Mike_R23A said:
What Brad Sallows said is exactly on target;
Far too many people are quick to impose their "morales" on everyone else:
"I think swinging is sick, so no one should be allowed to do it"
"I don't want a gun, so no one else should be able to own one"
"I think fur is murder, so nobody should wear it"
"I don't eat anything that casts a shadow, so everyone should be vegan like me"
See the theme here? If you are not into swinging/firearms/wearing fur/eating meat then don't do it, no one is forcing you to do so, but don't try and impose your values on me!
Well great....let's not stop there with your examples though:
"My German Sheppard seems to really enjoy 'special time' with my wife, and who are you to say it's wrong"
"My 11 year old nephew is old enough to make mature decisions, and we really love each other, so whatever we do in the privacy of our bedroom is none of your business"
"I really love all of my 14 wives and my 25 children. Our relationship has the blessing of God, so go away and leave us alone as I look for my next wife"
"Sure she's my sister, but our love is like no other, so leave us be in our marriage"
"Look. This is my Crystal Meth. It's for my consumption. Sure it eats away at my functioning brain and makes me do strange things, but that's my business"
The above are all examples of activities that are going on today in Canada. Fortunately, our society still finds them unacceptable, and to varying degrees, puts a stop to them when they are found out.
What makes the swinging ruling unacceptable, is that it used to be on the above list. It was found out, and now 5 unelected judges has deemed the
COMMERCIAL operation of the activity moral and acceptable.
Our list of taboos is getting shorter and shorter, to the point where we may not have any in a generation or two.
It is the rules we set as a society that make our society worth living in. We can debate on where the
line should be drawn, but I think we all agree there should be a line.
The commercial swinging operation leads to the next obvious barrier - prostitution. We all know prostitution is legal in Canada, but laws regarding communication and living off the avails of the enterprise make it virtually illegal. Is the next step down this slope legalized, commercial prostitution. Based on the arguments on this board, it looks like that one's a slam dunk.
Again, where will it stop?
zipperhead_cop said:
Another catch 22 is that if a woman has a child out of wedlock, she gets a free apartment and some other benefits. If she cranks out another kid, she gets a free house, lots more benefits and a ticket to ride on her *** for the next 18 years or so. There are actually women who have the second kid solely for the reason of the increased mothers allowance and welfare.
These free houses and apartments tend to be clumped together in areas ranging in names from ghetto's to projects to "geared to income housing". In my experience, there are two types of people in them: immigrants who live about 7 to 10 people per two bedroom unit who bust their tails to better themselves and get out, and then there's second and third generation welfare moms with their kids with random last names who have no intention of going anywhere. Welfare mom shacks up with factory worker, and doesn't report his income and they try to make some cash. Worker is a bit of a tool but has a steady income, so welfare mom puts up with his crap, because that's how she grew up. She can live with getting a little slapped around in front of the kids, and doesn't mind getting into profanity laced screaming matches with Factory guy. Welfare mom's kids run around and play in the common areas, and grow up in an environment that generally sucks. Through seeing the crap around them, and the other kids with crappy Factory worker dads that scream and throw things, they start to think that "this is how things are supposed to be" and adjust their expectation of happiness accordingly. Then they begin to try out crime (vandalism, theft) but because welfare mom grew up the same way, she doesn't give them crap when they get caught and blows it off as "just being kids". Kids continue to do more unlawful things and get away with it. Older welfare kids tell them how useless the legal system is, and they start to realize it as well. Next thing you know, you have an indication that poor people commit more crime. Well, they do.
So what is my point? If we are going to get worried about deciding what is moralistic in society or not, shouldn't we concern ourselves more with breaking out of the endless cycles of poverty and criminality than worry about what some bored middle aged swingers are doing?
Great rant Zipperhead. Written like a true cop. Did you breath when you typed it? I don't disagree with your statement, however I don't buy your conclusion. The two are not related. One relates to the decaying morals in our society, one refers to the endless poverty cycle brought on by our welfare state. Note I didn't state that all abortion is wrong, however, those that you refer to in your example are not looking for abortion. My point on abortion is that it was once illegal and virtually impossible to procure safely, and now, a generation or two later, the pendulum has swung in completely the opposite direction, with many similarly negative consequences.
Infanteer said:
Well, I think it is a load of horseshit. Factors leading to criminal activity are numerous and complex - blaming it on single-parent households is simply ridiculous. I don't come from a nuclear-family household and I turned out fine - I know of many people with married parents who are at some some stage of the criminal justice system.
Unlike you, infanteer, I am able to engage in a healthy debate without the use of profanity or personal attacks. I wish you would learn to do the same.
The difficulties and pitfalls of raising a child in a single parent household are well documented. You may not agree with the scientific conclusions, but they do indeed exist, and, in my case, were backed up by personal experience as a police officer.
Are there exceptions to the general conclusion? Of course. Many and varied exceptions. However, the underlying fact is that kids from single parent homes are involved in the legal system proportionally much more than kids from a two parent 'nuclear' family. A variety of factors make it so, including lack of supervision, economic depression and the like. Again, I submit that if Divorce wasn't so prevalent, and there was more focus on 'doing the right thing', not as many kids would not be at risk as there are today.
Edit for spelling