From: hjort@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: AIDS and Legislation of morality
Date: 14 Oct 92 22:42:02 GMT
Article-I.D.: ohstpy.14240.2adc69fa
Distribution: usa

In article <Bw3Dvp.B9y@ns1.nodak.edu>, green@plains.NoDak.edu (Brad Green) writes:
> In article <1992Oct13.194212.22997@srg.srg.af.mil> dpipes@spica.srg (Dave Pipes x4552) writes:
>>This "family values" stuff is just a nifty way of legislating moralism.
>>It is hateful, being the core of the new Christian Conservative politics - 
>>"You don't believe in family values?  What a sinner folks, this one would
>>probably kill you and eat your kids without a thought!"  Just bush-league
>>manipulation.  Please let me know when these family values we have supposedly
>>lost produced a peaceful, loving American society.  Was it 30 years ago?
>>90?  150?  Funny, all of our history has featured violence, whether or not
>>people believed in the stereotypical values embodied in the current usage
>>of the phrase.  The "Good Old Days" never were, and certainly never will be.
> 
> I'm getting a little tired of jerks putting down values.  The do your own thing
> to hell with values attitude in the 60's might be the cause of all our 
> problems now.  What are values?  (Forget the family part.)
> 
> We see rampant crime in large cities, and we also see a breakdown in the
> family in the same areas.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "breakdown in the family", but for this
post assume it to be true. So now we can point to a correlation between
crime and the breakdown. It would be premature to say the breakdown causes
crime, as I think I could just as well make a case that crime causes the
breakdown (peer pressure to become a criminal, profit from theft is more
than honest working parents can cope with, seperation of the parents from
children thues accomplished as child becomes a criminal against parents
wishes.) I however suspect that the true reason behind the correlation
is some other set of causes that cause both crime and the breakdown.
(such as poverty and unemployment might be partially responsible...)

>                            If everyone believed (an impossible dream) in
> things like honesty, responsibility, and (go ahead, laugh) the "golden
> rule", crime would drop dramatically.  Maybe I'm old fashioned, and if
> so, I make no apologies for it.  If you are taught that some things are
> just plain wrong, and you don't do them, you go along way toward solving
> problems.  When parents take responsibility in their kids actions, crime
> goes down.  When parents take responsibility in their kids education,
> the grade points go up.  When you accept responsibility for your actions,
> teen pregnancy rates go down, as well as AIDS.  Morons that put down the
> values issue are just that - morons.  Sure we have wars - no respect for
> the other guy causes them, along with ego problems.  Slavery?  Lack of
> respect for another person's rights.  You could go on and on.

These are valid points. However getting this to happen is very difficult
to accomplish. The best way to get parents to take this sort of responsibilty
is to have had thier parents raise them the same way. I think what may be
a problem is that "you have to take a test before you can drive a car, but
anybody can have kids". One current trend (IMHO) is that parents try to
pass over this responsibilty to the schools, which of course are not
equiped to handle all responsibility for the children.

> 
>>Graduation from high school does not imply intelligence, and sexual activity
>>does not imply running around like minks.  Intelligence certainly does not
>>imply knowledge of right from wrong.  Heck, that's even in the Bible - 
>>remember Adam and Eve?
> 
> No, graduation doesn't imply intelligence, but this is North Dakota,
> remember?  We don't just graduate people to get the numbers up.  And by
> every measure of learning, ACT and SAT test scores for example, we're
> right at the top.  Unrestricted sexual activity does imply a certain
> animal instict, animals just mate with no thought of what they are doing,
> it's an instinct thing.  I would hope people could think a little about
> what they were doing.  Are you implying we have no more intelligence 
> than a mink, and just act instinctivly?

I think the idea is that sexual activity should not be restricted (externally).
However I don't think that implies people should not show any (self)
restraint in terms of their sexual activity. Sex exists, and people will
learn about it sooner or later, so it is better to prepare them for it
rather than throw up a wall around sex, and have them be completely
unprepaired for it.

> 
> As far as the failure rates for condoms go, I used to work for a drug
> wholesaler, I know how many get junked because they cannot be relied on.
> 
Thanks, I now feel safer when using a condom. Obviously condoms are being
rejected because the failed some sort of safety test, which implies that
the ones I buy in a store pasted the test. Also note the phrase "relied on"
which (IMHO) says not "this codom can't provide protection" but "this
condom MIGHT not provide adequate protection". Seems to me that the
condom industry is working hard to provide only reliable condoms.

					-Hans H Hjort