Bristol Palin and fiance split

[Spensed]

^ Exactly. That alone made Bristol and Levi controversial figures in a way that the Kennedy children, Biden's mother, the Obama children, etc., etc. never were.

Levi was never even a family member. Palin could have expressed her love and support and not added to the limelight on her teenage daughter's unwanted pregnancy. Instead, she chose to try to spin any negative publicity by a McCain airport meet and greet and putting the obviously uncomfortable teenage father in the middle of the spotlight.

Obviously, the unfortunate teenagers involved merit sympathy. But, what makes the story and the breakup more than a gossip piece are Palin's continued Presidential aspirations and what this saga tells us about Palin's abstinence and anti-abortion policies and Palin's character as a user and a grifter. Those, at least, are some of the substantive issues involved.

 

[iman]

Sarah Palin was governor of Alaska. She moved the schools towards abstinence only education. Bristol Palin was in school during her mother's term. She got pregnant.

Pretty relevant to the discussion.

I guess they don't teach basic logic in school any longer. This "substantive argument" reminds me of the conservative contention that teenage pregnancies have increased since sex education was added to the curriculum of schools so therefore sex ed is responsible for teenage pregnancies. Should we blame the octuplet mom on the Obama administration or the Governor of California?

Bristol Palin's pregnancy has nothing to do with her mother's education policies. If any of you had a shred of honesty you would admit that you wouldn't mind having Levi try and impregnate you regardless of your Mother's policies on such matters.

 

[iman]

I don't find uneducated, rednecked, white trash sexy sorry. You can have him.

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^I guess when someone is proud of their bigotry, racism and class distinctions, there is not much point in trying to help them understand that attacking a politicians children is unacceptable.

I wonder what credentials one must possess to give oneself permission to indulge in racist and classist bigotry?

 

[Spensed]

For I think at least the third time, the substantive issues that the Briston/Levi split give rise to include:

- Whether an abstinence (and anti-abortion) politician should use her own teenage daughter's unwanted pregnancy to acknowledge (as her own daughter has done) that her abstinence position (and outright rejection of abortion in all circumstances) is/are not supported by her own family's experience or, indeed, by the available data on abstinence;

- Whether a politician should shield her unwed, pregnant teen from being front stage center of one or more worldwide media events or whether she should exploit her own child to try to avoid the negative impact of the child's unwanted pregnancy and to present the politician in a good light; and

- Whether there's Republican hypocrisy in complaining about media interest in the Bristol/Levi split when there's no question that not only would that coverage have occurred if Bristol had been Obama's daughter, but that it would be far worse.

While I have sympathy for Bristol and Levi and don't endorse the negative comments about them personally, redneck, etc., is pretty much how Levi chooses to present himself in his Internet postings and generally. So one can hardly complain too much about people calling him what he calls himself.

 

[Lostlover]

For I think at least the third time, the substantive issues that the Briston/Levi split give rise to include:

- Whether an abstinence (and anti-abortion) politician should use her own teenage daughter's unwanted pregnancy to acknowledge (as her own daughter has done) that her abstinence position (and outright rejection of abortion in all circumstances) is/are not supported by her own family's experience or, indeed, by the available data on abstinence;

- Whether a politician should shield her unwed, pregnant teen from being front stage center of one or more worldwide media events or whether she should exploit her own child to try to avoid the negative impact of the child's unwanted pregnancy and to present the politician in a good light; and

- Whether there's Republican hypocrisy in complaining about media interest in the Bristol/Levi split when there's no question that not only would that coverage have occurred if Bristol had been Obama's daughter, but that it would be far worse.

While I have sympathy for Bristol and Levi and don't endorse the negative comments about them personally, redneck, etc., is pretty much how Levi chooses to present himself in his Internet postings and generally. So one can hardly complain too much about people calling him what he calls himself.

No shit. If that would have been Sasha or Malia having a child out of wedlock, the bigoted right would jump all on that like white on rice.

The only people kicking and screaming in this thread have no points and are generally wounded. Don't entertain them.

 

[iman]

So, as I understand the ethical standard being advanced here: it is fine to say anything about anybody if there is a chance that they might say something similar about Obama. Is that right? Is this strange moral code peculiar to Obama fanatics or can it also be used by others?

