I wouldn’t use the verb, “mock.” “Poking gentle fun” would be my choice of words. Below are a series of the writer’s remarks that prompted me to try a bit of mild parody:

I’ve got to go out for a marathon training run. I’ll see what I can do later

I’ll try to provide more[material] as soon as practical.

The writer grew decidedly testy when I politely asked him to elaborate on a blanket statement made by him. I was curious to know what solutions he had for a particular social problem – the high rate of divorce. What we got instead was a couple of links that led nowhere in particular, an annoyed directive to go read some material, an expectation that we should email some experts designated by the writer in order to find out what the writer meant and peevish reminders of how busy the writer was. And the “average Joe” not understanding marathon training remark above and much of the rest of the paragraph indicates that the writer still does not get the point. Readers, it’s kind of understood that we all may have endeavors other than commenting on blogs that take up a considerable amount of our time; is it really necessary to constantly remind our co-commentors of this common fact of life?

OK let’s take a peak at how you did with the rough answer I did give you.
TO SUGGESTION #1

[grackle – earlier]This seems pretty straightforward. I don’t mind enforcing laws but I’m wondering how placing underage girls “immediately under the protection of the court” would work. Would we incarcerate the girls without parental consent? Who would take care of the babies then? Are there enough foster homes that can/are willing to take newborns? Does the writer envision state-run creches? Wouldn’t there be a problem if the underage girl didn’t care to reveal the identity of the father? How would we go about coercing that info from her? We couldn’t very well go around DNA testing every male in the neighborhood, could we?

How on earth did you construe placing underage rape victims “immediately under the protection of the court” as “(w)ould we incarcerate the girls without parental consent?”?

I asked a simple question which, BTW, the writer still has not answered. I’ll ask it again: I’m wondering how placing underage girls who have just had babies “immediately under the protection of the court” would work.

The segue into “foster homes” and “state-run crèches” suggest a mocking lack of concern for rape victims.

I will ask again the questions the writer seems to be avoiding: What would happen to the newborns of the underage girls? If not foster homes or state-run creches, then where would they be placed? I think these are reasonable questions to ask and not at all indicative of a lack of concern for rape victims.

Granted my draft was crude but it was written so in order to work as a Rorschach Ink Blot test of sorts. And so it succeeded. It seems obvious to me from your answer that you aren’t particularly well informed nor are you particular interested in an adult level exchange of views on this matter.

Here we learn that the writer was not intending to answer my questions but was instead testing me with some sort of weird procedure vaguely psychological in nature. But the questions I posed are still valid and still unanswered.

[grackle – earlier]Another problem, larger than the questions above: According to the National Vital Statistics Report, Volume 7, issued January 7, 2009, the rate of births for the age group 15-17 of unmarried females in 2006 was 20 per 1000, or 2%. Assuming you could prosecute 100% the fathers you would still be prosecuting the statutory rapes of a mere 2% of all illegitimate births, only a very slight help in the overall scheme of things. The other 98% of illegitimate births would remain a problem. Also, by prosecuting those men you would not actually be eliminating all statutory rapes in this age group. We also prosecute a high percentage of bank robbers but those rascals keep on robbing banks, don’t they?

Well, I did not expect to find that you read the report incorrectly. See page 11 of the report you cited for me. The total births per 1000 unmarried women was 50.6 in 2006.

Not disputed, except for the fact that “unmarried women” are not the same as “underage girls,” underage girls being the subject of the writer’s comment.

If as you say, “the rate of births for the age group 15-17 of unmarried females in 2006 was 20 per 1000” then the percentage of births for the age group 15-17 of unmarried females in 2006 to the total was just under 40% not 2% as you stated!

It’s not as I “say.” The data is from the National Vital Statistics System and is disseminated through reports issued by the National Center for Health Statistics. You can’t be much more reliable than these non-partisan folks. Also, it seems almost unbelievable but the writer apparently is wrong about some basic math. I was never all that good in math myself but 20 of 1000 is obviously 2%, not 40%

But this too does not make sense as you appear to have misread the information presented in Figure 6 of page 11 of the report you cited.

