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TV and our changing culture — 45 Comments

  1. They fell for the Left’s propaganda in Vietnam. They fell for it in Iraq. They are falling for it once more.

    Jim Jones used a cruder and less developed form of mass brainwashing before. Informants and setups to test loyalty, which is essentially the same thing being conducted against conservatives, Christians, bakers, and anyone else the Left decides isn’t loyal enough.

    The Leftists, the so called moderate Democrats, they have already been processed, in secret. They already know how to Obey.

  2. Well of course pop-culture is influential – it always has been.
    And it was one of the reasons that I went into writing exciting and appealing historical fiction – as a stealth way of interesting people in history, in our American history.
    Only mixed results so far, but Rome was not build in a day.

  3. However, he does single out popular entertainment as a huge factor, and with that I agree.

    All roads lead to the MSM.

    “Popular entertainment” is just an arm of the MSM’s ongoing mass propaganda effort, one that may prove in the long run to be more important than the continual distortion of news by the usual suspects: ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, NY Times, WaPo, LA Times, etc.

    The dramatic change in American attitudes about gay marriage (voted down almost everywhere–repeatedly even in lefty California–in the 1990s and early 2000s) is one measure of its potency.

  4. the past few years??

    your WAY off… starting with movies like some like it hot. the outfits they wore were very similar to the famous photos of gay bashing cops i think in the UK, before the famous riot by the bar in ny…

    fast forward a bit, and the adaptation of robins nest to the west as Three’s company, where its ok to rent the apartment to the two women and one man, cause he fakes being gay… but isnt really (to which mrs roper knows)

    fast forward to the 80s and the HIV deaths and quilts, and movies like Philidelphia

    but dont forget the sweet bisexual transvestite from transexual transelvania… Franken Furter… in that cult classic: Rocky Horror Picture show

    it details the work of the frankfurt school which landed in middle america and using polymorphous perversion, would change the wholesome heterosexual brad majors and janet weiss into post modern couple… by releasing their sexual tensions…

    the final act of said thing and the changes to our nation can be seen in shock treatment…

    we all need a bit of shock treatment…

    the two movies detail the changes that would come to the US over time, with rocky horror showing the first changes, and then shock treatment detailing symbolicly the changes to women (looking for trade, the me of me, sexualization).. their feminist abandonment of her made, and disenfranchising, and emasculating him by locking him away from any power to act or stop it… while its the MEDIA that controls the mentality of the general public, of which brad and janet feel that they dont fit cause they are not like the media portrayals and so try to become what media wants.

    and it was all done at the behest of big government and big business… in the form of farly flavors… (not flava flave)

    then moves on to the new tv shows and other thigns… with hedwig and the angry inch movie becoming a broadway play, but not before rosie odonnel did her (failed) thing to bring that to broadway and so on…

    yeah… not a few years..
    try about 4 decades or more…

    the two icnonic songs from rocky and shock would be the end in rocky “dont dream it, be it” a song probably loved by caitlyn bruce…

    and “Look What I Did to My Id”

    and the song that covers the conversion and confusion of the old guard heterosexual white picket fence is “Thank God I’m a Man” which comes right after “bitchin in the kitchen” – a hat tip to freidan and the destruction of the “normal” family.. and the disatisfaction given to the wives..

    sheesh…

  5. and if you want to know how they use catch phrases and shut down conversation that is in opposition, i would suggest

    Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_Reform_and_the_Psychology_of_Totalism

    Lifton said:
    The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis

    Milieu Control. This involves the control of information and communication both within the environment and, ultimately, within the individual, resulting in a significant degree of isolation from society at large.

    Mystical Manipulation. The manipulation of experiences that appears spontaneous but is, in fact, planned and orchestrated by the group or its leaders in order to demonstrate divine authority, spiritual advancement, or some exceptional talent or insight that sets the leader and/or group apart from humanity, and that allows reinterpretation of historical events, scripture, and other experiences. Coincidences and happenstance oddities are interpreted as omens or prophecies.

    Demand for Purity. The world is viewed as black and white and the members are constantly exhorted to conform to the ideology of the group and strive for perfection. The induction of guilt and/or shame is a powerful control device used here.

