Quote Of The Day—"A Man That Breeds A Family ..."
10/01/2008
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This is something I found while I was looking for the original of Edmund Burke's quote about  loving "the little platoon we belong to in society," recently quoted by Matthew Richer in his Rhode Island piece:

"A man that breeds a family without competent means of maintenance, encumbers other men with his children." Edmund Burke, Speech on the Repeal of the Marriage Act, 1781

As part of the savage personal attacks on Sarah Palin and her family,  normal people have been asked by what Mark Shea calls "freakish enemies of the normal" why we approve of the Governor of Alaska having five children, while worrying about Hispanic demographics, and why we don't have any particular criticism of the pregnancy of Governor Palin's daughter Bristol, who is engaged to be married (to a young man who can presumably support her.)

Leon Wieseltier wrote that according to Christian conservatives

The fecundity of Bristol Palin is a windfall for Jesus, but the fecundity of black girls is the doom of the republic.[TNR, September 24, 2008]

He didn't actually cite anyone who actually felt like that, but for the benefit of Mr. Wieseltier, the differences are the difference between married and unmarried, and the difference between "self-supporting" and "a charge on the public purse."

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