Well then, all the readers have to do to find out who is correct, me or the writer, is to download the report.

In the report the readers will see a chart with the vertical continuum being “Rate per 1000 unmarried women” and the horizontal continuum being various age groups of unmarried women. The first group on the left is the age group 15 – 17, which is the age group where the statutory rape victims would fall, eighteen being the age of consent in most states. The light green bars represent 2006 and the rate of births in 2006 to unmarried women age 15 – 17 is clearly labeled 20 per 1000, which is 2%, not 40%. Forty percent of 1000 would be 400, not 20. As a matter of fact, no age group of unmarried women gets anywhere near 40% of the births. The highest rate, 80 per 1000 births(8%), occurs in the 20 – 24 age group.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/unmarry.htm

Once the reader gets to the page after clicking on the link, the reader should look for another link around the middle of the page under the heading of “More Data,” entitled, “Final data for 2006, Table 19. Clicking on this will download the pdf. to the reader’s computer and the readers can then page through to page 12 to view the chart for themselves.

Moreover, I’m not arguing to “eliminate(e) all statutory rapes in this age group”. That is likely an impossible task.

I never implied that the writer was arguing to eliminate all statutory rapes. I merely wrote that IF all statutory rapes were eliminated such a circumstance would still represent a very small amount(2%) of total births out of wedlock. A good thing to do, certainly, but no solution to the high total amount of births out of wedlock. I will remind the readers that the writer is the one that got off on this tangent of statutory rape victims. Read back if you have the patience and you will see that I merely asked how the writer would go about eliminating divorce.

I think I was clear that I want to reduce the number of statutory rapes. It seems to me that you are wasting my time with a red Herring argument. Your argument by analogy to bank robbery is useless too. The FBI does a pretty good job of reducing the cost in dollars stolen and innocent persons killed or wounded in bank robberies in no small part because amounts of loot taken are so low and because the FBI keeps the likelihood of capture so high and thereby the costs of being on the lam are so prohibitive that robbing banks by way of armed robbery is pretty much uniformly an uneconomic money losing venture for the thieves . Indeed experience during the last two decades shows that banks have suffered far far far more extensive losses due to fraud perpetrated during the loan origination process.

Again, all I can do is gently point out that reducing “the number of statutory rapes,” while a salutary goal for its own sake, will actually do little to reduce the overall number of out of wedlock births because it represents a mere 2% of those births. The other 98% of out of wedlock births would keep on being a problem.

I regret that the writer did not find my analogy to his liking. I wanted only to illustrate with the analogy of bank robbers of how providing sanctions against unwanted behavior is not a guarantee of eliminating the behavior. As for my “red Herring argument,” the term usually means a “misleading clue” and I have not misled anyone.

The readers may be interested to know that as far as bank robberies are concerned, according to the FBI, in 2006 there were 6,985 of them. Lots of robbers are caught but robberies continue to occur and that was the only point I was making.

http://www.fbi.gov/publications/bcs/bcs2006/bank_crime_2006.htm

I’m going stop there as your errors, your mocking mischaracterizations and your logical fallacies suggest that there is little to gain form engaging you on this topic.

Well, if the writer wants to stop that is his decision to make. I don’t believe I have made any errors or have put forth any logical fallacies. I think my questions were valid and they still remain unanswered.

grackle Says:
July 9th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Well, gotta go now. Very busy and perhaps a bit out of sorts from my training last night for the 2010 Winter Olympics ski jump in Vancouver. Those landings in the dark are murder and leave the ankles more than a little sore. I’ve also the entire works of Shakespeare to read before noon and intend to get Chaucer done by tomorrow morning. If I find the time I might drop by later.

You are mocking me. How disappointing.
I posted in this forum because I wanted to address the demonization of Sarah Palin from the perspective of mimetic theory and the victimage mechanism. In response to another commenter’s post I invested a bit of time pulling together a more detailed response. Thereafter my time was limited so I made a few easy quick posts. I did wish to honor your request for more information Mr. Grackle; however I wanted to tactfully convey that I would be unable entertain you with extended debate. It’s unfortunate that you did not get the hint. I guess one can’t expect the “average Joe” to understand that training for a marathon takes up considerable time.
BTW I happen to be an experience marathoner in training …
.

