Can politics transcend Nature?

Who are these conservatives who call for the break-up of families and children's homes, and have been doing so ever since they hunted and hounded Bill Clinton? These are the creatures who were so quick to advise Hillary to leave her husband, are gleefully taking bets that Silda Spitzer will do so, and now, I guess, Michelle Paterson will be targeted for their advice on how to ditch a marriage.

When the dam broke and the earlier prototype of Swift Boaters descended on Bill Clinton, whom they despised with visceral intensity, I accepted the reality of the politics. Just thinking of all those presumptuous Executive Orders of his was enough to make my blood boil. But I was flabbergasted when, throughout those ugly years, spokesmen for these Republican bloodhounds -- the pundits in the press and especially the talk show hosts -- continually expressed their hopes that the Clinton family would go bust, that Bill deserved to be punished into everlasting damnation where he should suffer all alone. Some of them sounded like they were actually sending up prayers to their peculiar version of God, to effect such an end. (I grew up believing that the angels sing in heaven, whenever a marriage is saved.) “Why doesn't she divorce him?” they impatiently demanded, as if Hillary's failure to do so was evidence of some flaw in her character.

In each of these cases, there are children involved, but with or without children, why would anyone want to see a couple break their vows “for better or for worse?” Why not, instead, take satisfaction in seeing them remain intact, no matter who they are, and no matter how hard they have to work at it?

For today's conservative fanatic, politics rule over even the sanctity of family. Their distorted reasoning goes something like this: If you're not in my political camp, and you screw up, then you should be denied the comfort of family affection, and deserve to be kicked in the gutter to die alone. What rock do these people live under, where only their brand of political correctness should supersede even the intimate bond between husband and wife?

Should John McCain leave his wife because of her prior drug problem and even some theft that she might have indulged in while on drugs? If we discover other infidelities or indiscretions on the part of prominent figures, should there be a crusade to convince the “wounded” spouses to dump their lifetime mates? Well, only if they're found to be on the wrong side of the political fence.

Do these “family values” rightwing folk take pleasure in observing the consequences on children, as they lose their stable homes and become visitors every other weekend to each of their parents' residences? I don't think a husband's infidelity is worth subjecting children to the vagaries of life with a dating parent or parents, and having strangers enter their lives who would otherwise be unknown to them had their parents remained together. Children deserve more than an insecure existence with a “Single Mom” or to be forced into “blended” families, to say nothing of the financial stress that is endured.

Nature as addiction?

Men cannot turn off Nature's programming; all they can do is work to modify their behavior as best they can. Even though polygamy is closer to Nature's plan for the male of the species, the West dumped forms of polygamy and chose monogamy for a variety of reasons, chief among them economic. Nature's concern is only that the male's seed is planted over and over and over again -- and in as many wombs as possible. This is why Nature embedded the sex drive deep into the male brain, so he will never forget his mission, even when he sleeps.

Yet now we have the trendy, stupid notion that men can suffer from a “sex addiction.” What idiotic psychobabblers could call Nature's plan for man a form of addiction? Such hogwash is straight out of the feminist playbook that would paint normal male behavior as aberrant.

Am I making excuses for men? Yes, I certainly am. Needless to say, I am not referring to the “knuckle-dragging” sub-species of male, who live only for and through their animal instincts and make no attempts to live within the bonds of civilized society. But I believe that most men do an efficient job of suppressing their programmed sex drive. Nature hardwired men to yearn for sex 28 hours a day, and I think most men act responsibly in controlling and restraining this unquenchable urge.

Thanks to the revamped society that feminism has given us, men are now confronted with eager, available women at every turn, not only in the workplace, but in just about every aspect of their lives. Such was not always the case. (Whoever heard of a “woman Marine” or a “woman Sailor?”)

Nature knows nothing about our social preferences and does not operate around our social conventions. After all the laughter and jokes about men's sexual proclivities have subsided, when you think of it, men carry a terrible burden. They must cope with a basic drive, while finding a way to live in a civilized world that works to defeat that drive. Most men work hard to live within the rules set by that civilized world. They don't deserve to be abandoned or stripped of their families when they fail to live up to the standards that they themselves have helped to create, or when they are unable to get the better of the powerful impulses bequeathed to them by Nature.