Matt wrote:
>
>
> Deep down, they know ab-only is not effective. But it displays the
> appearance of prudish morality, and that is what matters. The truth
> of facts like pregnancy rates, and even personally experiencing
> unplanned pregnancies, does not distract from the "Truthiness" they
> know in their guts.
I support the 35mph speed limit on the city streets of Bloomington, even though I've violated it myself, and even though I know it is frequently violated. Conservatives are wrong -- but I think it is wrong, even stupid, to focus on their alleged "hypocrisy." They believe (as innumerable quite respectable intellectuals over the millenia have believed, that the purpose of law )formal public policy) is to uphold continuity in human affairs. The great dicontinuities of the last 50 years have deeokt disturbed some large proportion of the population, and like Plato before them, they associate such discontinuities with public approval of changes in kinds of behavior that formerly (whether practiced or not) were _formally_ disapproved of. What's hard to understand abut that.
People are going to fuck! From a conservative perspective that in itself is simply an uninteresting fact. What is important is that "anti-social" behavior not be given formal public approval. A very old political principle.
So their principles and social goals are wrong! So build opposition for those principles and goals. But this is bad politics and intellectually sloppy to keep harping on their personal hypocrisy etc. In fact I am more offended by the pompous moralizing on this list than I am by Palin. She's the enemy. Leftists are supposed to know better.
Carrol