OK let’s take a peak at how you did with the rough answer I did give you.
TO SUGGESTION #1

grackle Says:
July 9th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
This seems pretty straightforward. I don’t mind enforcing laws but I’m wondering how placing underage girls “immediately under the protection of the court” would work. Would we incarcerate the girls without parental consent? Who would take care of the babies then? Are there enough foster homes that can/are willing to take newborns? Does the writer envision state-run creches? Wouldn’t there be a problem if the underage girl didn’t care to reveal the identity of the father? How would we go about coercing that info from her? We couldn’t very well go around DNA testing every male in the neighborhood, could we?

How on earth did you construe placing underage rape victims “immediately under the protection of the court” as “(w)ould we incarcerate the girls without parental consent?”? The segue into “foster homes” and “state-run crèches” suggest a mocking lack of concern for rape victims. Granted my draft was crude but it was written so in order to work as a Rorschach Ink Blot test of sorts. And so it succeeded. It seems obvious to me from your answer that you aren’t particularly well informed nor are you particular interested in an adult level exchange of views on this matter.

.

grackle Says:
July 9th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Another problem, larger than the questions above: According to the National Vital Statistics Report, Volume 7, issued January 7, 2009, the rate of births for the age group 15-17 of unmarried females in 2006 was 20 per 1000, or 2%. Assuming you could prosecute 100% the fathers you would still be prosecuting the statutory rapes of a mere 2% of all illegitimate births, only a very slight help in the overall scheme of things. The other 98% of illegitimate births would remain a problem. Also, by prosecuting those men you would not actually be eliminating all statutory rapes in this age group. We also prosecute a high percentage of bank robbers but those rascals keep on robbing banks, don’t they?

Well, I did not expect to find that you read the report incorrectly. See page 11 of the report you cited for me. The total births per 1000 unmarried women was 50.6 in 2006. If as you say, “the rate of births for the age group 15-17 of unmarried females in 2006 was 20 per 1000” then the percentage of births for the age group 15-17 of unmarried females in 2006 to the total was just under 40% not 2% as you stated! But this too does not make sense as you appear to have misread the information presented in Figure 6 of page 11 of the report you cited.
Moreover, I’m not arguing to “eliminate(e) all statutory rapes in this age group”. That is likely an impossible task. I think I was clear that I want to reduce the number of statutory rapes. It seems to me that you are wasting my time with a red Herring argument. Your argument by analogy to bank robbery is useless too. The FBI does a pretty good job of reducing the cost in dollars stolen and innocent persons killed or wounded in bank robberies in no small part because amounts of loot taken are so low and because the FBI keeps the likelihood of capture so high and thereby the costs of being on the lam are so prohibitive that robbing banks by way of armed robbery is pretty much uniformly an uneconomic money losing venture for the thieves . Indeed experience during the last two decades shows that banks have suffered far far far more extensive losses due to fraud perpetrated during the loan origination process.
I’m going stop there as your errors, your mocking mischaracterizations and your logical fallacies suggest that there is little to gain form engaging you on this topic.

Perhaps I might do all the writer suggests if I were going to perform some major research in the field but just to get at the what the writer is talking about in a comment on a blog post? I believe I am as curious as the next person but I really think it’s up to the commentor to provide a basic summary of his views instead of requiring the rest of us go off to read the equivalent of a short novel.

OK, my knees and feet are sore. I hope I’m not getting cranky but off the top of my head I can suggest.

1)- Vigorously enforce statutory rape laws. Far too many 20+ and 30+ year old males are preying upon underage, fatherless girls (and impregnating them). Requiring DNA testing and partner tracing for all pregnant underage girls, including mandatory reporting of all underage girls receiving abortions with DNA samples retained and forwarded to a DA’s for prosecution of the rapist if applicable. Require all abortion providers to obtain court approval before performing abortions on underage girls so that the girl can be placed immediately under the protection of the court if applicable.

