Libertarian Party: Your Thoughts?

[mirial]

You're going to have to elaborate.

Broken families; teenage pregnancies, single parents etc. Chaos has been normalised with no social or spiritual threat. Surely a church culture despite it's limitations and whether people believed or not was better than the law of the jungle system we have now?

Perhaps a new thread is needed here!

 

[Famine]

I'm curious... are you saying that society (in an unnamed territory) is suffering from a high rate of teenage pregnancy and single parenthood and that this leads to "broken" homes and families, and that it is due to the abandonment of religion in that society?

Only... [Citation needed]

 

[Danoff]

Broken families; teenage pregnancies, single parents etc. Chaos has been normalised with no social or spiritual threat. Surely a church culture despite it's limitations and whether people believed or not was better than the law of the jungle system we have now?

Perhaps a new thread is needed here!

Libertarianism generally frowns upon attempting to cultivate a particular culture of values - especially religious or preferred family structure values. That's up to the individual. If you think churches are important, tell them to get the message out. Recruitment is their responsibility.

 

[mirial]

I'm curious... are you saying that society (in an unnamed territory) is suffering from a high rate of teenage pregnancy and single parenthood and that this leads to "broken" homes and families, and that it is due to the abandonment of religion in that society?

Only... [Citation needed]

Yes, because to the best of my knowledge all cultures and societies throughout history have been religiously dogmatic which helps maintain order and discipline.....it's no coincidence that it's considered unacceptable, religiously, for people to engage in sexual activity until married.

From what I see, humans haven't developed a system that is liberal yet ordered but free from religion? Maybe you guys know more.

 

[Famine]

Yes, because to the best of my knowledge all cultures and societies throughout history have been religiously dogmatic which helps maintain order and discipline.....it's no coincidence that it's considered unacceptable, religiously, for people to engage in sexual activity until married.

Okay. I'm not seeing how you get from that to:

anything goes at the moment

Where is this secular society where all concept of family has gone to the dogs and there are "broken homes" left, right and centre cause by teen pregnancy and single parenthood? Why was it different before it was secular?

Incidentally, "religiously dogmatic" societies have lead to some of the worst atrocities against fellow humans ever conceived.

 

[FoolKiller]

Broken families; teenage pregnancies, single parents etc. Chaos has been normalised with no social or spiritual threat. Surely a church culture despite it's limitations and whether people believed or not was better than the law of the jungle system we have now?

Perhaps a new thread is needed here!

Teen pregnancy? Granted this is just US data, but I think you are seeing too much media or sermons and not enough statistical data.
From here.

Do, does this mean that it is actually better to be in a more secular "law of the jungle" system?

Census data does show that single-parent homes are increasing, but I think there is more to the story than face value. When I was 12 I went from being in a traditional family unit home to a single parent home, but my dad was still active in my life. He loved ten minutes away. I stayed with him whenever I wanted and never felt like a I lost a parent. He taught me how to drive and went with me to find rare comic books to complete my collections. He even knew enough about what I was looking for to buy something for me if he ran across it. I currently feel that my family is important. I don't believe that I can walk out on my family just because. Even my dad thinks that is wrong, as he felt he was too unhappy for it to be healthy for them to stay together. Truth be told, it was a lot better after the divorce, but not because he wasn't in my life.

But my example is very common divorced people I know. They were divorced, it was a single parent home, but both parents were involved with the kids. A single parent home is not necessarily a bad thing, and is possibly a good thing. The bad thing comes from a missing or uninvolved parent, whether due to death, abandonment, or imprisonment.

It would take some heavy statistical analysis to determine if the issue is related to growing secularity, or if there is another cause. One thing is for sure, with teen pregnancy rates steadily dropping the growing single parent homes are not due to teen pregnancies. Another study would need to be done to determine how much is due to divorced parents, single adults adopting, or having children through implantation. Ultimately, single parents is a very wide range.

 

[KSaiyu]

No. Contaminated food can cause danger to the child. If the guardians were negligent, they may be liable or lose custody. Education is "contaminated" if it does not teach basic communication and math skills.

What if it teaches segregation and discrimination?

 

[Keef]

Broken families; teenage pregnancies, single parents etc. Chaos has been normalised with no social or spiritual threat. Surely a church culture despite it's limitations and whether people believed or not was better than the law of the jungle system we have now?

Perhaps a new thread is needed here!

Teen pregnancy? Granted this is just US data, but I think you are seeing too much media or sermons and not enough statistical data.
From here.

View attachment 202064



Do, does this mean that it is actually better to be in a more secular "law of the jungle" system?

Two things to note: First, that teen pregnancy has become more rare and more marginalized in the media. It's seen as a bad thing, and is even shown as a spectacle on TV. Also, atheism in America has increased steadily throughout that time period.

Jungle society, indeed.

