What family values?
Since we're apparently the "family" country. I'd have to wonder, if we're not comfortable with the idea of our teens having sex (and drinking for that matter), even under what might be supervised conditions, if we're probably not also talking to these teens, even about our supposedly optimal abstaining options. To my mind, we're actually the uber-individualist country where we let our teens do as they wish and pretend that they're well-behaved instead. Until there are obvious areas of concern like teen pregnancy, STDs, and serious drunk driving incidents. It would be best if we did not pretend that we had a great deal of interest in family values since we clearly don't value the lives of our children if we're so busy making them too afraid to talk to trusted adults (within their families) about often critical decisions in their lives. To the point that they are making them without appropriately evaluating negative consequences and costs of those decisions.
The birth control disparity has other cultural effects (religiosity rates are very different), but these others should not. It appears we're basically going to end up with a population that has sex mostly by 17 anyway without seriously invasive and pointless laws, so we may as well talk to the kids about the options before they go about their business. Raising kids within a moderation environment and letting them make choices seems far more reasonable, largely in terms of producing good outcomes (ie, fewer teen pregnancies and fewer STD infections), both here in our attitudes toward their sexual relationships and in the question of alcohol use. (this also throws cold water on the notion that encouraging condom use is somehow about encouraging promiscuous sexual teens. This seems far more like a cultural fear we have rather than an empirical result, and has more in common with parts of East Africa than the developed world. Where condom use is similarly discouraged as a shaming or through creating a perception that the users are unclean, as opposed to condom use being considered a sensible responsible precaution.)
One of the most interesting conclusions of that comparison is that both sexes of American teens wish they had waited longer (while very few Dutch teens did). I'm pretty sure given that much of our comedy relating to virginal experiences is on how bad it is/was, this should tell us something about the choices we're making leading up to that. Ie, the who, the what, etc, isn't actually well conceived of, not discussed, and ends up being a pretty poor experience for both young women and young men. This is not, to me, an indictment of sex itself. It's an indictment of having sex with the wrong people. The reason this is obvious is that most European teens are going through the careful process of thinking about the consequences of those actions and getting condoms or prescribed birth control pills/shots, etc, which would be things I'd think that people interested in committed sexual relationships as adults would seek out. They're not just going at it like wild animals as is our conception of teenage hormones. And they seem pretty happy with the results. Meanwhile, here, both sexes don't seem too happy with the results of those encounters. Which strikes me as flying in the face of our "theories" about teenage male sexuality.
And we're also dealing with the consequences by having to pay for all these teenagers with pregnancies, abortions, or various sexual infections. It's the very essence of a corner solution utterly failing to produce even its desired outcomes and it carries with it these persistent notions into adulthood that sex is somehow unclean and has no recreational aspects to it within relationships, even when we sanctify it with the rituals of marriages. I'd suspect we'd probably have healthier relationships (and lower divorce rates) if more people saw their sex lives as simply another aspect of expression within their relationships. As something to have some fun with rather than something of a unfortunate duty to each other. If Dutch teens can figure this out, then why can't American adults?
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Proof positive that infertility is rampant in Europe.
Congratulations. You have proved, once again, that you are a one perspective only kind of guy. Same goes for your previous five posts.
Arguing with you is pointless, because to you there is but one possible right perspective. And that is yours.
You are not stupid. You are perspectively challenged.
Fine then...
What perspective have I missed here? I'm aware that Europe has about as much sex as we do and has fewer children. I don't see how that's a problem. Or a bad outcome. If it is, and perhaps it is, then so be it. I'm not convinced that we need to maintain 6+ billion people as the global population so lower overall fertility rates do not bother me. Or that lower fertility rates in developed countries cannot be compensated for with liberal immigration policies to keep their population and labour force stable by importing excess population from other nations (which is basically what Europe does). Europe is hardly "infertile". It simply has fewer children by choice and by planning. This doesn't seem by itself to be a problematic outcome other than to their more expansive social welfare policies. It doesn't strike me at all as a moral problem or a health problem. If it is looking that way to you, perhaps you should explain why rather than pretend it should be obvious to me (since you presume I have no idea what you could possibly be talking about).
