FIRST!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, sorry, I thought I was over at Sadly Pathetic there for a minute. If this post doesn't draw them back I'll be very surprised.

I think people who identify with the Left believe that any criticism of self-damaging behaviour patterns boils down to claiming that it's a racial trait rather than something that repeats itself through generations of neglect.

They're too busy screaming over the top of you to silence you to listen to the argument. But you know that already...

Amy, given the experience of the last few days, I have to say this is a perfect example of "leading with your chin." Keep your guard up. And keep leading.

The more I look at the social landscape of the U.S., the more I ask myself how the Black man become a sacred animal.

Here's the idea; For the last few years, being critical of anything related to the attitude of the black man is frowned upon. Bill Cosby was called an "Uncle Tom" after he talked about the subject and Obama was even threatened to be emasculated over the subject!

Can you imagine the storm it would had caused if Jesse Jackson was white when he said that he wished to cut Obama's nuts off? That would had been the end of his career. Instead, he's getting away with a simple apology.

When an animal is acting badly, he got the excuse of being an animal. dogs tend to defecate on sidewalks and to chew on slippers. By removing even the shadow of a critical thought, the Black activists are sending the black community into the trap of the "Sacred Animal" where everything is permisive and even excused. Things like poverty and lack of fathers in families are now to be blamed on "Whitey" as if the black people, like the sacred cows in India, should be maintained by them.

Nothing good will come out of this...

"...the worst thing you could do...to that 70 percent of black children...is to shut up about how damaging it is."

Exactly. We're always told how desperately we need to have a national dialogue about race, but this is one topic you can be sure will be left out.

The "dialogue on race" that the left wants is for white people to forfeit everything they have and live in abject poverty as punishment for daring to have created western civilization in the first place.

Not quite what those of us to the right think of when we hear the word "dialogue"

"The "dialogue on race" that the left wants is for white people to forfeit everything " No the left wants all the other white (the not caring right and moderates that refuse to see the plight of the poor and down trodden) people to forfeit everything. The leaders of the left movement do not live in poverty.

In Moynihan's case as much as I agree with his conclusion his choice of words were spectacularly poor. Now I'm not sure if the term Negro was offensive back then so I might be off.

P.S. When did Jackson turn into a race baiting asshole?

Good observation (IMHO) Brian, but I think Vlad nails it.
Ayn rand called it "the aristocracy of pull." The left wants everyone who is a sacred cow to be second to them, they being the ones with the "right" attitudes that will parcel out the goodies as they see fit.
Thats why the most rabid supporters of diversity and affirmative action can often be found with their kids in private schools, and no dark skin in their neighborhoods (except for the help).
I've often wondered (and never got an answer)- if diversity is our greatest strnegth, and the problems in largely black communities are simply economic and a result of racism, why don't people with the resources to live anywhere they like move there?

P.S. When did Jackson turn into a race baiting asshole?

Heh. When hasn't he been one?

vlad: "In Moynihan's case as much as I agree with his conclusion his choice of words were spectacularly poor."

In the early 1960s when Moynihan was writing, that was the socially acceptable term, just as "African-American" is today. The non-accepted term was ..well, you know what it was.

Amy,

They'll be back. But I think I speak for a lot of us when I say we aren't going anywhere. Keep fighting the good fight.

"The non-accepted term was ..well, you know what it was."

The first time I remember hearing the word "nigger," my little brother and I were sitting in the back seat of the car with my mom driving us somewhere. My brother (who was maybe four years old) called my mom a "nigger" - obviously having no idea what the word meant. My mom told him that if he ever called a black person that, he'd probably get punched in the mouth. So she scolded his little punk ass first for using a word without even knowing what it meant, and then explained it to us. Even at that age, it sunk in that "nigger" wasn't a bad word in the same league as "shit" or "hell." It was a *mean* word, something personal - a word that said more about the person using it than the person it was used against.

Nowadays, my sweety has a lot of black customers from the hood and chuckles at how they call each other "nigga" all the time. It's nigga this and nigga that, the same way white kids call each other "dude" all the time. Dave Chappelle had a skit on his show where two white frat boys are driving around in a convertible and think it's amazingly cool when they get called "niggas" by some black guys. Now it's apparently the ultimate compliment, but the fact is not lost on me that it must make black people feel a bit smug to be able to use a word white people aren't allowed to say.

To which I say, "Oh well!"

I hope you've tracked down the tiny thugs who spammed you and told their ISPs.

Cheers from your fans over at The Festering Swamp!

Aww, thanks. Saw that you guys linked to me the other day. Thanks so much. P.S. I thought about Cathy when they were after me, and thought we probably would have been together on their page if she were still with us.

Just a note--I've always found the single motherhood as a feminist act argument highly amusing. First Wave Feminists were jailed for our right to have knowledge about our bodies and birth control--yet somehow getting sperminated by random men with babies you can't afford is seen as feminist? A true feminist has knowledge about and respect for her body. Also, one of the main reasons for feminism is the fact that men make more money that women...how are we to move up the socio-economic ladder if we are tied down by (to use Amy's term)"litters" of children?

"the fact that men make more money that women"
That's because mens are gooder.

Gloria, I have noticed the trend among women my age (38) to have babies on their own. The topic has been discussed on this board many times. These women feel their "biological clocks" ticking, haven't found anyone they want to marry yet, and are determined to get those babies they want, even if they have to do it on their own. Many of these women make great money, so poverty isn't a factor, and they're not having "litters" of children. But they want a reason to shop at Baby Gap, dammit, and it's all about them! The fact that their own children have to live without a father is no reason to put their own selfish desires on hold - why start thinking about anyone else at this point in life? Besides, they can always tell themselves that a "positive male role model" is a plug-n-play substitute for an actual father.

But I think we should distinguish between these "feminists" and the women having litters of children in poverty. I really doubt the litter-bearing variety has ever thought about being a feminist one way or the other. It's more likely that they were one of a litter themselves and ended up having babies of their own before they ever got old enough to know any better. Their own mothers probably defended their lifestyles with pride, and passed the same attitude on to their own kids.

"...that was the socially acceptable term, just as "African-American" is today."

Yup. And in 15 years Jesse Jackson's son is going to be calling everybody "racist" for using the phase "African-American" because:
1. it suggests that black Americans are 'incomplete Americans'
2. it is an inadequate descriptor for race (whites, Arabs, Jews can all be African)
3. it's time for another non-sensical race-baiting effort to find a new non-racist descriptive phrase for black people.

So let's have a little fun with this. Once "African-American" is deemed racist, what do you think the next PC phase by which black Americans are identified will be in 15 years?

From the two agonizing classes I took toward a Masters in Human Relations (No GRE required, two classes, two A's, no effort whatsoever required, no kidding), I suspect "People/person(s) of Color" waits in the wings. It's out there now and to be sure, a little dated. But it hasn't yet made it into common usage. Once accepted (if in fact it is) it will eventually be replaced again by terms like "African-American" because "its lack of reference to heritage strips persons formerly referred to as People/person(s) of color of theri roots." The beat will go on, nothing will change, But its not really about anything changing, is it? White Guilt is the new White Supremacy.

>>Now it's apparently the ultimate compliment, but the fact is not lost on me that it must make black people feel a bit smug to be able to use a word white people aren't allowed to say.

I agree, Pirate Jo.

It's also not lost on me, though, that white people who widen their eyes and say "oh, but they use that word - so why can't I?" are either not yet in junior high - or enjoy being obnoxious and unoriginal.

Gog: your grammar is atrocious. You KNOW that the correct phrase is "men are more gooder."

As far as the new PC term, Grammie always called them "colored". More syllables than "black", but it seemed to work for her.

Of course, you could just take the time to learn their names. But that would entail actually TALKING to people. And that's a drag.

I consider myself to be one of the progressives from the dreaded left that has been much maligned this past week, and I just wanted to say that we are not all bad. I think it is shameful that they have tried to spam Amy's blog instead of having a rational discussion. As a progressive, I believe that we can always make things better, and that we should all work together to fix the problems in society. I love Amy's term "personal responsibilitarian" and think that the world would be a much better place if everyone thought carefully about their actions and took responsibility for them, good or bad.

I completely agree that children need a mother and a father, preferably married to each other. I do not think that Amy is racist for bringing up problems in the black community. I applaud her for trying to shine a light on a situation that needs to be fixed, and for actually doing something by talking to the high school classes instead of just posturing on her blog, like so many others.

"It's also not lost on me, though, that white people who widen their eyes and say "oh, but they use that word - so why can't I?" are either not yet in junior high - or enjoy being obnoxious and unoriginal."

Yep. Agreed here, too. It's just one of the words that the Knights Who Used to Say 'Nee' cannot say.

"Once "African-American" is deemed racist, what do you think the next PC phase by which black Americans are identified will be in 15 years?"

Melanin Enhanced American?

Amy K. -

Your post is obviously in earnest and I don't want this to sound like I'm trying to pick a fight or insult you in any way. But there were some points in your comment that (for the sake of better communication across political lines in the future) I might take time to address, and perhaps provoke some rational conversation.