 

[niky]

Oh, pooh-pooh on teen pregnancies and broken families.

"Back in the day," we didn't have "broken families." Fathers simply slept around with whomever they wanted, had illegitimate kids that nobody acknowledged, and everyone else just had to "deal with it."

The rose-tinted view of how families were "in the old days" is annoying, misogynistic, and completely unrealistic. Divorce may have its issues, but one issue it doesn't have is accountability. If you can make the 🤬 bleed (whether talking about an unfaithful husband or an unfaithful wife) in the settlement, then that's a whole lot better than them simply up and leaving without a care in the world.

 

[Danoff]

What if it teaches segregation and discrimination?

Discrimination is not illegal, should not be illegal, and cannot be illegal. So no, that's not a problem.

 

[LMSCorvetteGT2]

What if it teaches segregation and discrimination?

So what if?

 

[mirial]

Okay. I'm not seeing how you get from that to:Where is this secular society where all concept of family has gone to the dogs and there are "broken homes" left, right and centre cause by teen pregnancy and single parenthood? Why was it different before it was secular?

Incidentally, "religiously dogmatic" societies have lead to some of the worst atrocities against fellow humans ever conceived.

Anything goes; Specifically 'Blended families' becoming common place. A kid over the road has a child to his girlfriend before he's able to shave. A neighbour's daughter got married in her mid twenties, had a child, then separated within two years. She quickly meets someone else and has a child to him before she's thirty. A friend's disaffected brother has two kids to two different women before he's thirty and is was due to get married to a woman ten years older with four kids. My Dad's nephew(!) has a child to a woman who has two existing children to two different men. Most of these cases are middle-class and I'm not part of a large family, I'm not nosy, I'm not overly sociable and I only have a small circle of close friends.

Where is this secular society where all concept of family gone to the dogs? In the UK at least, church attendance is a lot lower than what it was fifty years ago so you could say church-like cultures that extended deep into communities helped to socially control people but had good intentions. At the route cause of broken families you could say it's because of engaging in sexual activity or being promiscuous before being in a position of being responsible.

Religions condemn sexual activity and promiscuity amongst never-marrieds and studies have shown that marriages going beyond ten years amongst those who have 'sown their wild oats' to be not good.

 

[Exorcet]

Religions condemn sexual activity amongst never-marrieds and there's a bloody good reason for this.

Ignorance and superstition?

These religions can also condemn protected sex because wearing some plastic is worse than AIDS epidemics and unwanted pregnancy. I wouldn't trust their reasoning for anything.

 

[Keef]

What if it teaches segregation and discrimination?

Every time I order something off McDonald's menu I discriminate.

 

[Danoff]

Anything goes; Specifically 'Blended families' becoming common place. A kid over the road has a child to his girlfriend before he's able to shave.

Teenage pregnancy has been around for hundreds of thousands of years.

A neighbour's daughter got married in her mid twenties, had a child, then separated within two years.

Would you rather that she was forced to remain married to this person?

She quickly meets someone else and has a child to him before she's thirty.

Sounds like it all worked out.

A friend's disaffected brother has two kids to two different women before he's thirty and is was due to get married to a woman ten years older with four kids.

Sounds like it worked out.

My Dad's nephew(!) has a child to a woman who has two existing children to two different men.

Is there more to this story?

Where is this secular society where all concept of family gone to the dogs? In the UK at least, church attendance is a lot lower than what it was fifty years ago so you could say church-like cultures that extended deep into communities helped to socially control people but had good intentions. At the route cause of broken families you could say it's because of engaging in sexual activity or being promiscuous before being in a position of being responsible.

Most of the examples you gave were of children who were had during marriage. Your problem seems to be with divorce. I have to tell you, divorce is better than forcing two people who want to separate to stay with each other.

Religions condemn sexual activity and promiscuity amongst never-marrieds and studies have shown that marriages going beyond ten years amongst those who have 'sown their wild oats' to be not good.

I'm an atheist. I'm coming up on my 12th anniversary with my wife. We married when we were 22 and 21 years old respectively and have one child. I honestly don't know why you think that religion has the recipe for making sure that marriages are sound, but you're wrong.

 

[niky]

Or, you could be like my devout, Catholic family... one of which has twelve children by four different mothers. Of course, this being a "no divorce" country, and there being no "infidelity" clause in Church annulment, that's all there is to it. No lawsuit the wife can file, no protection for the legitimate children financially... nothing.

Or, you could be like me... an agnostic who's been with the same woman for nearly twenty years, married for ten and with exactly as many kids as we can care for and no more.

Religion doesn't prevent you from sowing your wild oats. Old testament religion actually doesn't prevent men from doing anything... they can marry as many women as they can support and even, legally, have sex with their brother's wives under the right circumstances.

Yup. That's super-great for those women there. Our modern gals don't know what they're missing.

