Conference back40::soapbox

Jesse Helms = Least boinkable

    ...and most in need of it.

	Dole also disagreed with Jessie... Ahhhh.... just how far to the Reich
will we go....

    
    No Northerner can understand Carolina politics.  None of our
    politicians would be elected there, nor theirs here.  Helms
    plays very well to his constituency, and speaks up for them
    when nobody else will.  In fact he gets along with many other
    senators of all persuasions - he makes them laugh.  I hope his
    new chairmanship doesn't make him muzzle his cannon.
    
    By the way, it was a pointed question from a reporter, Fred Barnes,
    that got Jesse in trouble here.  Barnes asked him if he thought
    Clinton was up to the job of Commander-in-Chief.  Helms paused
    and actually said something like, "I better not say anything or
    I'll get myself in trouble."  Then, however, he smiled like he
    had made a decision in his inner self. "Aaah, I'll tell y'all.
    He's not.  My friends in the military tell me so."  After which
    Barnes tried to get him to give names !  Which of course he couldn't
    without destroying somebody's career.  The Democrats all tried to
    make hay out of this.  But I bet Jesse did well with his own
    Carolina consituency.
    
      bb

    >Jesse Helms, new chairmand of the Seate Foreign Relations Committee, 
    >is saying that the President is not up to the job of being Commander 
    >in Chief.
    
    that's not exactly what JH said. nevertheless, he's been around long
    enough to know how to deal with the press. he did a stupid thing. this
    is not news. slick has proven his near incompetance in performing the
    CiC role. its been a disaster, particularly with our allies. no need to
    kick the slick dog while its down. he has proven an amazing ability to
    fail on his very own.
    
    >Gen Shali (Chairman o
    >f JCS) has come out and publicly disagreed with 
    >the Senator. 
    
    this tells us nothing of what shali really thinks. given his position,
    his response is predictable, expected, and appropriate.
    
    

    
    For bragging rights, who can spell the last name of the Chairman
    of the Joint Chiefs ?  (not I...)
    

    Shalikashvili phonetically, but I may have missed a doubled consonant.
    
    DougO

    	The requirements to be CiC are:
    
    	Be over 35 
    
    	Born in U.S.
    
    	Live in U.S. for more then the last seven years.
    
    	Be elected by the U.S. public.
    
    	Clinton meets all of these. Helms coment seems to imply that a
    democraticly elected president is not good enough for him if it he (the
    (president ) is not of Helms liking. He should move to a country with a
    military form of government if he doesn't like ours. Helms himself is a
    good example that you only have to be elected to be a Senator. He
    proves there is no requirement for intelligence or statesmenship.
    
    
    								S.R.

    
    why should Jesse have to leave? he meets all the requirements that 
    WJC met to become the President. He even ran for Pres back in '48.
    
    we may not like him, but he was born here and you can't just toss
    people out of their country for being old and cantakerous. 
    
    who'll stand up for when you are in your nineties? hmm? 

    so what's the big wup on helms' comment?? i've been hearing the same
    thing from friends of mine who are in the military for the past 2
    years. consitutionaly, billary may meet the requirements, but then
    again, if you were in the armed forces, would you have a great deal of
    confidence in someone who wimped his way out of the draft versus
    someone who may have been a war hero, or at least served in some
    capacity in the military?
    
    

 >          <<< Note 83.9 by CALDEC::RAH "the truth is out there." >>>
 >
 >   
 >   why should Jesse have to leave? he meets all the requirements that 
 >   WJC met to become the President. He even ran for Pres back in '48.
    
    You're confusing Helms with the man whose place he took as the most
    despicable member of Congress, Strom Thurmond (only possible because
    Strom actually died a few years ago).
    
    Kit

    Ummmmm Kit, ole Strom is alive a kicking :-)  (I know, I know he
    looks like he's ready for the embalmer, but it hasn't happened yet).
    
    

    In the news today, Jesse told a North Carolina paper that President
    Clinton is so unpopular in NC that if he shows up to visit, he'd better
    bring a bodyguard.

    <- Hooo boy, that Jesse's a card!

    They jail cards like that...

Apparently Jesse doesn't realize that presidents *have* bodyguards.

    I'm sure the comment was purely rhetorical... His only talent.

    
    Secret Service is investigating the comments. Looks like the
    Senator's dementia will have serious consequences.

    I don't mind a bit admitting that I voted for Jesse back in '90.
    Jesse's opposition in the '90 Senate race here was Harvey Gantt,
    a left wing liberal who stood somewhere between Teddy Kennedy and
    Howard Metzenbaum on the issues.  The media had Harvey leading in 
    the polls right up until election day.  Jesse took it in a landslide...
    
    Maybe he has shot off his loose canon a few times, and I agree that
    his comment about Clinton bringing a body guard was totally uncalled
    for, but Jesse stands firm for all of the basic conservative values
    that many (majority) of us in NC believe in.

>    <<< Note 83.12 by DECLNE::REESE "ToreDown,I'mAlmostLevelW/theGround" >>>
>                      -< Ole Strom will be surprised :-) >-
>
>    Ummmmm Kit, ole Strom is alive a kicking :-) 
    
    And in line to chair Judiciary   
    And in line to be president pro temp (as senior Republican in Senate -
    senior senator overall, in fact)
    
> (I know, I know he
>    looks like he's ready for the embalmer, but it hasn't happened yet).
                                                  
    My point exactly.
    
    Kit

    Ya'll may love Jesse in NC, but he went too far this time.  Not funny!!
    
    A few Georgians used to think Lester Maddox was a hoot too; the
    majority of us wanted to put a muzzle on him.
    

    
     I dunno.....
    
    First the Kamikaze Piper Cub against the building....
    
    Then the "Assault Rifle" assassination attempt against the building....
    
    
      Wouldn't you want to warn the guy???

	Jesse is such a funny guy. NOT!  To think this guy is gonna be in put
in charge of anything is scary. To think he will be capable of working WITH
anyone is not something that's in the reality realm. 


Glen

    One of our beloved (well you get the point) conservative talk show
    hosts is off the air for having made simalar statements.  It appears
    duran ,the little guy who shot up the whitehouse, was a frequent
    listner, and CB had made statements simalar to Jesse.
    
    meg

    It still amazes me that we have mandatory federal retirement ages for
    everyone except those who make the laws. 
    
    Marty

Note 83.19 by MSDOA::JENNINGS 
    
    >I don't mind a bit admitting that I voted for Jesse back in '90.
    >Jesse's opposition in the '90 Senate race here was Harvey Gantt,
    >a left wing liberal who stood somewhere between Teddy Kennedy and
    >Howard Metzenbaum on the issues. 
    
    my gawd. that would make jesse look near saintly.
    
    all this hoopla is exactly what jesse wants - making stupid statements
    and such. nice of the media and WH to oblidge.

    
    Re: .13
    
    > In the news today, Jesse told a North Carolina paper that President
    > Clinton is so unpopular in NC that if he shows up to visit, he'd
    > better bring a bodyguard.
    
    Just what some nut needs to justify an actual attempt against the 
    President....
    
    Concidentally, today is the 31 anniversary of the assasination (sp?) 
    of JFK  -- a holiday for the conservatives, I am sure --
    
    Sigh...

    
    
    
    
    RE: .28  Don't know too many conservatives that would celebrate the
    death of a President, Kennedy, Clinton or anyone else, certainly not
    this conservative.  I do remember, however, someone (a box liberal
    democrat) saying that they would like to either spit or take a leak on
    Lee Atwater's grave after he died of brain cancer.  Yup, that was an
    all time high for the boxlibs.
    
    
    Mike

    RE: .28
    
    >-- a holiday for the conservatives, I am sure --
    
    Talk about a brainless comment....

    
    Jess just expressed his regret for the remark.

    <- I didn't hear him say anything that resembled regret or an apology.
    
       He excused it, period.
    
       Chip

    At best, the remark was 'unfortunate' as some have put a spin on his
    remarks, at worse, Jesse has opened up a Pandora's Box for the
    administration with the possible SS investigation, and calls for
    censure and resignation.

 If the Republicans are to have any credibility now that they are in the
 majority, they should come down on Helms quickly.  I think he should
 resign, but that's my opinion.



 Jim who voted repub.

    
    Jesse did indeed apologize, and said Clinton or any other president
    would be welcomed by Carolinians.  He did not retract his opinion
    that Clinton, while Commander-in-Chief, is not in his opinion up to
    the job.
    
    The truth is this :  nnobody knows, and with most presidents, you
    don't find out.  Lincoln learned it the hard way.  FDR was very
    good at it.  Lyndon Johnson was a disaster.  Without a war (heaven
    forbid), you can only guess.
    
      bb

    
    
    
    In his letter of apology, Helms also leveled some other criticisms at 
    the oval office. Hardly appropriate in a letter of apology.
    
    Personally, I find many of his attitudes and views to be revolting.
    Of course, living in New Hampshire and being represented by Senator
    Bob Smith, I can't throw too many stones...
    
    
    Bob
    

Note 83.35 by 30513::BRAUCHER
    
    >The truth is this :  nnobody knows, and with most presidents, you
    >don't find out.  Lincoln learned it the hard way.  FDR was very
    >good at it.  Lyndon Johnson was a disaster.  Without a war (heaven
    >forbid), you can only guess.
    
    i disagree totally with this. there is a great deal more to being CiC
    than conducting warfare. the CiC has a great deal to do with funding,
    support for, and morale of the armed forces. day and night. year round.
    war or no war. in that respect this president is doing a horrible job.
    jesse's comments were out of line for a person in his position. tho i
    don't think they are all that far from the truth. i have MANY friends
    and relative in today's armed forces. they really don't like this
    president and its not from shrinking the overall headcount as the press
    would have you believe. the military people consider slick
    unpredictable and indecisive. that scare them more than anything.
    having the US special forces picking up garbage in haiti doesn't help
    either.

    	It seems to me that Helms' apology was not to Clinton or anyone
    	for that matter.  He's just sorry that he wasn't more careful
    	with his choice of interviewers and words used.

    Listen guys...don't you think this is just a liiiiiitle bit out of
    control?  I mean...come on....don't try to make an issue out of
    something that isn't there.
    
    And let's all stop lying too.  Admit it...Clinton isn't unwelcome
    anywhere, but most people would prefer he doesn't visit their home
    state.  Let's quit kidding ourselves.

     I didn't see the letter. I did see his comments on tv and it
     was NOT an apology. If there was something else (e.g. a letter)
     then I'm unware of it and I'll retract.
    
     Chip

    
    this is a real shot in the gop foot. george will thinks that they
    will slap the guy down hard. 
    
    really, gop is in mortal danger of pissing away the biggest political
    gains they've made this century. the helms's and thurmonds' time is
    up. they play poorly among intelligent and thoughtful conservatives.
    
    we need to have women, asians, blacks, see themselves represented in
    this party. when helms opens his mouth, i can visualize the voter
    registrations getting filled out with the X in the dems box.
     
    these Senate anachronsims have got to go, and not just to the ag
    committee. jesse needs to be shunted aside to finish his term in
    silence.

    the acid test...  Even Spectre jumped 'im...

  Well they are not even in office and already one of the Republican leaders
has taken aim and blown a toe off the GOP foot. The 1st of many. 

  There are 2 problems the Republicans must overcome if they want to stay in
office. First many of the leaders currently in positions of authority have
gotten there because they were the most effective at being in the minority.
They specialize in political terrorism. And while it's one thing to criticize,
it's quite another to govern. 

  A 2nd problem is that the Republicans seem to have stricter seniority rules
then the Democrats when it comes to selecting chamber leaders and committee
chairs. While the Democrats frequently shift people with various political
liabilities into the back room, the Republicans seem to have less flexibility
in putting the right Congressman in the right job. 

  This is a cross roads time for Republicans. They have a choice. They can stay
with extremists and enjoy a rather short lived time in office or they can find
a way to shift the right wing off the stage and go with more moderate
leadership for the long term. 

  George 

>    the acid test...  Even Spectre jumped 'im...

Mugged by a ghost?

    
    Arlan Specter is a jewel.  The conservative antidote to Pat
    Buchanan.  He'll never be Prex, but will doo yeoman service
    thumper-bashing in 1996, which might actually result in
    defeating Clinton.
    
    re, .37 - I hear ya Gene - Clinton has never figured out that the
    President is NOT a normal human in the USA.  You make an off-the-cuff
    remark, and 10,000 Haitians put to the sea in boats.  Even if it's
    your own true self, you just cannot speak what's on your mind
    without thinking it through first if you hold that office.
    
    Really, I sometimes wonder if there exist humans capable of actually
    doing what Presidents have to swear they will.  Clinton hasn't done
    very well.  But that is not new.
    
      bb

    slick made a big mistake by trying to capitolize on jesse's stupid
    statement. i can't remember a sitting president taking the time to
    specifically address such an off hand and ridiculous statement. it made 
    slick look like he actually took the comment seriously. all but the 
    braindead can see how foolish this whole affair is. i mean, the president 
    of the united states rebuking a comment that gets aimed at him hundreds of
    times a day. pure political BS.

    
    thank God so many folks who voted for Clinton in '92 have changed their
    minds by now.  Clinton gets only 33% of the vote if held today.
    
    jeff

    	 I served in the service (Navy) not that long ago, and am still in
    the reserves. I resent Senator Helms's comment on the basis that it
    seems to portray the service as an uncontrollable mob. The vast
    majority of servicemen (and women) are professionals who know it is
    there job to follow orders even if they don't like the man who gave
    them. It is not our job to attack the president because we don't happen
    to like him.
    
    
    								S.R.

    
    oh.  I generally appreciate Helms' conservative stance and
    outspokenness.  i'm glad to see him in a leadership position as he
    stands rather firm.
    
    his comment seems untimely and unnecessary but is hardly worth the
    energy being expended upon it.  i think much of the electorate shares
    the views of Helms' constituents and therefore feel mostly positive
    about Helms statement.
    
    jeff

  The reason Clinton made the comments that he did make was because he was
asked by the press. As for your 33%, if this keeps up the voters will easily
change their mind back in time for the next election.

  I hope there are plenty of people in the GOP who think that Helm's type of
extremism is what people want to see. Come 1996 people are going to realize
that Clinton is the only thing standing between them and this pack of
Republican fanatics. 

  George

    
    
    Well, I think he would have looked better if he said that it wasn't
    worth a comment.  
    
    
    Mike

    
    i would think that you would refine your political senses a bit by now
    meowski.  conservatism is a long-term trend that has not peaked.
    
    jeff

    <---- this troubles me. 

>  The reason Clinton made the comments that he did make was because he was
>asked by the press. As for your 33%, if this keeps up the voters will easily
>change their mind back in time for the next election.

    as mikey said, the comment didn't warrant a comment and a president
    would look much better ignoring it. slick simply saw a chance to ding
    the repubs and took it. mud slinging unworthy of presidential politics.
    but then they also had that pissing contest with ollie north. bush
    league by any presidential measurement.

           <<< Note 83.54 by 35272::HAAG "Rode hard. Put up wet." >>>

The name Haag must be derived from some scandinavian dialict for the word 
meaning "Pot and Kettle"

>The name Haag must be derived from some scandinavian dialict for the word 
>meaning "Pot and Kettle"
    
    its german and a lot bohemian. don't forget it.

	Bohemian rhapsody....:)

  Helm's remark most certainly did require a comment from the President. When
you have the incoming head of the foreign relations committee claiming that the
U.S. military is so out of control that their own Commander and Chief is not
safe on a military base, that deserves a lot of comment. 

  By making that remark he is sending a message to foreign governments that
both the Military and Congress will not support the President in time of
emergency. That makes it more likely that foreign powers will call the bluff of
the U.S. and it becomes more likely that troops will have to be deployed and
risk combat in any future incident that may arise. 

  I don't recall a comment that was so anti-military since the end of the
Vietnam war. Even the Chairman of the Joints Chiefs found it necessary to
defend the military from Helm's remark. 

  George 

    Get ready for the next buzzword from Friends of Bill....EXTREMISTS!!!
    
  >>  It is not our job to attack the president because we don't happen
  >>      to like him.
    
    Steve, I think the average village idiot recognizes this.  I think
    limolibs are doing this strictly to make a big issue out of something
    that isn't there...kind of like the Potato(e) incident.  As far as I'm
    concerned, the limolibs are desparately grasping at straws...anything
    to revitalize their socialism.  Of course it was a stupid comment, but
    the issue will be completely dead in a few days!!!
    
    -Jack

  Saying the president would be killed on a military base is NOT extremist?

  Ok, there again I'm not surprised considering the source.

  George

    	re .60
    
    	Well, I took the comment personally, but I do agree it will
    probably be  gone as an issue in a day or two.
    
    
    							S.R.

    re: .61
    
    Quite a jump from the actual statement that "he would need a
    bodyguard".

    Oh,
    
    So old Jesse's boys would just thump the devil out of him?

    
    .63
    
    Steve...that's right!  Helms simply meant that Clinton would need a
    bodyguard to keep his adoring female fans from swamping him with
    autograph requests and panties!
    

Note 83.64 by CSC32::M_EVANS 
    
    >So old Jesse's boys would just thump the devil out of him?
    
    of course not. not that it wouldn't do any good tho. you libs. i don't
    understand how you think. now we've got george taking stupid statements
    and twisting them into entirely new meanings (killing the president in
    this case) to suit his agenda. and he has the gall to accuse others in
    different topics of taking things out of context.

    	RE .66
    
    	If you tell someone that if they show up at such and such a place,
    they better bring a bodygaurd, they have every right to regard that as
    a threat. (and therefore illegal) It doesn't take any twist of meaning
    for that.		
    
    								S.R.
    

    jesse's remark is already page 8 news. the repubs have correctly
    dismissed it as poppy cock. 

RE:                    <<< Note 83.36 by GEMGRP::MONTELEONE >>>

    
>>    Of course, living in New Hampshire and being represented by Senator
>>    Bob Smith, I can't throw too many stones...
    
        Why live in New Hampshire when you can move just a few miles south
        and be represented by those whose ideology is more compatible with
        yours?  

        The collectivists in prm know what's best for everyone.
	A real workers' paradise.  
	
	Tony
	

    I was a professor at the U. of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in the late
    '60s/1970 and grew to hate Jesse Helms with a grand passion, and that
    was when he was only a firebrand consoivative news commentator. 
    Leaving him behind was one of the greater benefits of leaving that
    state.  
    
    Having him reappear on the national scene was bad enough; having him
    prospectively in charge of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will
    be an unmitigated disaster.  You hoid it foist here.
    

    altho i disagree, it's glad to have you back mr. propellorhead. 

    I'll tell you one thing right now, I don't want a big, stupid mouthed
    jerk like Helms having anyhting to do with foreign issues.
    
    He'll have the world P.O.'d at us in a nano second. To dismiss his lack of
    tact and professionalism would be a grave mistake.
    
    And... if the president had a made a similar remark it would've been
    raw meet for the piranhas.
    
    And... the man didn't even have enough class to apologize.

    
     I dunno....
    
     What seems worse?
    
    Having the world PO'd at us, or having them laugh at us?
    
    Decisions... decisions...
    

    it's glad to be back too, Ron...
    
    |-{:-)
    

    
    Last time GOP held the Senate, Lugar (Ind) got Foreign Affairs,
    because Helms (senior) took Agriculture to protect your right to
    smoke subsidized Carlona cigs.  Perhaps he could be convinced that
    the godless left has imperilled the rights of tobacco growers again ?
    
      bb

| <<< Note 83.46 by 35272::HAAG "Rode hard. Put up wet." >>>

| slick made a big mistake by trying to capitolize on jesse's stupid
| statement. i can't remember a sitting president taking the time to
| specifically address such an off hand and ridiculous statement.

	Gene, if a dem made the statement, you'd be all over this guy. Clinton
does have a right to say what he did, as this guy is supposed to take over the
foreign affairs committee? We don't need people like him in positions like
that.

| <<< Note 83.54 by 35272::HAAG "Rode hard. Put up wet." >>>


| as mikey said, the comment didn't warrant a comment and a president
| would look much better ignoring it. slick simply saw a chance to ding
| the repubs and took it. mud slinging unworthy of presidential politics.


	Uh huh.... and with things that others don't deem as important, but you
do, it becomes cover-up, doesn't it Gene?

| <<< Note 83.73 by SOLVIT::KRAWIECKI "Less government, stupid!" >>>


| What seems worse?
| Having the world PO'd at us, or having them laugh at us?


	With Helms you get both....

    
    And by the way, when President Clinton went to Ft. Bragg, North
    Carolina in 1991, the Secret Service contingent was roughly a
    dozen - normal for Prexies.  They know very well that Clinton
    (or any other president) needs SEVERAL bodyguards anywhere.
    
      bb

Note 83.72 by WMOIS::GIROUARD_C  
    
    >He'll have the world P.O.'d at us in a nano second. To dismiss his lack of
    
    your joking right? right now we have the UN, NATO, Bosnians,
    Pakistani's, Koreans (both), Chinese, Japanese, Columbians, Nigerians,
    South Africans, and Singaporeans all OPENLY pissed off at the US. And
    all this "dissent" has cropped up in the last two years. the only thing
    that could be worse is if this admin continued to pursue stupid foreign
    policies with these orgs/countries instead of backing off. something
    HAS to be done but i'm convinced it won't come from slick et.al.
    
    and glen, did you see dole this weekend. he said point blank that he
    had a frank talk with jesse and jesse WILL cooperate or jeopradize his
    position of seniority. jesse's comments are now a moot point. and your
    wrong about a few things. i don't jump on everything dimms say. slick
    called bush unintelligent and stupid during the '92 campaign. i didn't
    say beans about it. wasn't worthy of comment.

    
    Oops - he went to Ft. Bragg in 1993, not 1991.
    
      bb

    Haagmeister, I'm not joking... Are you insuating that our relationship
    with the world turned to crap when BC took office? Sounds like it.
    
    If you're not, then I guess I read too much into your 2 year remark.
    
    Anyway, and take this to the bank... I'm not joking or laughing. I'm
    also not too optimistic that Dole can contain this guy's obviously
    high energy for oral pediatry.
    
    Chip

Note 83.82 by WMOIS::GIROUARD_C 
    
    >Haagmeister, I'm not joking... Are you insuating that our relationship
    >with the world turned to crap when BC took office? Sounds like it.
    
    no. it didn't happen on inauguration day. slick et al have worked
    diligently at it for over 2 years. and yes, during that time the US's 
    credibility as a military partner/leader and an international economic 
    leader has fallen dramatically. we've lost much ground.
    
    >Anyway, and take this to the bank... I'm not joking or laughing. I'm
    >also not too optimistic that Dole can contain this guy's obviously
    >high energy for oral pediatry.
    
    dole and the repub leadership WILL try and will, IMHO, succeed in at
    least keeping him quiet. this latest incident is probably a GOP
    blessing in disguise. it allowed GOP leadership to lean on Jesse early
    and set the rules now. jesse will be pretty much in the background from
    now on.

    One thing I think we agree on... I respected the repubs for their
    immediate attention to the matter and didn't circle the wagons.
    
    There may be hope...

    Jesse, as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, controls all
    spending on US foreign policy (such as foreign aid, UN dues, and
    support of population control).  He may also have a say in which
    ambassadors get confirmed, though I'm not sure on this one.
    
    He does hold the potential to be a major pain.

    The Foreign Relations Committee *is* the relevant committee through
    which foreign-relations appropriations get "shunted."  I do not know
    how much power a committee chair has to prevent bills from escaping
    committee (in Massachusetts the committee chairs seem to have absolute
    power 8^(, but with a co-conspirator ready to move to table motions I
    think he could be quite the obstructionist.

    
    Actually, it's not the confirmation/legislation/appropriations
    stuff that bothers the White House about Jesse.  It's the oversight
    functions.  He can summon Warren Christopher to come over for a
    grilling with every foreign crisis, and ask pointed questions about
    Bosnia on CSPAN in a very slow southern drawl.  This could be a
    nasty environment for a Prexy who hasn't had his full quota of wars
    yet and an election coming...
    
      bb

    
    
    Rep .86, .88  Steve
    
      You should really check your facts. The Foreign Relations comittee
     doesn't have the responsibility for foreign aid, UN dues, or just
     about anything else that deals with money. All of that is done 
     through the Appropriations Committee. Jesse can rant and rave and
     hold up appointments and such and make an ass of himself but he can't
     hold up the money. This has been widely discussed on all of the 
     talking heads programs since the latest jesse flap started.
    
    
    	-mike
    

    I will listen more closely.

    the point of all this gibberish is that there is little damage that
    jesse can do as a result of his new found position. the real power
    still resides with cooler heads (such as dole) and those in the WH (who
    are the ones that REALLY scare me).