I consider myself to be one of the progressives from the dreaded left

I don't dread the left. I despise it. By "left" I include Republicans. They are right wing socialists, trying to use the power of government force to coerce people into living as they think people should, no differently than the left wing socialists are trying to use the power of government force to coerce people into living and thinking as they believe they should. To put it simply - the republicans want to legislate morality, the Left (considering themselves "enlightened" because they know you can't legislate morality) want to legislate "compassion." This is a bit of a false statemet, as the Republicans try to legislate compassion, and the Democrats try to legislate morality as well, but as a thumbnail skect, I think you see what I'm saying.

I just wanted to say that we are not all bad.

I believe you are a good person. But any philosophy that uses force to compel people to behave "morally" or compassionately is bad. It is the antithesis of liberty. The antithesis of liberty is Totalitarianism, and that is all bad. This is distinct from laws which protect one person from another i.e. rape, Robbery, Murder etc. Life, Liberty and Property are appropriately protected by government. Forcing people to "do what is right" because you, or me, or 52% of the people think its right is exactly what the Bill of Rights was written to prevent.

As a progressive, I believe that we can always make things better, and that we should all work together to fix the problems in society.

I believe we can, and I believe we should. If and only if we damn well feel like it. If I choose not to help, or disagree with the prescription/diagnosis of the problem, I have every right to withdraw my support. When you come to my house (or hire others to come to my house) and, at the point of a gun, take money from my pocket, food from my table or restrict my liberty to serve what you consider to be "good," well, "what you are screams so loudly I can't hear a word you're saying."

the world would be a much better place if everyone thought carefully about their actions and took responsibility for them, good or bad.

it sure would. As long as by "everyone" you mean, black, white, gay, straight, female, male, poor, rich, "privileged" and "underprivileged" alike. Dr. Walter Williams once asked a great Libertarian thinker (so great I can't remember his name) what one law could make America better. He said "I would make a law that says all laws passed must apply to everyone."

just posturing on her blog, like so many others.

Or living in upscale white neighborhoods and sending their kids to private schools while lecturing the rest of us on "the benefits of cultural diversity?" Or saying "There is no excuse for domestic violence" but practically bubbling over with excuses when it is committed by women? Or saying "gender is only a social construct" but remaining awfully quiet when overage women have sex with their underage charges in public schools, and are given laughably lenient sentences? What, "the kid just got lucky?" Well, would a teenaged girl have "just gotten lucky," or would the teacher have been hanged and the girls suffering commemorated in story and song all across the country? Not saying that is the wrong view to take, mind you - it might be completely correct. But what violence does it do to "gender is a social construct" if its different when it happens to a girl? These are just to name a few of the "posturings" I see.
So now that things have calmed down a bit, I welcome the debate. Heck, I welcomed it then.
I hope I haven't offended you. I really am just trying to present an alternate viewpoint, and welcome yours.

"This is distinct from laws which protect one person from another i.e. rape, Robbery, Murder etc." I disagree, these laws are no different that legislation on morality or "doing the right thing" The only distinction is that a vast majority of Americans believe that robbery, rape and murder are evil and wrong, which is a matter of degree.

BTW life, liberty and property are not off limits to the government so long as due process is followed.

I don't know that we can have a perfectly balanced and reasonable discussion about race in America, but I think it's OK to try to have it.

I am of a puzzlement about the dysfunctional black culture. Why do they do those things to themselves? I don't understand how other people can come to America & succeed in spite of their backgrounds & in spite of their skin color, but the systematic failure of American blacks to stop their destructive social behaviors? I don't get it. At what point does someone finally say, "I refuse to be defined by my enemies, even if they are enemies only in my mind"?

Get over it. Move on. We fought a world war with Germany over racial supremacy, and Germany lost. Most Germans have moved on & assimilated into Western culture.

Is there racism in America today? Yes. Is it fixable? Yes. Does it require endless victimhood & refusal to either change or admit that self-destructive behavior is LARGELY THE FAULT of those who choose to do it?

I can't fix bad schools. (I think inner city schools are hopeless.) But there are ENDLESS resources for those who are willing to try. Last time I looked in my own area, the main cities where I live have many libraries and free (or nearly free) transportation to these libraries. If you really, really want to succeed, you will. If you really, really don't want to change, then you won't. I can't fix that part - you have to do it. And I'm not going to sit around and feel sorry for you & your victimhood.

I don't know if we could have created a more efficient way to destroy the lives of the American lower classes, but we seem to have been perfectly wrong in everything we've done since the 60s.

WolfmanMac, you may consider yourself a progressive from the dreaded left, but you sound more like a libertarian to me.

It has been occurring to me lately that a lot of this is quibbling over semantics. When I hear the term "lefty progressive," I think of a liberal who doesn't want to call himself a liberal. Yet the word "liberal" means something a lot different than it used to. A "classical liberal" would be called a "libertarian" today. And a "conservative" used to mean something closer to a "classical liberal" or a "libertarian," but today's conservatives (or should we call them "neo-conservatives") no longer care about limited government. Religious issues have moved to the forefront for them.

I think a lot of this stems from the two-sided political camp the US finds itself in. Republicans still call themselves conservatives, and Democrats either call themselves liberals or progressives. But these labels don't tell me a thing about what people really think, or what they really mean.

As Wolfman was touching upon, I read something a while back that said Republicans want to use the government to force people to be moral, and Democrats want to use the government to force people to be equal, but they are both wrong. The only legitimate purpose of government is to ensure that people are free.

This article did the best job I have ever seen of debunking the myths behind each school of thought:

http://www.reason.com/news/show/120265.html

One thing that has changed since this Moynihan report is that we are seeing more of the same among poor whites. They tend to have fewer children out of wedlock, but they are still having them, and it is contributing to generational poverty for white mothers now.

For whites, as well as blacks, I think welfare incentives play a huge role. Yet, for blacks, there may also be something uniquely cultural. From what I've read, the family construct is very different in Africa, and always has been different than our two parent model. It is much more matriarchal, and fertility is considered very important to both sexes.

How much that plays into today's behavior is all theoretical, but I think it is important to recognize that other cultures have different standards and norms regarding child-rearing than we do. The matriarchal family structure isn't something that developed just because of feminism. Especially in tribal cultures, our two-parent family construct isn't the norm, at least in the way that we consider ideal.

And a lot of what is considered "traumatic" is based on the cultural norms of whatever culture the child grows up in. If you expect your mother should be "married", and a father should live in the house with you, and she isn't, and he doesn't, then that can be very traumatic. Yet, if you grow up in a tribal community where the family construct is totally different, you wouldn't be emotionally scarred.

That is also why the sex abuse cases involving female-to-male are interesting. In our culture (and most others), boys are generally conditioned not to be ashamed of having sex, so a teacher seducing them may not be particularly emotionally scarring

My boyfriend, who is 48, told me that his high school teacher seduced him and another teacher seduced his friend. At 15, they would go hang out at these teachers' house (they were roomates) and have sex. He doesn't seem traumatized at all by this. In fact, it seems like a pretty fond memory. ;-)

Yet, a female, due to the very opposite socialization regarding her sexuality, and different cultural norms, might still be dealing with emotional scars.

I'm not saying it's right, just interesting.

Pirate Jo,
Interesting comment. It bring to mind the question of what truly makes for a good environment for children to grow up in. Are financially set single women in a better position than extrememly poor "intact" families with a mother and a father? Most of this conversation has focused on presumably poor single mothers with limited resources, what about those who are single because they chose to have a child willingly or divorced a man who was not good for the kids to be around? Thanks for the reminder that single mothers come in many different manifestations.

As regards the comment you had regarding the unawareness of poor single mothers as embracing their actions as a feminist act, I believe you are correct. Another great example of priveledged left championing the cause of the poor without truly relating to or understanding what they are advocating.

Pirate Jo,

I am a Libertarian. I was quoting amy K. and responding to the quote. My bad - i should have headed her quotes with "Amy K. says" -.

Vlad says: This is distinct from laws which protect one person from another i.e. rape, Robbery, Murder etc." I disagree, these laws are no different that legislation on morality or "doing the right thing" The only distinction is that a vast majority of Americans believe that robbery, rape and murder are evil and wrong, which is a matter of degree.

BTW life, liberty and property are not off limits to the government so long as due process is followed.

Must disagree. We do not outlaw rape or robbery because it is "morally worng," although it certainly is - we do it because it infringes on the inalienable rights of another. Specifically in the case of those crimes, property rights. My body is my property, which no other person has a right to violate without - and this brings me to your next point - due process of law.
Due process of law suffices to allow societal violation of rights enshrined in the BOR in a criminal proceeding, upon probable cause. That is why I oppose the death penalty on principle, but must concede it is Constitutional. 51% of the population deciding green eyed people need to pay more because they have green eyes is not the due process necessary to deprive me of my property rights. That would require a Constitutional Amendment. The BOR was established specifically to prevent the "tyranny of the majority" (or as it is commonly and more properly phrased, "mob rule") that would allow 51% of the population to deprive the other 49% of their rights, for example, vote themselves the money of the other 49%.
I believe it was De Tocqueville who said "Democracy can only survive until the people realize they can vote themselves funds from the public trough." That is why the founding fathers established a Constitutional Republic, instead of a democracy with a Bill of Rights outlining the specific rights of the individual.
Those who recall "1984" remember the interrogators words to Winston - as a minority of 1, he must be wrong. Everybody knows that 2+2=5. The idea here was that a minority of one was a majority when he stood upon his rights.

