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Trouble in the Nanny State
Townhall.com ^ | March 13, 2013 | Ann Coulter

Posted on 03/14/2013 3:20:12 AM PDT by Kaslin

Like the proverbial monkey typing for infinity and getting Shakespeare, Mayor Bloomberg's obsession with reforming New Yorkers' health has finally produced a brilliant ad campaign.

Posters are popping up in subway stations and bus stops giving statistics about teen pregnancy that show cute little kids saying things like, "Honestly, Mom ... chances are he won't stay with you. What happens to me?" and "I'm twice as likely not to graduate high school because you had me as a teen."

(Based on a recent CBS report, the kid could add, "Then again, I'm in the New York City public school system, so even if I graduate I won't be able to read.")

It's one thing to stigmatize "Big Gulp" drinkers, but liberals are hopping mad at this attempt to stigmatize teen pregnancy, 90 percent of which is unwed. To put it another way, if you're a New York teen with a distended belly these days, it had better be because you're pregnant.

Planned Parenthood's Haydee Morales complained that the ads are creating "stigma" and "negative public opinions about teen pregnancy." (I'm pretty sure that's the basic idea.)

Instead, Morales suggested "helping teens access health care, birth control and high-quality sexual and reproductive health education." Like the kind they got before becoming pregnant, you mean? Are you new here, Haydee?

Coincidentally, Planned Parenthood happens to provide reproductive health care! Liberals act as if gun owners, soda-guzzlers and smokers are innocent victims of the gun, food and cigarette industries, but the $542 million-a-year birth control industry is a quarry of angels.

The New York Times' Michael Powell explained in a column that, as a parent of teenagers, he's learned that the stupidest thing to do is resort to "the shame-and-blame game." Teenage pregnancy, he states categorically, is a "problem of poverty."

I think we have a chicken-and-egg problem, but let's stick to liberals' newfound opposition to shaming campaigns.

Far from opposing stigmas, liberals are the main propagators of them -- against cigarettes, guns, plastic bags, obesity, not recycling, Fox News, racist "code words," not liking "Lincoln" and junk food.

The stigma against smoking has gone so swimmingly that you can't enjoy a little tobacco pleasure 50 yards from another human being without some bossy woman marching over and accusing you of poisoning her.

California is currently running a series of "Reefer Madness"-style anti-smoking ads, including one that shows cigarette smoke going from a woman outside on her porch, up a story, through the door of another apartment, across the living room, down the hallway and into a room where a baby is sleeping. That would be the equivalent of the Bloomberg ads claiming teen pregnancy causes genocide.

And what exactly was the purpose of the Journal-News publishing the names and addresses of every legal gun owner in various counties in New York state a few months ago? To congratulate them? To start a hunting club?

No, I believe it was to stigmatize legal gun owners. The fact that we didn't already know who they were proved that the problem isn't legal gun ownership. All those legal guns -- and no rash of drive-by shootings!

Los Angeles has banned plastic bags at supermarkets, even though reusable canvas bags are portable bacterial colonies. But a little ad campaign describing the downsides of teenage pregnancy -- which is still subsidized -- and liberals howl in protest.

One begins to suspect that liberals aren't as interested in stopping teenagers from having illegitimate kids as they claim. Do they believe a teenager who gets pregnant out of wedlock is harming herself and her child as much a teenager who smokes? How about an unwed teen who smokes at a landfill?

It's only a "shame-and-blame game" when liberals secretly approve of the behavior they pretend to oppose.

Unwed mothers have been the perennial excuse for big government, going back to Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, who plotted in the 1960s to create broken families, welfare dependency and urban riots to pave the way for socialist revolution.

That's why single mothers are revered victims -- victims in need of an ever-expanding social safety net, staffed with well-pensioned government workers. As described in that great book, "Guilty: Liberal 'Victims' and Their Assault on America," liberals concoct fake victims in order to victimize the rest of us.

The only thing single mothers are "victims" of is their own choice to have sex with men they're not married to. Liberals seem to believe that drinking soda is voluntary, but getting pregnant is more like catching the flu.

It would be hard to make the case that fast food, plastic bags and cigarettes do more damage than single motherhood.

-- Controlling for socioeconomic status, race and place of residence, the strongest predictor of whether a person will end up in prison is that he was raised by a single mother.

-- At least 70 percent of juvenile murderers, pregnant teenagers, high school dropouts, teen suicides, runaways and juvenile delinquents were raised by single mothers.

-- A study back in 1990 by the Progressive Policy Institute showed that, absent single motherhood, there would be no difference in black and white crime rates.

So liberals don't try to make that case. They just say they're against "shaming" and then go back to shaming gun owners, non-recyclers, smokers and "Big Gulp" aficionados -- while subsidizing illegitimacy.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: abortion; coulter; mayorbloomberg; nannystate; newyorkcity; teenpregnancies
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1 posted on 03/14/2013 3:20:12 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin
So sick of Coulter I hope she skips a meal and starves to death.

She sucks up to Conservatives until it matters, then it's doughboy Christie or who knows what.

I'm done.
2 posted on 03/14/2013 3:39:48 AM PDT by 867V309
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To: Kaslin

This is Coulter at her best!

She still needs to apologize for Romney and Christie.