 

[mirial]

Teenage pregnancy has been around for hundreds of thousands of years.I'm an atheist. I'm coming up on my 12th anniversary with my wife. We married when we were 22 and 21 years old respectively and have one child. I honestly don't know why you think that religion has the recipe for making sure that marriages are sound, but you're wrong.

Just for your information, a study carried out by Jay Teachman concluded that women who have at least one pre-marital sex relationship with someone else experience a big increase in the risk of divorce. Since this finding is true, then it explains why Religion discourages sexual activity until people are married.

http://socialpathology.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/sexual-partner-divorce-risk.html

Men aren't exempt from this either, but a separate study found that men who were promiscuous, experienced a greater risk too, but not as elevated as a woman. This seems to tie in with the fact that women are wired to be selective and men are wired to reproduce all round them.

I think your responses are in denial that the situations I spoke of are chaotic in modern civilised countries. I stated that religion maintained some discipline and cohesion. You and your wife are obviously smart, sensible and perhaps made for each other, so it stands a great chance of working out, but then I guess the masses don't have everything worked out, so you need some system to encourage people to do things the right way.

So if I'm wrong, other than religion, what system will work then for people who aren't as smart as you or your wife and many others who are together?

 

[Danoff]

Just for your information, a study carried out by Jay Teachman concluded that women who have at least one pre-marital sex relationship with someone else experience a big increase in the risk of divorce. Since this finding is true, then it explains why Religion discourages sexual activity until people are married.

You act like this is automatically a good thing. What if people who have had pre-marital sex are more likely to realize they can be happier with someone else? Do you think it's somehow better to keep them ignorant of that so that they don't get divorced?

So if I'm wrong, other than religion, what system will work then for people who aren't as smart as you or your wife and many others who are together?

You keep presupposing the need for a "better system". People make mistakes, they pick the wrong person, they need to be free to unpick - otherwise you might have an intact family unit that is MORE dysfunctional than what you call a "broken" family.

 

[DK]

Oh, pooh-pooh on teen pregnancies and broken families.

"Back in the day," we didn't have "broken families." Fathers simply slept around with whomever they wanted, had illegitimate kids that nobody acknowledged, and everyone else just had to "deal with it."

The rose-tinted view of how families were "in the old days" is annoying, misogynistic, and completely unrealistic. Divorce may have its issues, but one issue it doesn't have is accountability. If you can make the 🤬 bleed (whether talking about an unfaithful husband or an unfaithful wife) in the settlement, then that's a whole lot better than them simply up and leaving without a care in the world.

Ireland has a dark past when it comes to treatment of allegedly "promiscuous" women, read about the Magdalene Laundries if you want to know more. They were pretty much work camps ran by Catholic nuns.

 

[Exorcet]

Just for your information, a study carried out by Jay Teachman concluded that women who have at least one pre-marital sex relationship with someone else experience a big increase in the risk of divorce. Since this finding is true, then it explains why Religion discourages sexual activity until people are married.

Religion predates the study, so it probably has no relation to why religion supports sex only after marriage.

You keep presupposing the need for a "better system". People make mistakes, they pick the wrong person, they need to be free to unpick - otherwise you might have an intact family unit that is MORE dysfunctional than what you call a "broken" family.

Indeed, divorce is a family saver. And it's a very good tool to undo damage done by pressure to marry prematurely or unnecessarily, which I tend to see tied with religion in a few cases.

 

[mirial]

You act like this is automatically a good thing. What if people who have had pre-marital sex are more likely to realize they can be happier with someone else? Do you it's somehow better to keep them ignorant of that so that they don't get divorced?

You keep presupposing the need for a "better system". People make mistakes, they pick the wrong person, they need to be free to unpick - otherwise you might have an intact family unit that is MORE dysfunctional than what you call a "broken" family.

People will more likely know whether they are for one another up until the time they are able to at least afford some form of accommodation to live together (Religions prohibit cohabitation)....I'm suggesting early twenties at the earliest. People are a bit more worldly, had more exposure to more potential suitors, but according to Teachman's findings, no long lasting damage will have been done either. This has nothing to do with religion, unless of course you are a Creationist and believe we were made this way deliberately. I'm sure those boring old men that wrote the scriptures were at least wise to social observations and realised that some sort of order was needed at the time because of what has been discovered in the Teachman study.

From the point of view of the woman at least, as they tend to choose more than men do, the bond formed with a man when she loses her virginity has yet to be made. It's possible that if this bond is broken, that this is one of the causes as to why women 'go off sex' a few years into marriage or cohabitation at least. Mr. Alpha male usually cheats, whilst Mr. Beta male perhaps puts up with it, and if he's lucky they'll just grow apart sexually.