Pirate Jo says: The only legitimate purpose of government is to ensure that people are free.

WolfmanMac says: Amen.

That should read 'a Constitutional Republic with a Bill of Rights outlining the specific rights of the individual, rather than a democracy."

It's just one of the words that the Knights Who Used to Say 'Nee' cannot say

What is it?

I read somewhere that the single biggest predictor of a woman's future economic prospects is whether or not she's had a child out of wedlock before the age of 20.

The percentage of those women who live a life of welfare/poverty is staggering.

Regardless of race.

"NEE!" o_O

"I believe it was De Tocqueville who said "Democracy can only survive until the people realize they can vote themselves funds from the public trough."

That's one of my favorite quotes, except I always thought he said "vote the treasury into their pockets"

Might have been, Lovely. I was just coming off the top of my head. We are in the middle of a move and all my books are packed. Thats why I'm at the comp typing away lol.

You rock. Thank you for continuing to rock.

I can't add much more than the article and commenters above, but like you I come from the Detroit 'burbs, and Detroit now (the City of Detroit) is just about as poor, uneducated, single-parented, unemployed and black as it could be. I'd love to see the Left make an impartial, well thought out analysis of exactly how the "system" and only the "system" caused this problem. Slavery was horrible, of course, but what about the last 50 or so years of bad personal life choices (to have 8 kids, to drop out, to stand on the street corner, to get shot, to abuse your health until diabetes forces you to amputate a leg - you would not believe how many canes, crutches, wheelchairs and amputations I used to see when I worked downtown).

The Detroit area has the 'Murder City' tag but let me tell you, outside of black on black violence in the City it's a pretty peaceful and safe place to live. And it is two very different worlds that keep getting farther apart.

The comment with the Boortz article disappeared, but I'll re-post the link, because I really do happen to like the article.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200808200005

Boortz is showing the connection between rampant breeding and poverty, a connection that shouldn't elude anyone with the basic ability to balance a checkbook. Sean's comment above makes perfect sense to me.

Saying "people who can't afford kids shouldn't have kids" seems to offend some people, but I'll agree with the statement and raise it by one further - having kids MAKES you poor. This isn't a personal slam against anyone, it's simple math! Buying a $70K Mercedes when you can't afford it will give you the same result. This is a simple correlation between actions and consequences - sorry if some people don't like the answer they get when they add 2 + 2.

"but I'll agree with the statement and raise it by one further - having kids MAKES you poor." That would depend on life style and salary. Having too many kids makes you poor yes.

Thanks, Pirate Jo, for reposting the link. And you're absolutely right. This is why a poor, unwed, 26-year-old inner city woman should not have six children with five different drug dealers. Children. Cost. Money.

(Duh!)

Hilariously, just last week, I was shocked, SHOCKED, that Gregg had banned one commenter from his blog.

Then I got spam and stupid-attacked here, and I've been banning right and left, with great glee, actually. Anybody who seems to be here from SadlyButtDumb and leaves some mob-agenda-driven comment...off with their metaphorical head!

Sometimes a few sneak through, and if there are those 30-page ones, just refresh...I try to get to them fast.

Correction for WolfmanMac -

The Constitution does not enumerate the rights that the government will allow the people to exercise.

It states what rights the government may and may not abridge, and the circumstances for such abridgment. The Constitution doesn't have anything to say about what rights the people have. Amendment 9: The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Which is why I cringe when anyone talks about amending the Constitution to "define marriage", which is code for "ban gay marriage" which is really and end-run around what the Constitution IS.

You were, however, spot on about the founders contempt for pure democracy.

"That would require a Constitutional Amendment." Which would require a significant majority but is still allowable under the constitution. These can not be changed by a small majority but if enough people felt that having green eyes required you forking over your property they could still do it and it would be constitutional. However unlikely the scenario is

Wolfman, I agree with most of what you said, and yes, when I said everyone, I meant everyone. I was just trying to say that there are people on the left that aren't insane and don't have to resort to "thug tactics" like the ones that we have seen the past 2 weeks. I realize that my views are somewhat idealistic and have greater faith in humanity than it probably deserves, but they are what they are.

Pirate Jo, I completely agree that kids are definite money pits. I have been assured by my friends that are already parents, that they are worth it. However, as a 26-year-old unmarried woman, I am not willing to deal with all the responsibility that having a child entails.

Speaking of single mothers...

How about single fathers by choice?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080820/ap_en_ce/people_ricky_martin

I don’t think I have ever heard of a single man having a surrogate have his children.

"How about single fathers by choice?" I have heard of one before can't remember where. Equally bad idea as a single mother by choice.

Ah the old debate about having kids. I once read this quote, but don't know to whom I should attribute it: "If everyone waited until they could afford to have kids, no one would have kids."

I'm kind of in that boat right now, as a matter of fact. My fiance and I might want kids one day. The problem is we only make about $60,000 a year. :)

Maybe I'm just an idealist, but in my mind, the having lots of kids makes you poor-concept is not too difficult for anyone to understand.

My fiance has 10 siblings (religious family). He also freely admits that he had a horrible childhood, and that nearly all of his good qualities developed as a result of not wanting to repeat what his parents did. I firmly believe as a sane, rational human being, that children are not like socks; you don't just have them to have them.

...where is the communication-breakdown happening, here?

Brian says - The Constitution does not enumerate the rights that the government will allow the people to exercise.

It states what rights the government may and may not abridge, and the circumstances for such abridgment. The Constitution doesn't have anything to say about what rights the people have. Amendment 9: The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

No, the Constitution doesn't, the Bill of Rights does. But we agree if you are saying what i think you are saying. if memory serves, one of the arguments against a BOR was that it's existence would be interpreted as indicating that "these rights the people have, anything not mentioned here they do not have." Amendment 9 was constructed to quell those fears.

Which is why I cringe when anyone talks about amending the Constitution to "define marriage", which is code for "ban gay marriage" which is really and end-run around what the Constitution IS.

We could debate that, but I agree with you. Whether or not my relationship with another person or persons is legally legitimate (is that redundant?) is not the governments business. I tell the government I'm going to marry someone or someones, the only legal test should be the consensual nature of the arrangement, IMO.

Vlad says - "That would require a Constitutional Amendment." Which would require a significant majority but is still allowable under the constitution.

Show me the amendments allowing a lot of the crap the government is pulling/has pulled and I'll stop saying it's unconstitutional. Even so, I don't know how the Constitution regards the idea of what I would loosely phrase "a constitutional amendment that is unconstitutional." Don't know that there would be such a thing, but there could be. That is an interesting question for a constitutional scholar. I'll have to remember that.

Vlad,

I believe you are right - through constitutional means (amendments) we can if we want completely abrogate the BOR with the proper votes in the legislature. Not the popular vote, but the legislature.

BTW I realizethe BOR is part of the Constitution, but they were passed separately. I apologize for giving the impression they were separate.

Wolfman - learn the power of the "blockquote" tag. It makes things more readable.

"Are financially set single women in a better position than extrememly poor "intact" families with a mother and a father?"

I think often the answer is "yes". Just as the poster aboove said her boyfriend came from a very poor family of ten and had a miserable childhood - yet his family was "intact".

I'm sending my son off to college tomorrow and I have a 14 yr old daughter. Kids are expensive! Not that a family with lower income can't do well. I know many who clip coupons and shop at bargain stores to feed and clothe their families on a tight budget, but it's very hard.

Comparatively, I really don't see why it is so much more "selfish" for a single, financially set woman, who can provide all the benefits to a child, to have one.

It is clear that the children who are most at risk are the ones who are poor. I would much rather see a competent, educated, financially set single mom (or dad) share the many advantages she (he) has to offer with a child.

I think if you studied JUST those single parents and their offspring, you would see a lot of success. Certainly no more failure and dysfunction than intact families have.

Not familiar with it, Brian. What is it?

ok, quote lessons for the HTML impaired.

Tags get put in "angle brackets" (also known as less than, greater than), which look like this: <>

So, you type <blockquote>, and paste in the block of text.

In HTML land, tags need to be "closed". That happens by putting a / in front of the tag name, again in brackets, thus:

</blockquote>

End result looks like this:

This is a block quote

Human action is economic. You get more of what you subsidize. Subsidize illegitimate children, you get more of them. Remove opportunity costs for having illegitimate children, you'll get more of them.

When men become insolvent and don't pay child support, we imprison them. Why is it different when women become insolvent and can't support their children even as they are having more?

Stop paying women who have babies that they can't support. Instead, take insolvency as prima fascia evidence that the mother is unfit, take her children from her, give them to families that are solvent and want to adopt. With no economic benefit, watch how fast those illegitimate birth rates drop.