3 posted on 03/14/2013 3:48:21 AM PDT by Erik Latranyi (When religions have to beg the gov't for a waiver, we are already under socialism.)
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To: 867V309

You read the name of the author of the column and decided to bitch abut her instead of commenting about the article. Correct?


4 posted on 03/14/2013 3:52:26 AM PDT by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: Erik Latranyi

I thought it was, and yes she does


5 posted on 03/14/2013 3:53:21 AM PDT by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: Kaslin

No, I know the history of the author of the column which apparently you don’t.


6 posted on 03/14/2013 3:55:23 AM PDT by 867V309
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To: Kaslin

ping


7 posted on 03/14/2013 3:59:35 AM PDT by SWAMPSNIPER (The Second Amendment, a Matter of Fact, Not a Matter of Opinion)
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To: SWAMPSNIPER

ping


8 posted on 03/14/2013 4:00:41 AM PDT by 867V309
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To: Kaslin

It is interesting that when conservatives spoke out against unwed motherhood, they were pilloried for being judgmental and uncool. It’s not hip to take a stand on moral grounds. But now the liberals want to take the same position. Not for moral grounds, but because of money.

I’d rather be moral than crass.


9 posted on 03/14/2013 4:05:10 AM PDT by generally (Don't be stupid. We have politicians for that.)
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To: Kaslin
"The stigma against smoking has gone so swimmingly that you can't enjoy a little tobacco pleasure 50 yards from another human being without some bossy woman marching over and accusing you of poisoning her."

This just happened to me the other day...was at the hospital for surgery on a family member and decided to go outside to have a cigarette...walked thru the front doors while digging in my purse for my pack of smokes...no sooner got them out and in view when a hospital security person started running at me and screaming that "you can't smoke here"...my cigarette wasn't even out of the pack yet...and I was on my way to a "designated smoking area"...I have always been what I thought to be a respectful smoker...even when it was legal to smoke in a restaurant I didn't because I felt like people trying to enjoy their meal didn't want to smell my cigarette smoke...you cannot be nice to these people though...respect their rights and you just lose more of your own...now when I see someone giving me the evil eye for smoking, I make damn sure the smoke gets blown in their direction...

10 posted on 03/14/2013 4:13:36 AM PDT by ~Vor~ (Freeper since 10/98)
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To: 867V309; Kaslin
No, I know the history of the author of the column which apparently you don’t.

That's right! We don't tolerate imperfection in conservative circles!

We only support the most perfect candidates.....which is why the most conservative candidates always lose our support in the primaries!

/sarc

11 posted on 03/14/2013 4:37:42 AM PDT by Erik Latranyi (When religions have to beg the gov't for a waiver, we are already under socialism.)
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To: ~Vor~
This just happened to me the other day...was at the hospital for surgery on a family member and decided to go outside to have a cigarette...walked thru the front doors while digging in my purse for my pack of smokes...no sooner got them out and in view when a hospital security person started running at me and screaming that "you can't smoke here"...my cigarette wasn't even out of the pack yet...and I was on my way to a "designated smoking area"...I have always been what I thought to be a respectful smoker...even when it was legal to smoke in a restaurant I didn't because I felt like people trying to enjoy their meal didn't want to smell my cigarette smoke...you cannot be nice to these people though...respect their rights and you just lose more of your own...now when I see someone giving me the evil eye for smoking, I make damn sure the smoke gets blown in their direction...

Liberals would support drone strikes on smokers!

Now, THAT is a poll I would like to see!

12 posted on 03/14/2013 4:39:47 AM PDT by Erik Latranyi (When religions have to beg the gov't for a waiver, we are already under socialism.)
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To: 867V309

You don’t know anything about her. You signed up 1 year and 14 days ago, which was right after the hatred of some in here against her started.,because she opined on something they did not like. Remember everyone has the right to their opionin. That however does not include you since the article is not about her but what these Nannies, especially Mayor Bloomberg are telling everyone what they should do


13 posted on 03/14/2013 4:51:15 AM PDT by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: ~Vor~

Thanks a lot for your kindergarten attitude. Some people are deathly allergic to cigarette smoke. Even one whiff of that stinking stuff can trigger an asthma attack which could be fatal. Let’s see how you enjoy a belt half tight enough to hang you, wrapped around your neck, so YOU can’t breathe.


14 posted on 03/14/2013 4:52:36 AM PDT by EinNYC
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To: generally

Well, you know how liberals are


15 posted on 03/14/2013 4:53:15 AM PDT by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: EinNYC

Bump


16 posted on 03/14/2013 4:55:53 AM PDT by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: EinNYC

I stand by my statement...if I’m in a designated smoking area perhaps the non-smoker should exercise some personal responsibility and stay away...walking into that area and then crying foul or casting dirty looks is typical liberal logic...


17 posted on 03/14/2013 5:26:07 AM PDT by ~Vor~ (Freeper since 10/98)
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Comment #18 Removed by Moderator

To: EinNYC

“Even one whiff of that stinking stuff can trigger an asthma attack which could be fatal”

Medical source, please.


19 posted on 03/14/2013 5:35:32 AM PDT by patton (“Really? Have you tried chewing cloves?”)
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To: EinNYC

“...deathly allergic...”

I call BS. Google it and try to find one instance of it happening. Maybe a few hysterical people dies from a panic attack caused by cigarette smoke.


20 posted on 03/14/2013 6:07:05 AM PDT by FreedomNotSafety
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