MODEST PROPOSALS

 Reflections 2nd December 2021

I see the laws allowing for forced sterilisation of men responsible for children for whom they do not intend to take responsibility, or neglect by being absent from, are passing into law in State after state in the US. These ‘Right to Fulfilled Life,’ laws are being passed by overwhelmingly female legislators, thus marginalising men whom the law will affect. Most controversial is the bounty rewards awarded to those reporting men engaged in sexual promiscuity.

In defence of this legislation religious groups cite biblical authority and the human rights of the unborn who would be denied the right to a Fulfilled Life.

[Note: Some details in this account may not be wholly accurate.]

I see the execrable Julie Hartley-Brewer is parroting the line that she is 'done with Covid.' She is voicing a widespread reaction reflecting a childish response to reality, if I stick my fingers in my ears and chant incessantly, reality will go away.  

If the Covid pandemic has demonstrated nothing else it has given the lie to the notion of a more sophisticated 'modernity.' Throughout the advanced economies, especially the anglophone world, evangelical fanatics, voodoo peddlers,  tin foil hat wearing cuckoos, magical thinkers, pseudo 'experts', conspiracy fruitcakes, deranged Nazi inspired psychopaths, and common or garden quacks have emerged in numbers that would do the Middle Ages proud. Indeed their numbers have been such that, in the US particularly, they have had an impact on the rate of Covid infection. 









Boston Globe


Well to paraphrase a line of Trotsky's, you may not be interested in reality but reality is interested in you. 

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