So far as the USSC is concerned, it’s illegal. See Schenck v. U.S.(1919), Gitlow v. New York (1925), Whitney v. California (1927), and Dennis v. U.S. (1951), among others. I’m not familiar with more recent precedent, but I believe these cases are pretty representative of the degree to which “revolutionary speech” can be constitutionally limited (depending, of course, on who’s interpreting the Constitution).
sqweels:
Sorry, but I think history shows that that’s not true. A culture that discourages premarital sex genuinely has less of it. If it’s genuinely inevitable, then where are the numbers suggesting rampant out-of-wedlock pregnancy and STD infection prior to the sexual revolution of the 60’s?
Even if it’s inevitable on a societal level, as you and most liberals like to suggest, that still does not make it inevitable on an individual level. With the exception of rape victims, those who choose to have sex are making a conscious decision. Therefore, it is not those who denied them access to birth-control information who are responsible for any pregnancies that result, they themselves are responsible.
If you have a can of gasoline and a match, and I tell you not to set yourself on fire but do not tell you of the existence of fire extinguishers, then you set yourself on fire and burn to death, it’s not me who killed you…it’s you who killed yourself.
Chaim Mattis Keller
Mr. Z.:
Says who? You?
Anyway, cmkeller wasn’t joking about the Gingrich thing (and, in all fairness, at least the guy was offering some solution, even a wrongheaded one, rather than serving up meaningless platitudes). It was proposed in 1994 as part of the Republican Personal Responsibility Act. When Newt was criticized by the Clintons for it, he suggested they watch “Boys Town” (which he then hosted a showing of on TNT).
WELFARE DEBATE TURNS ON OLD MOVIE REELS NEWT SEES ‘BOYS TOWN’; DEMOCRATS SEE ‘ANNIE’
Lee Bowman, Scripps Howard
12/30/1994
The Arizona Republic
Final Chaser
Page A1
(Copyright 1994 Phoenix Newspapers, Inc.)
Incoming House Speaker Newt Gingrich thinks orphanages modeled after Father Flanagan’s Boys Town might be better for children than abusive, dysfunctional welfare families.
Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala ponders orphanages and thinks of Oliver Twist and Annie and says they were “never intended as a solution to welfare.”
In the administration’s sharpest attack on Republican welfare-reform plans yet, Shalala charged Thursday that more than half of the 9.7 million children currently getting help would be denied cash payments under the GOP reforms.
Shalala called the House Republican plan “a cruel hoax whose human consequences would fall on children and whose financial consequences would fall on state taxpayers and private charities.”
“The solution to the welfare crisis is not to send children to orphanages ,” Shalala said. “It’s to send their parents to work.”
Her attack on Gingrich , R-Ga., and the Republicans’ Personal Responsibility Act, came the same day that Gingrich hosted a showing of the 1938 classic movie Boys Town on the TNT cable-television network.
Gingrich has suggested that administration officials watch the fictional portrayal of the early days of the Nebraska orphanage. In the movie, Spencer Tracy portrays Father Flanagan, founder of the home for abused and delinquent children, and Mickey Rooney plays a troubled youth who changes his ways at the home.
Among the tenets of the Republican plan are that states be allowed to take money saved by curbing benefits and experiment with different approaches to caring for displaced and abused children, including group homes and orphanages .
“The White House distorts it into Dickens revisited, as if their alternative was straight out of Norman Rockwell,” Gingrich complained to reporters earlier this month.
But Shalala said Thursday, “The real issue here is not whether orphanages or group homes can be loving and compassionate facilities. The issue is what actually happens to millions of real-life children who would be cut from welfare rolls, with no Father Flanagan in sight and no money to pay for the real costs of child-rearing.”
She produced an analysis by her department saying that states would get only enough money - about $293 million a year - to provide orphanage care for 9,000 children, or foster care for 61,000 children, out of 5 million expected to lose benefits under the new GOP rules.
The GOP bill eventually would force states to end payments to children of unmarried women younger than 18, to additional children born after a family was on welfare and to children for whom paternity wasn’t established. It also would set a five- year limit for any child to get benefits.
Using Nebraska as an example, Shalala said 19,000 of the 32,000 children now getting benefits would be cut, while the state would get only enough money back to pay for 16 orphanage slots or 122 placements in foster homes.
