Presumably you've heard about this. Conservatives have been having trouble deciding whether they're more amused or appalled by it. I'm very much in agreement with Ross Douthat's view. A lot of people have attacked it, quite correctly, for its weird vision of the heroine Julia as a sort of social atom whose chief relationship is with the state. It's revealing that none of the people involved in producing and approving it, nor Obama himself, seem to think it's weird. Someone remarked years ago that the breakdown of the family, and some of the effects of the feminist movement, have created a tendency for some women to marry the state, to see it as providing what the husband they can't find or don't want ought to provide. It's a bit surprising to find big-government types more or less openly encouraging that tendency.
Just as odd to me is the serene indifference to the question of where the government is going to get the money it spends on Julia over her lifetime. The point where this becomes most curious is at Julia's retirement, where the very real question of whether the costly entitlement programs for retirees can be sustained simply is not acknowledged to exist; there's only the promise that Obama will save her from the Republicans. Ultimately it's a bit of an old-fashioned damsel-in-distress story.
Light On Dark Water 
Leave a reply to Janet Cancel reply