Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Wed, 29 Jul 1992 22:25:00 EDT
From:         Travis Kidd <TKIDD@CLEMSON.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: A few thoughts ...

On Mon, 27 Jul 1992 02:43:00 CST "VALENTINE M. SMITH" <CDELL@UMKCVAX1.BITNET> sa
id:
> Have Robert, Missy Kerry or Travis ever been married, or have they ever
> had sex?
No to both questions.

> I, too, was divorced. Had my first wife and I stayed together, one of us
> would have killed the other. In neither of my marriages did we vow to
> "stay together until death do us part," but wrote more pragmatic vows
> ourselves. Though troubled, my second marriage is basically sound, and
Really??  And your marriage was deemed legal??

> has lasted 12 years. That leads to my next question. How old are these
> moralists who would dictate to me, and everyone else, how we should live
> our lives? I'm 45, and know good and well staying married to my first
> wife would have led to homicide and/or severe child abuse, as we were
> both severely angry people with no training in how to deal with it, and
> counselling failed. There is a reason for divorce, abortion, and sex -
> none of these actions occur, or have occurred, in a void. Accepting Missy's
Murders are not committed in a void either.
Sometimes "He owed me five bucks!" is a reason.

> That leaves roughly 80 million potentially sexually active people in
> the country, who may not, under Travis' "rule" EVER engage in sexual
> activity because they are not married. Let's be kind again. Let's say
> only half of them engage in sex. Add that to the other 6.9 million
> trangressors - hey, we got a whole new business in this country -
> sex cops and sex jails!
Hey--I'd be willing to give up an island in SC and put 'em all there.
Or maybe we will just slap them with fines or revoke their driver's
licenses

> Which brings me to my last point of this irritated litany. Travis and
> Robert both seem very fond of imposing their alien moralities (as far
> I can see, neither very close to "mainstream"), and Travis especially
> seems desirous of a police apparatus state while similitaneously arguing
> for less Federal/government interference in our lives. I want less
> interference in MY life all the way down to the municipality! I want the
> government, and the self-appointed morality cops, to get out of my sex
> life, my medical life, my substance consumption life, my legal life, my
> tax life (unless we are willing to have genuinely fair taxes for all
> including those "persons" called coroporations!), my political life, and
> stop trying to dictate to me what the rules "God would want us to have."
> I can barely live with the rules of men, as is the case for most of our
> society. Theocracies perished almost completely by the end of the last
I never said let's bring back theocracy.  However, I am convinced that
rules of morality--which, yes, are largely based in (Judaeo-)Christian--
thought--are what has kept this country strong, and that the depletion
of such values are dangerous to American society, and could chip away
at the foundation of our country and eventually lead to its downfall.

> future. Tell me not how to live my life, and I may feel a great deal more
> tolerant of yoir narrow-minded, moralistic (to drudgery) beliefs. Not
> realizing how irritated I was 'til I read Jimbo's post, VMS
You entered into a social contract, bud.
-Travis
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