Last week and over the weekend, there's been much discussion of a new study showing the rise of childlessness among women, and particularly that it seems to be correlated with educational level - the higher a woman's educational level, the less likely she is to have children. Mind you, this is correlation, not necessarily causation; it could as easily be that higher education (grad and postgrad work) is more attractive to women who never intended on having children anyway, or that women who want children realize the unfortunate truth of how difficult it is in our society to balance childrearing with the time necessary for advanced degrees and the career that usually goes with them, as it could be Fischer's hypothesis that education "...is leeching the maternal instincts right out of the female lemmings...". Direct quote, by the way. Apparently, Fischer thinks we eeeevil feminazis have gotten our vicious claws into higher education and are using it to brainwash women out of fulfilling their godly duty as mothers.
In his usual fashion, Fischer then goes about rambling through two or three unconnected subjects, trying to tie them all together. This time it's some incoherent nonsense about a "general environmental theory" supposedly shared by all liberals, that humanity is simply a blight upon the earth...don't ask me, it doesn't make sense to me either...and Margaret Sanger's infamous position on eugenics that we need fewer babies born to the "unfit", so therefore liberals are less fit for babies than are good Christians who properly view babies as God's blessings, QED. Or something like that.
At any rate, his point is that therefore, conservatives can win the culture wars by just "outbreeding" (his term, not mine) us. Which is patently stupid. The political/religious beliefs of a person's parents are no guarantor of a person's own political/religious beliefs as an adult. I am a case in point; my father is a proud Teabagger and a Christian, and here I am, a heathen queer progressive activist. Not that the plural of anecdote is data or anything, but flip through any thread on Shakesville discussing one's family, and you'll see quite a number of progressives who grew up inculcated with conservatism and yet broke out of it as adults. The children of Christian parents may grow up to embrace that faith themselves. Or, they could just as easily grow up to become atheists, agnostics, Jews, pagans, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, etc. Fischer's ridiculous notion of "outbreeding" his way to victory in the culture wars is predicated on the notion of infallible transmission of values from parent to child, a concept eminently not supported by reality.
Oh, and the other little, tiny, minor, inconsequential problem with this "surefire strategy"? The study made no mention of the religious or political beliefs of those women who did have children. Absent any data on that point, Fischer just conflated "higher education" with "evil librul", leaving his entire premise ("Libruls aren't breeding anymore!") without even the slightest scrap of factual support. And of course, when one's premise is trashed, it can no longer support one's conclusion.
But hey, his closing sentence is funny enough to make the stupid worthwhile:
Let them fume in their childless rage while we celebrate the joys of parenthood and along the way implement a sure-fire long range strategy for taking our country back.And to that, all I have to say is: CHILDLESS RAGE SMASH!!!
