Nathaniel

This post was my first introduction to The Fatherhood Movement. In it, Alana Newman describes handing out fliers outside of screenings of The Deliveryman (Vince Foster comedy about a donor data of over 500 kids) because “We can’t all be scared, stay at home and never do the dirty work of questioning this industry.”

I clicked on over to her section on The Fatherhood Movement to learn more, and the first two paragraphs read:

I believe in Fatherhood. I believe poverty will be eliminated when the raw energy and genius of every adult man is channeled to serve and care for his children and community. I believe we need to lift up male strengths and good masculine character as assets in our quest for joy, health and wealth. I believe every child needs his or her father, but first we have to teach boys how to become men that are prepared for such a responsibility and can deliver on his role.

The absence of my own biological father in my life was crushing. The associated behavioral problems I exhibited could easily have been lethal. And I hurt many people on my path to where I am now.

There aren’t a lot of donor-conceived children who are old enough to really speak out about their experiences and impressions. And yet it seems that their voices should be the voices that matter the most, right? I don’t yet know how widespread the feeling of being deprived a father is, but it’s an issue I’ll be paying attention to. If I recall, it dovetails with the Catholic belief that children have a right to parents.

http://alananewman.com/the-delivery-man/

I know it’s silly, but my favorite candidate for 2016 is still Mitt Romney. Third time’s the charm, eh? But, since that’s not likely, I’m kind of desperate to find anyone who isn’t either Cruz or McCain. I feel like they represent the polar disparities of the GOP.

So the natural person to look to is Chris Christie, but some of what I’ve learned has made me wary of his campaign, including the difficulty the Romney campaign had in vetting him in 2012. Marc Thiessen at the WaPo makes the case that Scott Walker, current governor of Wisconsin and the only governor in US history to survive a recall,  should be on the radar:

Walker survived the 2012 recall by mobilizing his conservative base with his courageous, unflinching stand — and appealing to persuadable, reform-minded, results-oriented independents, who provided the critical margin of victory. That is precisely what Republicans need to do nationally if they want to win back the presidency in 2016.

A staunch, full-spectrum conservative who is reasonable and appeals to moderates? Yes, please. I thought this quote was funny as well:

Walker delivers everything Christie does it terms of appealing to the center — but without the ideological compromise. And he delivers everything Ted Cruz does in terms of taking the fight to the left — but without the losing.

Without the losing, in particular, would be nice.

Although the emphasis of this article is explaining the gun control debate in the United States, it offers a really compelling vision into the nature of our American society in general. As the map indicates, there are 11 different “nations” that make up the current US, and–since these nations don’t fall neatly into state lines–state level red vs. blue analysis tends to not pick them up. Just to give some idea of what this is all about, here are the descriptions for two of the nations. As a classic “blue” nation, we’ll start with “Yankeedom”.

YANKEEDOM. Founded on the shores of Massachusetts Bay by radical Calvinists as a new Zion, Yankeedom has, since the outset, put great emphasis on perfecting earthly civilization through social engineering, denial of self for the common good, and assimilation of outsiders. It has prized education, intellectual achievement, communal empowerment, and broad citizen participation in politics and government, the latter seen as the public’s shield against the machinations of grasping aristocrats and other would-be tyrants. Since the early Puritans, it has been more comfortable with government regulation and public-sector social projects than many of the other nations, who regard the Yankee utopian streak with trepidation.

Then, taking up a portion of my home state of Virginia (but not where I live), we’ve got “Greater Appalachia”:

GREATER APPALACHIA. Founded in the early eighteenth century by wave upon wave of settlers from the war-ravaged borderlands of Northern Ireland, northern England, and the Scottish lowlands, Appalachia has been lampooned by writers and screenwriters as the home of hillbillies and rednecks. It transplanted a culture formed in a state of near constant danger and upheaval, characterized by a warrior ethic and a commitment to personal sovereignty and individual liberty. Intensely suspicious of lowland aristocrats and Yankee social engineers alike, Greater Appalachia has shifted alliances depending on who appeared to be the greatest threat to their freedom. It was with the Union in the Civil War. Since Reconstruction, and especially since the upheavals of the 1960s, it has joined with Deep South to counter federal overrides of local preference.

A lot of this theory overlaps work from other historians and sociologists, but I thought the finer breakdown into 11 different groups was an interesting addition.