I would also like to point out that some here have used the term 'misogynist' the way these asshat leftists have used the term 'racism' against Amy and Moynihan. I hope y'all know now that it's very uncool.

I agree with your position, Jeff. Unfortunately, though, there aren't enough adoptive homes for those kids. Most who adopt want babies, for good reason, as older children, who have been neglected and raised in poverty, often have severe emotional issues. We just don't have enough solvent families willing to take school-age children. Particularly for older black children, adoptive families are hard to find. They will usually go into foster care, which unfortunately, often provides even more neglect and instability.

We need to cut off assistance after a certain number of children. A woman shouldn't be able to collect welfare and still keep having babies. I know sterilization was widely criticized, but to me, these women have a choice to avoid that measure. If they can't be responsible in their use of birth control, then we shouldn't reward that irresponsible behavior.

The problem we have in this country, which is touchy to address, is that the less educated, less intelligent levels of our population are reproducing at a much higher rate than our more intelligent, educated population, which is barely reproducing itself (if that). College-educated people are having only one or two children on average. A society really can't sustain that for long without social chaos.

That's one reason I am against discouraging financially set, educated, mature people from choosing to become parents, single or not. We NEED their contributions. We NEED their emphasis on education. It is much better for society for those who are more intellectually capable to reproduce than to encourage rampant procreation among the lower socioeconomic levels.

Do you know that, as a group, Jews have the highest IQ? The theory for why is: a) Jews have been persecuted throughout history, so there's been a "survival of the fittest" thing happening. b) The brightest child in every family was usually encouraged to become a rabbi. And rabbis, in turn, were encouraged to produce LOTS of offspring.

So, Jews had this kind of informal social engineering going on for generations. And it's paid off.

Obviously, we can't do that in any sort of formal way either, though if we could, without being called racist, it would certainly be wise. But we should, at the very least, encourage the brightest among us to have more children, not less.

"I'm kind of in that boat right now, as a matter of fact. My fiance and I might want kids one day. The problem is we only make about $60,000 a year. :)"

Well, would it help to know DH and I have 3 kids on $50,000 a year? We have fabulous-repeat fabulous-vision, health, and dental insurance for not much at all through his work. Not doable otherwise. We don't wear new clothes unless they were clearanced down to $1 or $2. We don't eat out (We cook better than most restaurants anyway). We see few movies. That's ok with me as I have serious issues with the amount of money movie people make and I'd hate to support that. Buying new mascara is an expense I have to plan for. But, we adore our kids and live for them (but not through them-important distinction!) and are happy. We'd like a bigger house, and when this one sells that will happen. I'll never drive anything but a base model low-end car, and am fine with that too. It's all about what's important to you. Know that, and life gets less complicated.

When the youngest hits kindergarten, I'll finish my masters and hit the workforce, and then we can afford to travel! Will still be driving a base model car though.

I did my "live for me" stint in my early twenties. It was fun. I would never recommend marriage or kids without having had that first.

Amy,

I don't know about racist, but the one post that set off all those hordes was probably a little bit unfair.

You've written before to the effect that women are hard-wired to seek out the strongest, most financially comfortable males. Unfortunately, in many poor African-American communtites, the existence of an extra-judicial market for popular, illegal products tends to produce those figures in the form of sub-State actors who, necessarily, conduct judicial functions through acts of violence.

Would the woman in question have been better-off educating herself, becoming self-sufficient and having children in the context of a monogamous marriage with a responsible, honest man or else, having no children at all? Well, yes, and she should have done either of those.

But she didn't. Since she didn't, her decision to shack up with the richest, most powerful males available to her isn't totally irrational from the standpoint of seeking what she is ostensibly, predispositionally hard-wired to seek.

It's not that she is, as a few progressives would have it, a child who must be shielded from and absolved of her own bad decisions.

It is, however, worth noting: by encouraging a vibrant black-market, our system has stacked the deck in such a way that a (somewhat) rational, incentivized, evolution-influenced decision can inevitably, on aggregate, result in a lot of tragedies like this one.

Lovelysoul,
I think your plain-spokenness is to be appreciated, but I do have to admit that the suggestion that the US should involuntarily sterilize non-criminals for purposes of social-engineering (or that it should set minimum or maximum child allotments) is the kind of thing I'd hoped only to read about in dystopian sci-fiction novels and newspaper articles about China.

Steve,

Amy's point wasn't that it was irrational for her to shack up with drug dealers, it was that it was irresponsible and reprehensible. That we shouldn't protect her image, but rather vilify her for her choices.

The reasoning being that, if we try to defend her choices, rational or not, we'll encourage other people to go along with her.

Also, just because a choice is rational or logical does not make it the right choice, or a good one. Especially not if you start from a premise of a bad decision...For example,

Let's say that one day I decide I don't like kittens. In fact, I dislike them so much, that I think they all must die. Given that I think all kittens must die, it would be perfectly rational for me to go on a kitten killing crusade. It would even be rational for me to leave cats alive, but not kittens. It would not, however, be looked upon kindly by most people.

Why is it that y'all libertarian types have spent these last several days arguing that the decisions, poor or not, made by a free citizen of the United States justifies that armed agents of the Federal Government burst into her home without warning and shot her dead?

Am I to believe that libertarians are cool with the Federal Government bursting into a citzen's home unannounced wielding deadly weapons?

James Madison would be ashamed of you people.

Why is it that y'all libertarian types have spent these last several days arguing that the decisions, poor or not, made by a free citizen of the United States justifies that armed agents of the Federal Government burst into her home without warning and shot her dead?

WHY IS IT THAT SO MANY MOTHERUFCKERS THAT HAVE COMPUTERS CANNOT FUCKING UNDERSTAND SIMPLE SENTENCES?

Reading Comprehension. You really ought to try it some time.

And why the fuck would any sane person willingly read anything written in a Hitler apologist's rag?

Is engish your secomd or third younge povertyrich?

If not you really have no ecuse for being so stupid

No one said it was justifyed - we said given current laws and police practices it was not UNEXPECTED that the cop might raid a crack house to catch a crack dealer

> You've written before to the effect
> that women are hard-wired to seek
> out the strongest, most financially
> comfortable males.

Men are hard-wired to seek out the most youthful, soft-skinned, firm-breasted females.

But they're expected to do better than their wiring, right?

Human nature doesn't excuse malfeasance.

> Comparatively, I really don't
> see why it is so much more
> "selfish" for a single,
> financially set woman, who can
> provide all the benefits to a
> child, to have one.

Because there's more to childhood than finance.

Your ultimate sentence fragment ("to have one") gives the impression that you think of childrearing as a righteous consumer fulfillment, the way I might "have" a new sports car. It ain't.

> I thought about Cathy when
> they were after me

Oh PUH-LEEZE... You were (are) being spammed by one lonely computer geek. This was not an assualt by a nest of bloodthirsty progressive vipers.

> chuckles at how they call each
> other "nigga" all the time.

You're in good company. Kaus did a post about that this week. But I maintain that white people who get too prissy about this minor, contextual figure of address think about race more often if they need to, even if they're not actually racist.

> Besides, they can always tell
> themselves that a "positive male
> role model" is a plug-n-play
> substitute for an actual father.

The previous matter notwithstanding, I still adore you, PJ.

> are either not yet in junior
> high - or enjoy being obnoxious
> and unoriginal.

Jesus Fuck: Tressider is precisely on target. Someone call the Times.

> We do not outlaw rape or robbery
> because it is "morally worng,"
> although it certainly is -

Has anyone established conclusively that WolfManMac isn't one of the Vandal's identities? Because he's boring and impersonal enough that much would be explain. See also, "Lovelysoul"... And notice how they enjoy canoodling there in the corner.

Crid, not just one -- many. I know you believe this, but I see the various IPs, and when they aren't from Germany, and when some of them lead back to actual blogs, it's clear.

As for this pathetic idiocy:

Why is it that y'all libertarian types have spent these last several days arguing that the decisions, poor or not, made by a free citizen of the United States justifies that armed agents of the Federal Government burst into her home without warning and shot her dead?

My question is: Is the commenter who left this just somebody who has an IQ hovering around that of the speed limit (the neighborhood one, we're not talking highway), or do they see appearing really, really dim as a possible way to waste my time?

Here, I'll recopy, from one of the many times I've said this, for one of our learning disabled friends from SadlyPathetic:

Now, I don't like our drug laws, and I think it's reprehensible to do a SWAT raid on a house with six children on it, but that wasn't the main focus of my blog post. As I wrote:

"...the fact remains that the police generally don't seek to break down the doors of homes of women who've had five boyfriends who are all, say, accountants, architects, or managers at Subway."

The SadlyPathetic's were irate that I didn't write it their way. I told one of their commenters, if they wanted a different angle on the story, they were free to go open their own blog and have at it. (Whoops...did I forget to kowtow?)

You are being spoofed.

And it's working, because...

> (Whoops...did I forget to kowtow?)

It flatters you.