This seems pretty straightforward. I don’t mind enforcing laws but I’m wondering how placing underage girls “immediately under the protection of the court” would work. Would we incarcerate the girls without parental consent? Who would take care of the babies then? Are there enough foster homes that can/are willing to take newborns? Does the writer envision state-run creches? Wouldn’t there be a problem if the underage girl didn’t care to reveal the identity of the father? How would we go about coercing that info from her? We couldn’t very well go around DNA testing every male in the neighborhood, could we?

Another problem, larger than the questions above: According to the National Vital Statistics Report, Volume 7, issued January 7, 2009, the rate of births for the age group 15-17 of unmarried females in 2006 was 20 per 1000, or 2%. Assuming you could prosecute 100% the fathers you would still be prosecuting the statutory rapes of a mere 2% of all illegitimate births, only a very slight help in the overall scheme of things. The other 98% of illegitimate births would remain a problem. Also, by prosecuting those men you would not actually be eliminating all statutory rapes in this age group. We also prosecute a high percentage of bank robbers but those rascals keep on robbing banks, don’t they?

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/unmarry.htm

Go to the above link and click on “Births: Final Data for 2006, Table 19 to download the pdf.

2)- Reform tax law. End the marriage penalty.

I like this idea. I’ve been in favor of this reform myself for some time, just from the aspect of fairness. But is it the contention of the writer that high divorce rates are a result of the tax code?

Increase head of household federal income rates to make them no more favorable than the federal income rates of a similarly situated married person.

Here again this idea gets my vote because of fairness but I can’t see it appreciably reducing the divorce rate.

Increase tax exemptions for dependent children.

Would this tax exemption include out of wedlock children?

OK, I’ve got a CBO report and a GAO report to read and I need to wrap up some work and finish an essay by Rene Girard in First Things… I’ll see what I can do…

[grackle – earlier]… Again, not much help in understanding the writer’s solutions. I’ll try reminding the writer when I see his posts. Perhaps that will work.

I’m running out of time but it didn’t take me long to find this at Dr. Popenoe’s National Marriage Project at Rutgers http://marriage.rutgers.edu/ . These are suggestions provided by Popenoe and introduced by Barbara Dafoe Whitehead (another resource in this field).

As a first step, the institution of marriage needs to be promoted by all levels of society, particularly the families, the schools, the churches, the non-profit sector, and the government …

Would Dr. Popenoe have the government pay families to promote marriage? Would he have the government fund schools to promote marriage? Would the local school boards have any say in this? Don’t most churches already promote marriage? I haven’t heard lately of any preacher railing against the institution from the pulpit. By his mention of “government” it seems that the good Dr, would have another governmental bureaucracy created in order for the government to promote marriage. Yes, I think these measures would require the creation of a government bureaucracy to dole out the money, inspect and enforce the legal mandates. The Bureau of Marriage Education? Another czar in the Obama administration?

I like the idea of non-profit organizations promoting marriage because that wouldn’t cost the taxpayer any money but of course even nonprofits have to obtain funding from somewhere to finance their activities. However, it would cost the government some revenue if contributions were tax exempt. Some enterprising folks, perhaps the writer himself could create the Institute for Sex Education and Legitimate Birth. Perhaps he could get Bill Gates to use it as a tax write-off.

Dr. Popenoe continues:

… Marriage has fallen by the wayside, in part, because it receives less and less social recognition and approval … In an effort not to judge much less stigmatize any adult life style, we have all too often become virtually silent about the value and importance of marriage. This silence is extremely damaging to the promotion of a pro-marriage culture.

For brevity’s sake I ellipsed out much of the quote but I believe what I left in is an adequate summing up. The author basically says that marriage is not held in as high regard as it used to be and that we all ought to speak up about the benefits of marriage. I agree but I don’t see a solution here but rather an outlining of what the author sees as the problem.