    Confession. Sins, as defined by the group, are to be confessed either to a personal monitor or publicly to the group. There is no confidentiality; members’ “sins,” “attitudes,” and “faults” are discussed and exploited by the leaders.
    Sacred Science. The group’s doctrine or ideology is considered to be the ultimate Truth, beyond all questioning or dispute. Truth is not to be found outside the group. The leader, as the spokesperson for God or for all humanity, is likewise above criticism.

    Loading the Language. The group interprets or uses words and phrases in new ways so that often the outside world does not understand. This jargon consists of thought-terminating clichés, which serve to alter members’ thought processes to conform to the group’s way of thinking.

    Doctrine over person. Members’ personal experiences are subordinated to the sacred science and any contrary experiences must be denied or reinterpreted to fit the ideology of the group.

    Dispensing of existence. The group has the prerogative to decide who has the right to exist and who does not. This is usually not literal but means that those in the outside world are not saved, unenlightened, unconscious and they must be converted to the group’s ideology. If they do not join the group or are critical of the group, then they must be rejected by the members. Thus, the outside world loses all credibility. In conjunction, should any member leave the group, he or she must be rejected also.

    its all there… including the penchant for them to come online, even Obama and confess their sins and how they have changed…

    and where did lifton and the left learn and copy from?

    Lifton’s research for the book began in 1953 with a series of interviews with American servicemen who had been held captive during the Korean War. In addition to interviews with 25 Americans, Lifton also interviewed 15 Chinese who had fled their homeland after having been subjected to indoctrination in Chinese universities. From these interviews, which in some cases occurred regularly for over a year, Lifton identified the tactics used by Chinese communists to cause drastic shifts in one’s opinions and personality and “brainwash” American soldiers into making demonstrably false assertions.

    there is so much it would take a small liberary to inform people of what they missed…

  6. Artfldgr:

    I’m old enough to think of 1959 as “the past few years” 🙂 .

    Also, it’s stepped up a tremendous amount in the last two or three decades or so.

  7. It accelerates because the Left’s vast hidden reservoirs of hideous strength are being mobilized. People think that all they see is all they have to face. That is a mistake.

  8. I do not care what consenting adults do with one another. I do not care if one is confused about their chromosomes. But don’t tell me 2 percent of the population is the new normal. Soon they will be telling us pedophilia is the new normal. Next transspecies sex will be the in thing. Ancient Rome ain’t got nothing on 21st century USA.

  9. Of course Lena Dunham’s and Josh Duggar’s childhood behavior were treated so very differently by the left. It’s not Lena’s behavior which is in question. On page 150 she describes some of the “acts of seduction” towards her little sister. The apparent lack of succes made Lena’s father tell her: “If you don’t try so hart it’ll be better”. Lena’s behaviour wasn’t beyond the norm or anything. She was just adorable clumsy.

    The Duggar boy/man’s behaviour was unacceptable, even his parents think so. He possibly/hopefully thinks so too, now. That is something the left can not forgive.

  10. from across the pond:

    I have no idea what you’re referring to—“adorable clumsy”?

    As for Dunham’s father (or mother, for that matter), I wouldn’t say he’s a good judge of much of anything re child sexual abuse. See this:

    Her father, Carroll Dunham, is a painter noted for his primitive brand of highbrow pornography, his canvases anchored by puffy neon-pink labia; her photographer mother filled the family home with nude pictures of herself, “legs spread defiantly.” Self-styled radicals from old money, they were not the sort of people inclined to enforce even the most lax of boundaries. And they were, in their daughter’s telling, enablers of some very disturbing behavior that would be considered child abuse in many jurisdictions – “This was within the spectrum of things I did.”

  11. God cannot provide a shield of divine providence for a people that empowers their leaders with the greatest of evil fueling the society.

    Since righteousness is not on their side, those who wish to survive must find other sources of power to fuel their conquests. Slavery 3.0

  12. Lena was raised in a home of perversion by a couple of (proud) deviants. And she was not capable of seducing a sister 7 years younger of age. Her parents probably thougth of her of her in terms of clumsy and the like. But she was their offspring, so possibly they softened it up a little. Like people from the south saying “Bless her hearth”. I think the parents were good judges of child sexual abuse. That’s why they judged Lena clumsy, in other words not very good at it i.e. not like them.