C'mon, snap out of it.

I think the ones coming from Germany, etc., are one loser.

The rest are various and sundry tiny mush brains.

You're probably right. Just keep in mind that all of these tiny thuggy trolls have this in common: they could drench themselves in gallons of clue musk, go out into a field full of horny clues, dance the clue-mating ritual, and not ONE of them. would get. a clue.

Just sayin'. o_O

Lovelysoul, have you ever heard of the Carrie Buck case? if you have, I'll remind you it was decided by none other than Oliver Wendell Holmes, a man venerated in Leftist politics and a practitioner of law when leftists did not not only not deny they were fascists, they boasted of it and wanted to export it throughout the world. If you haven't, you might read it (it is a one page S.C. opinion, available online) and consider this - Carrie Buck was epileptic. Margaret Sanger (founder of planned parenthood) was an unabashed eugenicist. If you are suggesting what I think you are (involuntary sterilization), I might gently urge you to remember where such thinking has historically taken mankind, and remind you of Santayana warning. Just a thought.

This is hardly worth responding to. We "large L" Libertarians also argue against compulsory public education, among the grounds we stand on is that its final result is, at great expense, people less educated and capable of rational thought than an average child left alone in a room full of books for 12 years would be. You seem to be demonstrating the veracity of that position.

Has anyone established conclusively that WolfManMac isn't one of the Vandal's identities? Because he's boring and impersonal enough that much would be explain. See also, "Lovelysoul"... And notice how they enjoy canoodling there in the corner.

Posted by: Crid [cridcridatgmail] at August 20, 2008 11:17 PM

Well, Crids onto me. Should I leave now Amy?

"But I maintain that white people who get too prissy about this minor, contextual figure of address think about race more often if they need to, even if they're not actually racist."

Noticing something isn't quite the same thing as getting "too prissy" about it. Having grown up with the teaching that the n-word is just about the worst thing you can say, it does seem a little strange to hear black people themselves calling each other that. If you grow up in the rural Midwest where there are hardly any black people to begin with, it's certainly a mystery.

"Your ultimate sentence fragment ("to have one") gives the impression that you think of childrearing as a righteous consumer fulfillment, the way I might "have" a new sports car. It ain't."

Exactly. It makes me wonder, with this increasing tide of children being raised by single mothers (whether in poverty or not), whether we won't end up with a significant portion of the population in another 50 years that simply does not see the value of fathers at all.

I would suggest we are there now, Pirate Jo. The idea that fathers are essential to a childs upbringing is seen as, at best quaint and at worst hopelessly neanderthal.

I would suggest we are there now, Pirate Jo. The idea that fathers are essential to a childs upbringing is seen as, at best quaint and at worst hopelessly neanderthal.
This is not to say that a single parent cannot raise a child or children and do a good job. But to compare the situations as equally desireable is like pointing to a person with artificial legs who runs marathons and saying, "see - having no legs is as good as having them."
The first woman a young boy falls in love with is his mother. The first man a young girl falls in love with is her father. if either of these relationships are absent or screwed up, the repercussions can be and often are lifelong, if only manifested in screwed up relationships with the opposite sex.
I consider that self evident. Apparently its radical.

I would NEVER suppport involuntary sterilization. OMG, no! What I was suggesting is that the state has the right and responsibility to set up proper voluntary incentives rather than continually support bad choices. There are a variety of impermanant birth control options that could be offered, rather than sterilization.

Besides, a woman is always free not to live off welfare, especially if we offer truly good alternatives, like returning to school or work/study programs. I'd rather offer MORE assistance for people doing that than to those doing nothing but having babies. In the long run, it's cheaper.

And, I agree that ideally children should have both parents. Yet, "ideally" rarely happens in our world. In fact, for centuries, fathers have died in wars and mothers routinely died in childbirth. If you base raising children ONLY on having the ideal situation, then whole generations before us would've died out, rather than growing up successfully, despite many adverse circumstances, not the least of which was missing one or both parents.

So, I don't think it's fair to treat a well-off single parent as more "selfish" than a poor set of parents bringing another child into the world that they can barely afford. They may have the proper modeling, but comparatively, the financially well-off parent is supplying much more than "finances".

My children have gotten the best education available, starting with private preschool, which surely gave them a head start in life. They've had more of my time because, being self-employed, it's been more flexible.

Three years ago, I took them out of school and we spent a month in Spain and Italy. They've traveled extensively all around the world and experienced many different cultures.

What I'm saying is that every child's life has some "pros" and some "cons". Some have lousy mothers, or lousy fathers, or not enough food and clothing, or fewer opportunities.

Ask any teen and they'll tell you there has been SOMETHING about their lives that they counsider less than "ideal". But being a good parent isn't about creating an ideal; it's about loving them and giving them all that you have to offer.

And, frankly, a bright, financially-secure, emotionally stable parent has a lot to offer that offsets the "con" of not having the other parent, especially in comparison to immature and uneducated parents.

To assume that a well-educated single woman only wants to have a child to shop at "Baby Gap" is insulting! There are plenty of married, yet extremely immature, 21 yr old moms, barely making ends meet, having kids because they want to "dress them up" and treat them dolls. But a 35 yr old woman, with a college-education and more life experience isn't likely to take the choice of motherhood so lightly.

>>In Moynihan's case as much as I agree with his conclusion his choice of words were spectacularly poor. Now I'm not sure if the term Negro was offensive back then so I might be off.

No, the term Negro had not yet been declared unacceptable in the Sixties. Negro in all the Roman languages means, "Black". Period.

I have always found this strange. I know there are black people out there, but most people of African descent I have known in the US are not black at all. They are the prettiest dark brown that could ever be.

I worked with a man who said blacks have a violence gene. I am convinced that a study of single parent white families are not distinctly different from single parent black families, except when they live in a small ghetto area which magnifies the problems.

>>Noticing something isn't quite the same thing as getting "too prissy" about it. Having grown up with the teaching that the n-word is just about the worst thing you can say, it does seem a little strange to hear black people themselves calling each other that. If you grow up in the rural Midwest where there are hardly any black people to begin with, it's certainly a mystery.

Pirate Jo,
I was gob-smacked to see your name at the end of this - I'd assumed it was going to be Momof3! (Since she also claimed recently she was confused on this point).

Why is the potentially insulting use of that word still a "mystery" to you when you've already stated (earlier in the thread) & with great charm: "It's just one of the words that the Knights Who Used to Say 'Nee' cannot say..."?

When I was about ten, I once used a contextually "bad" racial term to a group of girls I didn't like and to whom the word technically applied.

Fortunately for my inner growth as a smug liberal, I used the word in the deep end of a salt water swimming pool.

Once I'd surfaced after a prolonged dunking at the hands of the offended group, the "mystery" of its contextual offense was pretty much cleared up. I can recommend the experience.

>>My boyfriend, who is 48, told me that his high school teacher seduced him and another teacher seduced his friend. At 15, they would go hang out at these teachers' house (they were roomates) and have sex. He doesn't seem traumatized at all by this. In fact, it seems like a pretty fond memory. ;-)

>>Yet, a female, due to the very opposite socialization regarding her sexuality, and different cultural norms, might still be dealing with emotional scars.

You sure know how to pull my string, don't you?
Well, at least you are consistently feminist.

My best friend is 70 years old. When he was 11, he was seduced (i.e. - raped) by an adult woman.

Did he feel traumatized? No. He loved it.

But, the next 35 years, he spent every possible moment looking for the next willing vagina. He never learned about dating, or courtship, he never learned to view women as human beings with a mind. He never married or had his own family.

At times, he would be with several women in the same night, and go to work the next day without time to shower. He was pure trash.

In his 40's, as his hormones dropped, he realized that 'favor' done to him by an adult woman had actually destroyed his life, for the most part.

Also, if you stop reading only feminist magazines, and talking only to feminists, you can quickly learn that many young men develop serious emotional problems after being raped by adult women, including suicides.

>>Speaking of single mothers...

>>How about single fathers by choice?

>>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080820/ap_en_ce/people_ricky_martin

>>I don’t think I have ever heard of a single man having a surrogate have his children.

I read postings by two men just this week who had surrogate children. Colombia. They are advocating it for men who do not wish to become involved in the divorce laws of the Anglosphere.

I do not think it is a good idea, but if women can be single moms, so can men. IT's called equality.

I don't read feminist magazines. I'm not a feminist. I usually don't even like most women. I am a "practalist", for lack of a better word. I was just pointing out the practical difference between how those situations are usually perceived by males and females.

But there are always exceptions, and at age 11, your friend wasn't even in puberty yet. That was plain rape in my opinion. That woman should be in jail. Too bad there's probably a staute of limitations.

>>I do not think it is a good idea, but if women can be single moms, so can men. IT's called equality.

Don't be daft, irlandes.

Men have to arrange for the use of a womb in the circumstances you describe. Biology has yet to distribute these functions equally.

(That's a very sad and troubling story about your friend, btw. But I'm not sure it proves what you think it proves).

>>I'm not a feminist. I usually don't even like most women. I am a "practalist", for lack of a better word.

