From: krueger@galileo.physics.arizona.edu (Ted Krueger)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.marrou,alt.politics.correct,talk.politics.misc,alt.sex
Subject: Re: Legislation of morality
Date: 12 Oct 92 19:45:46 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Arizona, Tucson AZ

In article <1992Oct11.030319.9764@midway.uchicago.edu> thf2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>In article <1992Oct9.154536.10425@uoft02.utoledo.edu> jsteiner@anwsun.phya.utoledo.edu (jason 'Think!' steiner) writes:
>>how is this fallacious?
>>    1. irrisponsible behavior is the primary factor in the spread of AIDS
>>    2. eliminating such behavior will slow the spread of AIDS dramatically.
>>
>>unlike your silly baby-in-an-air-accident analogy, such a policy 
>>would save quite a few lives.
>
>My analogy isn't so silly.  The government has dozens of policies where
>the money spent on regulating health costs taxpayers in the range of
>millions of dollars per life.  And we're repeating it with our AIDS policy
>by not distinguishing risky activities from not-so-risky activities, and
>advertising that all sex is unsafe, when it is quite the case that some
>sex is much much safer than other types of sex.  But if people only hear
>"sex is bad", people will ignore the propaganda, and won't know to
>substitute away from less-than-safe sex.  But what we're seeing is the
>government (and media and public interest advertising) spending tons of
>money trying to drum in a puritan attitude towards AIDS that has little to
>do with reality.

Blah. Blah. Blah.  That's not what I see.  I see a media and advertising
saying use a condom when they know that condoms aren't that effective
in stopping AIDS.  I read a statistic of 16% failure in stopping the
AIDS virus.  That doesn't sound too effective to me when you're talking
a lethal disease.  Noone wants to say "Don't have sex" or "Don't have
homosexual sex" because their afraid of offending someone.  That's
total BS.  It's not about sex being bad, it's sex could be deadly.  

>There are only so many projects the government can undertake before it
>shuts down the economy to tax to pay for all of them.  It's important
>to get the most bang for the buck.  Unless you have ulterior motives, it
>makes no sense to mail a pamphlet to every rural household in South Dakota
>warning about unsafe sex when a tenth as much money spent on a single
>needle exchange program in the ghetto could save ten times as many lives.

I'm amazed that you actually stumbled onto a point.  You're right.  There
are a lot of programs that could save more lives.  Most AIDS activists believe
that AIDS is going to run wild.  If they are right then we need to make
it a priority.  But I would much rather see all of the money spent on
condom adds spent in education in how having sex especially anal
sex spreads AIDS.  As for the other lifesaving issues, call your
congressmen and tell them to get off their asses and stop spending 
money on stupid money-wasting programs.  Elect a Libertarian.  Do
something but stop posting spurious observations.

>Life is a series of "irresponsible" activities.  Do you live in a plastic

You may have a life of irresponsible activities.  Don't make that 
assumption about others.  I'm perfect. B-)  On a serious note,  I'm
not talking about legislating behaviors unless it has a serious 
demonstratable effect on society.  For instance, I believe in MJ and
possibly other drug legalization.  But, in the case of AIDS, I think 
it has definitely been shown that behavior change is where we will be most
effective in eliminating AIDS as a threat to our society.
Xref: sparky alt.politics.clinton:9808 talk.politics.misc:51020 alt.politics.bush:8690