  13. Public school will be designed to produce more Dunhams, so say the unions.

  14. Silent? The brainwashing has been planned and implemented brilliantly.

    How brilliantly? People think the impossible is true: That there is a creature called a “gay” person; that tow of them can be a married couple; that a man can be a woman or a woman a man.

    All of those are as impossible as lead being gold; or a naked emperor being clothed (since he chooses to be in his head).

    The Fascists of the American Totalitarian Party, aka the Democrat Party, have done what all Fascist Thugs have always done.

    Tye really disappointing thing is that most Americans have failed the test and are therefore unworthy of being Americans.

    Since they are not Americans, soon there will no longer be an America. There will be serfs and slaves living on a land mass called North America.

    The bums deserve what they get since they are the very disgusting lot of formerly free men and women who complained to Moses in the desert. They will never see the Promised Land again.

  15. Artfldgr:

    I think your idea of Rocky Horror Picture Show as a metaphor for the Frankfurt School is fascinating.

    They told us what they were going to do, and then did it.

  16. Cultural, biological, and moral regression. The trans equivalence movement is notably selective. They bask under a dull rainbow. As with other pro-choice movements, it avoids principled tolerance (and normalization), and revels in selective exclusion. Still, at least they are not destroying human life by the millions for light and casual causes. The sexual revolution, and gender equivalence movement specifically, was objectively a greater violation of human rights and threat to evolutionary fitness. However, both trans equivalence and gender equivalence are dysfunctional and antithetical to fitness, and both engender creation of moral hazards.

  17. Cultural, biological, and moral regression.</i.

    On the next episode of NBC’s The Island–the Bear Grylls-hosted adventure series about a bunch of men who are left to fend for themselves on a deserted island–one of the participants battles an epic case of constipation.
    “You haven’t truly lived until you’ve spent two and a half hours digging four to five pounds of coconut, bark and crab shell out of your own butt,” admits Williams.

    Actually, we think you haven’t truly lived until you talk about spending two and a half hours digging stuff out of your butt on national TV. But we digress. …

  18. It IS astonishing. My 3 boys are pretty conservative- but no when it comes to things like homosexuality and the like. Back of the envelope calculation: the average 20 year old thinks third of the population is gay- and if one watches TV one could easily see why.

  19. Nobody is immune to Leftist propaganda. So long as they keep browsing the Left’s content, viruses are going to infect them.

  20. I recently had to break off ties with a liberal friend of mine (for many years, mind you) because his ideas were beyond normal liberal and falling into kooky nutjob-ville. This is something I cannot understand or even comprehend. This person is highly educated and very smart. But here is his view:

    That the idea of gender was imposed upon us by the unenlightened centuries ago and this idea is wrong and out-dated. We clearly are not just 2 genders and gender identity is a construct that was meant to control people. Therefore, we are now entering a time of ‘enlightenment’ whereby we are creating the idea of gender from scratch and we now just need some linguist to craft the right language/words.

    It is so beyond my world view that I just couldn’t interact with this person anymore. This person also dismissed the notion that transgendered individuals were mentally ill and dismissed the notion that anorexics or those who wish to be legless/armlesss are in the same mental place as transgendered people.

    This is what we are dealing with. Complete and utter disregard for fact…even by educated people with smarts. They are so driven by emotions and the need to be part of a ‘revolution’ of some kind, they don’t care about anything else.

  21. I’m a southern person- several generations -all I’ve ever been is a southern girl but for the life of me as I understand it Lena was a 7 year old girl, curious about sexuality, also she’s a comedienne, telling a joke. Creepy southerners on tv are not the norm. Child molestationis serious- not a laughing matter and should not be brushed off as some Republicans seem to be doing.

  22. So when a child abuses a child, is that child irredeemable? Is he forever evil and never capable of change? I thought most of us believed in redemption for children.

    The Duggar parents may have done the wrong thing to help their son, but are you going to hold that against the son who grew up and, by all accounts, is a normal man with a wife and a job?