What outcome would you prefer? That we have more abortions and much more teenage STDs? Because that's what your proposed solution (abstinence only with no adult conversations about sex or expressive sexuality in relations) results in. Good luck with that says I. Reality is that (other) people are going to have sex. You might want to start accounting for that in your world view sometime. In other words, I have considered that perspective (yours) and found it lacking and insufficient. It works for people it works for, but that's only some of the population and leaves us with the consequences of everyone else who will err or fall short of some proposed ideal of abstinence or fidelity in sexual relationships. That's hardly the most Christian attitude to take to condemn people. I imagine that's somehow important to you. Perhaps I'm mistaken (either on the theological dogma or that it's somehow important to you).
In the meantime, you are taking exception also to my positions on...
a) mandatory conscription
b) the wisdom of nation building
c) whatever it is that I think "real America" means (which is nothing)
d) whether or not people think highly of themselves in the right ways
e) whether or not the election matters.
Perhaps you should either
a) refrain from reading someone's opinions who you clearly have no respect for, mostly because you have a very different worldview that you inadequately bother to explain
b) refrain from commenting in hyperbole and explain what precisely you're disagreeing over sometime. Or simply explain more clearly than you have attempted to this point. You tend to be very bad at opening your debates (by failing to identify the precise objections, in this case you managed to do so) and then retreat away from actually making a point. It's an interesting style of debate.
Something else you might want to consider if your position is that Europe has an infertility as a health problem: One of the biggest health related causes of infertility is epidemics of STDs.
The obvious problem is the delaying of having children places women at child-bearing ages that are much higher than the historical range (teens to low 20s at least) and which risk infertility. This however is not an infertility issue in terms of health care so much as a choice not to be reproducing during peak reproductive periods in life. Perhaps that choice is the wrong one in your view, but it is a choice being actively made and maintained by liberal societies throughout the globe and it corresponds quite well to the elevation of women in those societies being permitted to exercise some level of choice over their bodies (through use of birth control, condoms, etc).
So far as I can tell, most women still want to have children, but they average a far lower demand for amount of children than men who want kids do. So if the effect of that is that women have their children later, when they feel they have adequate resources and a suitable partner for raising one or two children instead of 4 or 5 that they might be able to have if they started sooner, how is that a problem? Because it might risk reliance on IVF treatment? Because they're supposed to have 4 or 5? Because it encourages empowerment of women? What is the issue with choice and planning over families rather than families resulting from what often amounts to deliberate accidents made without any planning and forethought whatsoever?
Simplest retort to your proposed problem with my perspective lacking:
lower fertility rate does not equal a higher infertility rate. In either the medical or real senses.
You have no kids so your perspective is not: "How will I raise my kids."
The most logical perspective taking into account the entire post would be: "I as a single, childless, thirty something adult want to point out the flaws of parents in my country, and hold up the over-controlled people of the nations of Europe as the standard of all good in this regard."
Which raises one question: How much invasiveness of the government into the home is good, in your opinion?
What invasiveness into the home have I proposed here? Is it government policy in France that people's children use birth control when they have sex? No. It's a cultural norm. No law requires the use of birth control. In fact the only distinction is that there are fewer regulations that prevent teenagers from acquiring contraception.
If the desired outcome is in fact to have less governmental invasiveness into the home, then it would seem having like fewer regulations is a good idea.
And in to answer your question, I have very little interest in government invasiveness into the home.
That's precisely why I favor a policy that allows for contraceptive access. Government's perverse incentives applied by social conservatives (and on this topic, this would be most all American parents' attitude to lean toward social conservativism) to everyone else is partially why these are less accessible. If instead of a paternalistic protection we have a society which in effect requires parents to take some active measures themselves rather than allow government's watchful hand to intervene on their behalf, how is that advocating a society of over-controlled peoples?