    Maybe it's a committee (and expense) the country can do without?
    
    Chip

    This isn't the first, or last time that Jesse Helms has shot off at
    the mouth without first engage the brain.
    
    Other memorable Jesse-isms:
    
    Saying that he is no match for Ted Kennedy, in decibels or in Jezebels.
    
    Whistling the tune "Dixie" when in the elevator with Jocelyn Elders
    and Carole Moseley Brown (sp?).
    
    Obviously he hasn't jumped onto the PC bandwagon...
    
    

    Well, I'll admit the Kennedy shot is funny.
    
    But whistling "Dixie" in the presence of black senators is despicable.
    And it's not the first time he's openly linked black senators, "Dixie,"
    and intimidation.

    
    I'll admit that whistling Dixie in front of Elders and Brown is even
    funnier!  Those two are the epitome of how political correctness can
    win over competence and qualifications.
    
    jeff

    
    what exactly is offensive about the song (other than it 
    being linked to the confederacy)?
    
    does it have lurid lyrics or praise slavery or denigrate
    blacks? would you condemn equally other expressions make
    in order to get peoples necks up (like those of Chas Rangel
    or Maxine Waters both of whom apparently hate white males)?

    He is a perfect example of the benefits of term limits. 
    
    As is FatBoy.

    Anent .98: I guess you'd have to be black (or a redneck) 
    to get the full flavor of it.
    
    But it's a moot point -- both Helms and Brown understand it to be an
    offensive action.  Who are we to stand in the way?

    "Dixie" is the de facto anthem of the "old" south. 
    
    "Dixie" and the "stars 'n' bars" confederate flag have seriously
    negative connotations for blacks and other minorities, so say the
    least, as they are both reminders of the antebellum south, and slavery.
    
    Similarly, in the old song "My Old Kentucky Home", the line about
    "darkies" has been replaced with something far more acceptable in these
    more enlightened times. May have been considered an inoffensive term 
    way back in Stephen Foster's time, but not today. 

    
    If I recall....
    
    The incident in the elevator was reported as really happenening...
    
     ... but it was also reported that all concerned had a big laugh about
    it and it was considered a joke and nothing more...
    
    
     How dare those blacks in the elevator not be offended!!!
    

    
    
    
    Funny how the term redneck can be freely thrown around, though.....

    'boxers

>    Similarly, in the old song "My Old Kentucky Home", the line about
>    "darkies" has been replaced with something far more acceptable in these
>    more enlightened times. May have been considered an inoffensive term 
>    way back in Stephen Foster's time, but not today. 

As I think I mentioned in the previous edition of the 'Box, the Virginia
legislature was debating the state anthem last year.  "Take Me Back to
Old Virginia" has a line like "that's where this ol' darky am long to go."
This was the state anthem at least until 1993.

Another ironic thing is "Dixie" was written by a black man.

Really.

>    Similarly, in the old song "My Old Kentucky Home", the line about
>    "darkies" has been replaced with something far more acceptable in these
>    more enlightened times.

Is this a fact? I attend a Derby Day party every 1st-Saturday-in-May and
we dutifully sing this song prior to the race. Usually several black people
at the party who sing right along. Lyrics just as Stephen wrote them. I'll
try to make it a point to discern exactly what the folks in Louisville
are singing this next Spring.

Perhaps Mr/Ms Brown was thinking of the Virginia debacle.  One camp wanted
to modify the offensive line, another wanted to scrap the song altogether.

     Dixie?  It thought that was Foster, but then again, I never considered
    what race Foster was, either.  Not that it matters...

    Anyone know what the latest storm of controversy that Jesse Helms has
    stirred up is all about?  I caught the end of a Larry King Live
    broadcast where they were discussing it, but couldn't decipher what the
    heck the fuss was all about?!
    
    thanks in advance,
    /b

    I guess Jesse has the old 'foot in mouth' syndrome.

    
    Helms wants all AIDS sufferers rounded up and turned into 
    Soylent Green.
    

    Oh, come on!
    
    Even Jesse Helms knows that these people are not edible,..... most of
    them are just skin and bones !
    
    I'm sorry, that was in poor taste.
    
    Damn, I did it again !
    
    Oh well,
    
    :-)
    Dan

    >Helms wants all AIDS sufferers rounded up and turned into 
    >Soylent Green.
    
    oh, THAT...
    
    ...but that systems works *so well* in Cuba.
    
    I thought his rant to "brand" AIDS patients died long ago -- guess not.
    
    My 0.02 -- If we as a society start issuing a "scarlet letter" to AIDS
    sufferers (or TB patients or whatever), how long will it be before we're
    back to tatooing Jews with numbers?  Have we learned nothing from
    history?  
    

    No, all followers of the beast will be marked with silicone chips.  It
    has been prophesied, it will be true.    

Where will the silicone be injected?

    Lips, breasts, and buttocks on some, possibly high on the cheeks and
    maybe even the ear lobes. 

    EAR LOBES !
    
    That's tooo much.....
    
    :-))))))))
    Dan

    frontal lobes might help.

    Buck, comparing the Holocaust to the deathly ill isn't relevant.

    Helms feels less money should be spent on AIDs research, since it is
    easy to avoid getting it.  If we have to make cuts in government
    spending there is no reason why AIDs research or anything else should be
    spared.  He certainly does not support treating AIDs patients with any
    harm.  Why should the government pay so much for people who willingly
    live a lifestyle that is unhealthy?  George Bush spent 4.6 billion
    dollers on AIDs research and it still wasn't enough for the AIDs
    activists.  The spread of AIDs could almost come to a complete stop if 
    people stopped engaging in the acts Senator Helms was talking about.    
    
    David

    Surprises me that old Jesse hasn't suggested the death penalty for 
    those who become HIV infected. 

    Ryan White's lifestyle choices caused his AIDS?  Oh yeah, using things
    to keep you alive and uncrippled is a lifestyle choice.  Also tell that
    to Arthur Ashe, and many other people who did nothing to become HIV
    positive.
    
    meg

    
    THe majority of people become infected by a lifestyle choice, Meg.  
    The amount of AIDS cases could be cut by 90% if people would heed 
    the warnings which have been biven for the past 10 years.
    
    Mike

     And the majority of heart disease, an even ligger killer, could be
    avoided if people ate according to a mediterranean diet, drank moderate
    amounts of wine and engaged in moderate, regular exercise. Heart
    disease still costs our country more, and is nearly 100% preventable.
    So why do we spend so much in trying to figure out how to treat it?
    Lifestyle choices may affect health issues, but we are still primarily
    talking about health issues whether we are talking about AIDS or heart
    disease.

    i hate it when Helms wakes up.

    Yep. He's the Ted Kennedy of the republican party.

    
    re: .127
    
    Yeah Mark... but what's the spending ratio??
    

     If you have ever had sex with someone you aren't married to, then you
    are engaging in the sorts of behaviors that spread AIDS. If you have
    and haven't gotten AIDS, then the difference between you and someone
    who has it is LUCK.

    
    
    Heart disease nearly 100% preventable, Mark?  I'd like to see that
    statement backed up.
    
    
    With HIV, if people stopped having UNPROTECTED sex, not stop having sex
    outside of a monogamous relationship (which would be even better),
    would still prevent a vast majority of the cases of HIV.
    
    
    Mike 

    
    
    RE: .131  To a certain extent that is very true, Mark.

    .131
    
    WHAT does marriage have to do with AIDS?
    
    Perhaps you mean monogamy? (Still not good enough.)

    Marriage and AIDS?  No relationship.  A lot of married folk play in
    their neighbor's yards so to speak.  

    >WHAT does marriage have to do with AIDS?
    
     Marriage in that context was used a shorthand for long-term monogamous
    relationship. You know, the fairy tale.

    re: .136 re: .131
    
    Say what you mean...your .136 brought my laughing at .131 to an abrupt
    halt.
    
    Bob

| <<< Note 83.123 by TOLKIN::STONE >>>

| The spread of AIDs could almost come to a complete stop if people stopped 
| engaging in the acts Senator Helms was talking about.

	It's too bad Helms seems to think only one sexual orientation can get
and is the cause for the disease...... 

| <<< Note 83.129 by WAHOO::LEVESQUE "the heat is on" >>>


| Yep. He's the Ted Kennedy of the republican party.

	Jessie Helms killed someone????

| <<< Note 83.134 by SPSEG::COVINGTON "There is chaos under the heavens..." >>>


| Perhaps you mean monogamy? (Still not good enough.)


	I don't understand this. If two uninfected people start engaging in
sex, and they are in a momogamous relationship, why wouldn't this be enough?


Glen

       > If two uninfected people start engaging in sex, and they are in
       > a momogamous relationship, why wouldn't this be enough?
       
       Cause they'd need to finish what they'd started?

    I don't understand this. If two uninfected people start engaging in
                                    ^^^^^^^^^^ 
    sex, and they are in a momogamous relationship, why wouldn't this be
    enough?
    
    Bingo. You hit the part that was missing the first time around. Some
    people tend to forget/ignore this part.

    
    Lert's try again....
    
    What's the spending ratio????
    

    >Lert's try again....
    
     Be a lert. The world needs more lerts.

    
    
    Thank you..... need to get the swelling down in those fingers....
    
    
    Let's try again....
    
    What's the spending ratio??
    

| <<< Note 83.141 by CALLME::MR_TOPAZ >>>


| Cause they'd need to finish what they'd started?


	Van Halen?

| <<< Note 83.142 by SPSEG::COVINGTON "There is chaos under the heavens..." >>>

| Bingo. You hit the part that was missing the first time around. Some people tend
| to forget/ignore this part.

	Now it makes sense to me.... you are indeed one very smart person!


Glen

    Lemme get this straight... Someone's claiming that Jesse "Stay the hell
    away from mah Tobacco Farmers" Helms has never kilt nobody??
    

    More than one person has become HIV positive through transfusions. 
    While the risk is much smaller than it was 10 years ago, there is still
    a small but significant chance of a transfusion or other blood product
    being contaminated with the virus.  since hemorage is a far too common
    happening with childbirth and surgeries, there is always this potential
    for a monogamous couple to still wind up with HIV.
    
    meg

	Dan.... should my note have read.... Jessie Helms let someone drown?

    Well, accuracy in all thingz, sez I.
    

	and u r 1 of the masters in here!!!

    	re .125  Meg.
    
    	Actually, tell it to the people donating the infected blood.
    	Not only would lifestyle choices eliminate 90% of AIDS cases
    	(and 90% is not my number -- someone else proposed that figure.
    	I think it is even higher than that) but it would equally 
    	eliminate 90% of the tainted blood (which is already growing 
    	more and more miniscule each year.)

    meg,
         It is unfortunate that aids is contracted threw transfusion,
    pregnancy, unfaithfulness, etc.  but that is not the argument.  The
    argument is the justification for the amount of money that the far left 
    would like to spend on AIDS.  It is a fact that the number one cause of
    Aids is sex, so it only makes since that the amount of aids cases would
    fall if both heterosexual and homosexual people were more responsible.
    Why is this so hard to understand?
    
    Dave  

    .138 bigq::silva "Diablo"
    
    The senator was commenting on all acts that cause the spread of Aids.
    It is a much larger problem in the homosexual community so of course
    they were offended, but the left is offended at anything said by a
    moderate or conservative.  As always liberals used this to attack Helms
    as not being compassionate or understanding to homosexuals.  
    
    Dave 

| <<< Note 83.155 by TOLKIN::STONE >>>

| The senator was commenting on all acts that cause the spread of Aids.
| It is a much larger problem in the homosexual community 

	If the man is talking about today, why doesn't he deal with todays
numbers? Cuz it would hurt his cause. And if memory serves me correct, he ONLY
mentioned homosexuals.

| As always liberals used this to attack Helms as not being compassionate or 
| understanding to homosexuals.

	Dave, he ISN'T compassionate and understanding towards gays. He'll even
tell you that! 


Glen

    
    
    So??
    
    Nobody want to research the ratios??
    
    Are they so hard to come by??

	CDC has them...... 

    
    
    
     Uh huh....
    

    
    http://www.cdc.gov/
    

	I can't wait for the budget to be approved so I can get my vxt and get
out on the web...... this vt340 is crap.....

	You might have to actually go in and look...... now there is a novel
idea.....

    
    
     As opposed to your constant yammering about providing facts and
    such???
    
     I'll extract .163 and place it in the appropriate topic (See P&K)
    

    
    .162:
    
    I haven't looked too deeply yet, but it looks like it will direct 
    you to the relevant publications.
    
    try:  http://www.cdc.gov/nchswww/nchshome.htm
    

    
    Will that have:
    
    money spent on research of AIDS vs. cases?
    
    money spent on research of cancer vs. cases?
    
    money spent on research of heart disease vs. cases?
    
    money spent on research of <pick your favorite> vs. cases?
    

| <<< Note 83.164 by SOLVIT::KRAWIECKI "Been complimented by a toady lately?" >>>



| As opposed to your constant yammering about providing facts and such???

	Read .161......

| I'll extract .163 and place it in the appropriate topic (See P&K)

	Uh huh.......

    
    re: .166
    
    >| As opposed to your constant yammering about providing facts and such???
    
    >  Read .161......
    
    
    You yammering about VT340's now too????
    
    
     BTW... one reference does not an argument make...

	Tell me how to get onto the web with a vt340 Andy. 

    one word: Lynx
    

    
    mmmmmmm...I could go for a bratwurst on a bun right about now...
    

    
    re: .168
    
    >Tell me how to get onto the web with a vt340 Andy.
    
    There is no correlation between you getting on the web and my assertion
    about your constant yammerings...
    
    Unless, of course, you're now going to cease said yammerings and
    finally provide relevant facts/figures/statistics to support your
    "arguments"...?????
    
    
    
     Naaaaaaaahhhhh!!! 

    
    YOU go get the stats.
    
    No, YOU go get the stats.
    
    No. You, go get the stats.
    
    No, it's YOUR turn to go get the stats.
    
    No, I'm sure it's YOUR turn to go get the stats.
    
    No it's not.
    
    Yes it is.
    
    YOU go get the stats.
    
    ;^)
    

    Glen,
         Your right, Helms isn't, as well as many people, understanding
    about the homosexual comunity.  That's not the issue.  The spending is
    the issue.  George Bush spent 4.6 billion and Clinton promised to spend
    more(I don't know if he has). 
    Dave  

    
    BOTH OF YOU (Glen and Andy)!!!  Go to your chambers and don't come
    back 'til you've got some stats!
    
    :^)
    

    
    
    No!!!!
    
    I'd rather have mz_deb bite me!!!!!
    

    
    Be careful what you ask for...
    

 So, who's this stats?  a ballplayer or sumpin'?

    
    Glen,
    
    If nobody else has mentioned to you how to use Lynx to get on the
    Web yet, here's how:
    
    Log in to your account.  At the prompt, type "Lynx" and hit return.
    Lynx is a program to access the Web from character cell terminals,
    and hopefully will be installed on your system.
    
    Once Lynx is up on your screen, hit the letter "G" (for Go.)  The
    program will ask you for the URL you want to go to, at which 
    point you type in "http://www.blah.blah.blah.html" or whatever the
    address is for the page you want to reach.
    
    The rest will be pretty much self-explanatory, as the directions 
    will be up on the screen for using the space bar and arrow keys
    to move around.  Happy hunting!
    
    
    At your service,
    
    
    Rob (who is only using a VT320)
                            

    Ok MrKnowItAll, :-) wot does Glen do if his system don't HAVE lynx.exe?
    
    /s/
    |-{:-)$straight_man
    

    re; Jesse Helms "not being the issue" please see title... 

    
    83.181, Dr. Dan,
    
    Well, then Glen is welcome to pray to his diety of choice.
    My personal recommendation:  Quetzalcoatl.  One doesn't get to
    genuflect to a winged, feathery serpent every day.  Take advantage
    of the opportunity!
    
    HTH, 
    
    Rob
    

    Impressive!
    
    Although my personal fave is Omphalos.  If one is able to genuflect to
    this Famed Naval Figure, one also is able to kiss one's own a$$.
    
    |-{:-)
    

    >Nobody want to research the ratios??
    
     If you're so interested, do your own homework.

    I subscribed to a monthly flyer from the CDC for a couple of years,
    that detailed all sorts of stats about AIDS in the US.  One trend wss
    clear and consistent:  While AIDS was initially spread more in the gay
    population than any other (only in this country), the incidence of new
    infections in the gay population has been steadily declining ever since
    AIDS was discovered.  
    
    On the other hand, the incidence of new infections in the heterosexual
    population has been steadily growing, with the highest growth rate
    attributed to white straight women.
    
    Given the fact that AIDS is a tricky little virus that mutates so fast
    they can't keep up with it, it seems to me that those who already have
    it have less reason to hope for a cure than those of us who don't.
    
    And yeah, you can almost stop its spread by not having sex.  The only
    trouble with that lovely theory is that you can't stop people from
    having sex, so better solutions are needed, or one day old Jesse and
    his ilk will still be ranting about lifestyles as they move into the
    final stages of their own AIDS infections along with the rest of us.
    

    
    > ... or one day old Jesse and
    > his ilk will still be ranting about lifestyles as they move into the
    > final stages of their own AIDS infections along with the rest of us.

    Now there's a pleasant uplifting attitude, we're all gonna die of AIDS
    in the next twenty years.... :-(

    Well I guess we all gotts ta die o' sumptin'....
    

    Didn't mean to be non-uplifting -- just don't understand self-defeating
    attitudes.  Like as long as we are good little doobies, then we'll always
    be safe and only those naughty people who sin will have to worry.
    
    It just isn't true.  And there is nobody who does not have a stake in
    finding a cure and/or vaccine for this disease.  Soon.
    
    The height of arrogance and stupidity is when people self-righteously
    proclaim that they're bygod not going to help kids get condoms at their
    school -- who do they figure their sons and daughters are eventually
    going to wind up in bed with -- nobody?  Hah!  :-)  

	Thanks Rob, I will give it a shot. I'm printing the stuff now.

| <<< Note 83.186 by RUSURE::GOODWIN >>>


| so better solutions are needed, or one day old Jesse and his ilk will still be
| ranting about lifestyles as they move into the final stages of their own AIDS 
| infections along with the rest of us.

	Does that mean Helms is gonna have sex???? Eeeeeeeeeuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!!!
I don't even want to think about it! 


Glen

    re. "don't even want to think about it"
    
    He doesn't either, that's why he's all stuffed up like that.

    .188 rusure::Goodwin
    
    I was wondering if you would have sex with someone infected with Aids?
    Would you have sex with someone who had Aids if protection was used?
    I don't think many people would, so I'm wondering why we think it's ok
    for our children to.  Go ahead have sex this condom will save you.  Most
    kids can't do their homework on time, keep their grades up, or
    maintain any type of positive motivation for any length of time.  Yet
    you think their responsible enough to use condoms.  I believe it was
    the Cambrigde school system that was used to experiment with the great
    condom give away.  According to the Herald, pregnancy doubled and the
    number of vd cases grew four times as large.  So many adults are
    willing to give kids resposibilities they are not ready for.  Adults
    should not be telling kids its ok to have protected sex, unless they're
    willing to sleep with infected people (with protection).  I understand
    we have no idea who is infected and who isn't, but  I'm sure if people
    are aware that someone has aids they would not have sex with them.
    The school system is suppose to be there to educate, if you want your
    kids to have condoms buy them yourself, uncle sam is running low on
    cash.
         There was a time when our country taught it's children to wait
    until they were married to have sex.  Of course not everyone listened, 
    to deny that there has been an increase in unwed mothers, teen
    pregnancy, vd, and adultery is simply foolish.  This loose lifestyle
    that has been promoted by the left and the hollywood elite has done
    alot of damage to the country.  Even Bill Clinton has said Dan Quayle's
    famous Murphy Brown speech has alot of good pionts.(Of course he said
    this after the election.)  Family values, traditional American values
    are important, I wouldn't base a campaign on them, but they do have a
    place in our country.  We shouldn't allow our children to raise
    themselves.  
    
    Dave 

    .192:  Good grief!  OK, then...
    
    >I was wondering if you would have sex with someone infected with Aids?
    
    Not if I knew.
    
    >Would you have sex with someone who had Aids if protection was used?
    
    Not even then.
    
    >I don't think many people would, so I'm wondering why we think it's ok
    >for our children to.
    
    Did anybody say they think it's OK for kids to have sex with someone
    with AIDS, with or without a condom?  If so, I missed it.
    
    >you think their responsible enough to use condoms
    
    Many are, especially if one is at hand when needed.
    
    >I believe it was the Cambrigde school system that was used to
    >experiment with the great condom give away...
    
    I heard a report of the results of the Cambridge school system that
    differed totally from what you claim the Herald said.  The report I
    heard said that after a year of making condoms available in the school
    system there, the results were:
    
    	A. The number of kids having sex was the same as before, 
    		contrary to the what the anti-condom folks predicted.
    
    	B. The number of kids using condoms was up significantly, 
    		possibly as much a result of all the publicity as of
    		having condoms readily available, but whatever works...
    
    	C. The pregnancy rate was down a fair amount -- unexpected
    		benefit
    
    	D. The rate of AIDS infection is of course unknown, but since
    		the pregnancy rate is down, then hopefully so is the
    		infection rate.
    
    I don't remember if they mentioned other diseases or not.
    
    So either you or I are under a severe misconception, if you'll pardon
    the expression...
    
    >So many adults are willing to give kids resposibilities they are not
    >ready for
    
    You have it backwards -- the condoms are for the kids who are ALREADY
    having sex.  They are already taking that responsibility, but many of
    them are doing so without condoms.  We adults are trying to change
    that.
    
    >There was a time when our country taught it's children to wait
    
    People still do.  Kids still don't.  Nothing's changed.
    
    After we get past all the cliches and myths, we still have to face
    reality -- kids are having unprotected sex, and you can blame anyone
    you want, but that won't make 'em stop.  
    
    If you really want to help save a life or two, you have to do something
    that will actually work, which is probably different for each kid. 
    
    Tell 'em not to have sex before they're married.  Good.  That will save
    some kids.
    
    What about the rest?  At least educate 'em to use protection, and help
    them get that protection.  That will save some more kids.
    
    We need to fight the problem on all fronts.  No one solution is going
    to solve the problem.  And one of the most important things we can do
    to help is to stop lying or passing along lies and myths in order to 
    promote our favorite right-wing religious agenda.
                         

    Goodwin,
         I agree we have to fight this(aids, teenpregnancy, ect:) on all
    fronts.  Distributing condoms has failed from what I've seen, you've
    heard different.(I hate how stats defer depending on the media source)
    I simply don't feel that many teens or even a few teens are responsible
    enough to handle sex or what might come from it(babies,HIV,ect:).  
    It seems to me handing out condoms is simply adults saying we surrender.  
    If a child is doing something he isn't suppose to be doing, no matter what 
    it is, adults have to stand up and say so.  A luke warm approach does not
    work.  Don't have sex, but here's a condom because you'll do it anyway.
    That just kills your message.   
         If you give someone a condom to prevent Aids, your telling them
    they may have sex with an infected person, but this condom will protect
    you.  There are many people who say it's ok for people to sex with
    infected people.  Every where you look their are condom ads that say
    condoms will save your life.  On the T, in music videos(TLC, Salt&Pepper),
    and now in tv commercials.  The message is it's ok to have protected
    sex, therefore I am protected I can have sex with anyone, even if they
    have aids, I might not know they have it but I'm protected so it
    doesn't matter.
         I don't really see how religion is involved.  I do attend mass but
    I understand not everyone practices my religion.  I am more concerned
    with the future of the country and the direction that it is moving. 
    Why should the government spend more money on condoms?  The budget for
    education grows and grows and the students attendence and grades get
    lower and lower.  If passing them out did infact decrease the amount of
    money the government would spend on welfare, medical care, and
    abortions then I might support it.
          It seems to me we both want the same outcome but have two
    different views on the solutions.  The liberals have had the ball for
    the past 40yrs, and not much has improved.
    
    Dave  
     

    >I simply don't feel that many teens or even a few teens are responsible
    >enough to handle sex or what might come from it(babies,HIV,ect:).
    
    You're right, they are not as responsible as adults, and that is
    exactly why so many of them are having sex even though they know
    good reasons not to.  Teens also typically thing they're exempt from
    harm, or simply don't care what happens to them, and sex feels good,
    or has other rewards, like the feelings of love and intimacy they
    can't get at home, so they do it anyway.   
    
    As far as I know you can legally get married at age 13 or 14 in some
    states still.  
    
    We have to deal with the reality we have, not the one we wish we had.
    
    >It seems to me handing out condoms is simply adults saying we
    >surrender.
    
    It's adults saying, "We care about you too, even if you don't heed
    our advice and do what's best for you."
    
