in the wrong era. Soundly refuting
liberals online since 2000. NOTE: That is NOT
me pictured at left. :)
| Gallup | Campaign 2012: Obama, Romney Each Has Economic Strengths With Americans |
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| Chi. Sun Times | New Tone: Inside Sunday’s violent clash between ‘Black Bloc’ anarchists, cops |
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| Power Line | Media Watch: “Is GOP trying to sabotage economy to hurt Obama?” |
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| WaPo | Shock: White House visitor logs provide window into lobbying industry |
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| Politico | Interesting: Obama super PAC slump continues |
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Audacity of Truth
"Diplomacy":
"People are saying what in the world is going on with North Carolina, we look like Mississippi." - NC Gov. Bev Perdue (D) on the passage of Amendment One, 5-11-12
Culture in the 21st century: Part 2
As a follow up to my last post where I ranted a bit about how the images we see have influences on us all, especially when we were younger – I neglected to add in there comments about the music we listen to influencing us to some degree … probably a good thing I didn’t, considering tonight as I was making a CD of favorite older songs from an online "jukebox" I have, three songs I downloaded were Bell Biv DeVoe’s "Do Me", Prince’s "Darling Nikki", and Sly Fox’s "Let’s Go All The Way" 
Seriously, I really dug those songs – but they didn’t influence me to be promiscuous. In fact, I wasn’t promiscious then nor have I ever been. So to expand on my prior post about culture, I should add that I know that a lot of what we were influenced by when we were younger had to do with how we were raised and what impact our parents teachings had on us. But even at that, there were influences that were outside the control of our parents because your parents couldn’t and can’t shelter you 24-7. I think society today (including governmental policies, that date back decades) enables and encourages youth that single motherhood is ok, and the prevalent attitude still is "a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle." It pushes that sex outside of marriage is ok, as long as you wear protection, and that intimacy outside of the actual consumation of the act is not considered sex – just ‘sexual relations’ (thanks, Bubba!). It also pushes the idea that older female/teenage male relationships are ok but older male/teenage female relationships are reprehensible (the classic double standard).
Sometimes I wonder if I am overblowing all this because, as I said in my last post, I feel like I am turning into my mother – who used to worry about the exact same things, and I in turn blew off those concerns as no big deal. And that was 20 years ago. Has our society changed much since then?
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Yes, society has changed that much in 20 years. For me, the upside in this insight is that you haven’t & that’s likely due to your mom doing a great job of instilling the right thinking into you. I’m betting, too, that you value virtue more than arbitrary values. But that’s just a hunch.
Yes, ma’am, it has changed, and for the worse. Maybe it’s inherent in any society. Plato, or Aristotle, also complained about the youth of his time. The quality of culture has changed, and the quantity of that low quality is pervasive. When people are constantly bombarded with anything, they become inured to it and that very inurement fosters an attitude that it is the norm and, therefore, perfectly natural and all right. The late Senator Moynihan warned us about “dumbing down” things.
Parents bear a heavy responsibility. It’s tough work raising kids when society and peer groups drag them away from values parents want them to internalize, but it’s easy to stop battling when the household is in turmoil and there isn’t enough time or energy to keep fighting that good fight.
God knew this. That’s why He generally gives kids to us when we’re young!
The real question is: How do concerned people stop this downward slide? Anyone who comes up with an answer for that will be enormously weathy in a short time.
There is nothing wrong with two consenting people having sex before marriage, as long they are responsible. Having unprotected sex with many different partners is obviously wrong, but there is nothing wrong with two unmarried people in a monogamous relationship having safe sex. The only reason many people are opposed to this is because it goes against their religious beliefs. There are many people who feel that their religious beliefs not only apply to themselves, but they apply to everyone else also. I think people who push to withhold accurate information about preventing unwanted pregnancies and STD’s by using condoms and other forms of contraception from others, and people who want to deprive access to contraception to others are much more immoral than anyone having consensual sex.
Other countries that educate everyone about preventing unwanted pregnancies and STD’s by using condoms and contraception and also provide universal access to contraception have much lower rates of unwanted pregnancies, abortions, and STD’s than the United States. In this country, many of the people that are fanatically opposed to abortions support policies that will make it much more likely that women will end up having one.
Brian, you need to get over this belief that worries about the moral fabric in our society are restricted to religious folk. You give secular folks out there a bad name via your implication. Good secular, as well as non-secular arguments have been made against sex before marriage and I personally am not calling for a law to forbid it. Sheesh.
As to the rest of your generalizations, that’s exactly what they are. I’d ask you to provide a source for the following:
“and people who want to deprive access to contraception to others are much more immoral than anyone having consensual sex.”
…. but find it too comical to even take seriously, number one, because the first part is flat untrue and the second part isn’t proveable one way or the other. I don’t know where you come up with this stuff, outside of just throwing it out there due to the fact that it seems discussions about morality in general offend you.
Sister Toldjah,
There are some pharmacists who refuse to fulfill prescriptions for any type of contraception. Some red states are passing laws that would not allow pharmacies to fire pharmacists for doing this, while some blue states are passing laws that require pharmacists to fulfill these prescriptions. Many conservatives are opposed to providing any type of sex education that includes any information about contraception.
I guess I got a little off topic from your original post. Regarding your criticism of “pushing that sex outside of marriage is okay”, I consider it to be an opinion as to whether or not it is okay. It is possible that some people who did not wait until marriage to have sex may feel they had a better life because of this while some people who waited for marriage to have sex may be happy about the choice they made. I don’t really see anyone pushing youth that single motherhood is okay although I don’t really look for this. My guess would be that people are most influenced by what goes on around them rather than what they see in the media. If someone is brought up by a single mother and most of their friends are also brought up that way, it is probably more likely when they have children, their children will end up being raised by a single mother.
And should bartenders be fired for refusing to serve some people and not others, Brian? Contraception is not a life saving medication any more than alcohol is.
As someone much wiser than I said:
The ONLY sure prevention to unwanted pregnancy or venereal disease is abstinence, which works EVERY time.