Yep, thats right. I hate the government, particular George and his dense, stubborn cronies. Go ahead, Alberto Gonzales, slap my name on the watch list. I said it: You guys suck!
Suckage reason #1:
Any idiot on the street corner could probably tell you that abstinence only sex education is total crap. Health teachers stand in classrooms telling kids not to drink, smoke, do drugs and omg, please don't have sex! until they're blue in the face. So the smoking and drug use message actually wins a lot of kids over: slowing poisoning yourself isn't all that cool. But drinking, eh, probably not as much and certainly not the don't have sex message. All the other "omg, please don't do this!" messages are against something dangerous. Its not like we need to shoot up with heroin or down a few shots to keep the species going, but sex, on the other hand--we're supposed to have sex. Now I'm not saying go out and do it when you're 13 or anything. No, thats stupid, but if telling kids not to do things that are going to kill them (i.e. drugs) doesn't work, why on earth would saying "don't have sex until you're married, its bad!" have any effect?
Well, as it turns, out... wait for it, wait for it... IT HAS ABSOLUTELY NO EFFECT. That's right. Zero, nothing, completely ineffective. And this brought to you by a government commissioned study. So there ya go, in black and white with all the pretty supporting statistics: Telling kids don't have sex until you're married does nothing.
So why does this spark my rage at George and his cronies, you ask. Well in their infinite, righteous wisdom, they have concluded that this report doesn't matter. Never mind that if it was about anything but sex, they'd go "wow, we're wasting millions of dollars on this, we should cut it," but since apparently George Bush is the pinnacle of value ("Vote for Values!" my ass), we have to keep this funding rolling in. In fact, let's up it by almost $30 million for next year and, oh just wait, it gets better, let's shift the focus from abstinence to prevent pregnancy and STDs to abstinence as a way to build relationships and moral character. Also, I'm quite certain that the "information on sexually transmitted diseases" that these folks provide routinely gets ripped apart by public health officials for being incredibly inaccurate. Yeah, this will work great.
jenniferlynn714
13 years ago
1 comment:
OOoo... Political posts! That means I'll have plenty to say!
The key to this, though, is all about pandering. What do politicians want the most? To get reelected (Or for their party to get reelected). And how does that work? By pandering to your side.
Now, of course, if you ask me, I'd say the government shouldn't fund 90% of the things it funds, and abstinence education is one of them. Heck, we probably shouldn't even fund health classes. Everyone knows their a waste of everyone's time (I get the Lifetime channel at home). Can't do that, though, cause we'd have to fire unionized teachers, and that's a no-no.
But that's not the point here. Whether Bush or any of his cronies actually thinks this works or not doesn't matter. We don't know what they think. What matters is that the far right lives in their magical abstinence world (Similar to the magical tubes of the internet), and it's Bush's job to cater to it. If you don't pander to your side, you don't get votes, and your side gets angry. Plain and simple politics.
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