The more hungry masses, the more cheap labor

about the money.

I would just add that families are also less mobile than unmarried folks. Somebody buying a house with kids in school will tend to have a harder time getting up and moving someplace else where the job prospects look better.

One might think that globalization and offshoring millions of jobs to cheap labor markets would have satisfied their desire for cheap, captive labor and they'd have given up the "family values" crusade, but judging by recent trends apparently not. Maybe they haven't noticed that it's not 1955 anymore.

Part of the Christian Dominionist/New Apolistic Reformation movement. Scary stuff.

was about to pipe in about the quiverfulls, and other conservative evangelicals.. while the end effects have market consequences, the belief system itself is about Christian Dominionism..

on edit.... it is no wonder Rick Santorum did so well in Iowa

I doubt they could think that deeply on how being "pro-family" will lead to a glut of available cheap labor.

They probably just use this as one of their wedge issues to get backwards-thinking religious nuts to support their cause.

i agree: wedge issue, and religion is a control tactic.

until this past year I thought all the "family values" stuff was just about getting gullible bible-heads to
vote for them. Now I see the "cheap labor" connection. It will be a long time before we're
all living in Dickensian connections, but damn they're gonna push, and they are patient.
"They want it all"-yep. They see our testicles and ovaries as "means of production"
that are somehow theirs by divine right, just like the rest of the capital and natural resources
on the planet.

I also can't help but wonder if there's some sort of genetic linkage between these
"family values" people and the perverted petulant little control freaks who wrote
the Old Testament.

If they just make it hard enough on bad people, everyone can be molded into "good people."

and most certain ways to distract us from the significant things they are doing while we gape.

...and corporates have so much control on our lives, Roe v. Wade would have never been ruled on, and if it were a "fluke" it would have been overturned during the Raygun daze. We also would have had a national ban on gay marriage and I'm sure other draconian laws to tie the 98% to this the corporate-welfare system would be in effect.

The truth is abortion and now gay politics can be huge money generators within the rushpublican world. The "threat to the traditional family" or similar language is a big buzzword to open up the checkbooks as much as to show up at the polls. It will continue to be a cash cow and why we see these attacks on basic human rights under the radar...on the state level...but not on the national one. As always...follow the money...

So much of politics is a diversion from the real issues. When people have to spend time and energy repeated securing basic rights attacked by the right wing, then they have less energy to focus on the corporate welfare and double dealing being slipped into bills in the middle of the night.

Plus, as you say, it motivates their base to vote against their own best interests.

The US can't compete against Vietnam, China, and India on wages. It can compete very well on worker skills and productivity. The rich are more interested in those kind of issues.

Highly skilled workers are the ones that get car assembly plants coming to their states, for example.

The OP's post is thought provoking but stretches way too much.

The simplest explanation: Some rich people are just plain conservative, fiscally and socially.

Or set narrow parameters for what a lawn can look like?
Or localities that make laws against working on a car in a home's driveway (passed by people who don't work on their own cars)?

The "labor supply" angle may apply to a handful, but is too high-level and long-term to account for the vast majority of them. The hornets nest/cash cow/distraction factors are a bigger part, but that's just leverage -- why do those work in the first place?

Because they're controlling pricks who want to make everyone else conform to their sensibilities of how things "ought" to be, and they have the resources and power to do it, or at least try to do it.

The notion of "Victorian morality" was largely invented, when HM became queen in 1837, as a way of keeping the working class in line. If the monarchy and the aristocrats could shame workers about sex, it would intimidate the workers from challenging the misery of the economic set-up.

In the end, these things are always about power relations.

1837? Way too late a date.

under Victoria(no double entendre intended...and I now need to use some mindbleach to wipe out the accidental images I gave myself).

I base my view of this on Antonia Fraser's books about the monarchy.

When do you see it as really having started?

Simple..they are not getting any and are envious and jealous of people who are having a little fun.

I don't think the 1% really care one way or the other; if our birth rate drops we can always have more immigration (frankly they'd probably prefer that). They're happy to use misogyny among the poor to their political advantage, of course.

They want to control our sex lives because we HAVE sex lives. They're jealous. Being rich doesn't mean you can buy sex. Even "human real estate workers" have standards. A lot of them are married, but I can't comprehend how sex factors into said marriages.

I have nothing against prostitutes, nothing at all, but they have a right to turn down offensive johns and from what I've seen that pretty much sums up the caste of rich white guys. They've got their arm candy and that's basically all that candy is. I'm sorry to stereotype them, but that's what I see. Those of us who are normal have sex lives that involve love. They envy that.