Then find a better word, lovelysoul.

(And I don't just mean the typo! I'm just extremely suspicious of women who twitter they "don't even like most women". It sounds charmless and possibly stupid.)

Michael Jackson did it, as well, which is scary. Yet, from all accounts, his kids are well-adjusted, but who knows?

I believe Ricky Martin is gay, though he's never officially come out of the closet. He probably has a partner.

Jody, I just get tired of being called a feminist here, when I'm not. As I've said in a previous thread, most of my life, women have been catty and mean to me. It wasn't until I became a mom that I was even "accepted" by most women. And I still find that I get along mostly with other women, who, like me, who were kind of "outcasts" from the "sisterhood".

So, it's funny that I'm labeled a "feminist" here. I don't hate women, nor do I hate men. I take people as individuals, and I try to see both sides.

"Why is the potentially insulting use of that word still a "mystery" to you when you've already stated (earlier in the thread) & with great charm: "It's just one of the words that the Knights Who Used to Say 'Nee' cannot say..."?"

I think you misunderstood me - I understand that it is still an insulting word. The mystery for me is why black people would frequently call each other that. It's a compliment coming from a black person, but an insult coming from a white person? Huh ... but oh well. I'm not going to lose any sleep over it, or start using the expression myself.

>>And I still find that I get along mostly with other women, who, like me, who were kind of "outcasts" from the "sisterhood".

Fine. Fair enough. Understood and all that, lovelysoul.

But it's probably best to keep away from broad, somewhat unhinged statements like your earlier one: "I usually don't even like most women".

I thought you had some agonizing, self-hating stuff going on!

I thought you had some agonizing, self-hating stuff going on!

She's not emo.

>>The mystery for me is why black people would frequently call each other that. It's a compliment coming from a black person, but an insult coming from a white person? Huh...

Pirate Jo,
Nah - no mystery there.

It's just funny, provocative - a kind of smug (your word!) one upmanship. It has the same function as jargon - its usage confers membership privileges. It's also grabbing the gun - and smoothly turning it back on the attacker...

Look, I know you know all this. You're starting to remind me of my grandmother - who went to her grave saying for the millionth time : tell me again exactly what it is lesbians do?

I figured she just enjoyed hearing the answer!

You're right, Jody. I should've said it better. And "pragmatist" would've been a better word.

You know, I took my kids to a science museum once, and they had a machine there that supposedly tested which side of your brain was dominant. Most females are...left brained, I think?

Anyway, mine came out as equal. It said I was part of a small percentage of the population that had no dominant side. I don't know if that's good or bad, but it make sense to me as I don't feel that I particulary view things from just a feminine perspective, and I relate very well to the way men think. I've always had just as many male friends as female ones.

>>Anyway, mine came out as equal. It said I was part of a small percentage of the population that had no dominant side.

One of those "fun" science museum machines said I was 100% feminine. So I gave it a really, really nasty little kick:)

Jody, I don't think you "get" that there are approximately six black people living in the entire state where I have lived my whole life. Yes, I understand the concept behind black usage of the n-word, but it takes a bit to catch on, if you are unfamiliar with the concept. I'm pretty sure my 65-year-old mother, who still lives out in the country and goes years at a stretch without even seeing a black person, would be completely shocked.

>>I'm pretty sure my 65-year-old mother, who still lives out in the country and goes years at a stretch without even seeing a black person, would be completely shocked.

Pirate Jo,

We weren't talking about your mother, though!

Look, I understand - it's like people "not" understanding about the new meaning of gay....Fine. Some people will never get it. Granted. Forever a terrible mystery and an elusively slippery concept.

Don't worry - I've given up too.

Well, frankly, I don't believe young boys seduced by older women come to no harm and it enrages me every bit as much. Possibly because my ex lost his virginity at 11 and remembered even earlier than that walking around orgies his parents (they were swingers, he wasn't even sure his father was his father) and laying his head on bare breasts. It explains a lot. There were reasons he was fucked up but they are just that -- reasons.

But reasons do not excuses make. If you let my ex off the hook because he was a victim then you have to look at those who victimized him in turn and something made them like they were. Pretty soon there's no personal responsiblity for anyone and all you have is a big bloody mess of victims creating more and more victims instead of civilization.

My parents beat me. I chose when I was 7 to never make my child feel that way. Even when you are taught something is the norm, you have a brain and there's no excuse for not using it.

I guess that's really what the whole debate over Tarika boils down to. If reasons make for excuses. If you let people off the hook for their irresponsible behavior based on excuse after excuse. Some we have legally defined and accepted (such as self-defense) but you can't make too many excuses and still have a free society.

What's been said in her defense may be reasons but it doesn't let her off the hook as far as her irresponsible behavior goes.

Not unless you want to let every pedophile who is one because he/she was a victim when they were a child off the hook.

Same dif.

And take it from this single grandmother, single motherhood is not about liberation, damn it. Quite the opposite. Even if you did have more money than me.

>>What's been said in her defense may be reasons but it doesn't let her off the hook as far as her irresponsible behavior goes.

T's Grammy,

The irony of arguing whether or not a corpse should be "let off the hook" does not escape me.

I do understand your point, however.

Had Tarika lived - and was now screaming about being an "innocent" civilian casualty of an ill-judged no-knock raid, I'd probably agree with your general drift. (Also, thanks for the friendly words in one of the monster threads. They were appreciated by this argumentative bat!)

T's Grammy, I think there's a difference between showing empathy and letting someone off the hook. I have empathy for the limited options people, like Tarika, have, but I still believe there should be consequences for making poor choices. I feel empathy for someone like your ex (and mine), who was molested and abused, and has struggled with sexual demons and mental issues ever since.

Yet, it doesn't mean that I feel pedophiles shouldn't be locked up. Male or female. I also don't advocate that the female teachers should go unpunished because their victims were male. Those boys are still underage, no matter what their response to the experience was.

I have just been quite suprised when my boyfriend and other men have told me of similar events with older women, especially teachers, in the past. One guy I dated was seduced by a married neighbor when he was 16. He didn't seem traumatized by that experience or tell the story in a "victimized" sort of way.

We have to remember that 100 years ago people were often married and sexually active by the age of 16. We have extended childhood beyond where most cultures do - well past puberty.

Still, there is a world of difference between 11 and 16. A male who is well into or past puberty would experience a sexual encounter very differently than a prepubescent child. A young man, like my boyfriend, at 15, can conceivably make a willing choice, but not as a child. Those adults clearly abused their power over an innocent child.

Thanks, Dave From Hawaii!

You're welcome.

That article encapsulates every single issue that has shaped my entire core political philosophy. It is why I am a libertarian and vehement anti-feminist.

The single biggest disaster and root causes of so much that is wrong with society today has been the proliferation of single mother households that have been promulgated by changes in family law and divorce law by feminist activists.

The black American family was the proverbial canary in a coal mine.

The truth is that the welfare state and all of the actions that have been taken to destroy the role of the Father and promote divorce and single motherhood are all cultural mores that have been deliberately fostered with the intent of creating a Government dependent underclass easily manipulated and controlled.

The white underclass in Britain has every single pathology that manifests in the black ghettos of America.

We have the same here in Hawaii in the native Hawaiian areas that are rife with single mother households subsidized by the Welfare state.

It is NOT a race thing...It's a government thing. Create welfare subsidy systems, you create incentives to perpetuate a permanent underclass.

Here is a far more intensive reading that covers the same issues Senator Moynihan discovered in his research: Dr. Daniel Amneus, author of The Garbage Generation.

Dave, I read some of "The Garbage Generation", which, unless I'm misreading, seems to imply that it would be better for women to give up "autonomy over their bodies" to provide "incentives" for men to marry them. "Chastity" seems to be more important than love.

I was just reading another article about the history of marriage, and it said that only in recent history has love even been a part of marriage. Initially, men married women purely for breeding and economic purposes. Upper class men then had courtesans to provide them passion and companionship, yet even that wasn't for love. In fact, it was considered embarrassing for a man to expess love towards his courtesan. The highest form of love was considered to be between men - in the "brotherly" sense (supposedly).

The aristocracy gradually began changing this structure, as men indeed fell in love with their courtesans and discovered love was an enrichment to their lives. However, at first, love still wasn't considered a reasonable basis for marriage by the church, which shamed people for experiencing any passion, even within marriage. Marriage was solely for procreational purposes.

So, if "The Garbage Generation" article is true, and the patriarcal family structure is only a few thousand years old, then our current expectations of the loving husband and father is even more recent - at least the loving husband part.

Yet, over the last few centuries, that has become the new ideal for marriage, as both men and women have come to understand that there is much more than economics and childrearing to be found within the marital relationship. It is love which is the new ideal.

So, I think we have evolved to a point where there is no reverting back to the old structure. Although it is much rarer, when it works - when there is true love between a man and woman and they build a family together - it is so much richer and rewarding!

Yet, the very specialness of it is what makes it so fragile, so easily broken. Therefore, our relationships fall apart more often, but that is because our AIM is much higher - to actually be IN LOVE with each other.