Shalala said states would either have to pick up the extra costs or hope that charities would fill the void.
Otherwise, “we would see countless young mothers and their children relegated to poverty, quite possibly on the streets - homeless and without any hope for the future.”
Health and Human Services officials conceded, though, that the analysis only looked at the impact of GOP changes to one assistance program, and it did not attempt to calculate the cost of all federal benefits children might receive vs. the expense of orphanage care - set at $36,400 a year.
House Republican leaders later issued a statement denying that any children currently on welfare would be denied benefits, because the restrictions would be applied only to future births.
“(Shalala’s) hysterical assault on the (reform plan) has to make many people wonder whether the Clinton administration is serious about reforming the broken welfare system,” they added.
Well. . .I’ll be damned. I assumed, what with all of the other boneheaded things that he spewed, that this was either a mis-quote, or cmkeller was having one over on me.
And yes, it was a solution. I don’t think, though, that it was taken seriously by anyone, save Newt. Or was it?
Again, damn.
Waste
Flick Lives!
Yes, pld, it was a generalization. This thread i rife with generalizations about what conservatives and liberals believe in.
Care to go throught and point out all of the many assertions about conservatives made by board members? sheesh! ::rollingeyes::
cmkeller said:
But why on earth would you not tell such a person of the existence of fire extinguishers? Why would you deny access to birth-control information to someone who does not wish to get pregnant but doesn’t agree with you that abstinence is the only principled alternative? You may not have caused the actual crisis but you definitely contributed to the extent of the calamity.
That’s what I don’t get about many conservatives’ attitude to personal-responsibility issues: there’s a seeming desire to “make the best the enemy of the good.” You might be surprised at how many liberals would agree with you that the best way to live one’s life is very high on personal responsibility: no irresponsible sex (of course, there’s a spectrum of opinions on whether that includes non-marital and/or non-procreative sex with birth control), loving and lasting marriages, strict financial integrity, etc. But in a realistic view of human nature, there will always be some promiscuous teens, abusive spouses, failed business enterprises, and so forth. That’s when the liberal sighs and reaches for the safety nets of birth control, divorce, bankruptcy court, all those “fire extinguishers” that society keeps around to handle the damage control when people have failed to live in the best way and we want to minimize the destruction caused by their failure. But so many conservatives seem to want to let that destruction have free rein, because it’s part of “accepting the consequences of their actions.” I suppose you believe that nothing less will really teach responsibility, and I can respect that as an honest belief (if consistently applied); but it certainly can come across as being vindictive, self-righteous, and cruel. “I could have saved your life by telling you about the fire extinguisher, but you deserved to suffer the full consequences of your wrong action.” Thanks, friend.
Kimstu
Well said, Kim.
You mean, if you tell someone to NOT light themselves on fire, and they do so anyway, it’s your fault? How the heck does that work?
No one’s holding them responsible for anyone’s accidental pregnancy, but if their against them then why on Earth would they want to deny everyone access to birth-control?
We are not discussing personal morality on an individual level, but rather political agendas in public policy. Politicians do not have the power to change the whole culture back to the way it was 40 years ago. Well over 90% of all Americans lose their virginity before they marry, and that means that they are voting with their bodies in an overwhelming landslide that premarital is sex acceptable. Whatever the prospects for an individual to convince another individual to go entirely without sex into their 30’s if need be, the prospects for the government to convince hundreds of millions to do that are pretty far-fetched.
What bothers me is that the issue of sex is always portrayed as a dichotomy between teenage promiscuity and abstinence until the day you marry, completely ignoring the fact that there are intervening years of single young adulthood. Clearly the most common form of non-marital sex is among single adults who are in relationships. This has become a very deeply rooted practice and is considered by most as perfectly normal, so to justify an apparent contradiction in your public policy agenda on the notion that this can easily be ruled out throughout society is pretty spurious.
This just in:
At their convention Saturday in Charlotte, NC, NRA leaders repeatedly asserted that Al Gore presented an absolute threat to the right to own guns and would confiscate them all, down to the one in Charlton Heston’s cold dead hands. (Al Gore supports modest gun control measures like registration, monthly limits on handgun purchases, and closing the gun show loophole.) But in the keynote address, Rep. J.C. Watts of Oklahoma said, “Al Gore…will say and do anything to preserve [his] own political future, even if that means using fear and deceptive means”.
