This week, columnist Lowell Ponte brought to my attention an opinion piece in the liberal ezine Slate that was so heinous and callous, it sank to a new level of loathsomeness.

The piece is entitled "The Grandkid Strike" and it proclaimed, "Here's an idea! Change your parents' bad voting habits by refusing to breed. They'll get behind the Green New Deal in exchange for a giggly little cutie patootie."

Written by a lesbian pro-abortion feminist progressive piece of work named Christina Cauterucci, the upshot of this tactic is to extort one's own (more conservative) parents by holding them hostage to the notion of future grandchildren.

"[T]he prospect of harnessing one's sexual and reproductive powers for social good is a tempting one," states Cauterucci. "So I'd like to present what I humbly consider a much better proposal: … let's try a grandkid strike." She calls this strategy a "brilliant new weapon of progressivism" and says it's "exactly the kind of radical response today's radical threats to equity, justice, and humanity demand."

What you're supposed to do, apparently, is sit your parents down for a serious heart-to-heart talk. Your parents might be Republican and "lukewarm on Donald Trump but will probably support his reelection, or maybe they're Democrats who've sworn they'll never elect a socialist." You explain why "you're not going to make any grandchildren anytime soon. It's too expensive, what with your student loan debt, the schemes of predatory banks, and the disproportionate tax burden you're forced to take on so billionaires can keep their tax breaks."

TRENDING: Dying father gets to see son play football one last time thanks to kindhearted nurse

Your shocked parents, facing deprivation of "their own legacies in the form of a pudgy little sweetums in a romper," ask what they can do to change your mind. "They plead with you, promising to do everything in their power to help ease your concerns. Lucky for them, you have an answer: radicalize."

That's it, radicalize. You're supposed to tell your parents – the people who gave you life, who raised you with loving care, who paid for lessons in sports and music, but who presumably made the serious tactical error of sending you to public schools (including college) where you morphed into a screaming left-wing harpy who now spits on the values you were raised with – these people must change their evil ways and embrace your radical personal agenda of socialism and unrestricted taxpayer-funded abortion … or else no grandkids.

Not only that, when they promise to swallow your bait, you must demand proof of their compliance. "Maybe you'll be satisfied if your parents prove to you, via voting booth selfie or supervised completion of an absentee ballot, that they voted for the sufficiently progressive candidate of your choice," advises Cauterucci. "Maybe you'll insist they go a step further and CC you on the donations they make to the National Network of Abortion Funds, Zero Hour, or the National Women's Law Center."

"The point," sneers Cauterucci, "is your parents will be forced to decide which is more important to them: their ill-informed allegiance to trickle-down economics, or their ability to lavish love upon a squishy, nice-smelling, giggly little cutie patootie." She makes a clear choice: Support the Second Amendment, or have grandkids. Can't have both, apparently.

This, folks, is apparently how some feminists feel about "spawning." It's not just that Ms. Cauterucci is a few beers short of a six pack; it's that she, along with endless other progressives, view children solely as a commodity, a tool for extortion. No wonder so many feminists have no compunction about aborting their own "spawn." What's a cluster of cells, after all? We don't need more breeders.

But of course, much of this expectation of reproduction among die-hard progressives is theoretical at best, since Ms. Cauterucci believes having children is the "most destructive thing one couple can do to the planet. It seems certain that today's babies will be tomorrow's survivors of famine, water shortages, unprecedented natural disasters, and refugee crises."

Ironically, Cauterucci slams "the right-wing activists painting women as capricious murderers" when it comes to abortion, but then offers this quasi-humorous tactic to "radicalize" one's conservative parents. Sorry, but "capricious murderers" is actually a rather apt description if you think extortion is a viable reason to reproduce. Of course, since Cauterucci is gay and doesn't plan to have children, she can live her little extortionist fantasy. And you wonder whether or not liberalism is a mental disorder?

Besides, let's say your parents give in and provide sufficient proof that they voted for the left-wing candidate of your choice. You stick to your end of the bargain and get pregnant. What then? If they purchase a car without your approval, or fail to recycle their aluminums, or take an airplane flight, or in some other way violate your personal allegiance to Mother Earth, will you abort their grandchild out of revenge? What if the baby is already born? Will you kill it? Give it away? How far will this go?

Even Cauterucci admits the potential downfalls. "Would-be grandparents might worry about a slippery slope – what's to stop their kids from raising the bar after every vote or donation made under duress? Enforcement could be tough, and there must be a critical mass of participation, especially in purple and red states, to make a real difference. There's also something undeniably weird about leaving a woman's reproductive decisions up to her parents." [Emphasis added.] (Undeniably weird? No kidding, sweetie.)

In the end, we learn Cauterucci's idea is just that, an idea. "But hey, this is just a blog post, and there are no bad ideas in a brainstorm," she concludes. "If a grandkid strike seems like a leap too far to you, you can start with a baby step. Send your parents a link to this post – subject line 'LOL, what a crazy idea' – and see what they have to say about the Green New Deal next time family dinner rolls around."

(Methinks Cauterucci doesn't have a lot of family dinners with her parents. Possibly at their request.)

Some left-leaning readers may tell me to lighten up, for Pete's sake; that Ms. Cauterucci was simply making a joke. To which I reply: She wasn't making a JOKE, she was making a POINT.

And that, dear readers, is liberalism in a nutshell.