As to the question of children. If I were to have any, I'd practice what I preach here. I have a very free-range attitude toward the potential dangers of life, explain them and then let kids explore.
That includes sexuality. My perspective would indeed be to raise any kids I'd have this way and talk to them about sex or sexuality. However awkward that may seem to be for one or both of us, it seems likelier to produce healthier outcomes as to avoiding some undesirable effects. And I'd rather they can manage undesirable effects themselves than me have to watch over them like a hawk.
"The enemy door is down." Orson Scott Card Ender's Game
The apple will move in a direction consistent with how it was "dropped;" with no regard for "down": a subjective term for orientation purposes.
Home is people living together in a common religious, economic, and political arrangement, generally but not necessarily, consisting of children and adults.
Your idea of home is that events or practices of others in direct conflict with beliefs and practices of the home does not occur "in" the home.
When the government asserts certain beliefs and practices as better than the beliefs and practices of the home, the government is invading the home with its own ideas of "good."
According to you there is a seperation of church and state inherent in our constitution, however, your dogmatic belief that contraceptives should be more available to other homes is intrinsically invasive to those who do not share your dogma on this matter. And you want government to push your beliefs as superior to the beliefs of homes that differ from your own beliefs concerning this matter.
Where did I say that government should be pushing these things? Clarify that for me and your premise and objection might start to make sense. Right now you're presuming that the government is to be involved in something which I think it already is, but in the direction of protecting your perspective rather than advancing my own. I would prefer it does neither.
Besides which, in my view the idea that contraceptive access, extending down even toward sexually active teens, is a negative for society is strictly speaking a "church view" rather than an individual perspective, and violates separation of church and state under the same logic that you seem to think I want to use. The state already imposes that view, that contraceptives are bad by restricting unnecessarily their access and by teaching not to use them (not merely by not teaching people how or to use them, but actively discouraging their use). If you don't want that to continue, you don't get to make your church and state argument in my view, because you're already in violation of it. I call hypocritical bullshit on that entire line of argument in other words. You're already using it to your advantage and don't want anyone else to get to do the same? Okay then, fine. How about you get the government's negative restrictions on access out of the way and we'll talk about methods to encourage use (for instance, birth control and condom companies themselves could be responsible for campaigns to advertise and encourage their use, or concerned parents groups, etc. Trojan shouldn't need the government's approval to run an advertisement).
If you don't want your own children to use them, teach the them methods to avoid doing so yourself, but you do not get to force me to teach my children something I do not care to. Namely, this view that contraceptives are evil and vile things to be avoided, as is typically done in abstinence only education programmes, such as those of the state of Ohio and other socially conservative states. If that's your opinion then you get to express it but you don't get to impose it as though it is reality. That has very serious negative impacts on my family and families everywhere who do not share the "courage" of your apparent convictions.
I also disagree entirely with your notional definition of "home". I don't think it is necessary that a home consistent of people who share a common set of religious or political views for instance. A home by its nature of containing multiple people will contain disagreements to begin with over resolution of issues such as these.
If you have a home like that, congratulations I guess, but I have no desire for one where I am unchallenged and untested in my ideas and where no discussions are to be had over complex issues. I do not share this conviction that events or practices in direct conflict does not occur "in" the home. I very much think that it does in fact.
For instance, my argument would be that very often children/teens are having sex under their parents roofs without parental consent and input for instance and that one consequence of a "home" which ignores this activity or presumes that it will not happen by not discussing it is that there may be undesirable negative consequences for the family and the teens involved. Talking about it at least potentially helps to avert these consequences. The state is not needed for parents to take a more active stance on teenage sexuality than to just simply object to its existence as some sort of evil emergence of hormones.