And from an article also in the New York Times, Sen. Judd Gregg, R-NH, chairman of the Senate appropriation subcommittee…
But surely the extent to which this is true is due in no small part to the administration’s opponents’ total lack of support to any potential course of action and their immediate criticism of any decisions that are made. The Republicans seem to be telling the Clinton administration, “Stop listening to us”.
Ai-yai-yai… Sqweels, I don’t wanna seem like I’m being condescending, but what was the point of that last post? I’m guessing it’s about one of the political tidbits floating around that’s passed me by… can you give a bit of background, just so I can have a basis of comparison? It’d be much appreciated.
sqweels:
Who’s denying access to anyone? They’re merely saying that it shouldn’t be part of a public school curriculum.
The “voting” you describe is mostly by people our society would consider too immature to genuinely vote on any issue of importance. That should tell you something right there.
Just because it has become the norm in society doesn’t mean that it’s healthy for society or that public policy should actively encourage it. And don’t rule out the ability of a government to stigmatize certain activities if it finds that activity to be dangerous. Look at the extent to which smokers have become pariahs despite the image of “coolness” and/or “toughness” that had been associated with it in advertising.
Chaim Mattis Keller
cmkeller replied to sqweels:
Huh?? cmkeller, are you seriously implying that most of the people having premarital sex in this society are not legally adult? Even if most people do begin having sex before they’re eighteen (which I’d doubt, but I haven’t seen any statistics), you can scarcely write it off as mere youthful stupidity if they’re not abandoning the practice after they become adults.
By the way, cmkeller, I’m not quite sure whether we’re talking about conservatives opposing teenage access to information about birth control (which is what I’d thought the discussion was currently about) or access to birth control devices themselves. I can pretty much see how someone might not want condoms to be available in high schools, on the principle that “if we don’t think you’re old enough to be doing this, we’re not going to provide you with the means to do it more safely.” (Although the typical “safety-net liberal”, as I pointed out, would prefer to combine strong rational encouragement for abstinence with the backup of birth control availability.) But as for objecting to even telling kids what birth control is and how it works—brother, I can’t see that with a telescope. You say they shouldn’t need that information yet? Heck, most of them don’t have checking accounts yet, but we teach them how to balance a checkbook in ninth-grade Business Math classes. School is the place where they should obtain not only the knowledge they need now but knowledge for their futures. You say their parents have religious objections to certain means of birth control? Well, even assuming that all kids would always follow all their parents’ religious beliefs, birth control (not to mention STD prevention) is still a hugely important public health issue, and they should know the facts about it.
And, of course, any school that refuses to teach the basic physiological facts about the human reproductive system is guilty of the grossest possible negligence. Great Scott, does anyone in this day and age still believe that sex, arguably the central fact of our species’ existence, is something that should be ignored in our universal education? I can’t believe it, so I won’t waste a rant on it.
Kimstu
Thanks, Kimstu. For the second time you took the words right out of my mouth.
Uh, the Catholic Church comes to mind. Besides, when I mentioned family planning in my earlier posts, I was including abortion. There are plenty of people trying to deny access to that, despite to obvious ramifications to the rate of out-of-wedlick births.
I wasn’t neccessarily talking about schools and the government, CMK, I’m talking about contradictory, counterproductive, and denial-laden attitudes of conservatives in general, but I’ll add to what Kimstu said:
Suppose “it” was driving cars rather than having sex–a much better analogy than CMK’s smoking. Cars are very harmful to society and they’re very dangerous,and yet they teach driver’s ed in school, not driver abstinence. (Neither sex nor driving needs to be “actively encouraged”.) Driving is serious adult-type responsibility, yet nearly everyone starts driving when they’re 16 (it’s the “norm” so perhaps the government should stigmatize it). I’m willing to concede that minor teenagers should not be having sex, but when you become an adult, it’s time to start experimenting with relationships, IMO, but you don’t need to commit to spending the rest of your life with someone just yet. Sex is not without its risks and problems, but these, like those of driving, can be managed to the point where they are minimal. That’s where education comes in.
kimstu:
Which is what I’ve meant…
Not true. Those who do not learn to treat their sexual drive with a mature attitude in their youth will not suddenly develop a new attitude as an adult. Adult minds don’t come into existence in a vacuum; they’re based on what they leanred and did as children.