As everyone knows, finding and maintaining love is much harder, but I doubt most people would forfeit that ideal, even for the relative stability of the old patriarcal structure or to solve social problems.

The main point of "The Garbage Generation" is that Fatherhood (Patriarchy) is an artificial construct that needs to be supported by the force of law to avoid the pathologies that manifest when Matriarchy is the paradigm.

To put it succinctly, Amneus makes the case that Patriarchy IS civilization. It's putting men to work to support their families. It was the primary impetus for Western Civilization. When most men had a wife and kids to support, they were extremely motivated. Take that role away (which is what has essentially happened with no-fault divorce and social acceptance and legal support of single motherhood), and you get all the social chaos as documented by Sen. Moynihan.

By eliminating the most meaningful role males can aspire to -- a provider and head of his household -- the inevitable result is young males going "feral" and young females breed irresponsibly creating the conditions for a repeating cycle of inter-generational poverty.

Yet, the very specialness of it is what makes it so fragile, so easily broken.

No...what makes it so easily broken is the laws that have been enacted at the behest of feminists that make divorce easily obtainable, and took away any penalty for women that broke their marriage contracts. What also makes it easily broken is the cultural paradigm of self-centered narcissism promoted by feminism.

Our culture is saturated with the propaganda that essentially tells women that they can and should break up their families and inflict trauma on their children's lives by getting rid of their father...all for nothing more than "unhappiness" or "I no longer am in love."

So, I think we have evolved to a point where there is no reverting back to the old structure.

You mean we've reached a point where we just have to accept this notion that the marriage contract is the the only contract in which a party can default and not pay a penalty for abrogating it? In fact, if the offending party is a woman, she even benefits financially from breaking her contract?

See, this is what happens with pendulums.

Some percentage of women experience abuse in marriage, some men want an easy way out from under a woman that they don't want any more, and we get no-fault divorce.

People feel bad that there's poverty, we get comprehensive welfare in the form of WIC and AFDC.

And then we wonder why everything is fucked up. We took something that worked most of the time, and made it obsolete.

Oh, and LS - love is overrated. Most of the "no-fault" divorces that happen are on the basis of "I fell out of love".

As I have said so many times (and Mr. Spock would concur) - emotion is not a sound sole basis for a relationship.

Dave, you're assuming that women are always the ones who "break the contract", and that really is unfair since men break it at least as often. They are equally responsible for the breakdown of marriages for "falling out of love".

And since men already had a long history of having courtesans and lovers on the side, which gender has really been more narcissitic? Men were free to find love elsewhere. In fact, their finding it changed the whole course of marriage for both genders.

As a result, I don't think men or women today really want to adhere to that old "force of laws". No one - male or female - wants to be married to anyone they no longer love or who no longer loves them. It might've been bearable when we lived on average to, say, 30, but these days, "till death do us part" is a VERY long sentence. That's another thing that has changed drastically - our life expectancy.

So, some here have said we at least need to stick it out with people we hate being married to (or who hate being married to us) until the kids are all in college. But I don't see that as doing such a positive thing for children. I see the hostility in those homes. I know the hostility that existed in mine before I finally called it quits on our 20 yr marriage 4 years ago. Even with years of therapy, it just wasn't salvageable.

I'm really glad I did not wait. My children would've only suffered longer. And my ex and I actually have a better, more peaceful relationship today - as co-parents and business partners - than we would've had for the past 4 years being miserable together.

You really cannot know how children suffered in days past from the same contentious relationships. You are assuming that it was always, and in every case, positive. Yet, since no one was even expected to have a joyous, passionate, "best-friend", and loving sort of relationship with their spouses in those days, we really can't compare those two family models. All we know is that they raised kids. Happy kids? Well-balanced kids? We don't really know. Modern psychology wasn't invented yet.

What we do know is that we have a problem within certain ethnic groups, who are not faring well, by our modern standards. Yet, we have always had poverty, and children suffering greatly as a result of poverty. It is nothing particularly new.

Yet, those problems, just like in the past, don't effect the upper classes as greatly as the lower classes. To use prison statistics as if they are the same for children across the board is disengenuous. Poor kids are much more likely to resort to crime and end up in prison, whether they have two parents are not. It just so happens that a lot of poor families today, particularly in the black communities, are matriarchal.

So, the article takes the matriarchal part of that and tries to place the blame purely on it, rather than the fact that poor children, throughout history, have ended up committing more crimes. It's just not a fair argument.

Brian, I know you think love is "overrated", but I really find that sad. I truly hope someone comes along and changes your mind.

At any rate, I doubt you would've been happier 300 years ago - married to some plain, intellectually dull woman you didn't love, coming home to your 10 kids because there was no birth control...or catching syphillus from your courtesan.

This whole "the old days were better" is a myth. In some ways, yes, but give me the ability to love and be loved. There is really nothing better in life.

What we should do is train our kids better in how to choose spouses. How to tell when someone really loves you - not your money or looks. How to spot mental illness. Given our life expectancy, maybe we should even raise the marriage age. Choosing a spouse is an extremely important decision, yet we expect our young to make it when they're extremely immature and without almost any training.

The bar has risen on relationships. There's no going back. You'll never force people, by law, to tolerate loveless relationships again. The door is open. Within the next century, we will have gay marriage and a variety of family constructs.

And yes, that is because women do have a choice now. But so do men. And, yes, that forces us both to become better at maintaining love - giving love - which means we cannot be controlling or abusive.

Some may find that constrictive, but I tend to think that those who do are just bitter that they can no longer act with impunity within their relationships.

ls - Debating this with you is pointless, as you have your own life experiences that color the point that is the overall picture here.

The main point here is this: when "at-fault" divorce was the norm, both husband and wife had significant legal ramifications for breaking the marriage contract. So you had a lot less broken homes. If you were "not in love" anymore, you sucked it up, acted like an adult and tried to create a pleasant as possible environment for the kids to grow up in.

If you were with an abusive husband that physically/sexually assaulted you, you could still get a divorce and he still paid for breaking the contract. This is NOT what happens now. Now people get divorced for any old reason. The sad part is that it is the kids that pay the price.

Perhaps you should read the entire Garbage Generation book before you pass judgment on what I wrote about it.

Dave, my life experiences are not so different from most. The problem with "fault" divorces is that they consumed much more legal resources and court time. A partner would have to PROVE infidelity - with private investigators, video cameras, etc. It's not easy, trust me. I tried it. Never got past, "We're just friends" excuse.

And, even then, what if your cheating partner didn't want a divorce? What if he/she just wanted to "love other people but still love you too"... or watch lots of porn...like my ex. Does exposing the kids to porn count as grounds for divorce? If so, what counts as porn?

See, there were just too many gray areas that the courts couldn't address. The accused party would argue innocence, and it just dragged things out to brutal lengths, which caused greater damage for all involved, especially children.

It was absolutely the right call to finally say, "We don't care anymore why your marriage is dysfunctional or who is to blame." It was consuming too many resources in an already overburdened system.

ls -

I'm not saying the old days were better. I'm saying that people getting married because they are "in love" is the problem.

Love is an emotion. Emotions are not fixed. If you are in love today, the odds are very good that at some future point you won't be. And if your entire marriage was based upon being "in love", you are pretty much guaranteed to fail.

When the point of marriage was to raise children, then that was what you did. And people got their emotional fixes elsewhere. Better? I don't know.

But in an era where women were a lot less likely to work in the first place, and even when they did they weren't capable of earning as much as a man, a single mother was not going to have a good time of it.

And with the application of the welfare state, we've re-created that situation, only instead of it being shameful, it is now encouraged.

You're right, there's no way to put the genie back in the bottle. Which means that either we find a way to discourage those who are not committed to parenting from having children, or we at least discourage the least capable from keeping them after they've been born.

And I'm sure one of our lovely trolls will come by to tell me how racist and evil and whatever else I am, but it's a solution.

Not the best one, but I highly doubt there is a "best" solution. What we have now, however, plainly sucks.

>>ls - Debating this with you is pointless, as you have your own life experiences that color the point that is the overall picture here.

Dave from Hawaii,

If the ideas promoted in The Garbage Generation can be properly debated only by people with the correct "life experiences," - as you put it - that sounds like a flaw in the ideas.

Maybe there's too much preaching to the choir in this book?

Thanks, Jody.

Brian, I agree with you. There has to be more to it than the feeling of being "in love". That changes based on our maturity (and hormone) levels.

I tell my kids that they can't get married until they're at least 30, and I'm only half-kidding. I do hope they wait. Who you are - and who you would choose for a mate - changes dramatically from 20 to 30.

I also think there should be a required high school course on relationships. Not sex ed, but romance ed. We have a lot of psychological data now about what makes couples compatible and what to look for in a healthy relationship, so we should put that information to better use.

Kids don't necessarily pick it up from watching mom and dad. Besides, they're not likely to only encounter partners like dear old mom or dear old dad.

Men, particularly, tend to choose looks over substance, and women tend to choose status over...sanity (in my case! lol).

