I have a generally low opinion of the intelligence of my fellow countrymen, but I also have a sense of humor about it. Nothing, for example, cracks me up quite as much as far, far right-wing rhetoric plagiarized verbatim from the Third Reich.
To wit: Have more babies, because the brown people are fuckin' faster than "we" are. The Nazis called it Lebensborn; today in America we call it Focus on the Family.
Among the mental giants who most often flog this argument is John Gibson, who recently got in a little bit of hot water (emphasis on "little," and the water was more tepid than hot) for telling his viewers that if they don't start doing it with their frigid, unstable spouses more frequently, the dirty Mexicans are going to outnumber white people soon. Note that Gibson implicitly understands that all of his viewers are white, and therefore he can address them directly with commands rather than framing his comments in hypotheticals.
You also hear this song being sung by people like Pat Buchanan and Mark Steyn, whose America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It proved that it is possible to write a book without ever having read one.
Aside from the moral and logical issues with this argument, let's focus on a more practical flaw. I have put a good amount of serious thought into this, and for the life of me I cannot think of anything that makes me want to have sex less than John Gibson's face. I could be completely horny and ready to conceive a beautiful, pure caucasian baby. I could be in the process of actually having sex.
But one look at his pompadour would have me dangling like a windsock in no time. Here. You try it:
Now try to tell me with a straight face that you are in the mood for sex. I may not have a high opinion of the Moral Majority crowd, but I find it hard to believe that they can't understand why John Gibson ordering people to have sex is unlikely to result in more sex.
Then again, these are a lot of the same people who idolize Ann Coulter as a sex goddess (I usually don't picture deities looking like bulimic horses, but I digress). So carry on, Christian fearmongering soldiers. Your theory that Pat Buchanan's red, sweaty face is going to make people want to procreate probably just needs a little more time – maybe six more months.
(h/t World-o-Crap)
JDryden says:
I've always pointed out (on the many, many occasions that the subject has come up) that John Gibson looks like a very successfully reanimated corpse–like the mad scientist got to it *really* soon after burial, before too much apoptosis had set in. Also in this shot, there's also a striking resemblence to the Emperor from STAR WARS–put that guy in a face-obscuring hood and I defy you to tell the difference. And one could run with this: Ann Coulter = Jar-Jar Binks; Karl Rove = a larval Jabba the Hutt; Tucker Carlson = C3PO; and so on. Regardless, you're right–the man is birth control personified.
Brandon says:
The odd thing is that the people watching Gibson's show are probably not the ones who need to be lectured. It's us damn godless secularists who are endangering the future of the Caucasian race, not the God-fearing conservatives. I remember this Nation article about the "quiver" movement among evangelicals, which you might find interesting:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061127/joyce
Yeah, some of this paleo-con crap is so blatantly racist it's not even funny. It's one thing to worry that immigrants might possess anti-democratic values, but with most of these people it's obvious that their main concern is that America is becoming less white. Bruce Bawer wrote a decent book called "While Europe Slept." He argues that Muslim immigration to Europe is problematic not because they are Muslim, but because many of them have hostile attitudes toward gays, gender equality, and secularism. Such an argument is, I think, defensible.
zzyzx says:
my intention is not to be a rude to JDryden. but as a biologist i demand clarity that Apoptosis is a very precise term meaning Regulated Cell Death as during the formation of the spaces between our fingers. A more appropriate term in this case is Necrosis which, generally speaking, means Cell Death. The contrast between the two terms emphasizes the question of active vs. passive processes.
and yeah that guy is ugly.
J. Dryden says:
Thanks, zzyzx. I just flunked "Not Writing Badly 101"–always go for the simpler term. I *meant* "cell death," I *knew* I meant "cell death," and instead of *saying* "cell death," I tried to sound 'clever', and ended up just being *wrong.*
On the up-side, I think I can now replace Dennis Miller as a commentator on O'Reilly's show.