What's in a name?

 

Today, a co-worker from the Netherlands told me that many Dutch surnames translate to terms like "Two shits" or "Big Boobs". She said that traditionally the Dutch didn't use surnames, but when they were conquered by the Romans they often would insult the census-takers who demanded to know their surnames. And the Romans, who didn't know any different, wrote those names down. 

So basically the conversations went like this:

Roman centurion: Okay, we need your name for our census.

Ben the farmer: Ben.

Roman centurion: Ben... what?

Ben: What do you mean?

Centurion: What's the rest of your name? 

Ben: Just Ben.

Centurion (writing): Just... Ben...

Ben: No, it's Ben, dumbass.

Centurion (writing): Ben... Dumbass...

Ben (exasperated): Ben Dover. My name is Ben Dover.

Centurion (writing): Ben... Dover... Thank you, Ben Dover. We tried to talk to the farmer next door but he wasn't home. What's his name?

Ben now-Dover: Joe.

Centurion: Joe... who?

Ben Dover: Joe Mama.

Centurion: Thank you. Could you describe him, please?

Ben Dover: Joe Mama is super fat and, like, REALLY ugly.

Centurion (writing): Mama... is... fat and ugly... Have I got it?

Ben Dover (nodding enthusiastically): Absolutely, yes. That is a perfect description of Joe Mama.

Centurion: Thanks for your cooperation with the census.

Ben Dover: No problem, Shit-For-Brains.

Centurion: I... didn't catch that last word?

Ben Dover: Shit-For-Brains. It's a title of respect that we reserve for Roman centurions.

Centurion: Sounds like I should have people call me that to show respect, then.

Ben Dover (silently blessing his gods for this golden opportunity and straining every fiber to keep a straight face): YES. You should absolutely INSIST that everyone calls you Shit-For-Brains. You should start with telling Jason Eat-My-Entire-Ass-You-Pig-Fucking-Roman-Asswipe over there.

Centurion (girding loins): I certainly will, Ben Dover.

"Useless fields of study like art"

There are many big, important ways in which ignorant people saying and doing ignorant things cause a great deal of harm, and usually when I get angry about ignorance it's related to those things.

But sometimes it's petty little things that make me angry at people for choosing ignorance, in a world where it's possible to find literally any information that exists just by asking for it.

One example of this is when I occasionally see someone comment on social media that people are poor because they studied something useless like art instead of learning a useful trade.

And it's pointless to talk to people this willfully ignorant. They won't bother listening. But if I thought they WERE willing to learn, I'd want to ask them this:

Have you ever watched a movie, played a video game, read a book, or listened to music? Have you ever lived, worked, shopped, or worshiped in a building that was constructed by people following a blueprint? Have you ever used a website? Have you ever assembled or repaired something by following a diagram? Do you wear clothes? Do you sleep with a blanket? Do you eat food that was cooked by someone following a recipe?

If the answer to any of those questions is "yes", then congratulations: You rely on products that were designed by artists. Don't you think maybe the people who provided you with these products, which you most likely have no idea how to create, deserve to make a living for their work?

Are you tired of winning yet?

Well, Evangelical Republicans:

Looks like you’ve done it.

By all the signs, you’ve gotten Roe v. Wade overturned.

You now have what you’ve spent decades praying for – but more than that, what you’ve been working for, and voting for, and canvassing for. (And what your politicians have gerrymandered, and pandered to racists, and pretended science isn’t real, and virtue-signaled about abortion while paying for their own mistresses to abort their bastards, and paid off porn stars, and held open a Supreme Court seat for a year, and ignored everything the Bible says about how nations and their rulers should treat the poor/ elderly/ disabled/ foreigners, and put a probable sex offender on the Supreme Court, to achieve). But you held your nose and put up with all that, and now it’s finally paid off. You got the one thing that mattered to you.

Congratulations.

Now what?

Women won't stop having abortions. They'll just stop having legal and safe abortions in red states. They'll come to blue states for as long as that's possible, and if you do manage to outlaw it nationwide they'll go to Canada, or get illegal and unsafe abortions from doctors near them who are willing to risk their license.

But let's imagine that you do manage to significantly decrease the number of abortions. 

Don't imagine for a moment that you've solved anything.

Because unwanted pregnancies ALSO won't stop happening. Teens will still get knocked up by other teens or by grown-ass men. Women will still have ectopic pregnancies. Couples who can't afford kids will still have surprise failures of birth control. Women will still fall for a guy thinking he's decent and then get left by him the moment he finds she's pregnant. Women will still fall for a guy thinking he's decent and then find out who he really is and realize she can't stay with him but can't afford to raise a child alone. Women and girls will still be impregnated by rape, will still be too scared to report the rapist but will also be unwilling to co-parent with him. All the things that cause unwanted pregnancies to happen, will continue to happen. Those fetuses don't suddenly become planned pregnancies just because you changed the law.

But now, in your best-case scenario, a million unwanted babies will be born every year, to two million unprepared parents. 

(Except for the women with ectopic pregnancies, they'll just be dead. Way to be pro-life, I guess.)

Can you BEGIN to fathom what that is going to cost you, if you actually get what you want? 

Whether via Medicaid, or via higher premiums due to increased emergency room use by uninsured families... you're gonna pay for health insurance on a lot of kids whose single moms wouldn't be able to afford it otherwise. 

You're gonna see a lot more kids in the foster system... and one way or another you're paying for that.

You're gonna see a lot more of those "welfare moms" you hate so much... and you're paying for that.

You're gonna see a lot more kids in the school system needing food and counseling and a whole lot of other things their parents can't provide... and you're paying for that.

You're gonna see spikes in child abuse by parents who weren't able to handle parenting but were compelled by law to try anyway. You're gonna see spikes in domestic abuse against women trapped in bad marriages with awful men by the fact that they can't afford to raise kids on their own. And so you're gonna see a lot more being spent on police and courts and jails and social services to deal with the problem... and you're paying for that.

And if you think there's any way for you to NOT pay for that, you're sadly mistaken. If you don't pay for preventing crisis via social services, you'll pay even more for addressing crisis via jails and hospitals. That's how it always has been, that's how it always will be. 

If you doubt that any of the above is accurate: Bear in mind that I've been working in the social service field for decades. I have seen over and over and over again what happens to cause childhood trauma, to cause the kind of brain damage that leads to kids (and eventual adults) that end up unable to function in society and costing society an incredible amount of money and labor and resources to deal with. It's a fire that was already raging out of control, and you've just poured gasoline onto it by adding another million kids, ANNUALLY, to an already overburdened and broken system.

So congratulations on your fiscal conservatism I guess? And congratulations on saving the children I guess?

Back in 2016, when you elected Trump for the sake of this moment, I warned you about making deals with the devil. You may get what you asked for, but you won't get what you want, and in the end you will always pay. 

Was it worth it to you, to solve no problems, create far more problems, and along the way also sell out every value you've ever professed to have? Was it worth it to spend four decades abandoning everything that was ever worthwhile in both conservatism and Christianity, in your frantic efforts to push a "conservative Christian" political agenda? 

Congratulations I guess. Even as you win, you lose.