 

[Shafted]

What "substantive points"? Palin did not exploit her kids any more than any other politician. No President has exploited their kids more than JFK did, it is simply expected that the family is part of the package.

So she wasn't going on about special-needs children (and research she considers a waste of money) as she passed her Down Syndrome newborn around like a hot potato?

She didn't try to soften the blow of her unwed, teenage daughter getting knocked up by saying she was going to marry the father?

And then you have Bill and Rush demanding that liberals leave Palin alone when the two of them, (about two weeks before Palin arrived on the scene) were reveling in the statistics that black and latino teenagers were having children out of wedlock with abandon and draining the taxpayers' wallets.

 

[Shafted]

------------------------------

^I guess when someone is proud of their bigotry, racism and class distinctions, there is not much point in trying to help them understand that attacking a politicians children is unacceptable.

What politician is Levi the child of?

Sarah Palin turned her daughter into a joke. Don't nag us because we're saying "told ya so".

 

[Shafted]

So, as I understand the ethical standard being advanced here: it is fine to say anything about anybody if there is a chance that they might say something similar about Obama. Is that right? Is this strange moral code peculiar to Obama fanatics or can it also be used by others?

No. As I said above, the bigoted right led by O'Reilly and Limbaugh painted black and latin teenage girls as horny, sex-crazed nymphs popping out babies left and right for the government to support.

Had this been Obama, he and his daughter would have been vilified by the right. She'd be painted as another black slut, and he a neglectful father. But, the script got flipped and the GOP stayed quiet.

Fuck them.

 

[chance1]

No shit. If that would have been Sasha or Malia having a child out of wedlock, the bigoted right would jump all on that like white on rice.

The only people kicking and screaming in this thread have no points and are generally wounded. Don't entertain them.

Exactly. It's no different than Larry Craig getting busted being a toilet troll in an airport after constantly attacking gay, and also Prez Clinton for being immoral, even though Larry Craig too was cheating on his wife at the very same time. Same went for Newt Gingrinch, and a raft of other hypocrites. But hey, all of a sudden something is "out of bounds" when it shows their hypocrisy by the right? Um.....sure. And they wonder why they have been decimated 2 elections in a row, and probably a 3rd given how many additional Senate seats they will have to defend in 2010 vs. the Democrats. It's called karma.

i love it when the two "check me out im smarter than u" boys both make the point for me

the bigots who would get on obama and/or his girls would be ............. bigots

and would be deserving of your scorn

but instead u use the "what if" to defend ur point

scary shit indeed

the point isn't about hypocrisy - it's about decency

and u two exhibit none

go ahead operinterp - or whatever

delete this for ............. whatever

 

[chance1]

Given your limited ability with standard English, I'm not sure you should be commenting on other people's usage. In this case, "as usual" was completely appropriate. The fact that you'll disagree with my assessment is merely further proof of this.



Uh, yeah...she and her party most certainly did exploit them as "props" during the campaign.

Were you fucking asleep for the past half a year?

having some fun with spensed - u really shouldn't take things - ALL THINGS - so personal

especially when they're not directed at you

 

[Lostlover]

Exactly. It's no different than Larry Craig getting busted being a toilet troll in an airport after constantly attacking gay, and also Prez Clinton for being immoral, even though Larry Craig too was cheating on his wife at the very same time. Same went for Newt Gingrinch, and a raft of other hypocrites. But hey, all of a sudden something is "out of bounds" when it shows their hypocrisy by the right? Um.....sure. And they wonder why they have been decimated 2 elections in a row, and probably a 3rd given how many additional Senate seats they will have to defend in 2010 vs. the Democrats. It's called karma.

Craig's wife is a dumb broad. You can tell she really believes her husband is straight and has been framed.

Stupid people like that are meant for each other.

That's call willful ignorance. Some people like the idea of being married too much.

There was an article this weekend that I read. I might make a thread of it and it talked about how the new emerging leaders of the self righteous right have 6 divorces between them (Limbaugh and Gingrich) and the new president of the looney left has been happily married for 16 years.

But with Republicans, it truly is more about talking the talk than walking the walk. Rarely do they ever walk the walk and when they're exposed for being hypocrites, everyone but the right calls them out.

