Conservatives have always had a rather odd and contradictory perspective on war and sex, assuming that it is simply "human nature" to engage in one every bit as much as the other. But isn't this simply a self fulfilling prophecy on the one hand, especially with regard to war, and a capitulation to our savagery on the other? If like the poor, to put it more plainly, war is something we will always have with us, should human progress then be defined as simply the accumulation of toys, luxuries, power and wealth?
On war, Conservatives feel it is something we will always have with us, and as such, we should therefore take measures to prepare for it. And by doing so, perhaps avert or reduce the likelihood or frequency with which we will have to engage in it at all.
As much as we would like to avoid it, in other words, was is a fact of life that we should accept and prepare for. (That wars have only proliferated with the ever greater sales of weapons, never deters the avid gun owner from the belief that ever more guns will ultimately produce ever more peace.)
On sex, the Conservative takes the opposite approach, and rather than simply accepting that it is also something we will "always have with us" as well, and thus we should likewise therefore take measures to prepare for it, they admonish teenagers - with their hormones all a rage - to rely necessarily on the wisdom of self denial that they themselves did not arrive at often until late into their twenties, or thirties, or even later.
(That this wisdom was arrived at only after the creep of sedentary life had reduced their hormonal levels in tandem with their activity levels, is as ignored by such Conservatives as the fact that St. Augustine's philandering in the brothels of Rome only declined, not as a result of his conversion to Catholicism, but with age. And as such, whatever impotence may have crept into his loins by the hand of time, was no doubt blamed on the prostitutes of Rome, and women in general, whom Augustine concluded were as responsible for robbing him of the youthful vigor and virility he had so enjoyed in the brothels of Rome, as God himself had been responsible for creating a universe that contained a planet with a city full of brothels like Rome.)
As much as we would like to engage in sex, according to the Conservative Christian perspective, we should try to control such urges only ever from within. For any attempt to control the consequences of sex from without (even though studies show this works), only contribute to the weakening of a person's moral fiber (even though Christianity and Conservatism have failed to prevent the pedophiles and sexual predation among Christians and Conservatives).
In fact, given the recent rash of sexual crimes and harassment claims agaisnt both Catholic priests and notable Conservatives, it may even be safe to say that even Conservatives have had a pretty difficult time regulating their sexual appetites through the religious proscription of "just say no."
From poor countries in Africa and South America to Mother Theresa in Calcutta, however, many Conservatives rail agaisnt the immorality of distributing condoms as a means of preventing pregnancy or the spread of AIDS and other STDs, even as they likewise argue that the best prophylactic agaisnt war and mass shooting, is to only build and sell more and more weapons.
For many Conservatives, who are often as terrified of being denied the right to purchase ever more guns as they are of being denied the right to worship their own brand of God, the best protection agaisnt the spread of violence in American society is not to deny people their lust for the latest and greatest weapons of death available, but too only ever find ways to sell ever more guns to ever more people. Indeed, they might even support a government subsidy for doing so.
Hence the Conservative seems to assume that our urge for violence is far more natural to us than our urge for sex, which is why they want us to distribute weapons as a prophylactic agaisnt war and violence but not prophylactics as a weapon agaisnt disease and unwanted pregnancy.
Or to put it another way, the Conservative tackles these two issues by arguing that the best way to help all those suffering from unwanted pregnancies is to sell the children of those unwanted pregnancies ever more guns and God. And while this is like solving the problem of having too few hats by cutting off heads, as Chesterton once quipped, in a system of Christian Capitalism devoted religiously to the bottom line and the love of profit, "all is fair in love and war."
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