Sean Phones It In

So if you had to choose between  rising rates of STD infection, pregnancy, and AIDs infection amongst teenagers on the one hand, and a rising rate of sexual activity amongst teenagers, on the other hand, which would you choose?  Mr. Hannity picks the first fork in the road.  The one on the right if you're facing Hell.  He did it today, as I was driving home from work via the post office.  I guess he was tired of trying to figure out whether the protests in the various Middle Eastern countries were an assortment of Tea Parties, or an assortment of scarey muslim brown people.  Certainly Mr. Beck has the fear game pretty much covered--Beck told the world this morning that Mr. Obama was actually causing every damn revolution on the planet, including the one in Madison, WI.  All Sean has to call his own is the Mosque at Ground Zero, and he stole that from some small-time ranter who has a blog. 

Of course I paraphrase Mr. Hannity's Hobbsian choice, which is most likely factually incorrect because more availability of condoms does not imply or cause more sexual activity.  He was het up about the fact (if it is one) that Boston Public Schools (or some of them) are providing (or might be planning on providing) free condoms to their students under some set or other (Hannity didn't say) of school or Board of Education guidelines.  This impending (or ongoing) event was going to lead to big trouble in River City.  It was another example of the Decline and Fall.  Mr. Hannity was quite outraged.  He said so.

So then, Mr. Hannity like the rest of his Republican Tea Party would rather use the risk of STD and of pregnancy as a impediment to teenage sexual activity.  Same as it ever was.  Back when I was growing up, if a girl got pregnant she either dropped out of school and ... well, who knew, really, what happened then.  Or she got the name of some guy who knew someone or other, and she paid some person some money, and had an abortion.  Neither of these dark choices were desirable.  On the other hand, even way back then, in the '50s, teens did have sex.  It's a well known fact, even to Mr. Hannity most likely.  Sex really feels good. 

It's funny how Mr. Hannity is also on the side of people who think killing abortion providers is exactly what abortion providers deserve.  That's what the Right to Lifers believe--or at least what they encourage rhetorically.  Probably Mr. Hannity and most Right to Life spokespersons would explicitly eshew actual calls to murder, if only for legal reasons.  It's sort of like how the Tea Party folks always tell you, if you ask, that the guy with the racist sign isn't really "in" the Party, and might actually be an agent provocateur.  It's the only French those folks know.

So what's a school system to do?  Particularly when some talk show ranter from out of town tosses a bomb into their midst on an afternoon when he just felt like phoning it in?  Ain't no skin off'en Sean's nose.  Lord Haw Haw strikes again.

Update (it must be the water):  Seconds after I write this little commentary I get an email from North Carolina Planned Parenthood.  Turns out the NC Legislature is considering allowing a personalized license plate with the words "choose life," funds from which sales will go to so-called right to life groups.  Like most states, NC is struggling with budget shortfalls due to the recession.  Like most states, our unemployment rate is around ten percent, with some demographics being much higher.  Like most states, our infrastructure needs attention.  Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, to quote Yul Brenner.  And so, like the Republican Party in Congress, apparently our Legislature, now controlled by Republicans for the first time since Reconstruction, leaps into the nasty, divisive "pro-life" issue.  No doubt there is hope that lots of folks who otherwise would become restive about their own financial circumstances, will instead get on the "right to life" tear again.  Hey, maybe we'll get personal harassment of women's health providers here, just like they have in Kansas.  Won't that be just swell.  Seems to me there must have been a memo last week.   I hope this whole thing can be addressed head on, as Rachel Maddow is doing right now.  The fact is, the so-called Right to Life Movement is to a significant degree domestic terrorism.  It's time for this to stop.  Women have a right to choose.  It says so in the Constitution.