… Getting people to marry is one thing, helping them to stay married is something else entirely. Helping people to stay married is the main focus of an important set of programs known as marriage education … it[marriage education] recently has been thrust into the limelight thanks to widespread publicity and government financial assistance.

Some observations about marriage education but aside from implying “government financial assistance” would be a good thing(I’m not so sure myself), no solutions.

The importance of marriage education is magnified by the fact that the marital relationship today is so different from what it was in the past … The “relationship knowledge” this requires has never been part of formal education, but there is no reason to believe that it can not [be effective] … Indeed, the initial empirical evaluations of marriage education programs conclude that they are both well-received and have generally positive outcomes.

More about marriage education.

Marriage promotion and marriage education are essential steps, but in order fully to rebuild the institution of marriage there would probably have to be a cultural shift of a more fundamental nature … This could come about through a growing realization, based on rational self-interest, that our personal happiness and sense of well-being over the long course of life are less affected by the amount of independence, choice, bodily pleasure and wealth we are able to obtain than by the number of stable, long-term and meaningful relationships we have with others. (16) And through a greater recognition of the fact that short-term adult interests can be in conflict with the long-term health and wellbeing of children, and that our children’s welfare has everything to do with the future of our nation.

Basically Dr. Popenoe says that casual relationships in modern society, easy divorce, etc. are bad for children. But who didn’t know that already? The only solution I see in the presented material is for a huge program of marriage education. Besides being an expensive undertaking on the scale the author envisions, I just don’t see it working. I say try a pilot program and see if anything good, like fewer children out of wedlock or longer marriages, results from it. This would take years to gather and interpret the data but it would be cheaper than Dr. Popenoe’s proposals.

Well, gotta go now. Very busy and perhaps a bit out of sorts from my training last night for the 2010 Winter Olympics ski jump in Vancouver. Those landings in the dark are murder and leave the ankles more than a little sore. I’ve also the entire works of Shakespeare to read before noon and intend to get Chaucer done by tomorrow morning. If I find the time I might drop by later.

# grackle Says:
July 8th, 2009 at 6:51 pm

… Again, not much help in understanding the writer’s solutions. I’ll try reminding the writer when I see his posts. Perhaps that will work.

I’m running out of time but it didn’t take me long to find this at Dr. Popenoe’s National Marriage Project at Rutgers http://marriage.rutgers.edu/ . These are suggestions provided by Popenoe and introduced by Barbara Dafoe Whitehead (another resource in this field).

The State of Our Unions
The Social Health of Marriage in America – 2007
Essay: The Future of Marriage in America
by David Popenoe
http://marriage.rutgers.edu/Publications/SOOU/TEXTSOOU2007.htm

What Can be Done?

As a first step, the institution of marriage needs to be promoted by all levels of society, particularly the families, the schools, the churches, the non-profit sector, and the government. The great majority of American high school seniors still want to get married, with 82 percent of girls and 70 percent of boys recently saying that “having a good marriage and family life” is “extremely important” to them. These percentages, in fact, represent a slight increase from the late 1970s. (15) But as high schoolers reach young adulthood, when the attraction of cohabitation and careers gains strong currency, making the actual commitment to marriage is not easy. Young people need, therefore, to be made continually aware of the many benefits married life brings, both for themselves and for their children. The empirical evidence is now strong and persuasive that a good marriage enhances personal happiness, economic success, health and longevity. This evidence should become a regular part of our educational programs and our public discourse.

Yet successful marriage promotion requires more than empirical evidence. Marriage has fallen by the wayside, in part, because it receives less and less social recognition and approval. Any norm of behavior requires for its maintenance the continuing support of the community, including active social pressures to uphold it. When social approval and pressures wither, the norm weakens. Today’s young people have been taught through the schools and in their communities a strong message of tolerance for “alternative lifestyles.” “Thou shalt not make moral judgments about other people’s family behavior” seems to have become a dominant message in our times. The reason for this is completely understandable; children and young people come from ever more diverse family situations which are not of their own doing, and they should be fully accepted and not be penalized. The problem is that this moral message is carried on into adult life, where it is applied not to children and young people but to adults who do have choices about how they shape their lives. In an effort not to judge much less stigmatize any adult life style, we have all too often become virtually silent about the value and importance of marriage. This silence is extremely damaging to the promotion of a pro-marriage culture.

