Vox Popoli

From the London Telegraph:

Women working full-time are 29 per cent more likely to get divorced than those who stay at home and raise children. Research to be published this week in the European Sociological Review finds that the probability of divorce is in direct correlation to the number of hours a woman worked.

Women reacted with outrage a few years ago when I wrote that men don’t want to marry professionals, especially when I said that young women would do better telling potential suitors that they were considering leaving the career track in favor of teaching aerobics. And that was before this news came out….

Now, there is clear and incontravertible evidence that a man would have to be crazy, or at least seriously mathematically challenged, to decide to marry a woman who intends to pursue a career instead of one who wants to raise a family. It’s not the biggest of red flags, but it is a nice, shiny crimson one.

Robert Novak exposes the state-lovers:

Rep. Harold Ford, one of the brightest young Democratic lights in the House and a Senate candidate in Tennessee next year, stunned colleagues by endorsing the Supreme Court’s unpopular Kelo decision. That ruling permitted a Connecticut city to seize homeowners’ property and transfer it to private developers.

“We have a lot of properties in my city [Memphis] . . . that are crying out for development,” Ford said on a Nashville radio talk show. The congressman asserted, “I’ve always been one to believe that individual rights is a big thing,” but added, “there is some real value to this decision.”

A footnote: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi also went against the popular tide by defending Kelo. Opposing congressional efforts to nullify the court’s decision, she said it was “almost as if God has spoken.”

Democrats and liberals are advocates of the state, not the proverbial little guy. They use the latter on behalf of the former, not, as many people suppose, the other way around.

Bob Novak doesn’t see a conservative court:

Conservatives who have spent more than a decade planning for this moment to change the balance of power on the Supreme Court are reeling from blows delivered by two dissimilar political leaders: Edward M. Kennedy and George W. Bush. Sen. Kennedy has succeeded with the news media in establishing a new standard of “mainstream conservatism” for a justice. President Bush has put forth “friendship” as a qualification for being named to the high court.

Bush is by far the bigger obstacle in the way of a conservative court. While Kennedy’s ploy presents a temporary problem, Bush’s stance could be fatal.

The sad thing is, a lot of Republicans are actually going to be surprised. And yet this will not, of course, alter their behavior at all in 2008.

Apparently Scintan missed an old column:

“Open immigration is NOT libertarian, it is foolish, unnecessary, and both socially and politically destructive in the long term.” – Vox Day

As much as I hate to be contrary on a day like today, I must respond to this. However, rather than comment on it, I’ll just cite the following passage from the Libertarian Party website:

A policy of open immigration will advance the economic well-being of all Americans.”

Big L, little l, what begins with L?

Also, it’s pretty clear from their posts today that neither cisbio nor Scott have spent a lot of time reading the Koran or Islamic history. If you’ll excuse me quoting myself from a few years back:

I do not want to hear any more about Islam being a “religion of peace.” It is not, nor has it ever been. In addition to engaging in aggressive wars that conquered reasonable chunks of the Middle East, Africa, India and Europe, Islam has a long history of internal violence dating back almost to its inception.

The second Caliph to succeed Muhammad, Umar ibn al-Khattab, was assassinated, as was the third Caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, as was the fourth Caliph, Ali ibn Abi Talib.

This history of violence was not inconsequential. The fifth Caliph and founder of the Ummayad dynasty, Muawiyyah, managed to survive long enough to pass the holy mantle of leadership to his son Yazid, who, when faced with a challenge to his rule by Muhammed’s grandson, Husain, did not hesitate to massacre Husain and all his followers, including Husain’s infant son.

The murders of Ali and Husain were the first great grievances of the Shiah i-Ali, better known to us in the West as the Shiite Muslims. And many centuries of similar “pacifism” followed, hence the Abbasid, Fatimid, Seljuk, Safavid, Moghul and Ottoman Empires.

Attempts to equate Christian fundamentalists and Islamic fundamentalists are simply foolish. To understand the difference, I recommend comparing the appellations given the historical Popes with those given the historical Caliphs. Or, alternatively, the history of how each religion came to dominate the lands currently inhabited by its adherents. It’s an educational experience.

Much will be made of today’s bombings of the London Tube and bus, but the most salient lesson will be missed. Sooner or later, allowing immigration from third world countries that contain jihadist elements is going to bite you in the rear end. Open immigration is NOT libertarian, it is foolish, unnecessary, and both socially and politically destructive in the long term.

From Drudge:

Senate Judiciary Committee member Chuck Schumer got busy plotting away on the cellphone aboard a Washington, DC-New York Amtrak — plotting Democrat strategy for the upcoming Supreme Court battle. Schumer promised a fight over whoever the President’s nominee was: “It’s not about an individual judge… It’s about how it affects the overall makeup of the court.”

The chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee was overheard on a long cellphone conversation with an unknown political ally, and the DRUDGE REPORT was there!

Schumer proudly declared: “We are contemplating how we are going to go to war over this.”

Schumer went on to say how hard it was to predict how a Supreme Court justice would turn out: “Even William Rehnquist is more moderate than they expected. The only ones that resulted how they predicted were [Antonin] Scalia and [Ruth Bader] Ginsburg. So most of the time they’ve gotten their picks wrong, and that’s what we want to do to them again.”

