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Friday, November 7, 2014

Losing by Winning



Much to-do is being made about the number of women, especially Republican women (and thus presumably conservative as well), who were elected to State and federal office in the elections just held.  An ensample:

The 2014 midterms were a huge win for Republicans, but it also was a big night for female candidates in both parties. 

Republican women helped lead the GOP to victory in some of the biggest races last night, and the party achieved new milestones in gender diversity. In addition to flipping a key Senate seat for Republicans, Joni Ernst will be the first member of Iowa’s congressional delegation and the Senate’s first female combat veteran.

Republican Shelley Moore Capito will become West Virginia’s first female senator, giving the Republicans a record six women in the Senate. Utah’s Mia Love, an incoming House member, will be the first black Republican in Congress, and in New York’s 21st district, 30-year-old Elise Stefanik has become the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. 

Republican pollster and strategist Kristen Soltis Anderson believes the election is a breakthrough for the party’s gender gap. Historically speaking, Republican women “were significantly less likely to make it through a primary than Democratic women were. It was tougher for them to wind up on the ballot,” Soltis said.

Soltis is particularly excited about the fact that younger female Republicans are prevailing. As the newly elected GOP women begin to rise in leadership roles, Republicans will make more headway in changing its image as the party of “old white guys,” she said.

A freshman college student, Saira Blair, made history Tuesday when she defeated her 44-year-old opponent in the race to represent a small West Virginia district, becoming America’s youngest elected politician. It was the first election where the 18-year-old was legally able to vote.

 . . .

Source:  Suzy Khimm, ‘2014: Historic Gains for Women in Politics’, http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/2014-midterms-big-step-women-politics, posted 5 Nov. 2014, accessed 7 Nov. 2014

After reflecting on this, one is forced to ask, Do so-called conservative Republicans wish to conserve any traditions at all?  Is dragging women out of the home (those few who are left), away from husbands and children and other relatives, to be ‘smeared with the greasy paw’ (Irving Babbitt, Democracy and Leadership) of corrupt, bankster-run American politics, going to do any good in the long run? 

It seems that all is dispensable in order to save the favorite idol of these ‘conservatives’ - an all-powerful, divinized ‘America’ that is awash with material riches at home and that can do as it pleases abroad.  If the remnants of the traditional family, we may infer, must be sacrificed for the good of this wonderful deity, then let us draw our knives and see to it that it withers and dies and troubles us no more.

With apologies to the ancients:  ‘Let America rule though the heavens fall.’


Let us turn away from them.  There are better guides.  Richard Weaver is one.

Distinctions of many kinds will have to be restored, and I would mention especially one whose loss has added immeasurably to the malaise of our civilization—the fruitful distinction between the sexes, with the recognition of respective spheres of influence.  The re-establishment of woman as the cohesive force of the family, the end of the era of “long-haired men and short-haired women,” should bring a renewal of well-being to the whole of society.  On this point Southerners of the old school were adamant, and even today, with our power of discrimination at its lowest point in history, there arises a feeling that the roles of the sexes must again be made explicit.  George Fitzhugh’s brutal remark that if women put on trousers, men would use them for plowing has been borne out, and I think that women would have more influence actually if they did not vote, but, according to the advice of Augusta Evans Wilson, made their firesides seats of Delphic wisdom (The Southern Tradition at Bay, Regnery Gateway, 1989, p. 378).

Rev Dabney, another.

It is indignantly asked, "Why should politics corrupt the morals of women more than of the 'lords of creation'?" Suppose now we reply: American politics have corrupted the morals of the men? Suppose we argue that the retort is so true and just and the result has actually gone to so deplorable an extent, that were the female side of our social organization as corrupt as the male side has already become, American society would crumble into ruin by its own putrescence? It is better to save half the fabric than to lose all. And especially is it better to save the purity of the mothers who are, under God, to form the characters of our future citizens, and of the wives who are to restrain and elevate them, whatever else we endanger. Is it argued that since women are now confessedly purer than men, their entrance into politics must tend to purify politics? We reply again that the women of the present were reared and attained this comparative purity under the Bible system. Adopt the infidel plan, and we shall corrupt our women without purifying oar politics. What shall save us then? (‘Women’s Rights Women’, Discussions, Vol. IV, Secular, https://archive.org/details/DiscussionsOfRobertLewisDabneyVol.4Secular, p. 500)

‘Little children, keep yourselves from idols.  Amen’ (I John 5:21 KJV).

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