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The Root Of All Evil?
O'Reilly's Pantyhose Are Showing.

Gerald L. Rowles, Ph.D.
October 15, 2002

Pantyhose culture: The ideological pairing of the Mysculinist and the Emotivist branches of radical feminism; sex role reversal. Mysculinist: females that eschew softness or any hint of tender femininity, at least when dealing with their male counterparts; females caricaturing the masculinist stereotype. Emotivist: Males who seek to hide their PerCeived menacing masculinity behind emotive appeals for draconian child support enforcement, "quality" day care, "for the children" appeals, etc.; male feminists.

What is the "Root of All Evil" ?

Well, according to Bill O'Reilly, it's guys like David Oakley. Opining on the story about the underage Wisconsin ghetto kids that beat the stuffing out of poor Charlie Young Jr, leaving him brain dead and on life support, O'Reilly has this to say:

"The solution to the problem is to prosecute deadbeat, abusive and absent parents on criminal-neglect charges and put them in jail, or after-work house arrest. If society did that, there would be far fewer kids committing murders on the streets, and far few David Oakleys wandering around 'procreating.' "

What has O'Reilly's pantyhose in a bunch is that David Oakley appealed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court when a lower court told him to either quit having kids (including even having sexual intercourse), or go to prison for eight years. Through his attorney, Oakley argued that "Procreation ... is at the very heart of the personal rights protected by the Constitution."

O'Reilly says, well sure, BUT, "Every child born in America has the right to basic care. And if their parents will not provide that care, those parents must be criminally charged." (O'Reilly also wants you to know that Oakley's attorney once represented Al Gore; in case you had any doubt that Oakley's is a frivolous action.)

Whoa, Bill! What is "basic care?" According to Lisa Bonder Kerkorian, the ex-wife of billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, basic care requires $320,000 a month. The court only agreed to a paltry $50,316 per month. According to Attorney General John Ashcroft and USDHHS, a divorced man earning all of $39,000 a year must kick down two-thirds of his take-home pay for the basic care of one child.

Three of the Wisconsin jurists hearing the Oakley case dissented from the majority position that denied Oakley's appeal, saying it "allowed the right to have children conditioned upon financial status." And what else? The four Supreme's voting against Oakley were all men, and the three voting in Oakley's favor were all women. Justice Ann Walsh Bradley further argued, "It places the woman in an untenable position: have an abortion or be responsible for Oakley going to prison for eight years."

Now Justice Bradley may be onto something here; or is she? Is she concerned that the responsibility is being shifted to the female half of the procreation equation, or that the female right to "choice" is somehow being abrogated by the ruling, or that abortion is a bad thing? She surely can't be saying that the whole notion of court-ordered child support is objectionable; could she? Hmmm... Nah!

But just exactly what planet has Bill O'Reilly been living on for the past forty years. Either his pantyhose are too tight, or he missed the sexual revolution, or both. Listen up, pilgrim:

• For forty years we have been telling poor women to have as many kids as possible, but keep the man out of the house, or we won't support them.
• For nearly thirty years we have been telling women that they have the sole discretion as to the outcome of the act procreation - keep it or kill it, it's your "choice," uh, ladies.
• For nearly thirty years we have been telling women that it's perfectly OK to dump the daddy if he doesn't live up to her loftiest aspirations. Oh, and we'll make the bas...., uh guy pay, whether he's financially able, or not.
• For forty years, we have been telling women that every act of procreation is, for women, an immaculate conception, or rape; and for men, an act of irresponsibility - unless they have unlimited financial resources. Oh, but don't get underfoot dog, or you're out'ta here.

Oh, and Bill, we've also been telling parents that kids hatch like chickens, and all they have to do is put out some chicken feed. The little yard-birds will grow up just fine in the village hen house. Surely, some villager will caregive 'em.

And on the subject of "basic care," Bill, how about that other story; the one about When Rich Kids Go Bad? When 16-y.o. Leigh Horowitz becomes a junky, because her materially indulgent parents are emotionally disconnected from parenting; because when she is raped at age 7 or 9 by a teenager, her career obsessed parents fail to recognize her anguish; or that "outsourcing the problem kids of the wealthy is a booming (2 billion dollar) business;" what's that about, Bill?

Is Leigh Horowitz' case a failure of basic care? Should her parents, Joel and Ann Horowitz be brought up on "on criminal-neglect charges and put ... in jail, or after-work house arrest?" Is this part of forty years of well-rooted evil? Can't be; after all, the story of her redemption is also one of vindication for the parents because they put "almost twice the cost of a Harvard degree" toward her detoxification and "self-esteem" building.

Or is the appellation of evil applicable only to financially "irresponsible" negroes/men, regardless of how much they want to emotionally nurture their kids? Is there a differentiation between emotional and financial deprivation in the basic care equation? Or is there a delicate balance, with an emphasis on emotionally connected, involved nurturance by both parents? Huh, Bill?

Calling the David Oakley's of this enlightened age the Root Of All Evil is an arrogantly irresponsible and disingenuous piece of pandering to the pantyhose culture, or manifest sexist malfeasance, or just plain ignorant.

Procreation truly is "at the very heart of the personal rights protected by the Constitution." Responsible parenthood is not the exclusive domain of only one of the two sexes, nor the State. Poverty is not necessarily a precondition of abuse, as studies comparing poor intact families and poor single-parent families have shown, nor is wealth a precondition of the absence of abuse. Both are mediated by involved, coherent co-parenting by a mother and father. But State mandated, and culturally endorsed father-absence is a proven precondition for putting children in harm's way.

This may come as a thunderclap but, before the cultural revolution, it was axiomatic that "money is the root of all evil." If there is a justifiable criticism of our contemporary, secular capitalist culture, it is the bourgeois belief that problems are absolved, even if not solved, by throwing money at them. But that criticism has only become valid as a result of forty years of discrediting the notion that capitalism must be moderated by a fundamental morality, loudly and repeatedly proclaimed.

The solution, contrary to the O'Reilly faction, is not about punishment by imprisonment. We don't need to find excuses to take yet more fathers away from their children. Our prisons and jails are already overcrowded, mostly with fatherless kids; and in too many cases, beatdead dads. The solution is not about financial valuation; it is about the cultural valuation of fatherhood and emotionally, spiritually intact, biological families.

You've reported, and I've decided. Put a sock in it O'Reilly, because you are part of the problem, and apparently, oblivious to the solution.



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