By the way. I think I have decided that in fact you are again issuing forth with psychological projections as you have often done in the past with these arguments.
If you cannot see how the state imposing your preferred beliefs upon me and reducing market access between consenting parties is not a separation of church and state issue then I think you are severely perspective challenged. To me a condom or a birth control prescription has very little negative connotations, it is not even alcohol use or marijuana consumption where there is at least an argument that teens need to be protected against self-inflicted harms during the development of their bodies. Using contraception is a harm avoidance strategy by its very nature. This would be like saying we should not have seat belts for teenage drivers because they drive recklessly already in my view. It's insane and absurd behavior that we should restrict this through government action rather than through personal methods of discouragement such as the fundamentalist religious beliefs that you appear to have.
Personally I have begun, since you keep switching arguments instead of sticking to one of them (you abandoned that infertility "point" pretty fucking quick), to question whether or not you understand what you are trying to explain to me at all or not. I'm strongly suspecting that you do not and that you are in fact, not merely perspectively challenged, but an idiot as well. When you can actually make a point without it being self-refuting, let us know. I've seen you do this so many times by now that I'm losing patience with the argumentative style. It's like you want to lose every debate.
If you actually read the "apple" argument.. which it seems clear you did not, you would realize that attempting to raise the Ender's Game gravity perspective doesn't actually refute anything. It basically just demonstrated that you got my point and conceded it. Thanks.
The perspective we look at as "down" is agreed upon as "down". This has nothing to do with gravity so much as gravity being a force which will move the apple in the direction we describe as "down" when gravitational forces exist in significant amounts. The actual point was that saying it is "down" when it is "up" is essentially crazy talk and will be ignored.
If gravitational forces began to act in a way that objects fall "up", then we might perhaps have to adjust our understanding of gravity, but since this is very unlikely to be the case that objects will begin to fall up..... the easier answer would simply be to understand that up and down are subjective, and as long as gravity is pulling an object in some direction, that's the direction it's going to go without sufficient force to escape it.
Our perspective only is useful in so far as it allows us to communicate that objects are falling "down" in while under the power of Earth's gravity. If someone wants to argue that they are in fact falling "up" without that they are standing on their own head, then we would look at them as though they are insane, and rightly so.
Orientation must be established before further discussion can be had. In Ender's Game the place they are in has essentially no gravitational pull, thus a "dropped" apple hangs suspended where "dropped" leaving "down" undefined.
In any argument or discussion orientation for the argument needs to remain fixed. What you practice is turning argument orientations. You did this with the primary school question you asked me. And the question concerning laws that use mean ability to reproduce. When I gave you the answers you changed the orientation of your argument or simply ignored the facts. To being in the the primary school question you asked me: "What books did you read in primary school?" and then attacked me for being schooled in a private school because I used your term: "primary school" in my response.
When I showed you that age of consent laws use "mean ability to reproduce" you ignored it. What should I think, but that you intentionally avoid unpleasant realities and live in your own fantasy world?
You are single so you constantly have debates with your room mates? Or perhaps your home is: one where I am unchallenged and untested in my ideas and where no discussions are to be had over complex issues.
My guess is your dogmatism is such that there is no ability to reason with you. Few, if anyone, can convince you of anything without physically demonstrating it.
You live in your own fantasy world and cannot handle reality or to even consider the possibility you are mistaken in your perspectives.
Since we are now no longer discussing the topic at hand and are focusing on each other's personal demeanor, I'd like to wonder why you've persisted in reading then since you seem to believe that I've been attacking all along. If I live in a fantasy world (and I find this a rich ironic challenge to issue at someone else coming as it does from a religious fundamentalist), then why do you bother?
I have been patient with your attempts to convince me of things, but you have been largely ignorant of my actual arguments. I do not change what my point is. You misinterpret it and it has to be guided back in the direction that I was intending to argue in the first place so that you at least understand what the argument is over so that it can then proceed. I've seen you do this dozens of times by now both here and on Liberty's page that you have misinterpreted the original arguments being raised. It gets annoying. That's been the problem.