 

[Lostlover]

So she wasn't going on about special-needs children (and research she considers a waste of money) as she passed her Down Syndrome newborn around like a hot potato?

She didn't try to soften the blow of her unwed, teenage daughter getting knocked up by saying she was going to marry the father?

And then you have Bill and Rush demanding that liberals leave Palin alone when the two of them, (about two weeks before Palin arrived on the scene) were reveling in the statistics that black and latino teenagers were having children out of wedlock with abandon and draining the taxpayers' wallets.

To be fair to Sarah Palin, she has a special needs husband too.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpvPizuq4-Y[/ame]

Just look at the clip. He is nice to look at though!

(Greta went to law school for an interview with this genius?)

 

[Lostlover]

That's why it's such a hot button issue with them. They have to scream it loud enough so that they can believe it themselves all the while never living up to their rhetoric and "moral standards". It's no different than crazy xtians having the highest divorce rate vs. atheists or other non-fundamentalists. They can't live up to their own bullshit.

In a couple of recent studies by the Barna Research Group released in 1999 that did an in depth study of religion, divorce and the like:

Denomination (in order of decreasing divorce rate) % who have been divorced

Evangelicals 34%
Baptists 29%
Mainline Protestants 25%
Mormons 24%
Catholics 21%
Lutherans 21%


Religion % have been divorced:
Jews 30%
Born-again Christians 27%
Other Christians 24%
Atheists, Agnostics 21%

To be fair to some Christians, like those in my family that do practice Jesus' teachings, most Christians are so wrapped up into themselves and portraying an image for acceptance that they bastardize the true teachings of Jesus (like compassion, love, understanding -- Jesus did the unthinkable and spoke to Hagar the prostitute) and adopt more radical non-Jesus beliefs like homophobia (Jesus himself said nothing about gays directly) and made up religious figures (like the pope) and churches that run themselves like businesses (one of Jesus's earliest teachings about how to run a church). He wasn't for a for-profit business model.

But you'd never know Jesus didn't like church's seeking to make a profit.

 

[Spensed]

So, as I understand the ethical standard being advanced here: it is fine to say anything about anybody if there is a chance that they might say something similar about Obama. Is that right? Is this strange moral code peculiar to Obama fanatics or can it also be used by others?

The Obama analogy is but one aspect of the points in this thread. I don't think anyone's only saying that two wrongs make a right and that using the Bristol/Levi story is OK because an unwanted teenage pregnancy in the Obama family would also be used to portray Obama in a bad light and then some.

The analogy simply illustrates the hypocrisy of the folk complaining about the story being used against Palin.

Using the Bristol/Levi story to portray Palin in a bad light is OK, not because of the Obama analogy, but because it calls her own abstinence and anti-abortion policies into question and because Palin herself chose to put two hapless teenagers in front stage center of her campaign for her own purposes.

A mother, who prioritized her daughter's interests ahead of her own presidential ambitions, would have expressed her love and support, but would have sought to protect her daughter's privacy, to lessen the public glare, not to increase it. That, if you like, is one of the ethical standards being advanced here.

 

[NickCole]

Well these Obama supporters attacking a couple of teenagers having a hard time is an ugly sight. But anybody who's surprised hasn't been paying attention. That crowd showed their true colors many months ago. A nasty destructive bunch.

Too bad. America might have recovered from the Bush disaster, but with four years of this --and maybe eight-- our chances are growing slim.

 

[Spensed]

^ Most folk have focused, not on attacking the unfortunate teens, but rather on Palin's actions and character.

Obama's supporters aren't any nastier or destructive than his opponents, who haven't even allowed the opening months of his Presidency to pass without crying wolf on every issue no matter how trivial.

What's the expression? The time has long passed for you to put down the magnifying glass and pick up a mirror. LOL.

 

[NickCole]

The time has long passed for you to put down the magnifying glass and pick up a mirror. LOL.

Ain't gonna happen.

I'm a sleuth, not a narcissist.

LOL.

 

[Spensed]

^ My mistake. But then I only have your posts to go by. LOL.

 

[Spensed]

^ Amen to that. It's why it's not worth getting too invested in what they have to say. It's outdated thinking on their part and, if Obama doesn't fuck up, there's a good chance that more and more people, especially the younger and better educated ones, will simply see through it.