    >A luke warm approach does not work.
    
    You keep assuming that if everyone said, "Don't do it." then kids
    wouldn't have sex.  That is not reality.  Some will listen, and some
    won't.  How are you going to deal with the ones who won't?
    
    >The liberals have had the ball for the past 40yrs, and not much has 
    >improved.
     
    Ah so.  It's all the fault of the dreaded "liberals".
    And "conservatives" have always produced a perfect world with no
    poverty, no unwanted pregnancy, no diseases, etc.  Yes?
    And things were much better back in the good old days, right?
    And don't ask Rush... these *are* his good old days.
    
    The favorite position of conservatives is with their heads firmly 
    buried in the sand.  yeah I know -- lots of liberals have their
    heads buried elsewhere.  That's why I vote independent.  :-)
    
    So here's a scenario and a question for you:
    
    Let's say you are successful at convincing *your* kids not to have 
    sex until they get married.  Then one day your daughter gets married.  
    The guy she married had several sex partners when he was younger, 
    which he somehow forgot to tell you daughter about.
                                                      
    Question:  Would you rather that guy had used condoms or not?
    
    

                     <<< Note 83.195 by RUSURE::GOODWIN >>>

>    We have to deal with the reality we have, not the one we wish we had.
    
    	You seem to imply that we cannot affect the reality we have.
    	(see below.)
    
>    >It seems to me handing out condoms is simply adults saying we
>    >surrender.
>    
>    It's adults saying, "We care about you too, even if you don't heed
>    our advice and do what's best for you."
    
    	A third option is the adult saying, "I give up!  I can't get
    	through to you!"  (Ergo, I surrender my parental responsibility
    	to try.)
    
>    You keep assuming that if everyone said, "Don't do it." then kids
>    wouldn't have sex.  That is not reality.  Some will listen, and some
>    won't.  How are you going to deal with the ones who won't?
    
    	True.  Some will listen and some will not.  Throughout history
    	there have always been some who did not.  But we both agree that
    	some WILL listen.  A few generations ago everyone DID say, "Don't
    	do it."  And some listened.  (I contend that more listened than
    	did not.)  Today the popular thinking (which you seem to be 
    	supporting) is for us to stop focusing on "Don't do it" and
    	instead focus on "safe sex."  For those who ARE going to listen,
    	they will no longer have "Don't do it" to listen to!  See my
    	first statement above.
    
>    Question:  Would you rather that guy had used condoms or not?
    
    	Answer:  I would rather that my daughters hang around guys
    	who do not put them into this situation.  There were ample
    	numbers of such boys for my sisters and my wife to choose
    	from.  Same for my mother and my aunts.  I see no reason 
    	to give up hope that my daughters will have the same choices, 
    	and the same moral foundation that helps them choose their  
    	dates wisely.

    >        Today the popular thinking (which you seem to be
    >        supporting) is for us to stop focusing on "Don't do it" and
    >        instead focus on "safe sex."
    
    No.  I keep saying, "Do both", but some people can't conceive of such a
    concept, and insist it has to be one or the other.  What's so hard...
    
    (if you'll pardon the expression...:-)
    
    >        [in the good old days] ...There were ample numbers of such 
    >	     boys for my sisters and my wife to choose from.  
    
    Yet another myth.  How soon they forget the old widely accepted double 
    standard according to which it was quite all right for a guy to go out 
    and sew his "wild oats", but only in town where "those kind of girls" 
    could be found, then go back home and marry the "girl next door" who,
    it was assumed, was quite ignorant of such goings on, and therefore
    quite pure.  Even a lot of women were conned into believing that 
    while women should be virgins when they got married, it was not only
    acceptable, but even desirable for men to have some "experience".  
    
    That attitude was widespread in the good old days.  The so-called 
    "free sex" revolution of recent years only freed up the girls, which 
    is what made the more conservative men so mad -- they lost their 
    ownership of women, their right to have their cake and eat it too 
    
    (so to speak :-).
    
    So don't get all righteous about the women in your family history --
    lots of them had their fun too, but things being what they were, they
    just didn't talk about it.  That way their men could live in blissful
    ignorance, thinking they were the first -- so important to those male
    egos, ya know, that would be devastated to thing they weren't the
    first, or worse, the biggest.
    
    Yeah, things were different in the good old days, but not the way you
    think they were different.  :-)
     

                     <<< Note 83.197 by RUSURE::GOODWIN >>>

>    No.  I keep saying, "Do both", but some people can't conceive of such a
>    concept, and insist it has to be one or the other.  
    
    	"Do both" means undermining the statement, "Don't do it."
    
    	As we have already agreed, some kids listen.  Those that do can
    	see through the hypocrisy.  Those that listen will hear the
    	implied approval.
    
>    >        [in the good old days] ...There were ample numbers of such 
>    >	     boys for my sisters and my wife to choose from.  
>    
>    Yet another myth.  
    
    	Then I guess that makes me a mythological creature.  My father
    	too.
    
>    How soon they forget the old widely accepted double 
>    standard according to which it was quite all right for a guy to go out 
>    and sew his "wild oats", 
    
    	Widely accepted where?  
    
    	I suppose that your attempt at describing this "widely accepted
    	double standard" means that you really don't believe in the value
    	of saying, "Don't do it".
    
>    Even a lot of women were conned into believing that 
>    while women should be virgins when they got married, it was not only
>    acceptable, but even desirable for men to have some "experience".  
    
    	Do *YOU* believe this is true?  Do you believe that men (or
    	women for that matter) should have "some experience"?  If so,
    	then again I contend that you are merely playing lip service 
    	to "Don't do it."  If you don't believe it, then why are you
    	arguing in support of the propogation of your "widely held
    	myth"?
    
>    So don't get all righteous about the women in your family history --
>    lots of them had their fun too, but things being what they were, they
>    just didn't talk about it.  That way their men could live in blissful
>    ignorance, thinking they were the first -- so important to those male
>    egos, ya know, that would be devastated to thing they weren't the
>    first, or worse, the biggest.
    
	How cynical!  How sad.  
    
    	You speak as if you were there.
    
    	And you are speaking about my wife.  I request that you show
    	more respect than you have shown so far.

    CSC32::J_OPPELT  .198,.196
    
    Good Work.
    

    
    > As we have already agreed, some kids listen.  Those that do can
    > see through the hypocrisy.  Those that listen will hear the
    > implied approval.
    
    Mine understood the concept with no problem.  You must have a low 
    opinion of kids.  Or are you from that strange new school of thought
    that says kids should not be taught to think or to make decisions for
    themselves or to have any self esteem?
    
    In any case, if you think you can just give a kid an order and have
    him obey it, you don't know much about kids.  That was the way parents
    did it in the good old days -- told 'em in no uncertain terms to never
    have sex until they were married, and if they did, then they were
    kicked out of the house, especially if they got pregnant.  Didn't
    stop 'em then, won't stop 'em now.
    
    But it did allow parents to foist off their responsibilities onto
    someone else, which I suspect is the main appeal for the new "right".
    
    > I suppose that your attempt at describing this "widely accepted
    > double standard" means that you really don't believe in the value
    > of saying, "Don't do it".
    
    Objection, your honor, already asked and answered.
    
    > Do *YOU* believe this is true?  Do you believe that men (or
    > women for that matter) should have "some experience"?
    
    No. As I said, this was from the so-called good old days that people
    seem to think were so much better than these days are.  The good old
    days are always more rosy in our memories than they were in reality.
    Much more so in your case, apparently.
    
    > How cynical!  How sad.
    
    Hey, didn't you know that women are smarter than men?
    
    > You speak as if you were there.
    
    I was.  (how old are you anyway?)
    
    And I paid attention to what went on outside my little world.
    Some folks think there is no world outside that of their own
    concoction.
    
    > And you are speaking about my wife.
    
    No I'm not.  Unless of course your "family history" originates with you
    and your wife.
    
    But all that aside, you're right about one important concept -- I don't
    disapprove of people having sex as soon as they are personally ready to
    handle the responsibilities that go with it.  
    
    Ability to handle responsibility does not correlate to either age or 
    marital status.
    
    I see my job as a parent to help my kids cope successfully with the
    world as it is today, not to give them a bunch of rules to live by
    that they may pay no attention to, and leave them with no other
    safety net in case they don't happen to buy in to my personal 
    philosophy.  Worked out just fine, too.
    

                     <<< Note 83.200 by RUSURE::GOODWIN >>>

>    Mine understood the concept with no problem.  You must have a low 
>    opinion of kids.  Or are you from that strange new school of thought
>    that says kids should not be taught to think or to make decisions for
>    themselves or to have any self esteem?
    
    	How do you know they didn't pull the wool over your eyes in
    	the same manner as you described at the end of .197?
    
>    In any case, if you think you can just give a kid an order and have
>    him obey it, you don't know much about kids.  
    
    	You must have a low opinion of kids...
    
>    Didn't stop 'em then, won't stop 'em now.
    
    	Oh?  Then what *did* stop them then?  Surely they didn't all
    	do it!  But certainly more are doing it today than back then.
    	(see below)
    
>    > I suppose that your attempt at describing this "widely accepted
>    > double standard" means that you really don't believe in the value
>    > of saying, "Don't do it".
>    
>    Objection, your honor, already asked and answered.
    
	What you have said about "Don't do it" does not correspond with 
    	what you are saying about "widely accepted double standards".  
    	Objection overruled.
    
>    No. As I said, this was from the so-called good old days that people
>    seem to think were so much better than these days are.  The good old
>    days are always more rosy in our memories than they were in reality.
>    Much more so in your case, apparently.
    
    	Statistics disagree with your claim.  The average age of first
    	sexual experience is dropping.  The percentages of sexually
    	active teens is growing at all age levels.  The percentages of
    	adults who are virgins at marriage is dropping as well.
    
>    > And you are speaking about my wife.
>    
>    No I'm not.  Unless of course your "family history" originates with you
>    and your wife.
    
    	I said nothing about originates, but certainly she is a part of
    	that history.
    
    	And so am I.  I noticed that you conveniently ignored that.
    
>    But all that aside, you're right about one important concept -- I don't
>    disapprove of people having sex as soon as they are personally ready to
>    handle the responsibilities that go with it.  
    
    	The problem is that such fuzzy parameters have lead to a general
    	societal trend of permissiveness and promiscuity that is clearly 
    	not healthy (or we wouldn't be needing to talk about condoms for
    	the prevention of STDs, nor would we have so many teen pregnancies
    	and rapes and all the other social ills that are directly related
    	to sexual IRRESPONSIBILITY -- nevermind those that are indirect
    	results.)  It is obvious that far too many teens are NOT ready to
    	handle the responsibilities that go with it.  Far too many adults
    	as well, for that matter.  Our current condom culture only
    	propogates what we have.  It is certainly not working in general.
    
    	From a standpoint of such social ills the "good ol' days" 
    	were surely rosier!
    
>    I see my job as a parent to help my kids cope successfully with the
>    world as it is today, not to give them a bunch of rules to live by
>    that they may pay no attention to, and leave them with no other
>    safety net in case they don't happen to buy in to my personal 
>    philosophy.  Worked out just fine, too.
    
    	I'm glad it worked out fine in your case.  If only yours were
    	representative...

    > The percentages of adults who are virgins at marriage is dropping as
    well.
    
    You make that sound like a *bad* thing !?!?  ;-)
    
    Well in that case, I guess "conservatives" aren't having much luck
    with their "just say no" approach, are they?
    
    > I'm glad it worked out fine in your case.  If only yours were
    > representative...
    
    It is.  The world is a much better place than you think it is.  You
    have
    been caught hook, line, etc. by the radical right rhetoric spewed by
    political and other leaders who are trying to regain the power they
    lost during the 60s and beyond.
    
    Liberals have made mistakes too, of course, but taking society back to
    the dark ages is not any kind of solution.  That's why the blush is off
    Newt's rose already.
    
    > The problem is that such fuzzy parameters have lead to a
    general...[rant]
    
    Horse pucky.  Rush poop.  Born again barf.
    

    re: .197
    
    I think you've been watching too much tv.  Hollyweird has a strange way
    of depicting our past.
    
    Did those things happen to some extent?  Sure.  Was it a majority, as
    you seem to imply?  I don't think so.
    
    The "free-sex" era (which we still seem to be in, FWIW) was not about
    "freeing up the women"- they could do what they liked regardless of how
    it was veiwed at the time.  It was about removing societal stigmas and
    loosening historical sexual morality, so that those who wished to
    behave immorally could do so without guilt or stigma.  We are living
    with the unfortunate result of this "revolution" (de-evolution would be
    more accurate).
    
    
    -steve

    re: .202
    
    Why is promoting sexual morality equated to the "dark ages"?  From my
    vantage point, these "dark ages" were light years ahead of this modern
    age in keeping societal woes (relating to sexual responsibility) to a
    minimum.  How do you parse this? (especially with all our new
    technology and increased knowledge base, improved means of
    communication, etc.?)
    
    
    -steve

              <<< Note 83.204 by CSOA1::LEECH "Dia do bheatha." >>>

>From my
>    vantage point, these "dark ages" were light years ahead of this modern
>    age in keeping societal woes (relating to sexual responsibility) to a
>    minimum.

	So Steve, should we go back to branding people with a nice big
	"A" in the middle of their foreheads, or what?

Jim

    
    Jim,
    
    That ain't right.  It is possible to keep some of the good things from
    an era and get rid of the garbage.  This is (hopefully) what growth in
    a society and in a person is all about.
    
    
    Mike

            <<< Note 83.206 by GRANPA::MWANNEMACHER "NRA member" >>>

    
    
>    That ain't right.  It is possible to keep some of the good things from
>    an era and get rid of the garbage.  This is (hopefully) what growth in
>    a society and in a person is all about.
 
Mike,	The quote was "lightyears ahead in keeping.....". Questioning the
	METHODS used is ceratinly fair game. 

	It is only wishful thinking to believe that we could get a large
	majority to espouse the "morality" of times past without employing
	the same draconian penalties that were used to enforce that "morality".

Jim

    No Mike, everything from the past is evyl!  Why, if we were to accept
    the sexual morality standards of the 50's, we'd have to bring back
    separate drinking fountains for "negros", scarlet letters, and black
    and white teevees.
    
    I'm continually amazed that this line of reasoning keeps getting
    brought up.  Hindsight CAN be useful in picking out things that have
    worked historically, from those things better left in the past.
    
    
    -steve                   

    
    
    Jim,
    
    I would hope that we could take the good and leave the bad.  I still
    believe that MOST people are good people who want to do the right
    thing.  Of course, as I have said before, these people do not make good
    headlines for the newsrags.
    
    Mike

              <<< Note 83.208 by CSOA1::LEECH "Dia do bheatha." >>>

>    I'm continually amazed that this line of reasoning keeps getting
>    brought up.  Hindsight CAN be useful in picking out things that have
>    worked historically, from those things better left in the past.
 
	OK Steve, the YOU tell us how you enforce "dark ages" morality
	without "dark ages" penalties for violating that morality.

Jim

            <<< Note 83.209 by GRANPA::MWANNEMACHER "NRA member" >>>

>    I would hope that we could take the good and leave the bad. 

	One could always hope. But the reality is that turning back the
	clock is not a viable solution. We have to deal with the situation
	we find TODAY. Societal "improvements" (as if you could get a real
	consensus as to what they might be) MUST take into account the
	society that we currently have.

	Simply hoping that we could go back to the society of yesteryear,
	without also re-introducing the evils of that bygone era is, at
	best, naive. In most cases, as with the example of HOW the morality
	of the Dark Ages was enforced, you also have to look at HOW that
	particular society enforced its rules. Without that enforcement
	you can not make the claim that we could emulate those same
	rules in our CURRENT society.

Jim

    You mean go back to very young marriages, with a large proportion of
    "premature babies?"  funny how many 9 pound 26 week preemies there were
    back then.  
    
    Or do you mean go back to a time when a highschool dropout could make a
    living wage?  Or do you mean go back to young marriages which resulted
    in the divorce epidemic of the 60's?
    
    go back to a time where BC was limited to condoms, diaphrams, and
    papal roullette, and only if you were married, until a Dr. gave a woman
    a hysterectomy?
    
    Loverly time those 50's
    
    meg

    <<< Note 83.212 by CSC32::M_EVANS "nothing's going to bring him back" >>>

>    "premature babies?"  funny how many 9 pound 26 week preemies there were

That's one BIG preemie you got there, Meg!

    All mine were full term and weighed significantly less.  
    
    ;-)

>That's one BIG preemie you got there, Meg!
    
     I think you missed her point.

    
    
    Truth is, there weren't that many, Meg.  
    
    
    Jim,
    
    I don't think it's naieve at all, I think it's progressive and about
    time that we look at something like this instead of doing the "it'll
    never work" thing.
    
       

    >Truth is, there weren't that many, Meg.
        
    battling annecdote time?  My dad was born 5 months after his parents
    married.
    
    DougO

    re: .210
    
    Enforce?  Who said anything about enforce?  It all has to do with what
    is promoted by society.  Currently, what is being promoted works
    contrairy to the desired end result.
    
    
    -steve

    
    
    My mom was born 3 years after her parents married (yes, she's the
    oldest).  My father was born over a year after his folks were married.  
    What about your mom, Doug? 

    The point, Mike, is that you can't blithely say "there weren't that
    many" to Meg's assertion when you have no data.  
    
    DougO

              <<< Note 83.218 by CSOA1::LEECH "Dia do bheatha." >>>

>    Enforce?  Who said anything about enforce?  It all has to do with what
>    is promoted by society. 

	There are two ways to "promote" certain behaviors. One is reward,
	the other is punishment. Generally speaking, those behaviors that
	are truly considered harmful to a society are controlled via the 
	use of punishment.

	Or was it your idea that we all join hands in a circle and sing
	several courses of "We are the World" and then it would be all
	better?

Jim

    
    Doug,
    
    In Meg's .212 she says "funny how many 9 pound 26 week preemies there
    were back then" without anything to back up her assertion.  I was using
    the same tactic.
    
    
    Mike

    I remember hearing lots of gossip from my parents and their friends
    about folks apparently having "had" to get married because the little
    doofer was born less than 9 months after they wed.
    
    There was a time when people only whispered about such things.  There
    was also a time when people only whispered about someone with cancer
    too.  IMO things are *much* better today than they were in those recent
    dark ages.  
    
    It's *always* better to have things out in the open where people can 
    deal with them, than hidden away where people can pretend they aren't
    happening, even though it's more uncomfortable for some people,
    especially those who like to pretend that their dogmatic and artificial
    rules for living actually work.

    Mike,
    
    I don't have the stat's here but they were clearly listed in Ms. last
    year.  the author of the article had gotten her stats from the US
    Census Bureau (ages at marriage, age at first birth, and birth/marriage
    stats compiled by various Vital statistics offices. )
    
    Where are your stats from?

    
    So, please define many.  My assertion is that the stats are way lower
    than they are today.
    
    
    mike

    many: adj. 1. Lots.

    Mike,
    
    By many, yes teen births were higher in the 50's than now, according to
    the stats.  However tyhey were born to married teenagers, who became
    quasi-respectable adults because of a ring exchange.
    
    meg

    Often accompanied by a white shotgun.
    
    Divorces were common too, thus leaving things in approximately the same
    state as they are today, but without the formalities and sometimes with
    a whole lot more misery.
    
    Of course back then there was no federally imposed financial penalty
    for having Pop live in the same house as Mom and Junior when they were
    on welfare...
    

    Meg,
        I response to your remark about the explosion of divorce in the
    60's, I have some stats.
    
    Divorce rates per 1,000 marriages
    1960--- 9.2
    1991---20.9
    
    source:: National Center for Health Statistics
    
         Here are some other stats I found.(This is my first discussion in 
    the Soapbox file, the latest date i got was 1991)
    
    
    Percentage of Illegitimate births (all races)
    1960--- 5.3
    1991---29.5
    
    Source:: National Center for Health Services
    
    Teenage pregnancy per 1,000 umarried teens 
    1972---49.4
    1990---99.2
    
    Source:: National Center for Health Services
    
    Top Disciplinary Problems According to Public School Teachers
         1940                                1990
    Talking out of turn                   Drug Abuse
    Chewing gum                           Alcohol Abuse
    Making noise                          Pregnancy
    Running in the halls                  Suicide
    Cutting in line                       Rape
    Dress code violation                  Robbery
    Littering                             Assualt
    
    Source:: Congressional Quarterly
    
    Percentage of GNP spent on social spending
    1960--- 6.7
    1990---14.4
    
    Source:: U.S. Census Bureau
    
      It's clear to see the youth of the nation had more guidence in the
    past.  To argue this is simply foolish.  It would be great if we could
    return to a time when morality mattered and was taught, no exceptions. 
    Of course we can't force morality on people, but if we as adults live
    as examples and demand respect as well as give guidence to childern the
    country will be in better shape.  To say things like segregation would
    have to return as well is about the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
    
    Dave

>    Top Disciplinary Problems According to Public School Teachers
>         1940                                1990
>    Talking out of turn                   Drug Abuse
>    Chewing gum                           Alcohol Abuse
>    Making noise                          Pregnancy
>    Running in the halls                  Suicide
>    Cutting in line                       Rape
>    Dress code violation                  Robbery
>    Littering                             Assualt

This, of course, describes reality as perceived by public school teachers.
Anybody who's been to public school knows that that bears little resemblance
to reality as perceived by anyone reasonable.

    83.230,
    
    Whatever
    
    

    > It's clear to see the youth of the nation had more guidence in the
    > past.  To argue this is simply foolish.  It would be great if we could
    > return to a time when morality mattered and was taught, no exceptions. 
    
    Some of us would agree the facts, yet comprehend them with far
    different interpretation.  Where you say the youth "had more guidance"
    I would say that social pressures were a far more constrictive
    straitjacket.  Forcing a couple of teens who'd discovered boinking yet
    been ill-prepared by that society to face the consequences, to get
    married (!) resulted in lots of abuse, lots of broken marriages, lots
    of unhappy lives.  This society has learned at great personal expense
    that forcing all into one mold won't work in a country that likes to
    call itself free.  
    
    DougO
    
    

    <<< Note 83.227 by CSC32::M_EVANS "nothing's going to bring him back" >>>

>    However tyhey were born to married teenagers, who became
>    quasi-respectable adults because of a ring exchange.
    
    	Today's method is for the father to high-tail it outta there,
    	and the mother and child go on welfare.
    
    	I'll take your option, Meg.  How about you?

                     <<< Note 83.228 by RUSURE::GOODWIN >>>

>    Divorces were common too, 
    
    	Is that so?  I'd like to see your support of that claim.

    re .229
    
    Care to give us the stats for teenage pregnancies 1953-54?
    
    The pill was available and in heavy use in 1972.  I was there.
    
    meg

    >Today's method
    
    Actually, there are far better options.  The vast majority of teens
    don't get pregnant, even though most are sexually experienced.  Some of
    the birth control information out there (clearly tons more than there
    used to be) is having an effect, and most teens know to play safe if
    they must play at all.  Certainly that's how it worked for me and most
    of my friends- my girlfriend and I had condoms on hand months before we
    actually needed them.  So I'd say that "today's method" isn't so
    hypocritical as to force unready people into a ring ceremony "lifetime
    comitment" as punishment for casual boinking, and it isn't "for the
    father to high-tail it", its for people to play safe while learning how
    to handle adult responsibilities.
    
    DougO

    re: .232
                                                             
    DougO, You suggest that early marriages caused "a lot" of abuse, etc. 
    This assertion is too vague to be useful.  I would like to see any
    information you might have that backs up your assertions.  'A lot', to
    me, means a significant percent of the whole.  While 500 (picking a
    number out of thin air) may seem to be 'a lot' to some, it does not
    look nearly as big if you are picking it out of a group of say, 50,000.
    
    As a well-informed individual, you should not have to resort to
    argument by assertion.  Of course, given the statistics I've dug up
    personally, as well as those I've seen posted in the 'box, I'd have to
    say that assertions is all you have to work with in this instance. 
    I'll await your response that proves me wrong.   
    
    
    -steve
                                                  

       <<< Note 83.236 by SX4GTO::OLSON "Doug Olson, ISVETS Palo Alto" >>>

>    Actually, there are far better options.  
    
    	Undoubtedly there are.  Problem is that society is not encouraging
    	those options.
    
>    The vast majority of teens
>    don't get pregnant, even though most are sexually experienced.  
    
    	True.  We've just crossed the 10% threshold.  It's not a
    	"vast majority", but that level is still an absolute 
    	tragedy.  Downplaying it because it's not a "vast" majority
    	doesn't do justice to the scope of the problem.  The vast
    	majority of teens also do not get AIDS, but we sure show
    	a lot of concern for THAT problem.
    