Abstinence is the perfect birth control…the only perfect bith control.
What you’re referring to is how to prevent pregnancy while still having sex. If you don’t want to encourage underage sex, then you sure as heck withhold any information that is only applicable to someone having sex. Giving that information is tacit acceptance and, to some degree, even approval of such behavior…even if at other times you give lip service to the preferability of abstinence.
Last I heard, there wasn’t anyone who objected to this. What people have been objecting to were such sex-education curricula which include such things as exploring alternative sexual lifestyles, or using birth control (sometimes to the point of putting condoms on cucmbers!).
sqweels:
Oh, are we talking about religious groups? First of all, religious groups need not be consistent with anything other than the words of their holy scriptures. They see it as the word of G-d and apparent contradictions need not be reconciled by anything other than “G-d said so.” Second of all, it was my understanding that we were referring to people who affect public policy.
Totally different issue from birth control. Those who object to abortion believe that the fetus is a living human being and that killing it is murder.
Only if the parent signs the kid up for the class, not as part of a standardized curriculum.
As above…in this case, it’s done with parental consent.
And since when are people unable to have a relationship without having sex? Your statement, IMHO, only bolsters my position: people need to learn how to engage in adult relationships in order to properly learn how to maturely handle the emotional complexity of collaborating in such a way with another person. However, when sex becomes involved, desire for physical pleasure trumps the development of emotional maturity in such a relationship.
Of course you don’t need to commit to spending the rest of your life with someone in order to have a relationship with them. However, sex, even with birth control, can bring another life into the world. And that child (let’s leave abortion out of the discussion for now and assume that the couple “chooses” to let it survive until birth) deserves to have two parents who are committed to one another and to building a shared enterprise dedicated to mutual welfare, including that of their children…not merely two people who are attracted to one another by the selfish desire (mutual though it might be) for physical pleasure and who have not developed that sort of bond.
Chaim Mattis Keller
Assuming for the moment that you don’t object to the fact that homosexuals are born and not made, what do you suggest that sex-education curricula say to homosexual students? “You don’t exist”? “Stay celibate forever”?
Anyway, IMHO, the best way to assure that minors begin having sex ASAP and that the teen pregnancy rate skyrockets is to provide an abstinence-only sex-ed curriculum with no access to birth control. You’ve seen how quickly the increased drinking age and D.A.R.E. programs have wiped out teen drinking and drug use, right?
Better that one child than millions like him or her, CMK.
Tens of millions of relationships mean tens of millions of couples having sex (or perhaps nines of millions). Tens of millions of couples without birth control does not mean tens of millions of couples not having sex, it means tens of millions of out-of-wedlock births. Tens of millions of couples with birth control means a tiny percentage of that number of out-of-wedlock births. That’s what my agenda is shooting for and believe me, it’s the best we can hope for.
Chaim, are you or are you not in favor of making/keeping birth control available to adult members of the general public? If so then you’re not a hypocrite and you’re frre to go. If not, then you know perfectly well that the fulfillment of your agenda will lead to massive increases in the numbers of out-of-wedlock births.
cmkeller replied to my post:
Circular argument. You said that the existence of premarital sex among minors is not a reason in favor of the practice, because minors are immature. I pointed out that most people having pre- (or post-, or post- and pre-) marital sex are not minors, so premarital sex per se cannot be written off as immature behavior. You now claim that the only reason adults have premarital sex is that they have an immature attitude toward sex. In other words, you’re assuming your conclusion (that premarital sex is immature behavior) and refusing to consider the possibility that premarital sex may be immature and irresponsible for minors, but quite principled and responsible for mature and reflecting adults. If you simply wish to assert the statement “all premarital sex is indefensibly irresponsible” as a premise, fine; but you haven’t produced a valid logical argument in favor of it. Taking a high moral tone while making fallacious arguments is one of the things that provokes the accusation of “conservative contradictions.”