    You can decide that the Duggar parents did a poor job of helping their child and the victims, but you honestly think the boy is deserving of evil comments and Lena Dunham is not?

    At least the Duggars and their son admit their was wrongdoing, Lena and her fans seem to think it was no big deal…and how she was raised was completely acceptable. That is a problem for me.

  23. K-E:

    If you read my linked posts on the subject, my attitude towards Dunham and Josh Duggar is essentially the same, which is that they were child offenders, and that sibling sexual abuse in childhood is quite common and much more likely to end with the reform of the perpetrator than other sorts of sexual abuse.

    The condemnation of both is way over the top, and unfortunately tends to be dependent on the politics of the person doing the condemning.

    The one glaring thing I see that is different is the family atmosphere. The Duggars were very strict about sexual boundaries; the Dunhams created a highly sexualized and highly inappropriate atmosphere, with nude (and even open-crotch) pictures displayed around the house.

  24. Dunham was 7, Duggar was 14/15. Double her age. Dunham was a child by all standards; Duggar was a borderline adult in most traditional religious perspectives (e.g. past confirmation age, past bar mitvza, heck even somewhere about the sharia definitions of adulthood for men).

    The age difference between Dunham and her sister was about five years, the age difference between Duggar and his youngest victim was 9-10 years (she was *five* and he was a *teenager*!) – double the problem. Dunham was a child curious about children and it is questionable how sexual this curiosity was in the first place (with all of her crazy “artistic” environment); Duggar was a teenager whose actions did not concern teenage girls, but in preteens and in SMALL children.

    The more I think about it, the less of the hypocrisy I see. The backlash may be still excessive, but it seems to me that Duggar’s offense is objectively greater than Dunham’s.

  25. Anna:

    Dunham was indeed a child, a very young child at that. I believe (as I wrote in my piece) she acted inappropriately but not so very unusually, and she was raised in a family with very few sexual boundaries, too.

    But Duggar was also a child. A boy who just turned 14 and then just turned 15 is not an adult, and is dealing with early pubescent feelings. He didn’t do all that much–touching when fully clothed, is all I read, and it was almost entirely to girls relatively close to his age, and almost entirely to his siblings.

    Things like that go on a lot in families. What’s more, they are usually not reported, either by children or by parents. The Duggars were actually unusual in reporting it. In addition, because of the very strict rules in the family about modesty and dating and all of that, a boy of 14-15 would have no opportunity to date in a normal manner. That, I believe, is the main reason his sexual urges were channeled towards the only available girls, his sisters.

    It was wrong. But it was addressed. And there’s no reason to believe he remained a child molester any more than there is reason to imagine that Dunham did. I think BOTH incidents are being used for political reasons.

  26. Neo, I was biting my lip here, but they reported the incidents years later! The police got involved at the point which – curiously – coincided with the expiry of the statute of limitations. Had they reported it on time, even the legality of their homeschooling may have been in question (Arkansas has a law that prohibits homeschooling children who live with a sex offender, and if I am not mistaken, at 15, given the age differential with respect to the youngest girl, he would have been considered as such?). They were not mandatory reporters as parents, true; but they had the obligation to protect their daughters – the fact alone that any incidents happened *again* after the first time means that they were not protected enough.

    It is not that I think Josh poses any threat to his family, he seems like a perfectly normal young man, but I do think the issue is getting downplayed. It is true, in a way, that if we had more decency we would not be discussing it at all (and I am at fault here as much as anyone else who has participated in this sort of voyeurism – although it concerns a family who literally *signed up for* scrutiny of their lives), but IF the whole country is discussing it already, is it not awfully downplayed in conservative circles? It is an order of magnitude worse than the Dunham case, yet much of what I hear is a variant of “boys will be boys” and “normal teenage behavior”.

  27. Anna:

    When I wrote “reported the incident” I didn’t mean to the police. Most parents would not consider this something that needed to be reported to the police, and the law does not mandate reporting by parents of something of that sort, as far as I heard on news reports (a fondling with clothes on, by an underage sibling). It was reported, however, 9 months after, and then shortly after that (when Josh returned from treatment) it was reported to the police:

    2003: In March of 2003, nine months after the first incidents, Jim Bob Duggar and his wife Michelle Duggar are made aware of two more incidents, according to the report. In one instance, he allegedly molested a victim while she was sitting in his lap, according to the report. Around the same time, the person (name redacted) put his hand beneath a victim’s dress in the family’s laundry room, Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar tell the police.