    	So tell me, when you said:
    
.232>    resulted in lots of abuse, lots of broken marriages, lots
>    of unhappy lives.  
    
    	were you also talking about vast majorities?  How about
    	simple majorities?
    
    	I think you'll agree that it's OK to see a problem eventhough
    	it doesn't affect significant portions of the population -- let
    	alone vast majorities.
    
>    So I'd say that "today's method" isn't so
>    hypocritical as to force unready people into a ring ceremony "lifetime
>    comitment" as punishment for casual boinking, and it isn't "for the
>    father to high-tail it", its for people to play safe while learning how
>    to handle adult responsibilities.
    
    	Maybe your vision is today's IDEAL, but that's not today's
    	reality.

    Dougo,
         You keep talking about all of these unhappy marriages.  Why is
    divorce rate going up, it should be going down if marriges are happy.
    Simply saying there were tons of unhappy marriages is a weak argument
    that you can't support. 
    
    Meg,
        The earliest dates I have are 1960.  I don't know if this is what
    you want but here it is.
    
    Unmarried teenage birth rates per 1,000 girls
    1960--- 15.3
    1991--- 44.8
    
    source::  National Center for Health Statistics
    
         Both sides of Congress agree that we have to return to a stronger
    family unit to survive.  Why even argue that the past family structer
    is not far better than todays?  Fathers and Mothers have to demand
    respect.  To say the childern were under control is foolish.  Their
    CHILDREN they cannot make proper decisions as shown every day in every
    town in the country.  How can you defend todays culture (regarding
    family and childern) as being better than the past?  Childern need to
    guidence and be under some sort of control.  I don't see the advantage
    of allowing them to be so independent the stats speak for themselves.
    
    Dave
    
    

    > You suggest that...too vague to be useful...any information you
    > might have...500 of...50,000....As a well-informed individual...
    > all you have to work with...prove me wrong.
    
    Do you have a point?  What I get from your note is handwaving about one
    three-word phrase in my note.  Now, if you want to spend two paragraphs
    of innuendo about a three-word phrase, that's your lookout, but don't
    imagine you'll be allowed to ignore the main point.  Do go back and
    address the note again, why don't you.
    
    DougO

    >    	were you also talking about vast majorities?
    
    I was talking about the forced marriages.  I don't think they were vast
    majorities, no- I think the social straitjacketing "worked", if you
    could call it that- many teens were deterred from sex.  So there
    weren't as many teens getting forced into marriages as there were
    teens.  Of course, that system imploded- the 60's showed that
    repression simply wouldn't hold kids back anymore.
    
    This is an interesting thing to me, and I'd like to throw a general
    question out to all those who'd prefer our society revert to those
    straitlaced times- Leech, Oppelt, Covert, any other thumpers- how can
    you possibly imagine your ideas of a return to Leave It To Beaver
    American morality would work?  Like the A-bomb, you can't simply
    uninvent sex, or puberty.  Teens *know*.  And their hormones are in
    overdrive.  And if their parents haven't raised them to make moral
    choices by that age, then what are you gonna do to them?  Throw them 
    in jail?  C'mon, this to me is a huge gap in your arguments- how are
    you gonna uninvent biology?
    
    Moving right along.
    
    >>                         So I'd say that "today's method" isn't so
    >> hypocritical as to force unready people into a ring ceremony "lifetime
    >> comitment" as punishment for casual boinking, and it isn't "for the
    >> father to high-tail it", its for people to play safe while learning how
    >> to handle adult responsibilities.
    >
    >	Maybe your vision is today's IDEAL, but that's not today's
    >	reality.
    
    No, you miss the point.  It isn't ideal, it is simply what goes on in
    the vast majority of cases.  And while not ideal, it is acceptable.  It
    doesn't exact social costs that aren't worth paying- its costs are
    clearly far less than for your hyperbolic visions.  We can easily
    improve matters of education, we can reduce (if not entirely remove-
    the first amendment protects even such twisted men as Lou Sheldon)
    the hypocrisy of some adults about sex- we can teach kids to be
    responsible.  Many of us already live this way, teach our kids this
    way.  It is a free country, and there simply is no other way to handle
    the issue.  Turning back the clock is an impossibility- you can't
    uninvent sex or puberty.  And I'd rather not waste a decade fighting
    foolish attempts to try.
    
    DougO

    Dougo,
         We can't change biology no one has even sugested that.  As 
    individuals we have to let teenagers know what's good for them.  Not simply
    surrender because we don't think they'll listen.  If you live as a 
    responsible adult and show yourself as a good example that's the first
    step.  Also we can't allow teenagers to make their own rules.  Parent's 
    need to be strict.  If a teenage couple cannot support a child, financialy 
    or emotionaly they should not be having sex.  No birth control is 100%
    effective, I have friends who have found that out the hard way.
         It's everyone responsibility.  Commericials, movies, tv shows, and
    music use sex to sell.  If a teenage boy is not having sex he's not
    cool, the more girls he sleeps with the cooler he is, this attitude has
    to stop being taught to young men.  If our society is going to move
    foreward we cannot continue to allow this problem to grow.  Hollywood,
    Congress, and every other citizen has to say enough is enough.  The
    government should not have to censor anything, parents should.
       I got in an argument once with this women who was allowing her 11 yr
    old boy to listen to rap.  She is a friend of my sister.  One day she
    pulled up to the house with her son.  I was outside and heard this
    very, very loud rap, the line went something like "I get **** by the
    ladies" I don't know the name of the rapper.  I asked her why she let him
    listen to it.  Her answer was he would hear it anyway.  This is true,
    but if his mother said he could not have this type of material he would 
    learn that it is wrong. Her message would be that the message, and
    lyrics of the song are wrong, instead his message is I give up.   
    He's 11, it's ridiculous that anyone would allow a child of that age to 
    listen to music like that.  Basically parents have to take the 
    responsiblity, Uncle Sam has to much to do already.  I know
    this is wishful thinking on my part but I'm not going to surrender.
    
    Dave
              

    Meg,
         Since the pill has been available since 1972, and is used by all
    of these responsible teenagers and unmarried couples.  Why is the
    illigitmacy rate and teenage birth rate going up?  It must not be
    working.
    
    Dave
    

    > As individuals we have to let teenagers know what's good for them.
    
    It starts long before they're teenagers.
    
    > Also we can't allow teenagers to make their own rules.  Parent's need
    > to be strict.
    
    If our son has been raised properly he and we will both know and
    respect each other's boundaries- as we do now (he is 7).  He *is*
    allowed to make his own rules in some areas now- and these areas will
    only increase with time.
    
    > If a teenage couple cannot support a child, financialy  or emotionaly
    > they should not be having sex.  No birth control is 100% effective,
    
    Absolute statements like this don't work for the model I use in raising
    my son.  I disagree with it on several grounds, I agree with it on
    some.  True, teenage pregnancy by people unprepared for child-rearing
    should be thoroughly discouraged.  But this society has effectively
    separated the age of puberty from the age of legal majority, and more
    importantly, from the age of effective independence.  Kids are horny by
    14, they're not done with high school until 18, they're not out of
    college until 22.  The high school years are simply going to be times
    where society and family are not prepared to push them into
    independence- yet the physical changes they experience will put immense
    pressures on them to learn about their sexuality.  I find it inhuman,
    frankly, to expect teens not to- and quite possibly emotionally
    damaging as well.  By insisting on suppression of natural sexual
    expression, this absolutist approach is worse for teens than would be
    an acceptance of their desires combined with a thorough education in
    the risks and responsibilities they approach.  Oh, perhaps one in a
    thousand will actually find enforced abstinence due to moral
    imperatives to be emotionally strengthening- the triumph of the mind
    over the body- but even the priesthood can't reliably play that card,
    as the recent history of the church indicates.  So instead, I expect to
    have educated my son thoroughly about all aspects of sexual behaviour-
    and to expect him to respect my boundaries as I'll respect his.  For
    instance, I won't pay for the upbringing of his children.  Nor would I
    pay for an abortion for his girlfriend- but I would loan him the money,
    if he asked.  Those are my boundaries.
    
    > It's everyone responsibility.  Commericials, movies, tv shows, and 
    > music use sex to sell.  If a teenage boy is not having sex he's not 
    > cool, the more girls he sleeps with the cooler he is, this attitude 
    > has to stop being taught to young men.  
    
    This attitude is not being taught to my young man.  It is everyone's
    responsibility to promote responsible behavior, yes.  Your definition
    undoubtedly differs from mine, however, so your notion of what
    Hollywood should be doing is also rather farfetched, in my opinion.
    
    DougO

    Thank you DougO, a refreshing bit of logic usually not present in this
    topic.
    
    ...Tom

    Dougo,
         I agree with almost everything you say.  It's good that you are
    a responsible parent.  Unfortunatly their are many who aren't.  Loaning
    money to your son for his girlfriends abortion is the same as paying
    for it.  Either it's his responsibility or it's yours.  If he can't
    afford an abortion she shouldn't be having sex.  It is unfortunate that
    you feel humans don't have the ability to resist the temptations of
    sex, if educated properly.  What every happened to self discipline.
        Even though you are not giving your son a negative message about
    sex, with regard to women, society is giving them and everyone else one.
    
    Dave   

    > Loaning money to your son for his girlfriends abortion is the same as
    > paying for it. 
    
    Well, no it isn't; part of the complex lesson this teaches my son is
    that he will have to pay me back to meet his responsibilities to me;
    but I am willing to make the loan in the first place, if he is smart
    enough to ask for it, because if he and his girlfriend are pregnant but
    not ready to raise a child then that is the most responsible option at 
    that point in time.  I want to encourage continued responsible behavior
    even if they have made some mistakes, and denying a loan would be
    contrary to that goal.  There are some other hairs that could be split,
    circumstances when making the loan would be supporting irresponsible
    behavior, but lets avoid the hairsplitting- y'all will just have to
    trust me to make the right choice.
    
    > If he can't afford an abortion she shouldn't be having sex.
    
    You neglect entirely the emotional damage part of the analysis I just
    sketched out.  This absolutist approach is not useful to me.  Good luck
    with your own kids.
    
    > It is unfortunate that you feel humans don't have the ability to
    > resist the temptations of sex, if educated properly.  What every
    > happened to self discipline.
    
    You misread.  They may have the ability.  Some (one in a thousand, 
    I postulated) may even be able to do it without severe emotional
    consequences.  But just because you *can* do something doesn't mean 
    it is a healthy thing to do- and I simply don't think a societal
    straitjacket, a fear of sex, an enforced puritanism, is good for the
    development of emotionally healthy people.  I won't do it to my son.
    Good luck with your own.
    
    DougO

    Dougo,
         You mean if your son and his girlfriend cannot afford a child.  
    The most responsible thing for them to do is continue to have sex, but
    then have an abortion if she becomes pregnant.  It seems to me he would
    be shrugging off responsibility twice.
         What you see as raising someone in a straight jacket, or as a
    puritan I see as simply showing them the difference between right and
    wrong, and responsibility.  The bottom line is our society(as far as
    the health, emotional stability, and guidence of our children) was once
    far better.  A return is possible if adults led the way.  I don't know
    you at all and I'm not saying you don't but the stats don't lie.
    
    Dave

       <<< Note 83.241 by SX4GTO::OLSON "Doug Olson, ISVETS Palo Alto" >>>

>    Like the A-bomb, you can't simply
>    uninvent sex, or puberty.  Teens *know*.  
    
    	But unlike the A-bomb, sex has aleays been around.  Not only
    	do teens KNOW today, they KNEW back then too, and as you have
    	already agreed:
    
    >    I think the social straitjacketing "worked", 
    
    	The handwave of dismissal in labeling it "straitjacketing"
    	and the "quoting" of the word 'worked' don't hide the fact 
    	that it, in fact, worked.  The only difference is that this
    	"straitjacketing" reduces the lattitudes for things that I
    	see as evil and you see as acceptable, if not good.  We (you
    	and I) will never come to terms on that issue, but the hopes
    	of we "thumpers" is that enough others will see those evils
    	for what they are such that society in general will find some 
    	of the value that people like me see in that so-called
    	"straitjacketing".  I'm sure you'll fight against it as hard 
    	as I fight for it, and that's what makes the world go round.

    > You mean if your son and his girlfriend cannot afford a child.  
    > The most responsible thing for them to do is continue to have sex, 
    > but then have an abortion if she becomes pregnant.
    
    Nope.  The most responsible thing is not determinate except to the two
    individuals.  You don't know what "the most responsible" thing is, I
    don't know- only those two individuals know.  The absolutist position
    you take, that they should abstain, may be an emotionally healthy thing
    for some people; but for others it would not be, and for me to insist
    on it, or for society to insist on it, is simply not workable.  I know
    of no way to both bring up a child to take responsibility for his
    actions and SIMULTANEOUSLY lay down one of your "strict rules"
    forbidding him to have sex.  I expect that he will act responsibly as
    seems to him.  That is what I will teach him.   And *if* they happen to
    get pregnant, I will not condemn them for acting irresponsibly- I will
    assume they acted responsibly and had a birth control failure.  And
    *if* they aren't ready to raise a child, then I will expect them to
    continue to act responsibly- as seems right to them.
    
    > What you see as raising someone in a straight jacket, or as a
    > puritan I see as simply showing them the difference between right and
    > wrong, and responsibility.  The bottom line is our society(as far as
    > the health, emotional stability, and guidence of our children) was once
    > far better.  A return is possible if adults led the way.  
    
    One "shows" a child.  One expects responsible behavior from an adult.
    Teens, being in between, are each an individual judgement call.  The
    bottom line to me is I can't expect my teen to act as an adult unless 
    he has been prepared for it by gradually increasing responsibilities
    from an early age, which we're working on- and that goes so far as
    letting him figure out his own notion of responsible sexual behavior
    for himself, with plenty of facts and statistics and information.  But
    I simply can't raise him to be responsible by assuming responsibility
    for his decisions in that arena, by forbidding some actions by the
    light of *my* morality.  That makes no sense to me.  He has to choose
    abstinence for himself, or whatever choice he makes; or he isn't being 
    the one responsible for it.
    
    DougO

    >>    I think the social straitjacketing "worked",
    >
    >        The handwave of dismissal in labeling it "straitjacketing"
    >        and the "quoting" of the word 'worked' don't hide the fact
    >        that it, in fact, worked. 
    
    It 'worked' if your only goal is limiting teenage behaviors, in some
    cases (not in my paternal grandparents' case).  It failed if your  goal
    is bringing up teenagers to be responsible adults, taking full
    responsibility for their actions.  If all they're doing is following
    parents' rules, what happens when parents aren't around to guide them
    anymore?  Or a priest isn't there to tell them what to do?  Have they
    been trained to weigh their own desires in the moral balancing act that
    adult behavior requires, or have they been trained to deny even to
    themselves that their own emotional needs have a place in their
    deliberations, in their decision-making process- have they been taught
    to be emotionally crippled rule followers instead of complete human
    beings?  Well, the answer is obvious- and that's why I put it "worked"
    in quotes.
    
    > The only difference is that this "straitjacketing" reduces the
    > lattitudes for things that I see as evil and you see as acceptable, 
    > if not good.
    
    I find it emotionally healthy to acknowledge personal interests when
    making moral decisions.  One has to factor in one's biases.  If you
    think it is evil to acknowledge your own emotions, you're a cripple.
    And if you think that rule-based societal straitjacketing doesn't
    hinder that process, you're blind.
    
    DougO

    Dougo,
         Allowing someone to choose what the responsible thing to do, has
    become the problem.  If a man gets a women pregnant he is responsible
    for that child, financially, emotionaly, ect.  To teach people that
    they decide what the responsible action is has led to many of today's
    problems.  You say my idea would only work for a few, I think your's
    works on fewer.  You simply can't defend today's lifestyle.  Your
    family might be the greatest well rounded people on the planet, but as
    a society we have a major problem.
         As for the emotional argument.  I haven't commented on this one
    yet, I was hoping it would go away.  As a young man who has served his
    country and is now in college I have met many members of my generation.
    You would be very disapionted in the attitude of most of the women I
    have met.  It seems that so many girls in the age group from 18-24 are
    so angry at men.  The number one complent of course is that they were
    used for sex.  When they are younger and not ready to handle the
    responsiblity, even though you and they may think they are, they often
    regret having sex and from what I have seen are hurt emotionaly.  It's
    a shame that so many beutiful girls have been used and know have such a
    misstrust and in some cases hatred for men.  This is a result
    of their being told that it's ok for them to have sex when their ready,
    most of the time their just, as you say horny, but not ready.
         Of course most of the young men I've met still view women as
    sexual toys, and want to sleep with as many as possible.  This attitude 
    must be changed, I know you agree. 
         Don't continue to try and make me out to want abosolute control, 
    I simply want parents to give guidence to their children and show them the
    difference between right and wrong.  Of course there are many things 
    children can make dicisions on and of course this responsibility will grow 
    as they become adults.  This does not give parents an excuss for not 
    protect their children against things that are hurting them and our
    society.
    
    Dave 
    

    > Allowing someone to choose what the responsible thing to do, has
    > become the problem.
    
    Classic, just classic.  Let me ask, does the phrase "life, liberty, and
    pursuit of happiness" ring any bells with you?
    
    > You simply can't defend today's lifestyle.
    
    Sure I can.  On the grounds of individual liberty, it is arguably
    exactly how the Founders of this country intended it would be.
    
    > but as a society we have a major problem.
    
    Yep.  On the one hand we have a Constitution and institutions dedicated
    to preserving government of the people, by the people, for the people,
    and on the other we have moralistic busybodies trying to define public
    policies that restrict individual liberties and replace them with
    religious laws.
    
    No, I know you're actually trying to address the problem of a society
    that is unhealthy, desparately so, and you imagine we could achieve a
    return to simpler times by reimposition of the archaic moral rigidity
    of that bygone era.  You completely neglect that historical forces have
    changed the body politic beyond recognition- science, law, technology,
    the public's distaste for such quaint old notions, make such
    reimposition impossible.  I'll be interested, next week, to see if
    Leech, Covert, Oppelt, or any of the other thumpers have dared address
    the question I put to them, of how they imagine this reimposition could
    possibly be made to work.
    
    > As a young man who has served his country and is now in college I have
    > met many members of my generation. You would be very disapionted in the
    > attitude of most of the women I have met.  It seems that so many girls
    > in the age group from 18-24 are so angry at men.
    
    Why do you think I'd be disappointed?  I think all women in this
    society, of all generations, have PLENTY to be angry at men about.
    
    > The number one complent of course is that they were used for sex.
    > When they are younger and not ready to handle the responsiblity, even
    > though you and they may think they are, they often regret having sex
    > and from what I have seen are hurt emotionaly.  It's a shame that so
    > many beutiful girls have been used and know have such a misstrust and
    > in some cases hatred for men.  This is a result of their being told
    > that it's ok for them to have sex when their ready, most of the time
    > their just, as you say horny, but not ready.
      
    There are certainly many people who do things they're not ready for.
    That is why I've spent such effort trying to figure out how I can raise
    my son to be responsible- how to conduct himself in relationships, how
    to treat other people.  Of these women (18-24 yr olds aren't 'girls' 
    any more, please, or are you just a boy?) you know, all I can say is,
    nobody is guaranteed an easy passage into adulthood.  Nobody learns
    responsible behavior without making mistakes.  Women as well as men
    must take responsibility for the way they conduct themselves in
    relationships.  Society "told" them they could have sex?  Weren't they
    raised to know how to decide what they wanted, and how to go about
    getting it in a responsible manner?  Nobody can grow up for anybody
    else.  And of the men you mention, their attitudes are part of the
    reason I think all women have plenty to be angry about.  In short, I
    think the best way forward from this situation is to educate people to
    the notion of their personal responsibility, first of all, for what
    happens to them.  Their choices matter.  And nobody else can live their
    lives or make their decisions for them (much though the religious right
    would love to try.)
    
    > Don't continue to try and make me out to want abosolute control,  
    > I simply want parents to give guidence to their children and show 
    > them the difference between right and wrong.
    
    And in this area of when a teen is ready to become responsible for
    their own sexual behavior, what is "right" and what is "wrong"?  If you
    have an absolute answer, then I think you don't know enough yet about
    human nature to understand how hard it is to raise children to be
    responsible adults.
    
    DougO

    Dougo,
          Since you have yet to understand this.  For the last time I am
    not advocating government raising childern.  Not once have I said I
    favor censorship.  You continually try make me out to be right wing. 
    When talking about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and
    anything else you want to quote out the Constitution your totally
    missing the piont.  I'm talking about individual parents raising their
    childern.  Taking responsibility and trying to prevent mistakes that
    are occuring far to much.  This lifestyle that you have yet to defend,
    is hurting the country.  Simply using individual liberty as a
    defense doesn't work if the results hurt our society.  Individual liberty 
    is great, but our forefathers weren't refering to teenage sex.  As far
    as religon goes, not once have I brought up morality, my arguement has
    been the effects on the society, the individual, and personal
    responsiblity.  I know that there are many different religions and not
    everyone follows mine, that's fine.  Once again it is the direction of
    the country I'm concerned about.  
    
    When I used the term girls I didn't mean to offend you, but I would say
    that many of my peers are still boys, and girls.  I've done much more
    in my young life then they have, and I'm more responsible and more mature 
    than most of them.  I suppose I look at them as kids even though some
    are my same age. Because of all the mistakes they've been aloud to make 
    many of their lives are a mess, mine is not.
    
    If you agree that women have a right to be upset with men, why not
    teach them keep their virginity until they are married ?  The only
    definate way a women knows a man loves her is if he will wait until
    they are married.  As the facts show when the focus was on abstinence
    their were less problems.  Today the focus is on safe sex that isn't
    even 100%.  You cannot argue with the stats.  To answer your question
    again.  We cannot return to the past, but we can look for a brighter
    future if adults lead by example and give their children guidence.  As
    well as our establishments taking responsibility.  Your right the
    message of abstinence will not stop everyone and therefore the parents
    should educate there children, or by them condoms or whatever.  Putting
    abstinance first would help this problem.  Birth control has not, as
    the stats show since it's been available it's hurt it.  
       When I say establishments Hollywood, Congres I'm talking about their 
    actions.  Example::Congressmen should not be sleeping with teenagers. 
    I know you don't think they should, I just wanted to make it clear so you 
    didn't think I was speaking of legislation that arrests unwed mothers,
    or sexual active kids.
    
    Dave
    

    	Dave --
    
    	It's not worth it.  Doug will always see our way as bad.
    	When facing the embodiment of Isaiah 5:20 you cannot take 
    	the responses personally, you are in for a tough time.  
    
    	Move on.  You've already made your points quite clearly, as
    	has Doug.
    
    	Joe

    For the benefit of the Peanut(-minded) Gallery, Joe, would you kindly
    share the in-joke and explain Isaiah 5:20.  You folks who can instantly
    do the HREF to BibleLand need to share yer gifts.  Else yer contempt is
    merely superciliousness, and all we who live without that info merely
    feel dull & unread.
    

| <<< Note 83.255 by CSC32::J_OPPELT "Wanna see my scar?" >>>

| It's not worth it. Doug will always see our way as bad.

	Come on Joe.... a better way to state your position might have been that
you have different beliefs. At least it would be an accurate response. That is 
unless you can show us that Doug will ALWAYS see your way as bad. 



Glen

| <<< Note 83.256 by DRDAN::KALIKOW "DIGITAL=DEC: ReClaim TheName&Glory!" >>>

| For the benefit of the Peanut(-minded) Gallery, Joe, would you kindly
| share the in-joke and explain Isaiah 5:20.  You folks who can instantly
| do the HREF to BibleLand need to share yer gifts.  Else yer contempt is
| merely superciliousness, and all we who live without that info merely
| feel dull & unread.

	Ya gotta also read around the one single phrase if ya want to get the
correct context Dan. But that part doesn't always get printed.... 


Glen

Isaiah 5:20

	You are doomed! You call evil good and call good evil. You turn
darkness into light and light into darkness. You make what is bitter, sweet,
and what is sweet bitter.


	Hopefully Joe will show how this applies to Doug. :-)

	Btw.... the title above Isaiah 5:8 is the evil that men do. 


Glen

    I yam infernally grateful, Glen!
    

    
    
    	re: .256
    
    	try the WWW Bible Gateway!
    
    	http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible/
    
    
    	I haven't been there for quite a while...not sure if the site is
    even still good. Give it a try!
    
    jim

    Yep, it works.
    
    Thrilled & delighted would not be words I would use to describe my
    feelings about the availability of this "info" via the Web.
    