You haven't addressed this argument at all with any seriousness because it challenges the idea that somehow contraception is evil and the existing status quo of religious interpretation being deemed factually appropriate. If you wanted to do this, you would be commenting on it still. Instead you have decided to open with direct personal assaults on my character and impugning my ability to contemplate opinions which are not my own (the mark of an educated mind, to entertain a thought without agreeing with it). This is not appropriate behavior.
(I recall the private school "argument", I don't recall "attacking" over it. I recall being instead extremely skeptical that you in fact did anything of the kind. You do not present as a person of considerable reasoning abilities in your writing and it seemed more like you were attempting to "one-up" as though you had some special abilities that I must have lacked by not having gone to the same religious instruction you had. I could have called you on this at the time and chose not to. I do not remember you raising age of consent being tied to mean ability to reproduction at all so if I ignored it, that's why. I could check, but I'm fairly sure it wasn't the main thrust of your counterpoints at the time relating to consent and sexuality in any case. It also would tend to weaken the idea that we should have age of consent laws which do not allow for teens to have contact with adults in the first place, a position which I suspect neither of us was advocating. I'm not sure that actually helped you in otherwords to raise that point.)
Since we are now no longer discussing the topic at hand and are focusing on each other's personal demeanor, I'd like to wonder why you've persisted in reading then since you seem to believe that I've been attacking all along. If I live in a fantasy world (and I find this a rich ironic challenge to issue at someone else coming as it does from a religious fundamentalist), then why do you bother?
I have been patient with your attempts to convince me of things, but you have been largely ignorant of my actual arguments. I do not change what my point is. You misinterpret it and it has to be guided back in the direction that I was intending to argue in the first place so that you at least understand what the argument is over so that it can then proceed. I've seen you do this dozens of times by now both here and on Liberty's page that you have misinterpreted the original arguments being raised. It gets annoying. That's been the problem.
You haven't addressed this argument at all with any seriousness because it challenges the idea that somehow contraception is evil and the existing status quo of religious interpretation being deemed factually appropriate. If you wanted to do this, you would be commenting on it still. Instead you have decided to open with direct personal assaults on my character and impugning my ability to contemplate opinions which are not my own (the mark of an educated mind, to entertain a thought without agreeing with it). This is not appropriate behavior.
(I recall the private school "argument", I don't recall "attacking" over it. I recall being instead extremely skeptical that you in fact did anything of the kind. You do not present as a person of considerable reasoning abilities in your writing and it seemed more like you were attempting to "one-up" as though you had some special abilities that I must have lacked by not having gone to the same religious instruction you had. I could have called you on this at the time and chose not to. I do not remember you raising age of consent being tied to mean ability to reproduction at all so if I ignored it, that's why. I could check, but I'm fairly sure it wasn't the main thrust of your counterpoints at the time relating to consent and sexuality in any case. It also would tend to weaken the idea that we should have age of consent laws which do not allow for teens to have contact with adults in the first place, a position which I suspect neither of us was advocating. I'm not sure that actually helped you in otherwords to raise that point.)
As to your second to last point, I do indeed find it difficult for people to change my mind on a topic I am well informed about without presenting facts as they are at which point, I will attempt to incorporate these errors. A position which I am less informed about, I will tend not to write about or will write more skeptically about it until I feel more assured that my information is correct or is being assessed in a similar way by others.
If instead however someone attempts to argue with a set of facts that seem egregiously invalid, that's a problem that they're going to have a hard time demonstrating anything to me (as in the case dealing with teenage sexuality and parenting styles and their net effects and outcomes). Or worse presents an argument which doesn't seem to even follow from those facts (as with the presentation that this was somehow a church and state separation issue that should defends the status quo), or instead twists my argument in order to argue with a straw man argument that they think I'm suggesting instead (by suggesting my preference is that the government should force people to use contraception, when I suggested no such thing), I find these sorts of things very unconvincing, yes.