 

[Danoff]

People will more likely know whether they are for one another up until the time they are able to at least afford some form of accommodation to live together (Religions prohibit cohabitation)....I'm suggesting early twenties at the earliest. People are a bit more worldly, had more exposure to more potential suitors, but according to Teachman's findings, no long lasting damage will have been done either. This has nothing to do with religion, unless of course you are a Creationist and believe we were made this way deliberately. I'm sure those boring old men that wrote the scriptures were at least wise to social observations and realised that some sort of order was needed at the time because of what has been discovered in the Teachman study.

From the point of view of the woman at least, as they tend to choose more than men do, the bond formed with a man when she loses her virginity has yet to be made. It's possible that if this bond is broken, that this is one of the causes as to why women 'go off sex' a few years into marriage or cohabitation at least. Mr. Alpha male usually cheats, whilst Mr. Beta male perhaps puts up with it, and if he's lucky they'll just grow apart sexually.

I find this totally nonresponsive.

 

[Famine]

Anything goes; Specifically 'Blended families' becoming common place. A kid over the road has a child to his girlfriend before he's able to shave. A neighbour's daughter got married in her mid twenties, had a child, then separated within two years. She quickly meets someone else and has a child to him before she's thirty. A friend's disaffected brother has two kids to two different women before he's thirty and is was due to get married to a woman ten years older with four kids. My Dad's nephew(!) has a child to a woman who has two existing children to two different men. Most of these cases are middle-class and I'm not part of a large family, I'm not nosy, I'm not overly sociable and I only have a small circle of close friends.

Sounds quite like Victorian England to me.

Where is this secular society where all concept of family gone to the dogs? In the UK at least, church attendance is a lot lower than what it was fifty years ago so you could say church-like cultures that extended deep into communities helped to socially control people but had good intentions. At the route cause of broken families you could say it's because of engaging in sexual activity or being promiscuous before being in a position of being responsible.

Ah, right. So it's the UK that is the society that was once religious, is now secular and has seen an associated rise in teenage pregnancy, single parenthood and the ill-defined "broken homes"?

Got any citations for any part of that?

 

[FoolKiller]

Anything goes; Specifically 'Blended families' becoming common place. A kid over the road has a child to his girlfriend before he's able to shave. A neighbour's daughter got married in her mid twenties, had a child, then separated within two years. She quickly meets someone else and has a child to him before she's thirty. A friend's disaffected brother has two kids to two different women before he's thirty and is was due to get married to a woman ten years older with four kids. My Dad's nephew(!) has a child to a woman who has two existing children to two different men. Most of these cases are middle-class and I'm not part of a large family, I'm not nosy, I'm not overly sociable and I only have a small circle of close friends.

At worst, I'd say you live in an area where people commonly make bad decisions. At best, you haven't shown the negative results of these behaviors. Are the kids not financially supported? Are they choosing between food and electricity?

I hate to tell you, but if your un-cited, anecdotal statistics are true then perhaps Ireland has a cultural issue. As I proved, the US is decreasing teen pregnancies. Fact is, if the only reason you aren't a bad person is because you fear a spiritual being beating you with a rod, you still aren't a good person. You're just a scared slave.

 

[KSaiyu]

Discrimination is not illegal, should not be illegal, and cannot be illegal. So no, that's not a problem.

Let's remember the original example - the discrimination against and segregation of females, in this case pre-teen girls.

 

[Spurgy 777]

@mirial So, are you saying that the country would be a better place if more people believed in an all powerful sky fairy, and lived in fear of eternal torture for not following arbitrary rules made in ignorance of actual facts?

 

[Dotini]

Lots of us have given anecdotes and not been rebuked for it.

Perhaps the bottom line is that the family as we (older people) have known it, is either a failed institution or an institution in rapid flux. The nurturing and care of young and old is no longer the timeless responsibility of the family. Neither is it the responsibility of the state or the employer. The result is social stress.

Mainstream libertarians have an answer, but you won't like it.

 

[Famine]

Let's remember the original example - the discrimination against and segregation of females, in this case pre-teen girls.

People are free to believe that if they wish.

I mean apparently we used to teach discrimination against and segregation of homosexuals - as a religious state - and life was better back then. Or... something.

 

[FoolKiller]

Let's remember the original example - the discrimination against and segregation of females, in this case pre-teen girls.

Like, as in an all-boys school? Wanna guess the type of school ranked highest in achievement in Kentucky? The best education in the state isn't accessible by girls. Of course, the all-girls schools aren't too shabby either, having honors students graduate high school with a year of college credits already on their transcript.

 

[Danoff]

Let's remember the original example - the discrimination against and segregation of females, in this case pre-teen girls.

I don't remember the original example. Yes it's ok for a school to only teach boys or girls. Yes it's ok for a school to teach certain values when it comes to girls or boys. No none of should be mandatory from a legal standpoint.