    But what the heck, I thank the forces of good that parents will be able
    to purchase Internet access that will allow them to block off services
    they feel might be detrimental to the proper upbringing of their kids!
    

    
    	yer dark humour is delightful Dr. Dan....:)
    
    
    jim

re: .241
        
>    [...] I think the social straitjacketing "worked", if you
>    could call it that- many teens were deterred from sex.[...]Of course, that 
>    system imploded- the 60's showed that repression simply wouldn't hold 
>    kids back anymore.
 
    Imploded?  Perhaps it did, but was it the "system" that imploded on its
    own merits, or was it something else that made it implode?  Whatever
    the case may be, it would seem that we are no better off for it.
    
    I also find your use of "repression", above, as being of particular
    interest.  Is it your oppinion (as implied above) that trying to keep
    kids from having sex, is repressive? 
       
>    [...]how can you possibly imagine your ideas of a return to Leave It To 
>    Beaver American morality would work?  Like the A-bomb, you can't simply
>    uninvent sex, or puberty.  
    
    Uninvent?  Curious usage, here.  Like sex was a complete unknown
    previous to our generation?  Or was it that kids weren't inundated with
    sex at every turn, that we as a nation were more discreet for the sake
    of our kids?  Such an attitude of discretion cannot hurt.  
    
>    Teens *know*.  And their hormones are in
>    overdrive.  
    
    Right.  And of course, they are dumb animals and cannot control
    themselves.  The above points to a defeatist attitude, IMO.  Did not
    the kids of the 40's & 50's have hormones?  Didn't they "*know*"?  If
    not, why?  And if so, why could they control themselves better than
    today's kids?
     
>    And if their parents haven't raised them to make moral
>    choices by that age, then what are you gonna do to them?  Throw them 
>    in jail?  C'mon, this to me is a huge gap in your arguments- how are
>    you gonna uninvent biology?
 
    I don't follow your line of reasoning here, particularly your use of
    "uninvent biology" comment.  Unless we only recently invented the
    biology in which you speak, this is a red herring.
        
  
    -steve

    > Today's method is for the father to high-tail it outta there,
    > and the mother and child go on welfare.
    
    If you are referring to the stereotypical inner city fatherless
    family living on welfare, that has little to do with morality.
    People do what they have the greatest incentive to do.
    The government provides this incentive by subsidizing them, and
    whatever
    the government subsidizes, we get more of, be it corn, milk, or
    fatherless families on welfare.
    
    'nother subject:  divorce...
    
    It is an oft-quoted "fact" that one out of every 2  marriages
    ends in divorce.
    
    This is a myth.  Yes, you can pick up an almanac and read the numbers
    of marriages and divorces for last year, and it may appear that the
    above statement is true, but therein lies the danger of quoting
    statistics without understanding what they really mean.
    
    The number of people the almanac says were married last year actually
    were all married last year.  But the number of people the almanac says
    were divorced last year were actually married anywhere from last year
    back to 20 or 30 years or more.
    
    In fact, most of the people married last year are still married this
    year.  I can't quote the source, but someone on a radio show did some
    research into the same National Ctr. for Health Stats but did it a
    little more carefully, and found that 90% of marriages end with the
    death of one of the partners, and the remaining 10% end in divorce.
    
    He looked around more and also found that only 10% of smokers ever
    suffered from any disease caused by smoking.  This is from the
    government's own stats.
    
    The US Justice Dept and the FBI every year do surveys to find out
    how many Americans have been the victims of crime, especially
    violent crime.  The numbers have actually gone down or stayed about
    the same over the past several decades, and yet politicians are
    always using the media to scare more crime bill tax money and votes
    out of us.  Successfully too.  Shame on us all for being so gullible.
    
    The myths arise from some journalist or politician misquoting a
    statistic or jumping to an unjustified conclusion from one, and
    the media spreads it like a venereal disease.
    

    > Both sides of Congress agree that we have to return to a stronger
    > family unit to survive.
    
    Oh come on; did you fall off the turnip truck yesterday?  Both sides
    say that because it makes for a handy sound byte that nobody else can
    argue with.  It would sound foolish to stand up and say, "We need a
    weaker family unit".
    
    Politicians love stuff like that.  Nobody would stand up in favor of
    drug addiction, drinking and driving, or crime.  But they rant and
    rail against these things as if their opposition were all for them.
    This is campaign rhetoric you are falling for here.
    

    re: .250
    
    Are you saying that as long as a teen uses BC, then having sex (prior
    to the age where they can afford or mentally handle a child) is acting
    responsibly?
    
    
    -steve

    > Fathers and Mothers have to demand respect.
    
    Wrong.  They have to *earn* it.  And the best way to do that is
    by showing their kids that they respect them.  Then their kids will
    learn to respect themselves, their parents, and others, and they'll
    try to do the right things in a spirit of cooperation, not our of
    fear of anyone, or anything.
    
    Tyrannizing kids *never* produces good, happy, law-abiding adults.  It
    all too often produces people who resent authority.
    
    A tyrannical parent or boss may enjoy the illusion that people are
    obeying them, but as soon as they are out of the room, those same
    people will be doing what *they* want to do.  They may even turn
    around and do the opposite just to spite the tyrant.
    
    The only way to be assured that people will do what you want them
    to do, especially when you are not there to watch over them, is to
    instill in them a genuine desire to do what you want.  The only way
    you'll ever do that successfully with kids is to establish a good
    relationship with them
    
    

    > Allowing someone to choose what the responsible thing to do, has
    > become the problem.
    
    So you have been allowed to choose what is "responsible", but you
    would not like others to have that same choice.  You would prefer
    to decide for them.
    
    I'm curious ... where did you learn a philosophy like that?
    
     

    re:  .253
    
    Interesting deflection, DougO.  You cannot argue the validity of the
    argument thrown in your court, so you deflect to Constitutionalism. 
    Problem is, you are defining the freedoms we were blessed with as 
    coming without responsibility.  You espouse the freedom aspect of our
    founding documents, yet you dispose of the very morality that spawned
    this freedom- the morality that is needed for such freedoms to
    continue.
    
    There is no such thing as freedom without responsibility.  We are
    finding this out first hand.  It is not responsible to allow our youth
    to have sex before they are prepared to deal with the consequences of
    that act (the preferable condition for this is marriage).
    
    
    -steve

    re: .254
    
    FWIW, the "right wing" is not the side which wants government to raise
    kids.
    
    
    -steve

    re: .268
    
    Why do you equate "demanding respect" with "tyrannizing"?  
    
    You can demand respect without using a whip and a chair.  
    
    
    -steve

    re:  .269
    
    Now now, let's keep things in proper perspective.  We are talking about
    kids in the general context of this discussion, so I'm not sure what
    your point is.  Since the parents are responsible for their kids, they
    need to draw boundaries.  Kids are not self-determinate until they
    reach legal age.
    
    
    -steve (context-man)

RE: 83.272 by CSOA1::LEECH "Dia do bheatha."

> You can demand respect without using a whip and a chair.  

And if you don't get it?


Phil

RE: 83.271 by CSOA1::LEECH "Dia do bheatha."

> FWIW, the "right wing" is not the side which wants government to raise
> kids.

I live in Merrimack,  New Hampshire.

Do we have a different "right wing" on Earth than your planet?


Phil

    All right, You... I *demand* you respect me!  Right now!  Or else!
    
    so there.  :-)

    > FWIW, the "right wing" is not the side which wants government to raise
    > kids.
    
     Well, they don't want to PAY for raising kids, they just want to
    decide HOW they are raised.
    

>    Top Disciplinary Problems According to Public School Teachers
>         1940                                1990
>    Talking out of turn                   Drug Abuse
>    Chewing gum                           Alcohol Abuse
>    Making noise                          Pregnancy
>    Running in the halls                  Suicide
>    Cutting in line                       Rape
>    Dress code violation                  Robbery
>    Littering                             Assualt

And what "Discipline" is done for suicide???  Pregnancy??

I think the "teachers" are indulging in item 1 on your list

| <<< Note 83.271 by CSOA1::LEECH "Dia do bheatha." >>>


| FWIW, the "right wing" is not the side which wants government to raise kids.

	We know that Steve. They ONLY want 2 parents, one of each gender who
are married, to raise children. I wonder if it is ok if those 2 married parents
don't believe in God? Or are they weeded out too?


Glen

    > I have met many members of my generation ... attitude of most of the
    > women I have met ... so angry at men.  ... they were used for sex.
    > they often regret having sex and ... are hurt emotionaly.
    > This is a result of their being told that it's ok for them to have
    > sex when their ready,
    > Of course most of the young men I've met still view women as
    > sexual toys, and want to sleep with as many as possible.
    
    You seem to know an unusually large number of people with sex problems.
    :-)
    
    You are right about one thing though -- sex feels good, and it's more
    fun than most toys.  But not everyone who has sex is doing so for the
    mere enjoyment of sex.  Where people get in trouble is when they try
    to use it for things it wasn't meant for.  In this respect, well-
    meaning parents and others can sometimes do more harm than good.
    
    Consider a scenario in which all a young woman has been taught about
    sex is that it is WRONG to have sex before marriage, that sex and love
    GO TOGETHER, etc. -- the usual moralistic approach by parents who don't 
    really want to deal with their kids' sexuality and so want to put it
    off until the kids are living elsewhere.
    
    Then she decides to brave the guilt and have sex with her boyfriend
    anyway in order to get him fall in love with her.  He loves the sex
    allright, like a puppy loves a dog bisquit, but his feelings about her
    do not change, and she is left feeling betrayed.
    
    Why?  Because she was trying to use sex to get love, and not only did
    she not get the love she wanted, but she now has to deal with guilt
    on top of that, and maybe even worse problems.
    
    When I said people should be "ready" before they have sex, I meant
    in terms of emotional maturity and fully informed knowledge, not
    just physical ability.  And that includes understanding how the
    other sex things and feels as well.
    
    If someone feels used, then that someone was not ready to have sex,
    and that someone's parents and other mentors did not do a very good
    job preparing her for that part of life.
    

    re: .280
    
    You just explained one good reason why kids should abstain until they
    grow up and get married. 
    
    
    -steve

    > You just explained one good reason why kids should abstain until they
    > grow up and get married.
    
    If that's what they are comfortable with, then by all means...
    

    >If that's what they are comfortable with, then by all means...
    
    And if they are not comfortable with it?  Should the parents not set up
    boundaries to protect them at least until they are of legal age to be
    on their own, even if the kids don't like it and aren't comfortable
    with it?
    
    There are many other restrictions that kids aren't comfortable with,
    too, should we do away with all of them?
    
    
    -steve

    .283:
    
    > Should the parents not set up boundaries to protect them at least
    > until they are of legal age to be on their own, even if the kids
    > don't like it and aren't comfortable with it?
    
    Yes, parents should set up boundaries, but reasonable ones tailored to
    the individual kid.  And they need to do so in cooperation and agreement 
    with their kids, except in rare circumstances.  
    
    Parents are supposed to be mentors and protectors, not jailers, and if
    they fail to realize this, they will not have the kind of relationship
    with their kids that results in a pleasant parenting experience and
    happy, healthy successful kids.
    
    > There are many other restrictions that kids aren't comfortable with,
    > too, should we do away with all of them?
    
    In some cases, yes, absolutely!  For example, the legal age to buy
    alcohol should be dropped to 18 again, and drinking age should be
    determined by parents, nonot by the stat
    
    The current laws prevent parents from legally teaching their kids how
    to deal with alcohol, since their kids cannot legally use it in most
    states until they are 21 years old and long gone from home.  The
    result, which some parents appreciate because it means they don't have
    to deal with it, is that kids are left to learn about alcohol on their
    own, by trial and error.  This is one of the stupidest things our
    society has ever done.
    
    In my daughter's freshman orientation at Univ. of Pa., they told the
    class that because of the rash of new laws throughout the country
    preventing kids from legally learning about alcohol before they came to
    college, there were many who would experience alcohol, maybe other
    drugs, sex, and freedom from supervision all at the same time, most
    likely in a frat party or at a party off campus.
    
    Since kids were being thrown into this new freedom with much less
    experience than their predecessors, reports of date rape and other
    unhappy consequences had risen considerably.  Their advice to the young
    adults, most of whom were of "legal age", was to be aware of the
    dangers and to be very careful.
    
    As a parent, I find it intolerable that the state makes it illegal for
    me to teach my kids about alcohol.  So do lots of other parents, which
    is why there are motel parties after proms now, and unsupervised
    parties in high school.  The law had exactly the opposite effect that
    it was intended to have, and it has backfired miserably.  
    
    But the self-righteous, as always with their heads in the sand, see no
    problem, and if they did, well it couldn't be their fault if their kids
    broke the law, right?
    
    
    Grrrrrrr
    

    re: .284
    
>    Yes, parents should set up boundaries, but reasonable ones tailored to
>    the individual kid.  And they need to do so in cooperation and agreement 
>    with their kids, except in rare circumstances.  
 
    "cooperation and agreement"?  This is not a boundary, it is a
    compromise.  I'm not saying you shouldn't get some input (more as they
    get older) as to how to set up the rules (as well as explaining the
    best you can WHY the rules are in place), just that the parents MAKE the
    rules- the rest is letting the child feel like they have some input and
    are a part of the system.
        
>    In some cases, yes, absolutely!  For example, the legal age to buy
>    alcohol should be dropped to 18 again, and drinking age should be 
>    determined by parents, nonot by the stat
 
    Although I agree with you on this point, I think we are getting off
    subject.  We are talking about kids.  18-year-olds are legally adults.
       
>    The current laws prevent parents from legally teaching their kids how
>    to deal with alcohol, since their kids cannot legally use it in most
>    states until they are 21 years old and long gone from home.  
    
    This is not true.  They cannot buy alcohol, nor drink any in public,
    but it is certainly legal for them to drink alcohol inside their own
    home with parental supervision.
    
>    The result, which some parents appreciate because it means they don't have
>    to deal with it, is that kids are left to learn about alcohol on their
>    own, by trial and error.  This is one of the stupidest things our
>    society has ever done.
 
    Well, actually we haven't done anything but outlaw it in public and not
    allow kids to buy alcohol.  I agree that there should be an age limit
    to BUYING alcohol, however (at whatever age they are considered as a
    legal adult).
       
>    In my daughter's freshman orientation at Univ. of Pa., they told the
>    class that because of the rash of new laws throughout the country
>    preventing kids from legally learning about alcohol before they came to
>    college...
    
    Your daughter was fed incorrect information, then.  It is legal in the
    privacy of your home.  If the parent's wish to let their kids have a
    drink or two in their own home so the kids get an idea of what it's all
    about, then they can.
        
>    Since kids were being thrown into this new freedom with much less
>    experience than their predecessors, reports of date rape and other
>    unhappy consequences had risen considerably.  Their advice to the young
>    adults, most of whom were of "legal age", was to be aware of the
>    dangers and to be very careful.
 
    Seems we have a discrepency here.  In the evyl 50's, there were less
    sexual problems than there are today- this includes rape (date rape is
    rape, period- it needs no qualifier).  They also experimented less than
    kids do today.  They went to college in the 50's too, you know.  8^)
    I fail to follow your reasoning due to these factors.  What has changed
    from the 50's to today, that has increased all forms of sexually-based
    problems?  It would seem that acceptance of sexual freedoms at an
    earlier and earlier age, may be part of the puzzle. 
       
>    As a parent, I find it intolerable that the state makes it illegal for
>    me to teach my kids about alcohol.  
    
    You can teach them, just not outside your home.  Is it really necessary
    to teach them outside your home?
    
>    So do lots of other parents, which
>    is why there are motel parties after proms now, and unsupervised
>    parties in high school.  The law had exactly the opposite effect that
>    it was intended to have, and it has backfired miserably.  
 
    Since your premise is incorrect, your conclusion is incorrect.  Not
    that they don't have motel parties moreso today than in the 50's era,
    but I believe your cause and effect to be flawed.  
     
>    But the self-righteous, as always with their heads in the sand, see no
>    problem, and if they did, well it couldn't be their fault if their kids
>    broke the law, right?
    
    I'm afraid you lost me on a few points here.  Who are the
    "self-righteous"?  Why do you think they see no problem?  
    
    
    -steve  

| <<< Note 83.281 by CSOA1::LEECH "Dia do bheatha." >>>


| You just explained one good reason why kids should abstain until they grow up 
| and get married.

	You mean the part where he said you seem to know of a lot of people
with sex problems????? :-)

	Steve, what is the right wing version of family?

    I know this is a different subject, so I'll try not to mix sex and
    alcohol, at least in this one note...  :-)
    
    > Your daughter was fed incorrect information, then.
    
    Instead of asserting that the University was lying to the freshman
    class,
    maybe you ought to ask yourself if maybe there's something you don't
    know here.
    
    > but it is certainly legal for them to drink alcohol inside their own
    > home with parental supervision.
    
    > If the parent's wish to let their kids have a
    > drink or two in their own home so the kids get an idea of what it's
    all
    > about, then they can.
    
    > but it is certainly legal for them to drink alcohol inside their own
    > home with parental supervision.
    
    So junior will sit down with Moms and Pops and drink a beer under their
    intense scrutiny, and then s/he will know all s/he has to know to go
    out in the world and deal successfully with alcohol, yes?
    
    A real wishful thinking fantasy.  Kids at 17 or 18 years old aren't
    going to learn how to handle alcohol by sitting down with Mom and Dad
    and having a beer, as if you could get them to even do such a thing
    anyway.  What they need to learn about is how to handle it in a social
    situation with their peers, at parties where they can let their hair
    down
    the way they will be experiencing it when they are off on their own,
    and
    that is illegal most places now.
    
    The law in Maine explicitly states that nobody under the age of 21 is
    allowed to drink any alcohol, and allowing someone under 21 to do so is
    a crime, with one exception only: A person under 21 can drink alcohol
    only
    in his/her own house under supervision of their own parents.
    It was illegal for friends of ours to give their 20-year-old
    daughter a glass of wine while they were having dinner at our house
    with us and our 20-year old daughter, because they weren't in their
    own house.  Their daughter, her parents, and we could all have been
    found guilty of violating that stupid law.
    
    When I grew up, when 18 was a legal purchasing age and when most people
    didn't get uptight about it anyway, responsible parents let their older
    kids have parties with reasonable amounts of booze if they wanted, and
    were there to make sure nobody got out of hand, collect car keys if
    necessary, provide a ride or a place to stay, etc.  After a few
    hangovers, junior got a pretty good idea what booze was all about,
    and learned how to avoid problems with it even away from home.
    
    Nowadays parents could be jailed for doing such things, so their kids
    attend unsupervised parties if they want to have alcohol, to protect
    their parents, fer cryin' out loud.
    
    But a lot of kids just don't get learn anything about alcohol in high
    school any more, and then they go off to college or to marriage or to
    living on their own and working at a job, and then they learn about it
    on their own.  By trial and error.  That is what the Univ. of Pa. was
    talking about.
    
    OK, can we get back to sex now?
    
    

    re: .288
    
>    Instead of asserting that the University was lying to the freshman
>    class,
>    maybe you ought to ask yourself if maybe there's something you don't
>    know here.
 
    Was the disinformation purposeful?  Probably not.  I wouldn't call it 
    lying, just incorrect/incomplete information (judging solely on what you 
    posted, of  course).  At best, they left out one important factor.
       
>    So junior will sit down with Moms and Pops and drink a beer under their
>    intense scrutiny, and then s/he will know all s/he has to know to go
>    out in the world and deal successfully with alcohol, yes?
 
    Who said intense scrutiny?  Who said that this was an all-encompassing
    episode of experience with alcohol? (my use of the verviage "to see
    what it is all about" was not meant in the absolute litteral manner).  
    It's parentally supervised  exposure, which is perfectly legal. 
      
>    A real wishful thinking fantasy.  Kids at 17 or 18 years old aren't
>    going to learn how to handle alcohol by sitting down with Mom and Dad
>    and having a beer, as if you could get them to even do such a thing
>    anyway.  What they need to learn about is how to handle it in a social
>    situation with their peers, at parties where they can let their hair
>    down
>    the way they will be experiencing it when they are off on their own,
>    and
>    that is illegal most places now.
 
    Small hint: 17-18 IS college age.  Legalizing it for 17-18 year old
    will make NO difference in the current problems- other than alcohol
    will be easier for all kids to get a hold of.  If they go to college
    after high school (which is the norm), then they will be faced with the
    same problems whether or not alcohol is legal for their age-group or
    not.  Unless you wish to change the age to 14-15, you will gain no
    benefit with regards to "legal experience" with alcohol (and what will
    happen is that the problems will just hit them that much sooner). 
           
>    Nowadays parents could be jailed for doing such things, so their kids
>    attend unsupervised parties if they want to have alcohol, to protect
>    their parents, fer cryin' out loud.
 
    Although I do not disagree with your conclusion on the law (in the
    first part of your statement above), I disagree that the main reason
    for having unsupervised parties is to protect the parents.
    
>    But a lot of kids just don't get learn anything about alcohol in high
>    school any more, and then they go off to college or to marriage or to
>    living on their own and working at a job, and then they learn about it
>    on their own.  By trial and error.  That is what the Univ. of Pa. was
>    talking about.
 
    Why do they have to learn about it? (other than by giving information
    about it)  Why must they ever drink alcohol? 
    
    I don't disagree with their conclusion, other than their insistence
    that it is completely illegal (as you implied in your previous note), 
    it is not.   I also disagree with thier suggestion that learning about
    it early is a good thing.  
    
    I learned about alcohol at an early age.  It caused me problems.  It
    set me up for some bad habits that were exceptionally hard to
    break later in life.  The pro's to it were that by the time I was of
    drinking age, I could've cared less.  I didn't go bonzai at bars (well,
    not unless I wasn't driving) and I knew exactly how much booze I could
    could handle (as well as how much booze would put me over legal driving
    limit per my weight- had it down to a science I did).  To be honest,
    though, learning early didn't keep me out of trouble altogether.  It only 
    meant that I started drinking at an earlier age.  It started me off on
    adult bad-habits inside a kid's body (and mind).
    
    If I had it to do over again, I would have waited.  Drinking cost me a
    great deal (I'd rather party with my friends than go to skating
    practice).  I was at one time a national calibre speed-skater, probably
    could've made the world team had I kept training hard (I was getting
    close to the age where a national placement in my division would
    entitle me to try out).  Without an early exposure to alcohol, I may have 
    had that opportunity.  Instead, I can only speculate on what I might
    have done.  God knows that I really loved the sport, and to this day
    only partially understand how I could have been so stupid.
    
    There, now you know a bit of my seedy alcoholic past.  8^)  I post it
    not because I enjoy revealing my own stupid decisions, but to point out
    that kids simply cannot handle adult things (I thought I was handling
    things quite well all during my seedy youth) like many wish to believe. 
    Trouble is, you don't find out the real price paid until much later in
    your life.   
    
    You cannot simply look upon this issue superficially, any
    more than you can look at the sex problems as only being STD's and teen
    pregnancies.  There is MUCH more at stake hiding inside (and outside)
    these statistics- things you aren't likely to see on a statistic sheet.
          
>    OK, can we get back to sex now?
     
    Okay.  In all honesty, there are certain parallels that run in both
    discussions, though: 
    
    * Both sexual and alcohol problems are worse today than in those
    stuffy old days of yesteryear.
    
    * The rebellion mentality promotes abuses of both.
    
    * It isn't really about sex, nor getting drunk.  These are symptoms of
    a greater common problem.
    
    * Sex and alcohol are both promoted in society.  Though the new slant
    is "safe sex" and "safe alcohol" (don't drink and drive), the promotion
    to do both is still there is force.
    
    * The answers to both problems would seem to share a common theme.
    
    
    -steve

	Steve, you might need to add in some more info. Did your parents talk
with you about drinking? Did they say stay away from it? Cuz if they did, and
you drank anyway, you seem to be supporting Mr. Goodwin on this. That kids will
do it anyway..... so could you clear that up please?


Glen

    Dave, I never said you were advocating government raising children. 
    When I bring up such classic phrases as "life, liberty, and the pursuit
    of happiness" (which springs, Leech, from the Declaration of
    Independence, not the Constitution) I do it to remind you of what all
    men {read 'citizens'} are presumably endowed with.  This is a basis of
    philosophical thought regarding the himan condition- it *can* be used
    as a guide to limits on governmental power, but that is certainly not
    its only use.  Certainly when you emit the line I called a "classic"
    (something to do with the "problem" being people deciding for
    themselves what is right) I find this philosophical basis a useful
    reminder to haul you up short.  Your line was a classic excuse for
    repression.  I didn't say that government was the only entity such
    repression could arise from- think about that- who else is in a
    position to repress?  Clearly, anyone who thinks they have the power to
    define some others as being unfit to decide for themselves what is
    right.  The juxtaposition of the phrase from the DoI against your own
    should have alerted you.  Recognize it.   Examine those of your thought
    patterns that lead you into this error and learn not to repeat them.
    