So should you. I'm not the only one who has noted your tortured "reasoning" style (as before when you've attempted to argue the definition of "ad hominem" and other arguments here and elsewhere).
You might want to look into it because it's causing you apparently a lot of frustration when you try to comment in a manner that you must consider constructive on people's blogs. It's not like I have not encountered your perspective or your arguments. I have, frequently. I have found them lacking a grasp on reality and dismissed them. Since we're apparently both living in our own worlds, it's going to be very hard to have constructive talks, I'd agree with that. You will note I've ignored your blogs entirely and don't argue with what you might be posting there. I have no interest in attacking you personally the way you do with others (and you do). I don't care.
I respond here because it's my space and at this point you're an unpleasant and unnecessary visitor to it. If I have to re-state what it is I actually am saying a dozen times before you concede what our actual topic is, that shit gets old. And you go and do it every time you comment. So you will be ignored if you don't have a substantive point in the future and a constructive way to raise it (ie, without opening and persisting the argument forward by means of ad hominem attacks).
You are right on my inability to express my thoughts.
I will be back at some other time to attempt it again, because it is an ability I would like to have. But how does one gain what is lacking?
Honestly. Best thing I can advise is that you should fess up to your religiosity and your own dogmatism when you comment to anything that requires you to defend them.
You've been dancing around the idea that you don't seem to think there's any good reason for separation of church and state, much less that there is any such clause in the Constitution or the constitutional history and intentions of such for this country. It's happened several times by now without ever admitting to it openly. This subject is no different as far as I can tell.
You're perfectly fine using government to restrict other people's religious opinions and perspectives as long as it upholds your own. Whereas I'd rather both your and my beliefs had to compete in a free market and leave the government out of the sex ed curriculum (or the educational curriculum period) and that parents were thus more encouraged to take some active roles in talking to each other and to their children about human sexuality in a productive way. I see no reason why you should get the liberty of imposing your views on me simply because more people might share them. That has little to do with whether or not they work as you pretend they do or whether they're true or not. And that's partly why we shouldn't make those limitations. Consider how pleasant it would be to live in a society ruled by some other religious perspective being in the majority and forcing you to bow to its decrees about society and social norms through law. You won't get very far in that society. Neither would I.
For practical advice on how to comment anywhere.
1) avoid creating straw men. Read the argument actually being advanced and don't turn it into something that it is not.
2) avoid using ad hominem attacks. Particularly when they're very easily leveled against you. You seem use a lot of psychological projection, as well as you seem awfully defensive when you comment, taking offense where none was intended and claiming weaknesses as though we should have some pity on you. Personally you come off as an enormous prick almost everytime you've commented. I have no pity for pricks. But if you're going to persist in commenting, you may as well start becoming a useful dick. Otherwise it's not going to be worth your time because I'll just ignore you as such.
3) I'm not sure how you'd have considered yourself a writer without ever having learned how to construct an argument (because you're pretty terrible at it so far as I can tell and this is one of your bigger problems), but basically if you're arguing over facts, then state what yours are and support your own counter argument or demonstrate how they would invalidate someone's point (if true, which can be a problem with "facts"). If you're arguing over a perspective or political course of action based on those facts, then that's a reasoning error rather than a gap in knowledge, and point that out. Separate the two. You don't open up by insulting the other person or claiming they don't know what they're talking about and then not demonstrating that this is a problem. Regardless of someone's biases, they will dig in rather than accept anything of what you have to say. If you wish to persuade, you need to state your own case or show what's wrong with theirs and not just say they've got a problem and run away.
4) If you're wanting to be as judgmental as you seem to want to be over other people and their ideas, then you should be far more comfortable of being judged yourself and should be willing to put forward your own views more openly.
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