A lot of trauma and divorce could be avoided if we simply educated the next generation about these dynamics and their pitfalls. As the mom of a recent high school grad, I can attest that we teach them more about calculus, which most will never use, than we do about these critical relationship tools.

Also, if we wanted to get really creative and reinvent the wheel, so to speak, we could revert back to the old patriarchal model, but with a modern twist.

We seem to agree that families were more stable when love wasn't the aim. In fact, that may have been why the church was so against having love enter into marriage at all. Love is what makes relationships so volatile.

When marriage was purely an economic and procreational arrangement - essentially a business contract - it was much more stable. The introduction of love instantly changed that.

So, we could take love out of the equation again. We could mandate that parents can't be "in love" with each other. They should be friends and contractually-obligated co-parents, yet with none of the emotional volatility that love provokes. As Brian says, they could get their emotional "fix" elsewhere.

That's unlikely, of course, but I do suspect that's what some mature, financially-stable single women, who are deciding to have children, are considering. They see the volatility in modern relationships - the high divorce rates, the breakdown of the families, the bickering and contention between romantic couples - and think, "Maybe it's more STABLE to do this with a close male friend, not a lover". And who can blame them, since at some level, that is our deeply-ingrained, historical model?

Personally, if I was going to do it, that's how I might think at this point. My single-dad neighbor, Mark, has helped me raise my kids and vice versa. He's been the one to do all the "guy things" with them - camping and fishing, and so forth. (My ex is more of a prissy, "pretty boy", so teaching our son how to "be a man" was better left in Mark's more capable hands anyway). And I, in turn, have been a female role model to his daughter, who is like a sister to my own.

So, without even realizing it, he and I have had this unspoken, successful co-parenting agreement.

Yet, the good thing is, he'll never get mad at me for leaving the cap off the toothpaste, and I won't yell at him for leaving his socks on the floor. Our relationship, as friends and co-parents, is probably a lot more stable and long-lasting than if we were lovers. And that stability, after all, is what kids really need in their lives.

>>Thanks, Jody.

My pleasure, lovelysoul.

On this one, I think you've made some fantastic points.

The main bit I disagree with is the idea that "love" really only came into the picture in modern times as an ideal requirement for marriage.

Chaucer had his low life characters merrily debating whether a loveless marriage was even worth the bother - because it made both the husband and wife miserable and vicious - back in 1400.

He had great fun exploring how husbands who took the "head of the household" role too seriously condemned themselves to hell on earth!

>>Personally, if I was going to do it, that's how I might think at this point. My single-dad neighbor, Mark, has helped me raise my kids and vice versa.

Lovelysoul,
Now that's an adorable picture!

It requires - of course - that both you and Mark remain unattached.

The moment Mark falls in lust with some strumpet who takes all his energy, votes Republican & wants him to join the golf club, your goose is cooked! And, say, you fall for Dave from Hawaii - and Dave feels threatened by neighbor Mark poaching on his territory and his "new" stepchildren, it'll all end in tears!

So - yeah - sexless co-parenting can work. But it may not be generally possible.

That's funny, Jody. Here's the article I was reading. My mom sent it to me. I probably haven't quoted all the facts properly, but I think I got the "gist" of it right:

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/08/09/marriage_history/?source=newsletter

Lovelysoul,

Indeed, you got the gist exactly right!

And if you look at one of the first - really first rate - Salon comments to your linked article, the writer asks with great exasperation and dazzling accuracy:

Marriage-for-love seems to be a recognized ideal throughout all civilizations. Why do so many sociologists seek to disprove this?

Basically, one gets a very, very partial and theory-based picture of expectations and marriage through the centuries if you ONLY look at church authority or the effete "rules" of courtly love.

Widen your references and you suddenly find the common man and woman grumbling like mad about their own earthy experiences & voicing their ancient need for love & mutual compatibility in marriage, and bitching about biblical injunctions that it's only better to marry if you can't control your filthy sexual desire...

The Chaucer I referenced earlier is key here. The passage I have in mind (and I am paraphrasing here!) famously begins..

"What the FUCK does the church know about ordinary men and women...?"

How about this -- you're all right? Okay, partially. I'm gonna take the middle road position.

Firstly, Dave from H, stop comparing a life with a business. It does not equate. Therefore, it's too emotional for the marriage contract to ever boil down to a business contract.

That said, it does, however, need to be taken more seriously and entered into less lightly. You are right about that. Both parties should go into it with at least the intent to try and make it work and willing to work on it when differences arise as is inevitable when each party grows and changes. I don't think you can set down in stone at, for the sake of argument let's say age 30, that these are the conditions we both agree to forever or even the next 20 years. Because we don't know.

Maybe something where you each define what you are seeking of marriage and allow each to seek amendments to the contract when/if they feel it necessary. If there's no meeting of the minds of what the marriage is to be, no marriage occurs. If amendments (and I don't for one second believe that model you like to use, the business contract, is never amended; I'm woefully uneducated here but you just have to look around to see that it is all the time) aren't met on the parties can concede the points or dissolve the partnership -- as is done in business. However, other interested parties (the children) interests have to be considered.

I also think the no-fault divorce should continue strictly because if a partner turns into a horror movie monster (exaggeration is on purpose), the other needs an escape hatch. If you need to run for your life, you should be able to. Point blank.

Maybe instead of making a divorce harder to obtain, the answer really lies in making a marriage harder to get. I disagree that love needs to be taken out of the equation. I think for a marriage to truly work, it takes deep abiding love/affection and respect for one another. What needs to happen is the ability to distinguish love and lust/infatuation. They are not the same thing and the inexperienced (i.e., young adults who are most apt to marry on impulse) don't often recognized that.

Maybe we need a betrothal period for a year or some other period set by law before a legal marriage can occur. The couple would first have to seek a betrothal license (the opposite of a separation agreement) before being allowed to marry. It would probably be wise to say you'd have to attend classes, with the stipulation that the solutions you worked out in class be part of the marriage contract, to do things like budgets together, how many children you will and will not have, who's responsibilities will be things like mowing the lawn or doing the laundry (with an endorsement by the other party that they will pick up the responsibility for those tasks if their partner is ill or injured for more than it is reasonable to allow said task to go undone).

How many would still go through with the wedding a year later if they were already breaking down into fighting over nonsense like this before being legally wed? It astounds me how many couples get married without discussing such major things as having children or not let alone working out all the mundane details that can undo a marriage. If a woman cannot abide the toilet seat up and a guy considers it a pain in the ass to put it down every time, let them find that out before they drive each other insane with it.

And if either is psycho, it's bound to crop up in a year of working out the myriad details. Also, for that matter, stipulate that the marriage contract has to disclose anything like illnesses (including mental) or criminal records; yes, even juvenile.

I think the real problem is it's just too damned easy to wed. Of course, if it were harder there is one more tough question, what happens if baby occurs in the interim. But don't get me started, I think even in a marriage a paternity test should be done to ascertain who mom claims is daddy is.

Uh, Dave, never mind. I think I am proposing a very businesslike contract here after all.

Yes, Jody, but it still seems to me that we're talking about the upper classes. Chaucer would've been part of that educated, elite upper class. And what she's saying is that this idea of marital love trickled down to the masses over three or four hundred years until it was more widely accepted.

That's why I have said that the upper classes' behavior and norms tend to trickle down. Usually, trends don't trickle upward, though some seem very afraid that the lower class behavior of today is going to spread, infecting and destroying all family life and stability.

But I beleive the upper classes first began adjusting to these changes, which are all relatively new - that's the main point of the article - really less than a century we've been dealing with these new roles of gender equality, combined with the added pressure of trying to create a loving, passionate "ideal" of marital partnership, and a lot of our choices, experimental failures, and newfound freedoms trickled down to the lower classes to a devastating effect because they cannot yet afford to support those same freedoms economically.

Now, we - the educated elites - are going to attempt a new social experiment with gay marriages. I support that, although I don't know the outcome. We will not know what impact this will have on social and family structures, across all classes, for a few generations.

Of course, the far right thinks it will be a dismal failure, but I am more optimistic. I think it will create a greater acceptance of varied family constructs. Still, a lot is riding on it. If it fails, society may, in fact, revert back to a more tradional-style marriage, as she says, with women staying home with the children and men leading the more public life. It may create a backlash.

Already, we are seeing that among the christian fundamentalist, who are homeschooling their kids because they do not agree with the secular values taught in public schools, and they are purposely having larger families in order to offset the changes they view as negative within society -to provide more "foot soldiers" for their army, so to speak. The christian moms in my homeschooling group made it pretty clear that was their aim.

So, it would be interesting to see what will ultimately happen. Too bad we won't be around. :(

T's Grammy, I think the betrothel period is a great idea! Having the pre-marital counseling as a part of it would be key.

LS,

You are referring to the "quiverfull" movement. Each child is considered to be an arrow to strike against the evil world, or something like that. It is a bit disturbing.

Amy K, yes, that's right. I remember that term now. I was a bit susprised by that at first, but they seem to be doing a good job raising their kids. It's kind of like an underground movement, and very big into homeschooling.