    >You continually try make me out to be right wing.
    
    Nope- this isn't political, per se, its much humbler.  People who want
    to return to a less complicated time when old-fashioned systems seemed
    to work aren't necessarily motivated by political ends- though they're
    often ready to use political means to achieve those traditionalist
    ends.  
    
    > This lifestyle that you have yet to defend, is hurting the country. 
    
    That you seem incapable of recognizing the defense invoked by my
    understanding of the traditions of liberty does not invalidate that
    defense.
    
    > Simply using individual liberty as a defense doesn't work if the
    > results hurt our society.  Individual liberty is great, but our
    > forefathers weren't refering to teenage sex.
    
    I don't think you're following along very well.  One, it isn't simple,
    two, it isn't a cause of the results you decry, and three, how do you
    know what our founders meant?  To expand- it isn't simple.  I've
    previously discussed exactly why I find it so problematic- the notion
    that I want my son to become a responsible adult- the problem being
    that only he can decide to become responsible.  As I see it, I have to
    position him with as much knowledge, with as much sense of right and
    wrong, and with as much experience as possible- and then I have to let
    him make his choices and live with them.  This is anything but simple.
    To expand- such an approach is quite obviously NOT the cause of the
    negative results you see in present-day society.  We are clearly not
    suffering from a surplus of responsibility.  I can quite strongly argue
    that we are instead suffering from far too many people teaching their
    children to be moral cripples- able to follow rules, but unable to
    reconcile their own conflicting emotional needs within those rules-
    untrained to make truly moral choices.  At some point the rules lose,
    and the society loses.  That outcome is what happens when your way goes
    wrong- when kids are completely unprepared for the pressures that
    impinge upon them, especially when those hormones go off.  Who failed
    to prepare them?  Those who were afraid to teach them responsible
    behavior in every area of their lives including sex.  Finally, as far
    as what our founders meant- they were all human.  From some of the
    letters I've read I could well say that many of them understood the
    difficulty of making moral choices, the difficulty of reconciling
    desire with necessity, and accepting responsibility for the outcome. 
    They'd all been adolescents once themselves.  I prefer to think that
    the guidelines they gave us are consistent- and it certainly works for
    me.  I'm certainly not reduced to uttering 'classics' in direct
    contempt of some of their most famous guidance to us, as you did.
    
    > Once again it is the direction of the country I'm concerned about.
    
    Your concern is admirable, but your thought processes are sloppy.
    
    > If you agree that women have a right to be upset with men, why not
    > teach them keep their virginity until they are married ? 
    
    (*sigh*) you just don't get it, do you?  I wouldn't teach them that
    because its just another rule that attempts to impose a paternal
    benevolence over them instead of teaching them something FAR more
    valuable- how to evaluate their own interests, make their own choices
    about what they want, and be responsible for the consequences.  How
    many times do I have to say it?  RULES DON'T PRODUCE MORAL BEINGS.
    
    DougO

    >> Of course, that system imploded- the 60's showed that repression 
    >> simply wouldn't hold kids back anymore.
    >
    >  Imploded?  Perhaps it did, but was it the "system" that imploded on 
    >  its own merits, or was it something else that made it implode?
    
    I am tempted to offer you an ironic jest about deconstructionism, but
    you wouldn't get it.  You are misusing the word system; or at the very
    least, you aren't talking about the same thing I am.  The 'system' that
    I say imploded is the whole thing- responsible for itself- results and
    all.  It either worked- or it didn't.  Clearly, it didn't.  When you
    posit some 'outside' force, you mock the word.  It was purported to
    prepare kids for reality.  When it's inherently repressive values were
    rejected by the kids of the 60's, no matter where they got their
    inspiration, no matter what forces you want to invent as their
    motivations- that shows that the system wasn't strong enough for
    reality.  It failed.
    
    > I also find your use of "repression", above, as being of particular
    > interest.  Is it your oppinion (as implied above) that trying to keep
    > kids from having sex, is repressive?
    
    When your goal is raising teens into responsible adults, then trying to
    keep them from having sex, directly assuming responsibility for their
    actions instead of teaching them to be responsible, then it is
    counterproductive.  And when you admit that you're unwilling to trust
    them with the responsibility for making their own choices in such
    matters, yes, I find that repressive.  You think it isn't?
    
    > Such an attitude of discretion cannot hurt.  
    
    Now who's guilty of 'curious usage'?  Sure, discretion can't hurt, but
    you can't control what kids will be exposed to; not everything they see
    will be discrete.  And if you haven't prepared them for indiscrete
    aspects, you risk their being overwhelmed while vulnerable to their
    pasions and youthful inexperience.
    
    >>    Teens *know*.  And their hormones are in overdrive.  
    >
    > Right.  And of course, they are dumb animals and cannot control
    > themselves.  The above points to a defeatist attitude, IMO.
    
    You are the one calling your kids dumb animals, not me.  Me, I'm
    raising responsible adults- and I'm preparing them for that indiscrete
    world out there.  This isn't defeatist- its realist.
    
    >> And if their parents haven't raised them to make moral
    >> choices by that age, then what are you gonna do to them?  Throw them 
    >> in jail?  C'mon, this to me is a huge gap in your arguments- how are
    >> you gonna uninvent biology?
    >
    > I don't follow your line of reasoning here, particularly your use of
    > "uninvent biology" comment.  Unless we only recently invented the
    > biology in which you speak, this is a red herring.
    
    (*chuckle*)  You may wish this question would go away, but I'll
    sugarcoat it for you, until you're forced to choke it down.
    
    We are talking about raising kids.  The choice Dave Stone and I have
    been arguing is this:  in matters of sexual behavior, do you teach them
    an absolute rule to be ABSTINENT?  Or do you raise them to treat sexual
    behavior as they treat all other relationships- as behaviors that have
    specific consequences, to be prepared for with lots of knowledge and
    careful foresight?  Now, the matter is upon you.  The time is NOW. 
    Your kid, for the purposes of this discussion, is FULLY AWARE of the
    appropriate sex and fully, ah, hormonally activated- in the throes of
    youthful lusts.  How do you hope your child is prepared?  With an
    absolute rule of ABSTINENCE?  If so, how will you treat the one who
    isn't abstinent?
    
    In short, I think it is quite plain that rules of abstinence imposed
    upon kids will fail often enough that a better solution must be
    sought; and I think that better solution (not perfect, no; but more
    cognizant of human failing and better predicated to work with the kid
    than against him/her) is the approach of treating sexual behavior as
    very serious- and something that the individual has to decide for
    themselves.  Not with parental rules- but as a matter of individual
    responsibility.
    
    Your mileage varies, Leech?  Surprise me.
    
    DougO

    re .267-
    
    no, that's an inaccurate shortening of .250.  Try again.
    
    DougO

    > Problem is, you are defining the freedoms we were blessed with as
    > coming without responsibility.
    
    nonsense.  I've argued from the basis of inducing responsible behavior
    in teens from my entry to this string.  Your trouble is that my
    approach to responsiblility doesn't include some dusty set of thumper-
    laws tacked up on the wall; instead, it suggests that each free
    individual is free to find their own place within the laws of the
    society- not the old straitjackets of the days of thumpers past.
    
    > You espouse the freedom aspect of our founding documents, yet you
    > dispose of the very morality that spawned this freedom- the morality
    > that is needed for such freedoms to continue.
    
    Thumper morality holds back more freedom than you ever knew, old son.
    But it wasn't thumper morality that spawned freedom.  Rather, freedom
    has allowed such quaint notions as yours the freedom to wither away in
    the last several decades.  Freedom itself isn't harmed in the slightest
    by the passing of your traditions- don't kid yourself.
    
    DougO

    Dougo,
         You are really off the mark.  Somehow you think if a teenager is
    taught to wait until marriage, or until they are financialy and
    emotionaly ready, to have sex they may become complete failures.  First
    off morality does not equal repression, but freedom.  You are trying to
    argue that a parent that teaches their childern to abstain from sex is
    equal to repression, what a joke.  Somehow these children will be moral
    cripples, unable to make the proper moral decisions, ok yeah.  Come on Dougo
    your the one whose head is in the sand.  If someone is so hung up on sex my
    guess is they wouldn't make it far regardless, maybe in the porn industry.
    Then you go and say that I said this was simple, reading comprehension. 
    I said YOU SIMPLY USE INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY AS YOUR DEFENSE.  You give no
    stats, nothing to back up your claims, just jokes, put downs, and this
    weak attempt to use our founding fathers.  We're talking about teen sex
    not voting, slavery, taxes, ect.
         If you can't see the benifits to returning to a focus on
    abstinence, than your just lost.  Of course children should be taught
    about sex no one said they shouldn't. 
         Why deny you have labled me right wing? You've done it plenty of
    times.  Typical of people who don't have any responsibility, wouldn't
    you say.
         We're not going to see eye to eye on this, never.  Unless you
    change your mind.  The stats prove you wrong.  Did you even look at
    them? They must be baised, some right wing militant, anti-sex,
    repression hungry, conservative, facist, group most have corrupted the
    source.
    
    DAVE
    

    > break later in life.  The pro's to it were that by the time I was of
    > drinking age, I could've cared less.  I didn't go bonzai at bars
    
    Sounds like you got a bit more into it than some, and so did I.  It was
    adamantly forbidden to me, and that was part of the appeal at that age.
    In fact, now that I think about it, everything was adamantly banned to
    me.  It's a good thing I managed somehow to control the rebellion as 
    much as I did... :-)
    
    But my own kids, to whom it was neither forbidden or encouraged, didn't
    get into it at all until their junior or senior years in HS, and then 
    just enough to see what it was all about.  In college they didn't shy 
    away from it, but didn't go nuts with it either, and were mystified at 
    people who got blown away every weekend or in some cases every night.
    
    All in all I was a whole lot more impressed with the way my kids
    handled it than I was with the way I handled it.  But in order to
    accomplish that -- learn about it while they were still within easy
    helping distance of their parents -- they had to do it illegally, and
    it is my position that the state has no right to impose such laws that
    interfere with the ability of parents to raise their own kids.
    
    > had that opportunity.  Instead, I can only speculate on what I might
    > have done.  God knows that I really loved the sport, and to this day
    > only partially understand how I could have been so stupid.
    
    You needed to do what you did for reasons you may or may not ever
    know, but stupdity obviously wasn't one of those reasons.
    
    >    * Both sexual and alcohol problems are worse today than in those
    >    stuffy old days of yesteryear.
    
    Only if you consider sex outside of marriage or before a certain age
    to be a "problem" in and of itself.  You may.  I don't.  If the person
    who is having the sex considers it to be a problem, or if that person
    causes it to be a problem for someone else, then it's a problem, but
    not otherwise.
    
    >    * The rebellion mentality promotes abuses of both.
    
    Always has, always will -- human nature.  And that's exactly why I'm
    against the notion of the parent or the state as the dictator of rules
    and boundaries.  Education and negotiation, when it is possible to use
    those tools, usually work better because they preserve individual 
    dignity and get both sides to buy in to the agreement.  That requires
    a lot less policing, too, since people are then doing what they have
    decided they want to do.  
    
    As a parent, sometimes you have to be stronger, but I always
    found with my kids that if they really thought some rule was unfair,
    it usually turned out there was something I didn't understand, so
    enough talking almost always allowed us to reach agreement.  Then they
    followed the rules even when I wasn't there to watch them, because they
    thought the rules were fair and had helped establish the boundaries.
    
    And doing things that way makes for a much better relationship with
    kids than the old, "Because I Told You So!" approach.  Of course, it
    goes without saying that you also can't ever hit 'em if you want to
    have that good cooperative mutually respecting relationship.
    
    
    >    * It isn't really about sex, nor getting drunk.  These are symptoms 
    >    of a greater common problem.
    
    Yeah, one we all had -- growing up.  
    
    It is interesting though that you compare sex to getting drunk rather
    than to using alcohol responsibly and in moderation.  Is that the way
    you really see sex?
    
    >    * Sex and alcohol are both promoted in society.  Though the new 
    >    slant is "safe sex" and "safe alcohol" (don't drink and drive),
    >    the promotion to do both is still there is force.
    
    So tell me, do you also favor total prohibition in place of trying to
    get people to use alcohol in safer, more responsible ways?
    
    You're right though, they are promoted by some, and condemned by others.
    The more some condemn them, the more others promote them.  Is this a
    little rebellion on both sides?  We do get ourselves polarized over
    issues, don't we?
    
    It would be real interesting to see what kind of society we would have
    if people just didn't get all excited on either side, like in some
    other countries.  Like France, for example -- from what I understand, most
    kids over there don't go crazy with alcohol like our kids do, because it
    is a far more accepted thing and is not a forbidden fruit for them.  I
    don't know how they deal with the sex/kids/condoms/abstinence issue 
    over there, but I'll bet they aren't as uptight about it as we are.
    
    >    * The answers to both problems would seem to share a common theme.
    
    They are both symptoms of a very common theme (not problem) -- the
    normal desire of youth to grow up and do what adults do.
    
    Our (parents and community) reaction to that desire that can either 
    help them by offering information and sensible guidance, or it can 
    cause them to tune us out and go off and do what they want in their 
    own way.  If we don't maintain that good relationship with them, 
    then we cease to have any effect at all except maybe to cause them 
    to rebel, which just makes things worse.
    
    

re: .295 (Dave)

    Yes, yes, we KNOW you disagree.  But WHY?

    Any boob can say, "Is not!!"

\john

     "Well, because, that's why."

Note 83.292 (DougO)
        
>    I am tempted to offer you an ironic jest about deconstructionism, but
>    you wouldn't get it.  You are misusing the word system; or at the very
>    least, you aren't talking about the same thing I am.  
    
    I'm not misusing the word-system, nor am I talking about something
    different.  You simply missed the point I was making (or couldn't
    respond to it).
    
    You claimed that the "old moral system" (basically) imploded.  I did
    not disagree with this.  To explain my question further, I was asking
    what caused it to implode.  Was it the fact that it didn't work, or was
    it the fact that people didn't want to subscribe to it any more (they
    wished to behave however they wished to, without thinking of the
    results of said behavior).  
    
    It is difficult to argue that the system did not work, simply because
    we are now trying to stem the tide of STD's, teen pregnancies, rape,
    and other sexually-related side-effects of tossing out the old way. 
    Sure, all things things were present within the old system, but not
    nearly to the extent that we see today.  Today, these things are
    epidemics- which is one of the reasons it is such a "hot" topic.
    
    The old system did no implode on its own merits.  The old system
    worked.
      
>    > I also find your use of "repression", above, as being of particular
>    > interest.  Is it your oppinion (as implied above) that trying to keep
>    > kids from having sex, is repressive?
    
>    When your goal is raising teens into responsible adults, then trying to
>    keep them from having sex, directly assuming responsibility for their
>    actions instead of teaching them to be responsible, then it is
>    counterproductive.  
    
    This is not a logical conclusion.  Trying to disuade kids from having
    sex is not assuming responsibility for THEIR actions, nor is it
    counterproductive to teaching responsibility.  You seem to assume that
    abstinance is the only thing taught, that no factual information of
    consequence/danger is taught along side it.  Why is it you view this in
    absolutist terms?  Can't you teach abstinance AND teach about other
    sexual facts?
    
>    And when you admit that you're unwilling to trust
>    them with the responsibility for making their own choices in such
>    matters, yes, I find that repressive.  You think it isn't?
 
    Why do you set rules for your kids?  To be mean?  To be domineering? 
    Or to PROTECT them?  Until a certain age is reached, kids should NOT be
    making their own decisions on subjects they cannot possibly understand
    fully.  Kids do not think ahead, they do not see that sex is much more
    than a 'good time', nor will they understand the psychological problems
    that CAN be caused by experimenting too early.
    
    It is not repressive to draw the line on certain behaviors that kids
    are not ready to deal with.  
       
>    You are the one calling your kids dumb animals, not me.  Me, I'm
>    raising responsible adults- and I'm preparing them for that indiscrete
>    world out there.  This isn't defeatist- its realist.
 
    You assume that they will have sex, by your own arguments.  I make no
    such assumption.  I feel that they CAN control themselves with adequate
    parental support that reinforces the "wait until your are
    married/older/ready" view.  You are the one bringing up "hormones" and
    "biology", etc., not me.  I merely extrapolated on your view of kids
    and sex, to show the underlining aspect of your argument.  It is the
    old "kids will do it anyway" argument, and I disagree with it.
       
>    We are talking about raising kids.  The choice Dave Stone and I have
>    been arguing is this:  in matters of sexual behavior, do you teach them
>    an absolute rule to be ABSTINENT?  Or do you raise them to treat sexual
>    behavior as they treat all other relationships- as behaviors that have
>    specific consequences, to be prepared for with lots of knowledge and
>    careful foresight?  
    
    First of all, sexual relations have a much more dramatic affect upon
    people than any other form of relationship.  You simply cannot treat it
    as being equal to any other relationship.  STD's and (unwanted) 
    pregnancies are only the OBVIOUS problems involved with sexual
    relations.  How do you adequately explain to kids that having sexual
    relations early may negatively affect a future marriage? [and there are
    many other, more suble psychological things that are not apparent until 
    later in life]
    
    You can teach kids the obvious drawbacks of early experimentation, but
    the fact is most kids have little or no foresight.  They simply will
    not understand the subtle things that may affect them in the future.
    
>    Now, the matter is upon you.  The time is NOW. 
>    Your kid, for the purposes of this discussion, is FULLY AWARE of the
>    appropriate sex and fully, ah, hormonally activated- in the throes of
>    youthful lusts.  How do you hope your child is prepared?  
    
    With openness, information, and spiritual lessons.  I would teach them
    that virginity is a special gift that you can only give once, that the
    only one worthy of that gift is their future spouse.  I would not teach
    sex as a purely physical thing, because it is not.  Teaching only the
    physical consequences defeats the purpose in many cases, as it
    concentrates only on one aspect (and sets the child's mind on the
    physical end only, which is not a good thing, IMO).  
    
    And contrary to popular opinion in here, I would no teach that sex is
    "dirty", it is not.  It is a gift from God, a gift that is meant to be
    shared with your (future) spouse.
    
    Well, that's the basic outline, anyway.  Don't consentrate so much on
    the physical, or the kid's mind will be anchored in that aspect of sex. 
    This can only lead to further "stirring up" of those hormones, which
    will not be helpful.  Even telling them that you can contract AIDS and
    die is not enough to turn kids away in many cases; but if you can
    anchor their mind in the spiritual aspects of sex, then you have a much
    better chance of steering them clear of experimentation.  Where the 
    mind is, the body follows.
        
>    In short, I think it is quite plain that rules of abstinence imposed
>    upon kids will fail often enough that a better solution must be
>    sought; 
    
    How do you come to this conclusion?  This was basically the way of the
    50's, but lo and behold, they didn't have anywhere near the problems we
    have today.  Your conclusion is not based in reality.  Properly taught
    abstinance, reinforced by society, DID work. 
    
    To act responsibly is not to wear a condom or be on the pill.  These
    are bandaids to the underlining problems.  Acting responsibly is to
    abstain from sex until you settle down with that one person (marriage). 
    You may argue that this is repressive or stuffy or old fashioned, but
    the fact is that if it is followed, it WORKS.  The fact that it is from
    the Bible or any other religious document should be irrelevent.  If it
    works, we should USE it.  If we don't teach it, it will never be used.
    
    
    -steve

    .299 Steve, that last paragraph is probably one of the most myopic 
         views on a position (let alone a solution) that i've seen in 
         here for a long time.
    
         tantamount to curing national obesity by cutting off food.

    >         tantamount to curing national obesity by cutting off food.
    
    No, more like cutting out all foods with fat in them. The people would
    get slimmer, but the food just wuoldn't taste as good...  :)

    -1 or people will increase intake and still be bored to death
       eating boring foods and still reach maximum density :-)

    > Somehow you think if a teenager is taught to wait until marriage, or
    > until they are financialy and emotionaly ready, to have sex they may
    > become complete failures.
    
    er, no, that isn't what I said.
    
    > First off morality does not equal repression, but freedom.  You are
    > trying to argue that a parent that teaches their childern to abstain
    > from sex is equal to repression, what a joke.
    
    er, no, that isn't what I said.
    
    > Somehow these children will be moral cripples, unable to make the
    > proper moral decisions, ok yeah.
    
    If they are not taught to be cognizant of their OWN desires, to weigh
    their own needs in the balance when making moral decisions, then yes.
    Not 'somehow'.
    
    > You give no stats, nothing to back up your claims, just jokes, put
    > downs, and this weak attempt to use our founding fathers. 
    
    Stats don't make an argument, interpretations do.  And I previously
    told you that your inability to understand the wisdom of the personal
    liberty espoused by the founders doesn't invalidate the argument.
    
    > If you can't see the benifits to returning to a focus on
    > abstinence, than your just lost. 
    
    If the focus is 'abstinence', then the focus isn't 'personal
    responsibility'.  I know which approach I consider to be more likely to
    produce responsible adults- and your counter-arguments not only haven't
    convinced me differently, they've seldom even begun to address the
    point.  Get off the myopic 'abstinence' dogma and start talking about
    how you think you can raise a kid to be a responsible adult.  That's
    the focus.  Sexual behavior will be part of that package- don't try to
    treat it in isolation, because kids don't grow up in isolation and that
    approach won't work.
    
    > Why deny you have labled me right wing? You've done it plenty of
    > times.  Typical of people who don't have any responsibility, wouldn't
    > you say.
    
    If I've done it "plenty of times" then you should be able to find
    evidence for it in my notes.  Go ahead- prove your claim.  And then
    we'll talk about who is making irresponsible accusations.
    
    > The stats prove you wrong.
    
    The stats don't suggest any such thing.  I'm talking about how to raise
    a child to be a responsible adult.  You're hyperventilating about
    teenage pregnancy.  I am addressing that problem by teaching
    responsible behavior.  You're addressing it by suggesting that children
    be taught rules instead of how to make moral choices.  If you notice
    that many people do parent as you suggest, with silly campaigns about
    just say no to drugs, just say no to sex, then the stats argue even
    more strongly against your approach.  Or so I interpret them, and as I
    said, your counter-arguments fail to persuade (or address the issue.)
    
    DougO

    I just did a quick "catch up" here, and had a couple of thoughts:
    
    re: divorce stats for 40s and 50s:
    
    How many of these "marriages" simply ended with one party leaving?
    Divorce at the time was a public stigma which was to be avoided at all
    costs.  So, many marriages "ended" with the husband or wife simply leaving,
    which of course will not show up in a divorce stat, since that only 
    covers legal divorces.  I tend to agree with those who say rates are 
    similar, since I would also include couples who separated but never 
    divorced, simply left, or became "annulled" through the intervention of 
    their parents.  I'd say my family history is as normal as anyone
    elses, and my grandfather "left home" in the 1920s and never moved
    back, and my uncle's first marriage was "annulled" after a year had
    passed and a child had been born during the 30s.  Given the social
    stigma attached to divorce during those times, I'd put them in the 
    early stats too, and I'd be willing to but you'd get a lot larger 
    number. 
    
    re: teens and sex:
    
    Good Morning America had an interesting tidbit this morning during
    a piece on campus security.  When a number of students were asked
    what constituted a successful "date" most of the women answered
    dinner, coversation and compansionship.   Most of the men answered
    it was whether or not they had sex.
    
    Someone's not doing their job with the boys, it seems.....
    
    
    Mary-Michael

    > Someone's not doing their job with the boys, it seems....
    
    Or maybe someone's not doing their job with the girls?   ;-)
    
    Actually, it sounds like both males and females are acting
    instinctively, as has been suggested in Scientific American
    and other magazine articles from time to time (Discover, I think).
    
    When the earth had few humans it made perfectly good sense, not
    to mention that it was vital for survival of the species, for people
    to procreate as much and as often as possible.  Men, since they
    didn't have to wait out pregnancy, tended to be more busy having
    sex than women, and also tended to be promiscuous about it.
    
    Now, when there are more than enough people on the earth, and
    species survival may actually be threatened by too much procreation,
    it is probably instinctive for the human race to invent ways to
    slow down procreation.  
    
    If you buy that argument, there are all sorts of interesting
    conclusions you can infer, as well as explanations of various
    human behaviors.

    >> you aren't talking about the same thing I am.
    >
    > I'm not misusing the word-system, nor am I talking about something
    > different.  You simply missed the point I was making (or couldn't
    > respond to it).
    
