvantages the parent and disadvantages the child.

Shame is a tricky word.  Shame suggests that there are certain things one shouldn't do, and that transgressing those societal boundaries brings some emotional trauma.

But being a teen parents involves emotional trauma, too.

And it involves trauma to the child.

So maybe a soupcon of shame isn't bad (if that is in fact what MTV is doing) if it prevents something worse.

Shaming people out of bringing guns to the movie theater wouldn't raise eyebrows on the Left, why should this?


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