This unintended confession should suffice to explode two myths of American politics. One, that Democratic opposition to particular judges is based on principle. Two, that electing Republicans in order to appoint judges is an effective strategy for rescuing the nation.

Morgan, as usual, sees it differently:

I think in your case, I’d insist the kids refer to you as Mr. Ogre since it’s important to you. But as Scintan pointed out, many people today don’t *like* to be referred to by Mr. or Mrs. To me, to have a child who insists on doing that against an adult’s wishes would be rude….

Sometimes I think parents force kids to do things not because they really are so concerned with manners, but so it will make them look good as parents.

I think you would be incorrect to infer rudeness in that situation. Being polite is not synonymous with behaving according to the whims of others. Showing consideration should not be confused with automatic adherence. If Samuel L. Jackson likes to be called Bad [individual with severe Oedipal complex], is a child being polite by addressing him that way instead of Mr. Jackson? I don’t believe so.

1. “Marked by or showing consideration for others, tact, and observance of accepted social usage.”

Regardless of how I personally might prefer to be addressed, observance of accepted and conventional social usage is the key. This is indicated by the second definition:

2. “Refined; elegant”

It is also healthy for parents to be concerned with how others view their children. Otherwise, one might well be content with allowing them to defecate in public, so long as deposits were made in the neighbors yard. What makes one look good as a parent usually is quite similar to what makes one a good parent; children who are encouraged to address adults by their first names will usually do so regardless of conventional social usage or how the adult prefers to be addressed.

Once, when coaching a boy’s team in Italy, an older boy new to the team once addressed me as “cicio”, which is a friendly term that basically means “pal”. However, it denotes a certain level of equality, which is why the rest of the team gasped and looked at me to see how I would respond.

I answered thusly: “Non mi chiama cicio, se non vuole usare il mio nome, puo chiamarme allenatore o signore.” The use of the third person instead of the more personal second person indicated my displeasure with his importunity, as I told him that if he didn’t want to use my name, (as is the common practice by coaches there), he could address me as either Coach or sir.

As I had correctly interpreted his choice of that friendly form of address as a challenge to my authority, the rest of the team took the lesson to heart and I had little trouble keeping them in order over the course of the season.

And here I thought perjury was okay in the post-Clinton era:

Grammy-winning rapper Lil’ Kim was sentenced Wednesday to a year and a day in prison and fined $50,000 for lying to a federal grand jury to protect friends involved in a 2001 shootout outside a Manhattan radio station.

While many rappers have served time in prison, Lil’ Kim is the first big-name female to do so.

Lil’ Kim (real name: Kimberly Jones) could have gotten up to 20 years – five years each on three counts of perjury and one count of conspiracy – at her sentencing before U.S. District Judge Gerard Lynch. She was convicted of the charges in March.

Rod Dreher laments the decline in Southern courtesy:

Use of “sir” and “ma’am” is dying out among the young, even here in Texas. Man, I hate to see this. We try so hard to teach our kids to use these forms, but it seems like few if any of their friends do, or anybody else in this culture. I cringe when I hear our five year old boy on the phone with my folks down in small-town Louisiana, answering their questions with a mere “yes.” Down there, “yes ma’am” and “yes sir” is still relatively commonplace, and they surely think we’re falling down on the job by failing to instill the same in our kids. It’s very hard, though, to make this work when the surrounding culture doesn’t support you.

Another pet peeve of mine: grown-ups who expect your kids to call them by their first names. I hate that overfamiliarity between the generations. An interesting difference between what I see in Dallas and what I grew up with in south Louisiana. In Dallas, kids of my wife’s generation grew up calling their elders by their last names, e.g., “Mrs. Miller.” Where I’m from, the polite thing to do was to put “Miss” (even for a married woman) or “Mr.” in front of the other person’s first name, e.g. “Miss Mamie,” “Mr. Charlie.” It still preserved a certain formality, but was also warmly familiar. Which is lovely, I think.

When I was 8, they began building a nuclear power plant in my hometown, and a bunch of working-class folks from the North moved to town to help build it. The schools were flooded with Yankee chirren who called grown-ups by their first names! No kidding, we Southern kids thought this was unspeakably barbaric. It was as if they’d waltzed into town with a bone through their noses. And now the whole dadgum country is being Yankeefied. I know this will sound too, too precious to you non-Southerners, but I’m betting that Southern readers know exactly what I’m talking about.

I’m not a Southerner, although I’ve been a carpetbagger in the past, but I’m fairly hard-core about this one. There is no reason to accept a “yes”, much less a “yeah” or a grunt from a child. Instilling such usage isn’t difficult, it merely requires repeating the question until an acceptable response is received. “Yes, sir” or “yes, please”, “no, sir” or “no, thank you” are all fine.

Dreher has a point, though, as all too often one feels a bit of a Don Quixote. Women, in particular, can be exasperating, as they will frequently interrupt and attempt to inform you that it’s not necessary for their child to use honorifics with adults. And it’s true, they don’t, on the other hand, I don’t have to listen to them either.

If you want your children to be polite, then don’t accept a dearth of manners from them. Ever. It’s that simple.