The widespread promotion of marriage is directed at only half of the problem, however. Getting people to marry is one thing, helping them to stay married is something else entirely. Helping people to stay married is the main focus of an important set of programs known as marriage education. Typically conducted in group settings rather than counseling situations, marriage education programs focus on developing the knowledge, attitudes and skills needed for making a wise marital choice and having a successful marriage. Although marriage education has been around for many decades, it recently has been thrust into the limelight thanks to widespread publicity and government financial assistance.

The importance of marriage education is magnified by the fact that the marital relationship today is so different from what it was in the past. Marriage is now based almost entirely on close friendship and romantic love, mostly stripped of the economic dependencies, legal and religious restrictions, and extended family pressures that have held marriages together for most of human history. Until fairly recent times marriages had little to do with romantic love, sexual passion, or even close friendship; they were functional partnerships in the intense struggle of life. Today, a successful marriage rests almost entirely on how well one gets along, intimately and for the long term, with someone of the opposite sex. The “relationship knowledge” this requires has never been part of formal education, but there is no reason to believe that it can not effectively be taught to married couples and those about to be married, as well as to younger people as part of the high school curriculum. Indeed, the initial empirical evaluations of marriage education programs conclude that they are both well-received and have generally positive outcomes.

Marriage promotion and marriage education are essential steps, but in order fully to rebuild the institution of marriage there would probably have to be a cultural shift of a more fundamental nature. Modern cultures would need to pull back from the now dominant thrust of secular individualism-the excessive pursuit of personal autonomy, immediate gratification, and short-term personal gain-and give greater emphasis to issues of community and social solidarity. This could come about through a growing realization, based on rational self-interest, that our personal happiness and sense of well-being over the long course of life are less affected by the amount of independence, choice, bodily pleasure and wealth we are able to obtain than by the number of stable, long-term and meaningful relationships we have with others. (16) And through a greater recognition of the fact that short-term adult interests can be in conflict with the long-term health and wellbeing of children, and that our children’s welfare has everything to do with the future of our nation. .

I’ve got some excellent material on this topic by Dr. Elizabeth Fox Genovese somewhere in my archives. I’ll try to provide more as soon as practical.

# grackle Says:
July 8th, 2009 at 6:51 pm

… I did just that and described the results in a previous post. The first URL led me to a Rutgers page but no article. The second led to a long list of more links to various things ? no link I saw there was labeled as “How To Reduce Divorce and Out of Wedlock Births” or even close. Again, not much help in understanding the writer’s solutions. I’ll try reminding the writer when I see his posts. Perhaps that will work.

Oh Gheez! Popenoe and Blankenhorn have been leading scholars in this field for decades. I was expecting that you would be a tad more curious and have a look around and maybe contact them by e-mail and ask for information.

OK, my knees and feet are sore. I hope I’m not getting cranky but off the top of my head I can suggest.

1)- Vigorously enforce statutory rape laws. Far too many 20+ and 30+ year old males are preying upon underage, fatherless girls (and impregnating them). Requiring DNA testing and partner tracing for all pregnant underage girls, including mandatory reporting of all underage girls receiving abortions with DNA samples retained and forwarded to a DA’s for prosecution of the rapist if applicable. Require all abortion providers to obtain court approval before performing abortions on underage girls so that the girl can be placed immediately under the protection of the court if applicable.

2)- Reform tax law. End the marriage penalty. Increase head of household federal income rates to make them no more favorable than the federal income rates of a similarly situated married person. Increase tax exemptions for dependent children.