    Leech, I used the word system.  I said it imploded, that it failed. The
    facts on which I based that statement are clear- the sixties brought us
    the sexual revolution and people rejected the old value system, the old
    straitjacket.  This is not rocket science- its semantics.  The word
    means what I said it means.  You want to invent some outside pressure,
    some bogeyman, some evil forces that caused the system to implode- when
    what I'm telling you is that the word I used is of a system that is
    supposed to be proof against such outside forces.  In presuming to
    supply moral guidance for people it is presumably cognizant of and able
    to resist the influence of other moral systems of thought.  Its
    supposed to guide people in their behavior, its supposed to stay
    relevant.  Since that system failed to meet this test, it imploded.
    
    > You claimed that the "old moral system" (basically) imploded.  I did
    > not disagree with this. 
    
    Did too, but I'm glad you see better now.
    
    > To explain my question further, I was asking what caused it to
    > implode.
    
    Actually, you asked whether it imploded or "something else" made it
    fail.  That "something else" is not outside the 'system' I was talking
    about, but you wanted to talk about it as though it were.  That
    "something else" is precisely the values that people hold; and moral
    straitjacketing was discarded.  If that system failed to inspire people
    to impose their own visions of morality on others, and failed to
    repress people enough to let others define their sexual morality,
    then it failed to do what it tried to do.  People rejected it.  And
    they haven't ever been given any reason to go back on that decision,
    you know.  Despite all the problems modern-day society is faced with,
    people still don't want to go back to straitjacketed morality and
    community standards imposed on all based on the whims of the most
    narrow-minded.  Freedom rejects that system.  You guys simply can't
    remove that perception from the minds of the public, that your calls
    for a return to traditional morality is anti-freedom.  And you'll fail
    to impose your narrow-mindedness for precisely that reason.
    
    > The old system did no implode on its own merits.  The old system
    > worked.
    
    The fact that people rejected it renders the argument irrelevant.
    The system failed and is seen to have failed precisely because we see
    that people don't live by it anymore.
    
    > You seem to assume that abstinance is the only thing taught, that no
    > factual information of consequence/danger is taught along side it.
    > Why is it you view this in absolutist terms? 
    
    Because abstinence is merely one possible fact, one possible behavioral
    choice, among many.  But you people don't talk about it that way.  You
    don't even address the larger framework I have stressed repeatedly-
    that the goal is raising people to make responsible, moral choices, to
    be equipped to do so.  It is for the beings I would have learning to
    make moral choices to weigh that behavioral choice and decide for
    themselves.  It is for this reason I see your words in absolutist
    terms; you have failed to talk about the larger issue, leaving me no
    choice but to conclude your 'approach' to it is abstinence and
    abstinence alone.
    
    > Until a certain age is reached, kids should NOT be making their own
    > decisions on subjects they cannot possibly understand fully.  Kids do
    > not think ahead, they do not see that sex is much more than a 'good
    > time', nor will they understand the psychological problems that CAN be
    > caused by experimenting too early.
 
    What age is that, Leech?  When will your kids be magically enabled to
    cross the line from rule-following behavior to moral behavior?  And how
    will they possibly cross that line?  I reject the magical age approach,
    preferring instead to raise my kids continuously to become more and
    more responsible.  And in the area of sexual behavior, they *must* be
    prepared to take responsibility for their actions from the moment they
    might be taking actions.  Because your rules break down, in the crunch. 
    Rule-followers make mistakes, in the heat of passion.  Responsible
    adults don't.  You can't protect kids from their own biology, and thats
    what your approach is trying to do.
    
    >   You assume that they will have sex, by your own arguments.
    
    I assume that they will act responsibly if they've been taught to act
    responsibly- as THEY see it, not as you or I might.
    
    > First of all, sexual relations have a much more dramatic affect upon
    > people than any other form of relationship.  You simply cannot treat 
    > it as being equal to any other relationship. 
    
    It is more serious.  The level of responsibility is greater.  But I
    expect and demand and teach responsible behavior to a seven year old,
    as I have since he was two or three and learning to speak.  I expect to
    continue to insist and demand and teach responsible behavior as he goes
    into puberty.  You simply can't NOT do that and expect to get
    responsible behavior at some magic "age".  Where will it come from, if
    it hasn't been taught all along?
    
    > How do you adequately explain to kids that having sexual relations
    > early may negatively affect a future marriage? [and there are many
    > other, more suble psychological things that are not apparent until 
    > later in life]
    
    How do you explain anything?  You indicate that life is hard, that
    choices have consequences.  All part of the facts.  Are you afraid to
    address the ramifications of sexual behavior in discussions with your 
    kids?  What is the real issue here, Steve?  Handwaving at "subtle"
    effects is not an honest approach to providing kids with facts.
    
    > the fact is most kids have little or no foresight.
    
    Responsible behavior involves estimating and accepting responsibility
    for consequences.  When I was a teenager (16) my girlfriend and I both
    carried condoms for months before we needed them.  We were both college-
    bound, both very aware that getting pregnant would really screw up our 
    futures.  What nonsense to say that the "fact is" that kids have no 
    foresight!  Teens can be raised to be responsible.  This is what I
    advocate.
    
    >> How do you hope your child is prepared?
    >
    >    With openness, information, and spiritual lessons.
    
    Like those subtle effects you handwaved earlier?  Just how open are you
    really willing to be, Steve?
    
    >> In short, I think it is quite plain that rules of abstinence imposed
    >> upon kids will fail often enough that a better solution must be sought;
    >
    > How do you come to this conclusion?  This was basically the way of the
    > 50's, but lo and behold, they didn't have anywhere near the problems we
    > have today.  Your conclusion is not based in reality.  Properly taught
    > abstinance, reinforced by society, DID work.
    
    Who is avoiding reality, that system imploded, remember?  People aren't
    willing to live by that comunally-enforced sexual straitjacket anymore,
    remember?  I come to that conclusion by observing that that system
    FAILED- as you admitted.
    
    > To act responsibly is not to wear a condom or be on the pill.
    
    Wearing condoms or taking the Pill can indeed be responsible choices.
    And free individuals know this, and will continue to make those
    choices.  Your societally-imposed sexual morality is dead, Steve.
    You can't simply declare Pill-takers or condom-wearers irresponsible
    merely because they live their lives outside your straitjacket.
    
    > You may argue that this is repressive or stuffy or old fashioned, but
    > the fact is that if it is followed, it WORKS.
    
    But it doesn't anymore, Steve.  So what are you gonna do now?
    Me, I'll raise my kids to be responsible- equip them, as best I can, to
    make moral choices.  Good luck with the "rules".
    
    DougO

    >Someone's not doing their job with the boys, it seems.....
    
    No Mary-Michael, we men are just PIGS!!  :)

    Everyone,
         This has been interesting. My contract is up and it's back to
    school.
    
    Dave  

    
    enjoy second grade!

    
    Were they the fondest three years of your life, Colin?
    
    ;^)
    

    Bastidge!  We didn't have grades back then.

    re: .308
    
    No, it doesn't mean all men are pigs.  However it does mean
    many men are only giving lip service to gender equality with 
    very little actual change in attitudes regarding women and sex.
    
    This, coupled with the publicity which conservative and right wing
    opinions regarding women are getting, is developing into a trend 
    that I find very disturbing.
    
    Mary-Michael 

    re: .305
    
    Then you have to add in "separation" numbers to the 90's stats, as
    well.  I doubt you will gain much ground by speculating along this line
    of reasoning.
    
    
    -steve

    re: .306
    
    No speculation there, nosiree.  8^)

>"alliaskofmyselfisthatiholdtogether" >>>

oo-er missus...

Chris.

    
    re: .313
    
    >This, coupled with the publicity which conservative and right wing
    >opinions regarding women are getting,
    
    Mary-Michael...
    
    These "opinions"... they pretty much main-stream right wingers or the
    "fringe"??
     

    re: .314
    
    No you don't.  Divorce in the 90s does not hold the stigma 
    that divorce did in this country until the mid 1970s.  If you
    do a strict apples to apples comparison you will not come up
    with a "real" number since the actual number of failed marriages
    in the 1920s, 30s 40s and 50s is greater than the actual number of legal
    divorces.  Many couples chose to simply part company than go through
    the public "display" of a legal divorce.
    
    Is that really so tough to understand?  Or does everything have
    to be a factoid for you to get the big picture?
    
    Mary-Michael
    
    

    re: .317
    
    I do not consider "Promise Keepers" a fringe movement, and I find
    some of their opinions regarding a women's "role" disturbing.
    
    As a woman who is not now nor wants to be a wife or mother, the
    suggestion that a.) I am not fulfilling my "obligations" or
    b.) there is something wrong with me for feeling that my life has
    meaning and joy without the presence of a husband and/or offspring
    makes me angry.
    
    There are many women who are fulfilled emotional and spiritually by
    marriage and motherhood.  I think that's wonderful.  It is a very 
    special calling.  However, I do not wish an entire gender's parameters 
    to be defined by a single ideal.  There are many who do not fit into
    this mold.  Their accomplishments and opprtunities should not be 
    diminished because they choose to find fulfillment elsewhere.
    
    Mary-Michael

    DougO,
    
    Why do you suggest that I promote strict "rules" without teaching kids
    how to be responsible?  
    
    We both seem to be on the same wavelength of teaching "responsibility",
    though our ideas of "responsibility" certainly differ.  Do you feel that 
    your methods the only workable ones?  You seem certain that mine will
    fail.
    
    The pre-60's morality has crumbled, no doubt.  I posit that this is not
    a good thing, and the facts seem to back me up.  You continually point
    out that the system crumbled because it didn't work.  Your reasoning is 
    that (paraphrased) 'it didn't work because people rejected it and refused 
    to follow it'.  
    
    My position is that yes, people did reject it (not the majority of
    poeple, but a small vocal portion of the people), but they didn't 
    throw it away because it didn't work.  They denounced it because they
    wanted to as they pleased, caring not about the repercussions of their
    actions.  I'm sure they thought they were doing what was right, but
    look at the result of this movement.  You cannot claim the system
    failed logically, simply because everyone did not follow it.  [this is
    similar to saying that seatbelts have no protection value because some 
    people refuse to wear them]
    
    People will tell me that it's none of my (or anyone's) business as to
    who they sleep with or how many they sleep with.  I agree with them
    UNTIL their actions begin to affect me personally.  In a day of the
    social-welfare state, who other people sleep with may indeed affect me
    directly, when I have to pay for the results of their irresponsibility. 
    (welfare babies, women forced onto welfare when the scumbag runs off,
    and many other indirect ways).  We are one society, irresponsibility
    does affect others- we don't live in a vacuum.
    
    
    -steve

    re: .318
    
>    No you don't.  Divorce in the 90s does not hold the stigma 
>    that divorce did in this country until the mid 1970s.  
    
    Do you feel this is a good thing?  (I agree with the above statement,
    FWIW.)
    
>    If you
>    do a strict apples to apples comparison you will not come up
>    with a "real" number since the actual number of failed marriages
>    in the 1920s, 30s 40s and 50s is greater than the actual number of legal
>    divorces.  
    
    Pure speculation.  Not a moving argument, especially when you state
    that separations outnumbered divorces.  You have absolutely no way of
    backing this up with solid numbers.
    
>    Many couples chose to simply part company than go through
>    the public "display" of a legal divorce.
 
    I'm sure some did.  I don't doubt this.  I doubt that the numbers are
    anywhere near the scope you imply, though.
       
>    Is that really so tough to understand?  Or does everything have
>    to be a factoid for you to get the big picture?
 
    I'm sorry that I don't take your assertions as gospel, but hey, I'm
    funny that way.  If you have any real way of backing up what you say,
    I'll certainly give it due consideration.
    
    What you failed to see in my post is that to do an apples to apples
    comparison (as you suggest), you have to add up the separation and
    divorce numbers from BOTH the 50's and the 90's, in order to have a valid 
    comparison (taking into account population variance, of course).
    
    
    -steve  

    re: .319
    
    Mary-Michael...
    
     That's not the point... You stated (broad brushes aside) that
    conservatives and right-wingers had opinions that you found
    disturbing... Fine. I can go along with that. What you seem to be
    evading is who said what and how often...
    
     What "opinions"? Who's saying them? People in power? influence? what?
    
    I find certain opinions that NOW espouses to be disturbing too...
    nobody's got a lock on extremism....
    

    re: .322
    
    Nobody does.  I don't like some of what NOW says either.
    
    An opinion is just an opinion until enough people share it.  Then
    it becomes a public opinion. A public opinion becomes a bias.  A
    bias, given enough time and exposure can become a more.  And getting
    a societal more untrenched takes a good deal of effort.  I'd rather
    deal with them when they are opinions.  It could be construed that
    a consistent emphasis on who said what rather than on what is being
    said is one way to appear to be "concerned" without actually condemning
    the mesage content.  
    
    Many people make it their business to listen to the undercurrents
    of society.  This can tell you much without telling you exactly
    who said it.  Balancing opinion and fact will get you much closer
    to the truth in the end than either fact or opinion alone.
    
    After all, the only basis in truth a "fact" may have is that
    it's been repeated often enough by enough people.  Been on
    the internet lately? :-) :-)
    
    Mary-Michael
     

    
    
    So, it's mostly just "hearsay" and nothing more, however disturbing it
    may be...

    > We both seem to be on the same wavelength of teaching
    > "responsibility",
    
    oh?  from my interchanges with you and Stone I hadn't seen even much
    acknowledgement that this was the appropriate focus, much less support
    for the idea.  But if you agree, fine.
    
    > Do you feel that your methods the only workable ones?  You seem 
    > certain that mine will fail.
    
    I haven't really defined methods.  I've described my approach.  I've
    also described what I see as an inherent conflict between that approach
    and one that stresses a particular choice- abstinence- which, when 
    delivered with parental authority, may serve to short-circuit the
    approach of developing responsible behavior.  If you have an absolute
    rule that abstinence is the only moral choice your child can make, then
    you disrespect/undermine the necessary maturation process that is
    needed to develop a sense of moral decision-making ability in the
    child.  I think it is one of the biggest errors a parent can make- to
    impose such a moral choice on the developing teen.  That teen will
    then be deciding whether or not to disobey the parent; rather than
    deciding whether a particular sexual behavior is the appropriate one
    for the teen to be considering.  This approach confuses the issue,
    predicates the teen as inherently unable to make moral choices for
    themself, and fails to develop the personal ability to decide what
    moral behavior *is*.  I don't say your method is "unworkable".  I say 
    it clearly doesn't meet the goal I have targeted, to develop moral
    decision-making as an integral part of the maturation process.  I
    further conjecture that it will produce emotional cripples, unable to
    reconcile the conflicts of their desires with the absolutist rules of
    their upbringing.  I notice that you shy away from defining the magical
    age at which your rule-following children are suddenly ready for adult,
    moral decision-making.
    
    > Your reasoning is that (paraphrased) 'it didn't work because people
    > rejected it and refused to follow it'.
    
    That isn't the reasoning- that's straightforward observation of what
    happened.  The reasons for it were many- the hypocrisy of the old
    system, the abdication of reason in favor of rules, the simple fact
    that such a system is inadequate to guide a free and varied people.
    One could list such reasons for days.
    
    > My position is that yes, people did reject it (not the majority of
    > poeple, but a small vocal portion of the people), but they didn't 
    > throw it away because it didn't work.  They denounced it because they
    > wanted to as they pleased, caring not about the repercussions of their
    > actions. 
    
    That's so conveeeenient- your preferred system broke down because
    immoral and selfish people refused to act responsibly.  What nonsense!
    It broke down because it was flawed and collapsed under the strain, and
    because the people who were charged with obeying it rebelled.
    
    This is the same guy that found it too difficult to talk to his
    children about the "subtle effects", brushing them off with a handwave.
    I asked a direct question about that, Steve- and you're dodging.  That
    is precisely the breakdown I mean.  Your system pays lipservice to
    "openness", but when a kid wants to know, wants to have a discussion,
    you fob them off with "subtle effects".  The system breaks down. 
    That's why kids don't bow to social straitjackets anymore- it became
    too obviously perilous to trust such hypocrisy.
    
    > You cannot claim the system failed logically, simply because everyone
    > did not follow it. 
    
    In what sense can a system which has failed to remain the preferred
    mode for the majority of the society be said *not* to have failed? 
    What do you mean, "logically"?   I can observe that in the present day
    reality of today's diverse society, you haven't a prayer of reimposing
    such straitjackets.  This is as clear a contraindication as you're
    going to get.  It certainly sufficient for me to conclude that such a
    system is irrelevant, other than as a historical curiosity, to the task
    of raising teens to become responsible adults.
    
    > [this is similar to saying that seatbelts have no protection value
    > because some people refuse to wear them]
    
    What a simplistic analogy!  Your moral straitjacket is about as
    effective a safety belt as a bungee cord- sure, it might make you feel
    safe, but only until you need it.  Then, it'll snap you back into your
    seat only *after* you've been through the windshield of reality.
    
    > People will tell me that it's none of my (or anyone's) business as to
    > who they sleep with or how many they sleep with.  I agree with them
    > UNTIL their actions begin to affect me personally.
    
    Irony alert.  So this gives you the right to attempt to reimpose a
    societal straitjacket on them first?  Affecting them personally, you
    might say.  Don't you *ever* notice the hypocrisy you spout?
    
    DougO

       
    re:.325
    
    > If you have an absolute
    > rule that abstinence is the only moral choice your child can make, then
    > you disrespect/undermine the necessary maturation process that is
    > needed to develop a sense of moral decision-making ability in the
    > child.  
    
    Interesting opinion, can you back it up?  With say....facts?
    
    > I think it is one of the biggest errors a parent can make- to
    > impose such a moral choice on the developing teen.  That teen will
    > then be deciding whether or not to disobey the parent; rather than
    > deciding whether a particular sexual behavior is the appropriate one
    > for the teen to be considering.  
    
    Are you saying that it is wrong for a parent to teach their child what
    they believe is the correct decission?
    
    > This approach confuses the issue,
    > predicates the teen as inherently unable to make moral choices for
    > themself, and fails to develop the personal ability to decide what
    > moral behavior *is*.  
    
    You can of course back this up.
    
    > I don't say your method is "unworkable".  I say 
    > it clearly doesn't meet the goal I have targeted, to develop moral
    > decision-making as an integral part of the maturation process.  I
    > further conjecture that it will produce emotional cripples, unable to
    > reconcile the conflicts of their desires with the absolutist rules of
    > their upbringing.  
    
    IYO
    
    > I notice that you shy away from defining the magical
    > age at which your rule-following children are suddenly ready for adult,
    > moral decision-making.
    
    eerrr....Maybe I missed it, but what is this "magical age" following
    YOUR THEORY?
    
    > That's why kids don't bow to social straitjackets anymore- it became
    > too obviously perilous to trust such hypocrisy.
    
    BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA......That's a rare gem!
    
    Dan

        > Do you feel that your methods the only workable ones?  You seem
        > certain that mine will fail.
    
    Actually, kids grow up, with or without your cooperation and assistance, 
    and they mostly do a pretty good job of it on their own.  You have
    to try pretty hard to mess them up.
    
    You can choose to participate in your kids' growing up process if you 
    want, or you can choose to avoid those parts of it that make you 
    uncomfortable, like sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll, and then
    your kids will get their help with those parts from other sources. 
    
    Unless you live on an island far from civilization, with no
    neighbors, friends, TV, schools, newspapers, books, or any other
    connection to the rest of the world's people, you will only be one of
    the many people who help raise your children, and other sources of
    information will be readily available to them.  It is an extra
    challenge for a parent that kids tend to believe other kids more than
    adults.  Makes your job just that much harder.
    
    So if you want your kids to accept your ideas, your information, your
    morality, you have to make it reasonable, you have to make it fit in
    with the beliefs of the community in which your child has to live, and 
    you have to answer the most personal and probing questions with honesty 
    and openness, not with dogma.
    
    Otherwise you are effectively choosing not to participate in that part
    of your kids' upbringing, and your kids will seek council elsewhere.
    
    As long as you try, as long as you spend time with your kids, as long
    listen and talk to them, it doesn't matter all that much
    whether you are conservative or liberal, straight-laced or
    free-thinking, your kids will make their own decisions based on lots
    of factors, your own beliefs being only one of those factors.
    
    They will also base their decisions on what kind of person you are, 
    how happy and successful you are, and how many other happy and successful 
    kids and adults they see around them, and what their beliefs are.  
    And they'll copy the people they want to be like, and will adopt the
    beliefs and moral standards that work for them.
    
    Heard an interview with the author of, "Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun", who
    said that he talked to a minister once who couldn't understand why kids
    weren't coming to him for help with the problems in their lives,
    instead of going to drug dealers.
    
    The author said to the minister that when it's 10:00 PM or maybe 3:00
    in the morning and a kid needs help, advice, sympathy, or just someone
    to talk to, because maybe their mom is out working, their dad is in
    jail, and some gang is after them, then where can they go?
    
    To the minister?  Where is the minister?  In bed, asleep behind locked
    doors, most likely.
    
    But the drug dealer is right out there on the corner of the street with
    his wares, available whenever he's needed.
    
    It's the same with your kids.  If they want to learn about sex, but all
    they can get from you is, "Just say no!", then they'll simply turn to
    someone else who will be more willing to talk to them.
    
    If you want your kids to grow up the way you want them to, you have to
    be where they need you, when they need you, and you have to have no
    fear of talking, and especially listening, to them about absolutely
    anything.
    

    DougO...  forget it.  
    
    Your interpretation of what I posted is only partially accurate.  I
    would spend the next 200 lines of type just trying to correct it so you
    can repeat the same twists over again.  
    
    FWIW, I don't think you are doing this deliberately, I think you simply 
    can't get past your bias against what you think I stand for. 
    I think you read my notes with certain blinders.
    
    I do the same thing from time to time in notes, so it's really no big
    deal.  We disagree.  Our ideologies are different.  Fine.  The world
    still revolves.
    
    I do not wish continue in this cut and paste session.  I believe that I 
    have been clear enough with my reasoning and words, so that most readers 
    can at least understand some basics of my point of view.
    
    I may re-enter this discussion with you if I see something you post
    that strikes up my interest.  I have already began the "correcting your
    interpretation of what I said" stage, and don't care to continue on
    this track- which inevitably leads towards peripherals, rather than the
    subject at hand.
    
    
    -steve           

    
    <-------
    
    take it to the CIVIL_WAR notes file....
    

    
    <--------------
    
    BWAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAAHAHAH
    
    too funny Andy!

    re: .327
    
       
>    Unless you live on an island far from civilization, with no
>    neighbors, friends, TV, schools, newspapers, books, or any other
>    connection to the rest of the world's people, you will only be one of
>    the many people who help raise your children, and other sources of
>    information will be readily available to them.  
    
    BINGO!  Society plays a big role in the upbringing of kids, in a
    secondary way.  When kids aren't taught any "absolutes" (like right and
    wrong ways of sexual conduct), then they look to see what society says.
    
    Schools:  You should wait, but not for any moral reason, just because
    you are too young.  If you do have sex, use a condom- here have one,
    just in case (wink wink, nudge nudge...we know you are going to have
    sex anyway, that's why we're giving you a condom).  If you do have sex,
    you can get pregnant or end up with an STD.   etc.
    
    Society: Sex is cool.  You are a geek and a loser if you are not having
    sex.  Look at our teevee shows- they ALL have sex.  Men and women,
    teens, men with men, women with women- it is all goodness regardless of
    what brand you prefer.  Look at all these near-naked sex kittens (aimed
    at the guys, obviously, who they know are far more visually oriented that 
    women, in general) on our billboards, in our magazines, on teevee.  You
    want to be them.  They are beautiful, desirable; they represent sex.
    
    Some parents: Don't have sex, you are too young. (now that's really
    going to convince kids to wait)
    
    Other parents: Don't have sex because I say so. (ineffective for the
    most part)  OR...  Don't have sex because you may end up pregnant or with 
    an incurable disease. (scare tactics- work sometimes, at least for a
    while)
    
    Is it any wonder that the problem is getting out of hand?  Society
    plays a key role in reducing the problems.  Unfortunately, society is
    too selfish to teach kids by example.  It prefers to pay lip service to
    the problems ("safe sex") which is a bandaid fix, at best.  Society is
    undermining kids' well-being.
    
>    So if you want your kids to accept your ideas, your information, your
>    morality, you have to make it reasonable, you have to make it fit in
>    with the beliefs of the community in which your child has to live, 
    
    I don't think compromising your morality is the way to go. 
    
>    and 
>    you have to answer the most personal and probing questions with honesty 
>    and openness, not with dogma.
 
    Of course you answer questions with honesty and openness.  Your kids
    need to feel that they can come to you with questions and such, without
    getting censored answers.  I'm not sure why you are against dogma, as
    morality plays a huge role in this subject.  
       