It certainly doesn’t necessarily imply acceptance or approval of practicing that behavior now, any more than teaching Business Math to high school freshmen implies that we think they should immediately drop out of school, move away from home, and start managing their finances independently. Almost all people, even those who never have sex outside of marriage, are at some point going to want to know “how to prevent pregnancy [not to mention STDs] while still having sex,” and reliable information about that extremely vital subject ought to be provided in school.
Whew.
I don’t know what “exploring alternative sexual lifestyles” means in this context; if we’re talking about having high-school students enact role-playing scenarios as scat fetishists and leather dominatrices, I would like to go on record as being against that, and I think most liberals would feel the same. The existence of homosexuality and homosexual sex is one of the “basic physiological facts about the human reproductive system” mentioned above, and therefore that topic belongs in sex ed.
As I said above, the facts about the function, use, and efficacy of most major forms of birth control should be taught in high school as part of the important core of knowledge that almost everyone will need for life as an adult human being. Conducting hands-on demonstrations with props from the produce section seems somewhat needlessly graphic (as well as irresistibly ludicrous), but I know of no moral arguments against it except for those who consider the use of birth control to be immoral under any circumstances. And that, as you pointed out, is in essence a religious issue and has no place in a discussion of secular curricular goals.
Kimstu
pldennison:
How about, as the poster I responded to said, sticking to the basic facts of the human reproductive system? Summary: “This is the male sexual reproductive system. This is the female one. Put 'em together, you get babies. Don’t do that until you have developed a commitment to a relationship that will nurture said baby until adulthood. This is the hormonal endocrine system. As you go through puberty, your body will change in the following ways, including developing interest in sex. For more information, speak to your parents.”
Homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual…whatever.
Nothing will wipe out youthful experimentation, but it can certainly be decreased. I’m kind of surprised that you cite those programs as failures of that principle; I was under the impression that these problems have indeed decreased to some degree.
sqweels:
We already have millions like him or her. The conservatives are attempting to lessen those numbers.
Of course it should be available to adults.
Kimstu:
Brought on by having started having sex while minors.
I am not averse to consider that adults who have started having sex once they have achieved maturity may indeed be doing it in a principled manner, even if they decided not to make their relationship legal. However, that is seldom the case. Most adults having sex out of wedlock began having sex as teens.
Although I do think that engaging in life-giving activity without the commitment to a structure to maintain the life that could be created (if their birth control fails) is indeed inherently irresponsible.
I don’t think that managing finance necessarily implies either leaving home or dropping out of school. Any kid with an allowance needs to know how to budget properly.
No doubt that’s true. And in that case, they can seek it out. Any doctor has that information; so do non-profit organizations such as Planned Parenthood. But this is not information that belongs to be taught to children (barring explicit consent from their parents).
Funny, homosexuality didn’t figure into the idea of reproduction as I recall it. It’s certainly within the set of human sexual behaviors, but as long as one sticks to the basics (see above for an example), there should be little objection from any quarter.
Because you choose to disregard my argument about the fact that it implies tacit acceptance or approval of underage sexual activity.
Chaim Mattis Keller
That’s because sex is stigmatized just enough to deter people from seeking birth control, or seeing to it that it is well-taught, but not enough to stop people from having sex, which is impossible.
No they’re not. They are supersitiously and quixotically trying to stop people from having sex, despite the damage this is doing to efforts that are truly effecitve in lessening these numbers. We can’t have two incompatible and mutually exclusive plans to deal with this problem because teens will tune us all out. Conservatives’ choices are to get with the program or live with the train wreck we are currently experiening. Besides, not only is the liberal plan more effective, it’s more fun.
How about teaching studenst how to be mature instead of treating them as though they never will be? I believe that teen should be told to wait until they’re 18 before having sex. That’s doable. It is after all the age of consent. Can’t we at least give birth control information to high school seniors? Chaim, how long do you think people should be forced to go without getting laid? 10 years? 15? Or should everyone get married when their 18? Be reasonable.
Chaim, you seem to be basing much of your argument on the failure rate of contraceptives. The effectiveness rate of oral contraceptives is over 99%. Combine that with condoms and you’ve reduced the risk to the point where, like with driving, reducing it further is not worth ruling out a major life activity that brings very real fulfillment.