OK, I’ve got a CBO report and a GAO report to read and I need to wrap up some work and finish an essay by Rene Girard in First Things… I’ll see what I can do…

we can start by letting the moms know the facts rather than telling them that there is no effect!!!!

or that the effect is positive!!!

thats my beef. let the women know that perimenopaus starts at 25… and there fertility declines and the rate of defects increases.

let them know that by waiting they make their family lines that stretch back to the very first life form, extinct.

you can tell them the truth about the choices that others are telling them are so grand.

i would say that as many people would stay with the feminists as would stay with obama if they knew all the details and how much harm.

women are hooking up and feeling miserable doing it because they are being told that this is the way.

heck… if they realized that they are now self supporting harem girls for the elite would they believe it?

really? then i guess you forgot all the games to lower the standards and play favorites?

that BEFORE feminism you had female authors like mary shelly, jane austin, the bronte sisters, emiliy dickenson, and many more.

compare what they created with the S.C.U.M manifesto, or the vagina monologues (where pederastic drugged lesbian rape is ‘a good rape’).

oh.. care to look at the crime stats that show that over 70 percent of rapists were raised in single parent female homes? (thats called making a self serving vicious circle).

why? cause a bunch of 19th century socialists declared from thir arses it was the better way to live because to our sensibilities and our fantasies such things seem more correct when hammered into us everywhere.

in another thread we have covered the recent point that women are now more miserable than before!!!

and wait when they get older and they dont have families around them and are in institutions as they are old, frail, and on the obama plan rather than the husbands pension and children. history has examples of what happens… if you know them.

you may not like the FACTS i present, but i did not draw any conclusions. i did not say that women should do this, or that. i didnt say we should change it.

i just laid out the suckers game they are playing. i showed that their points are not helpful to women but harmful, and that they intended from before your stated belief, to make a soviet style communist state.

you see elise i am completely against social engineering. i am completely against the kind of mental games that they played on western women and the harm they did to the children while saying they are going to help them.

i come from a family whose roots were in the countries that invented this stuff. THATS why i know it differently.

elise. the best you were able to do to refute me was make a claim i think a certain way.

yes i guess to you i am a thorught crime violator who does not stalinize the past.

how does laying out historical facts lay out how i think? was it the fact i dared tell the truth and violated some kind of rule your upset at?

think about it elise…

you couldnt refute anything, so you got cryptic and started to meekly imply that i am a wrong thinker.

you say you werent duped, but you did take in the style and ways to the point that you think that facts are evidence of wrong thinking. you respond pavlovian and defend some really heinious people.

people who never wanted you to have a good life with what you wanted in it, because if you did, they would have no purpose and no power

women were happier when women were not working and men supported them.. they were respected more when they were with one only and 40% didnt have an std that causes cancer and infertility. they were happier before they got drunk and smoked (youve come a long way baby), hey were healthier too.

they are very unhappy now..

and thats just a fact

i never said or advised what to change. after all i am into history, and history is the unchangeable past we create with our actions.

if you didnt like my facts. write to the women that created the world that created those facts.

after all, if you ask them, they will tell you they are making history..

I did just that and described the results in a previous post. The first URL led me to a Rutgers page but no article. The second led to a long list of more links to various things – no link I saw there was labeled as “How To Reduce Divorce and Out of Wedlock Births” or even close. Again, not much help in understanding the writer’s solutions. I’ll try reminding the writer when I see his posts. Perhaps that will work.

I’ve got to go out for a marathon training run. I’ll see what I can do later.

Until then be well.

As a matter of public policy I wouldn’t try to eliminate divorce. I’d substantially reduce its frequency. Here are two “go to guys” on the topic of “how?”

Dr. David Popenoe
http://centers.rutgers.edu/center.php?c=3184

Dr. David Blankenhorn
http://www.americanvalues.org/

Illegitimacy would also have to similarly reduced.

The links don’t work when clicked on for me – perhaps it’s my browser settings. I did get to the linked material by copying and pasting the URLs in the address bar of my browser.

The first URL led me to a Rutgers page but no article. The second led to a long list of more links to various things. Not much help in understanding the writer’s ideas.

Perhaps if the writer would take the time to give us a brief summary of what the writer would do to reduce divorce and out of wedlock births I’m sure we readers would be appreciative. Or even pasting some quotes from the Drs. Popenoe and Blankenhorn …