Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Pelosi's modest proposal
With apologies to Jonathan Swift.
A Modest Proposal
For Preventing The Children of Poor People in Ireland
From Being A burden to Their Parents or Country, and For Making Them Beneficial to The Public
By Nancy Pelosi
It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town or travel in Hopenchangeland, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags and importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers, instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants: who as they grow up either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country to fight for oil, or sell their virginity.
I think it is agreed by all parties that this prodigious number of children in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present deplorable state of the kingdom a very great additional grievance; and, therefore, whoever could find out a fair, cheap, and easy method of making these children sound, useful members of the commonwealth, would deserve so well of the public as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation.
But my intention is very far from being confined to provide only for the children of professed beggars; it is of a much greater extent, and shall take in the whole number of infants at a certain age who are born of parents in effect as little able to support them as those who demand assistance from the government.
As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many years upon this important subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes of other projectors, I have always found them grossly mistaken in the computation. It is true, a child just dropped from its dam may be supported by her milk for a solar year or six, with little other nourishment; at most not above the value of a high-speed internet connection, which the mother may certainly get, or the value in food stamps, by her lawful occupation of tax consumption. Thus I made my proposal known to all on ABC:
There is likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it will prevent those voluntary abortions, and that horrid practice of women murdering their bastard children, alas! too frequent among us! As you know, this is an issue I have studied for a long time.
A Modest Proposal
For Preventing The Children of Poor People in Ireland
From Being A burden to Their Parents or Country, and For Making Them Beneficial to The Public
By Nancy Pelosi
It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town or travel in Hopenchangeland, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags and importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers, instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants: who as they grow up either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country to fight for oil, or sell their virginity.
I think it is agreed by all parties that this prodigious number of children in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present deplorable state of the kingdom a very great additional grievance; and, therefore, whoever could find out a fair, cheap, and easy method of making these children sound, useful members of the commonwealth, would deserve so well of the public as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation.
But my intention is very far from being confined to provide only for the children of professed beggars; it is of a much greater extent, and shall take in the whole number of infants at a certain age who are born of parents in effect as little able to support them as those who demand assistance from the government.
As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many years upon this important subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes of other projectors, I have always found them grossly mistaken in the computation. It is true, a child just dropped from its dam may be supported by her milk for a solar year or six, with little other nourishment; at most not above the value of a high-speed internet connection, which the mother may certainly get, or the value in food stamps, by her lawful occupation of tax consumption. Thus I made my proposal known to all on ABC:
There is likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it will prevent those voluntary abortions, and that horrid practice of women murdering their bastard children, alas! too frequent among us! As you know, this is an issue I have studied for a long time.
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