By the Cranky Housewife -
"If they [Republicans] actually think that it is work, if they do think that being a mother is work, then why isn't there any kind of wage for that work?" so asks MSNBC contributor and editor of The Nation, Chris Hayes. And now I get it. The strategy. I couldn't quite understand the logic of attacking Ann Romney along with 27% percent of American women on behalf of the Democrat platform during an election year. It didn't compute. What could possibly be the benefit of ticking off that many women when women are really the only reliable voting block left for Barack Obama?
And then it hit me. Hayes is suggesting that we unionize homemakers to give them "the dignity of a paycheck." Make them government workers. Akin to the TSA? Gracious. Isn't that a progressive thought? Tax my husband and create a new government bureaucracy that will then send me a check which I can use to raise our children. Sounds terribly efficient. What could go wrong with that setup?
Does this seem like a farfetched scheme even coming from the fertile imagination of a liberal?
No. Hear me out. What's being focus-grouped here by the likes of Hilary Rosen and Chris Hayes might merely seem like an off the cuff swipe at traditional values, but there is actually an outstanding level of creative genius involved here. It's a foreshadowing of things to come if we just stay the course. It's a campaign promise to loyal Democrat women. If you see the video of his comments on MSNBC, Mr. Hayes follows up his observation on the validity of homemaking by underscoring that there are certainly nations in the world that do pay mothers to stay at home and raise their children.
The hypothesis is, I guess, that the nationalization of motherhood is a far more equitable and compassionate arrangement for stay-at-home mothers who aren't as wealthy as Ann Romney and can't necessarily afford the option of staying at home. In this way, all mothers will have an equality of opportunity and, therefore, an equality of outcome. Following his logic, if it's happening in Europe then this must be the direction that our country needs to go if we want to remain competitive in the world market.
Intriguing, no? There are a lot of "ifs" and "thens" involved in that proposal, of course. First of all, I was curious as to which great nations Mr. Hayes wishes the United States to emulate in his campaign to free women from all responsibility and consequence...which - does he suppose that this was the point of suffrage in the first place? I wonder. So I did a quick Google search as is my wont to do. It turns out that the great economic powerhouses of Sweden, Finland, France (pardon my French), Italy and soon Germany and Spain are subsidizing motherhood as a way of encouraging an increase in the plummeting European birth rates. These nations have no choice but to bribe women. Their population replacement rates are so low that these cultures are actually in danger of being placed on the WWF endangered species list if they don't start producing some offspring.
Naturally, this leaves their pensioners in a huge bind which is apparently the greatest concern for all parties concerned. The tax burden and the cost of living are too heavy a load for the working men and women, and it is just easier and cheaper for young women to skip the whole reproduction thing altogether. Ironically, it's like the feminist dream come true. Unfortunately, soon there will be no one left in the workforce to fund the great socialist utopias of the EU and their economies will collapse under the dead weight of non-working citizens.
Fabulous. Where do I sign up for that?
Never mind that the European solution to their faltering GDPs is to draw even more people out of the workforce so that they can pay them the equivalent of $1,200 a month in welfare benefits. In some Italian towns, they are even offering an additional $15,000 bonus for each child successfully delivered. Yes. Italy…and no, Greece wasn't listed in the article that I'm referencing, so I'm not sure where they stand on this strategy. Why do you ask?
Naturally, the non-sequitorial essence of this "go forth and multiply on the taxpayer's dime" policy precludes debate. Where would one start? It is also, by the way, the flip opposite direction that American feminists want to take this nation based on the free sterilization and spa treatment directive that was recently handed down from our current Administration. Now, it is interesting to note that in spite of America's inability to duplicate the European "family friendly" policies that Mr. Hayes is advocating and regardless of the oft maligned free market principles and rugged individualism that are generally still practiced here in the US against all odds, we actually have higher employment rates, standards of living, marriage rates and birth rates. Oh, and fewer people receive government subsidies in this country…try as the government shall to incentivize individuals into such lifestyles.
So if Europeans marry at a lower rate but are being asked to produce children at a higher rate, let me ask you this lingering question: "Who exactly is the daddy?"
Why, the State is. Of course. Government supplants European men in their traditional role of husband and father. Men become sperm donors for the great national cause and no one needs to be burdened with the messiness and unpredictability found within traditional families.
And Europeans accuse Americans of sterile, ephemeral Mc-values.
Hmmm. Think about that for a moment. Europe. Within one hundred years, they have successfully implemented feminism, which has been mollycoddled within the intellectually and morally superior socialist value system. The traditional family has all but vanished from the European landscape, freeing women at long last of the burden of matrimony and childbirth and rendering the culture unable to sustain itself. As a result, women in Europe are now being divided between the breeders and non-breeders and are being paid off to reproduce.
What happens if the bribe doesn't work? What happens if the subsidy isn't incentive enough for women who might just as soon let some other fool deal with the stretch marks and sticky fingerprints on the staircase wall? Guys, this is the guts and glory of every modern dystopian melodrama that has been written in the last century. Think about it. Wasn't this the whole point behind that great feminist horror story, A Handmaid's Tale? Do you remember the novel? You don't? How odd. It's generally all the rage during Republican administrations.
Only in that story, America has reverted to an authoritarian theocracy. The impetus that drives the chattelization (yes, I know it's not an actual word) of women is the menace of traditional values and theology…which, by the way, are also nearly extinct in Europe. The heroine is a former Gospel singer who has learned the error of her ways now that she is a forced breeder for the great American economic machine. She exalts in the formation of an underground military organization called "Mayday" (insert wink-wink, nod-nod here) that works to overthrow the government and replace the sinister plutocracy with equity and social justice. Seriously, you've never read the story? There are entire "Women's Studies" courses dedicated to the scholarship of this great novel in universities throughout the nation.
The story is about what happens to women when they are denied access to birth control and abortions. It is about the dangers associated with men, faith and fertility.
Dangers that can only be staved off by a strong centralized and secularized government.
Like the ones in Europe.