>    It's the same with your kids.  If they want to learn about sex, but all
>    they can get from you is, "Just say no!", then they'll simply turn to
>    someone else who will be more willing to talk to them.
 
    I agree.
       
>    If you want your kids to grow up the way you want them to, you have to
>    be where they need you, when they need you, and you have to have no
>    fear of talking, and especially listening, to them about absolutely
>    anything.
 
    I agree, again.
    
    
    -steve        

    re .326-
    
    If that's the best you can do, Dan, then you're out of your depth. I've
    entered over a dozen notes on this topic and your little snippets
    pointing out the obvious (of COURSE what I say is my opinion) are
    useless.  If you have anything concrete to add to a discussion of the
    best way to induce responsible behavior in the process of helping a
    teen grow up, feel free- but your reactionary little potshots are a
    pretty feeble "contribution".  As far as the magical age, that's
    Leech's notion- when I challenged him several back, he conveniently
    decided to drop it.
    
    re Steve- Don't think you're the only one whose notes are completely
    misinterpreted.  It took a great deal of patience to wade through many
    of your questions which obviously misinterpreted mine.  But if you're
    through with it, fine.
    
    DougO

    re: .331
    
    What's wrong with saying, "Don't have sex, you are too young?"
    I think that's an excellent reason, as a matter of fact, and if
    I had a teenager, that's exactly what I would tell them.  Sexual
    intercourse isn't just about what you take for yourself, it is also
    about what you give to your partner.  Being physically and 
    emotionally able to give as well as receive and to understand the 
    ramifications, both good and bad, of what you are participating
    in.  The "first time", whether it is great or awful, is something
    you are likely to remember for the rest of your life.  It may 
    well shape all the remaining experiences you have in your life.
    It will also do the same for your partner.  It is a gift you share,
    not an act you participate in.  You wouldn't walk down the 
    street and give every person you see a Christmas present.  Presents
    are something you give to special people, people you care about.
    Sexual intercourse is a present you give to someone very special. 
    And since you can only do it "the first time" once, that first 
    person should be very special indeed.  
    
    You can be too young.  You can be "not ready" emotionally and
    physically to handle sex.  The absolute worst reason I ever got
    was, "it's a sin."  Great.  It's a sin before you get married
    but not a sin afterwards.  Which, to my high school mind, meant
    it was much more fun before your wedding than afterwards.... :-)
    Once of the reasons I wound up having sex early was than no one
    really bothered to give me a good reason not too. Had someone
    bothered to explain things in a little detail I probably would've
    given it a little more thought.  Using fear and guilt to keep me
    from doing something made me more angry and determined to find out
    what was so interesting about it.   
    
    Mary-Michael

    Do you think Jesse Helms had sex prior to marriage? Just to get back on
    the subject.  :)
    
    

	Hell, I don't even want to picture him having sex while being
married... :-)

    
    DougO, As long as you keep writing with the tone of a papal encyclical,
    you should expect to be challenged on you sources.  If you wish to
    prevent being challenged, I suggest you learn IMO.  It'll save a lot of
    hassle.

    I'm most interested in discovering what your background on child raising
    is.  Do you have any kids?  Did your parents bring you up in the manner
    which you are proposing.  You are proposing some drastic changes in
    child rearing.  What have you got to back it up?

    Dan

    Try to follow along, Dan. His background in child raising has already
    been entered in this very string. He's supposed to fetch rocks for you
    because you can't be bothered to do your homework?

    
    Thank you for your petty attack Mark.  A pointer would be sufficient.
    

    >Thank you for your petty attack Mark.
    
     You get what you pay for.

    
    Mark, what is with you?  Why all the venom?  Do you have any idea how
    badly this reflects on you?
    
    Concerned
    Dan

       
       Prince Daniel della BooHoo, instead of whining and getting drool
       on your bib, perhaps you might tend to one of the menial tasks to
       which you surely have been assigned.
       
       Your pal,
       
       --Mr Topaz

    
      DK is indeed going over familiar ground.  There has been a mode of
     boxargument in which 'Boxers who actually have progeny defend or lie
     about the inevitably depressing results, against other 'Boxers, such
     as DougO, who utter the clueless admonitions one can expect from
     those who haven't any offspring.  It has been a prolific source of
     heat but no light, on a par with, say, abortion or gun control in
     total sterility....
    
      bb

    
    donny, that note deserves less response then these few words, however,
    if you have anything WORTHWHILE to add, please raise your hand next
    time.
    
    HTH
    Dan

    
    
    Sheeeeeeesh Dan... what did you do?? Are you taller than these guys or
    what???
    

    
    
    Dan, you have arrived.  You are now a pal of Topes.  

    >Note 83.344 by SOLVIT::KRAWIECKI
    
     Again I direct you to the last line of 31.136.
    
     /hth

    
    GEEEEZZZ More venom from Mark..... I hate to say it, but you are really
    acting like a child with all these temper tantrums.  Are you like this
    all the time?  Or do I somehow appeal to your good side?
    

    
    shuttup

<--- too funny.... but true. :-)

    re: .332
    
>    As far as the magical age, that's
>    Leech's notion- when I challenged him several back, he conveniently
>    decided to drop it.
 
    I didn't address it, because I never suggested that there was a
    "magical age", that is your own strawman.  This is one of those
    misinterpretations I was speaking of in my last post.
       
>    re Steve- Don't think you're the only one whose notes are completely
>    misinterpreted.  
    
    I don't, I even admitted that I do the same thing.  Like you (and I'm
    giving you the benefit of the doubt here), I don't do it on purpose, it
    just happens sometimes when two ideologically different people discuss
    something as complex as the topic at hand.
    
>    It took a great deal of patience to wade through many
>    of your questions which obviously misinterpreted mine.  
    
    Then you know exactly how I feel.  Guess that makes us even.  8^)
    
>    But if you're through with it, fine.
    
    Well, consider it 'taking 5'.  If we misinterpret each other, we will
    be spending most of each post denying the position that was painted on
    us by the other.  This is not conducive to useful discussion, IMO.
    
    
    -steve

    
    .342
    
    >[snip] against other 'Boxers, such
    >as DougO, who utter the clueless admonitions one can expect from
    >those who haven't any offspring [snip]
    
    bb, DougO has a son.
    
    hth.
     

    <---  technically, he didn't say DougO didn't have children, only that
    he utters "clueless admonitions one can expect from those who haven't
    any offspring".  
    
    Sorry, I'm feeling somewhat like a pedant today.  8^)

    
      oops - sorry, can't tell the parents without a scorecard.  Just
     goes to show DK isn't so far gone as some here are making out.
     How long do you suppose it would take any ordinary mortal, given
     only Notes access to Soapbox, to determine, say, your or my family
     situation ?  I bet both are in here, and it would take days to
     find them.
    
      bb

    
    I won't thank you, Steve, because you're wrong.
    
    

    > DougO, As long as you keep writing with the tone of a papal
    > encyclical, you should expect to be challenged on you sources.  If you
    > wish to prevent being challenged, I suggest you learn IMO.  It'll save
    > a lot of hassle.
    
    Hassle from you?  If, as I suggested, you'd referred back to the more
    than a dozen notes I've entered on this topic, you'd notice that I
    started by an explicit statement of disagreement with the
    interpretation of stats entered by Dave Stone.  I don't bother to
    sprinkle cute "IMO"s for the benefit of those too challenged to read 
    the discussion, you clueless get- so go do the homework.  Read the
    topic.  Then, make a contribution.  Until then, you're telling us only
    what we all already know- that you shoot off your mouth without knowing
    the background of the conversation.
    
    DougO

    > 'Boxers who actually have progeny defend or lie about the inevitably
    > depressing results, against other 'Boxers, such as DougO, who utter
    > the clueless admonitions one can expect from those who haven't any
    > offspring.
    
    Several boxers have met my family, including Mark Levesque, Dan
    Kalikow, and Jim Percival.  "inevitably depressing results" says 
    far more about you than it does about my son.  Your statement is
    vile, and baseless.
    
    DougO

    >I didn't address it, because I never suggested that there was a
        "magical age",
    
    You used a slightly different term.  Here, have another shot at the
    question, interpret as you wish:
    
    >> Until a certain age is reached, kids should NOT be making their own
    >> decisions on subjects they cannot possibly understand fully.
    >
    > What age is that, Leech?  When will your kids be magically enabled to
    > cross the line from rule-following behavior to moral behavior?  And how
    > will they possibly cross that line?  I reject the magical age approach,
    > preferring instead to raise my kids continuously to become more and
    > more responsible.  And in the area of sexual behavior, they *must* be
    > prepared to take responsibility for their actions from the moment they
    > might be taking actions.  Because your rules break down, in the crunch. 
    > Rule-followers make mistakes, in the heat of passion.
    
    DougO

    re: .357
    
    Let me answer with a question that illustrates what I was talking
    about.  Would you allow a 9 year-old to make their own decisions
    regarding sexual activity?
    
    I'm not suggesting a magical age, as everyone grows up in maturity at
    different speeds.  I do suggest that a 9 year old, regardless of how
    well schooled in sex-ed, should not be making their own decisions on
    sexual participation.  This lies in the realm of parental responsibility.  
    Parents must make certain decisions for their kids, that is part of being 
    a parent- part of setting up rules needed to insure their well-being.
    
    
    -steve

    re: .354
    
    I disagree on pedantic grounds (not intent of the message).  Throw out
    what he meant to say and look at it from a pure technical standpoint.
    
    
    Wanna argue about it?  I'm having a slow day today.  8^)
    

    > Let me answer with a question that illustrates what I was talking
    > about.  Would you allow a 9 year-old to make their own decisions
    > regarding sexual activity?
    
    If I had a 9-year-old who was sexually mature and rarin' to have at
    it, then I'd be worried too.  Who is this incredibly precocious person?
    

    You missed the point.  Maybe DougO will do better with it.

    > Maybe DougO will do better with it.
    
    I already did.
    
    >> And in the area of sexual behavior, they *must* be prepared to take
    >> responsibility for their actions from the moment they might be taking
    >> actions. 
    
    DougO

    
      Well, it certainly was baseless, DougO, since I didn't know you
     had one.  As to "vile", well, I just wish I had a dime for every
     parent who overzealously proclaimed the wonders of their chilluns.
    
      As to "take responsibility", it is a TTWA to me.  What exactly does
     this phrase mean ?  The product cost the stockholders a hundred
     million because of an error I made.  So, "I take responsibility".
     They don't get their money back.  So far as I can tell, it's a
     NO-OP.  I'm getting surer of this now that politicians of both
     parties keep saying it.
    
      bb

    
    .359
    
    All right, I'll have at it 8^).
        
    >There has been a mode of boxargument in which 'Boxers who actually 
    >have progeny defend or lie about the inevitably depressing results, 
    >against other 'Boxers, such as DougO, who utter the clueless admonitions 
    >one can expect from those who haven't any offspring.
    
    You have to read the entire sentence, not just snip one phrase out. 
    It's the comparison between "'Boxers who actually have progeny" and
    "'Boxers, such as DougO,...who haven't any offspring" (note that I 
    edited and added the ellipsis for clarity, not to indicate that the
    edited portion isn't important).
    
    It's also the use of the word CAN rather than, perhaps, WOULD.  CAN
    indicates the actual possession of a power, while WOULD merely 
    indicates the probability or expectation of said power.  If bb had said
    "...the clueless admonitions one WOULD expect from those who haven't any 
    offspring", the uncertainty and ambiguity become more obvious.  Not so 
    with CAN.
    
    Are you with me?
    

    re .364
    
    Yes, yes I am, but where are we going?

    My head is spinning.

    
      Petite Chambre de malades de grammeur ?
    
      bb

    
    re: .365
    
    >Yes, yes I am, but where are we going?
    
    Shirley????
    

    <--- Sorry to hear about your sick Grandma.

    > As to "take responsibility", it is a TTWA to me.  What exactly
    > does this phrase mean ?  The product cost the stockholders a hundred
    > million because of an error I made.  So, "I take responsibility".
    > They don't get their money back.  So far as I can tell, it's a
    > NO-OP.  I'm getting surer of this now that politicians of both
    > parties keep saying it.
    
    In some corporate situations, taking responsibility would mean a pay
    cut, such as the one taken by the head of Nihon Digital a few years
    ago.  In others, it would mean an outright job loss.  But I agree
    that in the corporate world and in politics, it is a slipery
    concept.
    
    In personal life, however, I have been using the phrase to indicate
    that one gets the results one deserves, karma-wise.  If a man were
    to be responsible for a pregnancy, he would also be responsible for
    the burdens of that pregnancy.  Certainly I'm raising my son with as
    much consistency as I can possibly manage- he knows what behavior is
    expected of him and he knows what consequences will ensue if that
    behavior is not forthcoming.  This started over dinner at age three-
    where he was expected to try everything, and to take portions he
    would finish.  If he didn't finish what he took, he got it for
    breakfast the next morning.  Consistently applied, this has resulted
    in dinner table behavior we find acceptable.  How many examples do
    you want?  We are trying to teach responsibility- we are trying to
    get him to notice that the choices he makes, the actions he takes,
    have consequences.  We think it is working.
    
    DougO

    >How long do you suppose it would take any ordinary mortal, given
    >only Notes access to Soapbox, to determine, say, your or my family
    >situation ?  I bet both are in here, and it would take days to
    >find them.
    
    One could ask, prior to inserting foot in mouth. Hope this helps.

    >> Let me answer with a question that illustrates what I was talking
    >> about.  Would you allow a 9 year-old to make their own decisions
    >> regarding sexual activity?
    
    >If I had a 9-year-old who was sexually mature and rarin' to have at
    >it, then I'd be worried too.  Who is this incredibly precocious
    person?
    
    >You missed the point.  Maybe DougO will do better with it.
    
    I was making a point, not responding to yours.
    
    No, I wouldn't let a 9-year-old make their own sex decisions, if a
    9-year-old ever even thought about such things, which they don't.  I
    wouldn't let a 5 year old either, or 3, or 1.
    
    So what?
    
    Are you going to talk to a 17-year-old the same way you do to a 9-year-
    old?  Are you going to expect the same level of maturity and decision
    making ability and responsibility and reasoning power and compliance
    with your commands from a 17-year-old as from a 9-year-old?
    
    If not then why are you using a 9-year-old as an example?
                                
    

    
    Tom,
    
    I did ask and got no information, just a ration of $#!+ from his
    ignorance ('tine has forbidden me to refer to him as his em______),
    Mark, Donny, and maybe a couple of others from the peanut gallery.  So
    asking is not good enough for this crowd.  You must have read and
    memorized all the notes that have been entered.

    
      Well, I'm not sure what all this has to do with Jesse Helms, but
     may I ask DougO, who says he began "teaching responsibility" to
     his son at age 3, how old the boy is now ?  Hard to remember it all
     here in the empty nest, you know.  I do recall that 3-5 was about
     when Dad became almost as important as Mom.  At that age, it's
     pretty hard to be VERY disappointed, I agree.  I ought to try to
     hide my own deep disillusionment, as it is simply bad form to give
     previews of coming detractions to recent parents, who ought to be
     aiming for the stars.  Who knows, maybe you'll be lucky, and all
     will be well.
    
      bb

    Word has it that Jesse's kid wasn't allowed to have sex until he was
    40. After he finally succumbed to his 27 year old woody he was quoted
    as saying, "it was more fun practicing at home, alone"
    
    Go figure!!

    
    
    
    gak
    

    .374  -- you keep alluding to disallusionment or the like.  Are
    you trying to say that your kids have not lived up to your
    expectations of them, or for them?  Or what?

    Grrrr -- man, that spell checker sure screws up sometimes   :-)

    
      Long story for late in the afternoon !  Let's just put it this
     way : I have living proof that you can raise children of the same
     gender, with the same parents, in the same house, by the same methods,
     and get personalities and outcomes so varied that you suspect the
     null hypothesis to be the case : parenting and childhood
     environment do not covary with subsequent adult behavior.  This
     is a very disillusioning result for those with theories of parenting.
     Their only refuge is to claim probabilistic effects.
    
      bb 

    
    <-- ah yes, as in the case of my sister and me.
    
    

| <<< Note 83.380 by POWDML::HANGGELI "Petite Chambre des Maudites" >>>


| <-- ah yes, as in the case of my sister and me.


	Wouldn't, "sister and I" sound better?

re .380:

You mean there are at least 2 of you lovelies out there?

re .381:

Maybe, but it would be incorrect.

    
    
    hint....
    
    mz_deb isn't the "crunchy" one....
    

    
    Madman, you suave devil 8^).
                            
    

    
    I thought about that, but I think it's "me".  I'm sure someone will
    correct me if I'm wrong 8^).
    
    

    
    MADMAN!  I never would have thought it of you!  Very nice move if I do
    say so myself. :-))))
    

    .382  You're right, it should be "me", not "I".  :-)
    
    .379:
    
    >Long story for late in the afternoon !  Let's just put it this
    >way : I have living proof that you can raise children of the same
    >gender, with the same parents, in the same house, by the same methods,
    >and get personalities and outcomes so varied that you suspect the
    >null hypothesis to be the case : parenting and childhood
    >environment do not covary with subsequent adult behavior.  This
    >is a very disillusioning result for those with theories of parenting.
    >Their only refuge is to claim probabilistic effects.
    
    Boy are you right about that!  Same with mine -- hard to believe
    they have any heredity in common.
    
    But they all respond to the basic things like love, encouragement,
    praise, being there for 'em, etc.  All that touchy-feely warm
    fuzzy good stuff.  Which is most of what matters anyway.  
    
    Theories and plans much beyond those basics are likely to be
    frustrated, but that's just nature's way of telling you to adjust
    your expectations to reality rather than trying to adjust reality
    to meet your expectations.  Then it's a lot more fun for everyone, too.

    >I did ask and got no information, just a ration of $#!+
    
    Not true.  I referred you to more than a dozen previous notes which
    would have demonstrated to you, had you read them, that I started
    explicitly with an interpretation of facts.  This would have answered
    your demand for 'facts' with an illustration that we were already
    explicitly into the realm of interpretation- assigning meaning to
    facts.  This seems to have proven too difficult for you.  Too bad.
    
    DougO

    >how old the boy is now ?
    
    as previously mentioned, Erik is now 7.  Starts second grade on
    Tuesday.  We have soccer practise tonight.
    
    > I ought to try to hide my own deep disillusionment, as it is simply
    > bad form
    
    This 'inevitable' stuff denies that any parent anywhere ever made a
    success of raising their children.  I think the point is easily
    dismissed- but as I said, it says more about you than about my son.
    
    > Who knows, maybe you'll be lucky, and all will be well.
    
    Thanks for the encouragement.
    
    > Let's just put it this way : I have living proof that you can raise
    > children of the same gender, with the same parents, in the same house,
    > by the same methods, and get personalities and outcomes so varied that
    > you suspect the null hypothesis to be the case : parenting and
    > childhood environment do not covary with subsequent adult behavior.
    
    This is not meant to be critical- merely a reflection of thoughts
    concerning the 'same' environment you sketch above.
    
    How close in age were your children?  Did you learn anything from
    raising the first that affected the way you raised subsequent ones? And
    how did they affect each other- did the elder resent the way you let
    the younger one(s) off more leniently than they had been treated?  The
    point is- I don't think its possible to provide the "same" environment
    to two different kids- there's too much interaction in that environemnt
    to make their experiences the same- one is always the older, one the
    younger, and they learn as much from interacting with each other as
    from the parents, if they're at all close in age.  Thus far, we haven't
    added the complication of a second child to Erik's environment, so we
    haven't these complications to deal with.
    
    Not that I want or expect two different kids to turn out identically at
    all!  But teaching them to act responsibly doesn't seem to be so
    strictured.
    
    If you suspect the null hypothesis regarding parenting and childhood
    environment, what *do* you think are the more significant determinators
    of subsequent adult behavior?
    
    DougO

    re: .364
    
    Okay, I'm with you.  I was reading the CAN as being equivalent with
    WOULD or even MAY.  Of course, I was purposely avoiding obvious context
    and meaning to try my hand at being super-pedant.  Guess I missed this go 
    round.  8^)
    
    I will give up this life of pedantry, and return to being the  
    right-wing-extremist-wacko-conspiracy-nut that you have come to know
    and love...well, maybe like (tolerate?...not despize?..uhm...well, you get 
    the picture).  8^)                                              
    
    
    -steve

    
    {extends hand, waiting for towel}
    
    

    Steve, you forgot `driving Mark homicidal with your inane snarfing'.

    8^)

re: .372
    
       
>    Are you going to talk to a 17-year-old the same way you do to a 9-year-
>    old?  Are you going to expect the same level of maturity and decision
>    making ability and responsibility and reasoning power and compliance
>    with your commands from a 17-year-old as from a 9-year-old?
>    
>    If not then why are you using a 9-year-old as an example?
 
    Why are you using a 17-year-old as an example?  
    
    You did miss my point, no because it went over your head, but because
    you missed the context of my question within this discussion.  I was
    responding to DougO's "magical age" comment.  
    
    Using a 9-year-old was only illustrating what I was talking about
    previously, which triggered the "magic age" strawman [you'll have to go
    back about 30 notes and read through the back and forth between DougO
    and I to get proper context of this].
    
    The illustration merely showed that there is a line to be drawn.  Until
    a certain age is reached (which varies per individual), the parents
    should not let their kids make certain decisions in life- sex being one
    of those decisions.  
    
    
    
    -steve            

    re: .393
    
    Oh my!  I did miss that one, didn't I.
    
    SNARF!

    >Why are you using a 17-year-old as an example?
    
    Because a 17-year old is a whole lot more likely to have a sex life 
    than a 9-year old, and is also much more likely to be able to make
    responsible decisions about it.  It is ridiculous to claim kids can't 
    make good decisions about their sex lives, using 9-year-olds as an 
    example.  But I think you know that.
    
    >The illustration merely showed that there is a line to be drawn. Until
    >a certain age is reached (which varies per individual), the parents
    >should not let their kids make certain decisions in life- sex being one
    >of those decisions.
    
    OK then, why don't you tell us specifically how long after a person
    becomes sexually mature in a physical sense they become mature enough
    to make their own decisions regarding sex.
             

    Loaded question alert!

    Reasonable question though.  If someone says, "He's not old enough,"
    then they ought to be able to say how old "old enough" is.

    FWIW,
    
    I have used and am using a similar child-raising method with my three
    and, so far it works.  Teaching kids responsibility and THINKIG through
    their actions works far better than making pronouncement like some tin
    god and then wondering why the kids went south.  
    
    Mine are 21, almost 10 and 2.  they do have varied personalities,
    (thank goddess, I don't want Stepford children) and will probably grow
    up to do very different things.  However, learning consequences and
    discussing actions and consequences from an early age did a much better
    job of keeping my oldest out of trouble than pronouncements from "on
    high" with much misinformation did for me and many of my peers.  
    
    OK, someone posted illegitiamte birth rates.  Now how about age of
    first child born for tyhe '50's through the 90's, or is it ok for
    14-year-olds to have babies as long as the proper paperwork is in
    order?  Does a child suddenly become responsible simply because they
    got married before said child was born?  Also length of marriage before
    first birth could be very interesting.  
    
    meg

    
    WRT: kids and sex and what age they can "deal with it"

    My 10 year old daughter's reaction -- upon being apprised of the
    facts of life by her mother, including information regarding
    exactly what gets placed exactly where in order to commence the
    process of bun-in-the-oven-hood -- was "ick."

    I'd say she's got a much better handle on sex than _most_ 17+
    year olds... :-)

    -b

    
    <--- BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
    
    I said the same thing when I was 10.  I did.  My mother still
    reminds me 8^).                    
    
    

    re: .399
    
    My neice said the same thing at 10.  8^)

    I said the same thing too, after I was told I would go blind.

    
    What, for touching your areas?
    
    

    Lessee ... area ... that would be width x length, yes?

    Yes, I had urges in my areas.

    
    Ohhhhh, government in action!
    
    

    Urges. Group Urges!
    
    I have urges in my areas!

    
    It rained, and now I have SOGGY areas!
    
    

    Now how did that happen?

    Heard on NPR a recording of part of a Jesse Helms speech from back in
    the 60s, in which he was talking about the University of North Carolina, 
    and remarked that, "UNC stands for the University of Nigras and
    Communists!"
    
    What a guy.

    
    He's all better now.
    
    Right?
    

    
    Well, if Byrd can be all better, why can't Helms? 

    Watch the guy on TV. See that R after his name? That's why.

    
    It seems Strom Thurmond was involved in a few filibusters in his early
    years too...
    
     Naaaaaaahhh.. people don't change....
    

    
    | Well, if Byrd can be all better, why can't Helms?
    
    why don't we all acknowledge the two as miserable scum and get
    on with life.