From: gsmith@clio.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de (Gene W. Smith)
Subject: Re: Family Values B.S.
Organization: IWR, University of Heidelberg, Germany
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 92 19:31:51 GMT

In article <1992Nov7.195003.12697@panix.com> jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
writes:

>1.  As I understand the welfare rules, a teenage girl who wants to
>establish herself in the world can get enough government support to
>live on in her own apartment if she has an illegitimate child.  The
>effect of such rules is to undermine family values.  That effect would
>be change if the rules changed.

Changed how?

>2.  The radical feminist view that sex role differences as such are
>unjust and should be eliminated is opposed to family values, but has
>been influential in setting government policy and in the law.

This is incoherent.  Do you mean that radical feminists are in favor of
surgery rendering us all hermaphrodites?  And if not, what do you
mean?

>To pick a couple of random examples, statistical sex disparities would
>no longer persuade courts that something wrong was going on and the
>stories of princesses and knights that you run into in schoolbooks
>would no longer feature exclusively can-do princesses and bumbling
>knights.

How do books with can-do princesses and bumbling knights undermine
family values?  If so, did Ozzie and Harriet also undermine family
values?

>3.  The gay liberationist view that the male-female bond for mutual
>support, establishment of a household and rearing of children should
>have no special status is opposed to family values.

How would (for instance) gay marriages undermine family values?  Once
again, it is hard to tell what exactly you are gibbering about.  Try
to be more specific.  It would also be nice if you gave an argument,
instead of making a bunch of more or less moronic sounding flat
statements.

>Accordingly, a government that wanted to promote family values would
>nnot institute measures intended to promote equal respect for other
>sorts of arrangements (for example, antidisrimination laws or
>"education for diversity" in the public schools).

Respect for other may undermine the values of moronic, hate filled 
bigots.  But how exactly does it undermine the family?

>4.  Under the law in many places it is much easier to get rid of a wife
>you're tired of than a tenant or an employee you don't like.  If family
>values ruled, those laws would change.

Is keeping together a marriage where the husband beats the wife every
night good for the family?  You again are making flat, dumb sounding
statements without supporting arguments.

>Maybe I should clarify what I mean by family values.  By "family
>values" I mean the attitudes and institutions that promote the
>existence and success of families.

Such as wife-beating, homophobia and sexual discrimination?  What
exactly are these attitudes *really*?  Unless you know what makes
families heathly (which is what we are really after, I think), you
can't decide what family values are.  And you seem to be, quite
frankly, totally clueless.  Where does the extended family fit into
all this gibber, for instance?  What about parental leave? And etc?

  By "family" I mean primarily a
>socially-recognized union of a man, a woman and their children of the
>sort I alluded to in 3. above. 

Why are nuclear families best?  What about other families?






-- 
     Gene Ward Smith/Brahms Gang/IWR/Ruprecht-Karls University 
               gsmith@kalliope.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de
Newsgroups: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.rush-limbaugh