    Jim Bob Duggar meets with the elders of his church to discuss what action they can take to prevent further abuse, according to the police report. He says the elders agree that Josh needs treatment.

    Jim Bob Duggar tells police that Josh Duggar went through a Christian counseling program from March 17 to July 17, where he “did manual labor and had counseling,” according to the 2006 police report. It’s unclear whether the counseling program was with a certified counselor, and Jim Bob Duggar tells police he cannot recall the name of the facility, according to the report.

    Shortly after Josh returns from treatment, Jim Bob Duggar, Josh Duggar and a church elder tell a police official about the incidents, according to the report. Jim Bob Duggar says Josh Duggar admitted the abuse to Joseph Truman Hutchens, a former Arkansas state trooper.

    And certainly the Dunhams didn’t report anything, then or later!

    Also, after Josh reported the first incident (involving the 2 slightly-younger sisters), the parents put into place various safeguards to make sure he could not be alone with them or enter their room. When the safeguards were found to be ineffective, that’s when they sent him for treatment. I believe I recall that after the treatment (which occurred in 2003) they were told by the police and therapists that what they had done was an effective way to handle the situation. The girls also received counseling.

    Also, I’m not at all sure it was orders of magnitude worse than Dunham (I think they are pretty much similar, although the details are different). Dunham’s sister was nude, not clothed, and the abuse was genital. It also involved bribery and coercion, apparently. In Josh’s case the girls themselves said they weren’t even aware it had happened. Does that make it better, or worse?

  28. If people are stupid enough that they think they can protect their family by reporting domestic troubles to the police so that they come and break up your family by shooting everyone in the head, you are beyond redemption. And there’s no age gap to excuse that any more.

  29. but I do think the issue is getting downplayed.

    Of course it is being downplayed. People like Anna said that they aren’t being targeted by the System. That’s called downplaying the issue here.

  30. Ymarsakar:

    Are issues like this not normally solved by sending the troubled child away? The police need not necessarily be involved, but the child cannot continue to live at home with other children – the protection of the latter is prioritary with respect to the comfort of the former.

    A cursory Google search: there are 43 boys-only boarding schools in the US and Canada. Many of them Christian, some of them military prep with reinforced discipline – when you narrow it down to a kind of school that would have fit them, they would still have a choice between a few. That could have been an alternative to having him stay at home and around female children.

  31. Neo:

    I still think it is worse because of age. I wonder how sexually motivated Dunham’s curiosity could have been at age seven, unless she was abused (but, as you wrote, maybe her living environment could have been interpreted as a form of child abuse). At seven, even ten, I was still entirely clueless. I am not sure it was even addressed as a part of human anatomy at school before fifth grade. It was just not there, entirely absent from the mental repertory. If we had played doctor (frankly, I do not remember that either), it would not have been “really” sexual, at Dunham’s age – rather, a sort of not-yet-sexual curiosity.

    But by Josh’s age it would have been very clear-cut and wrong. I attended co-ed schools my whole life and even boarding schools (but girls-only dorms). At 15 we were spending a lot of time in mixed groups without the adults’ supervision, which included all sorts of juvenile trouble, especially on school excursions (from less than legally obtained wine to sneaking into other rooms after the lights-out to escapades from the hotel), but NEVER anything sexual. It was just not done; thinking back, the other 15 yo. boys would have probably beaten the … out of whoever touched the girls inappropriately. The line was extremely clear to everyone by that age. It is because of that that I cannot understand how Josh’s actions could fall into the category of “normal” curiosity. I get that he was probably just extremely sheltered, but what changed it in my eyes was the 5 yo. incident.

    Having said that, here I stop discussing it.
    I still like the Duggars. 🙂

  32. Anna:

    Oh, there’s no question Josh’s actions were wrong, and there’s no question he knew they were wrong. That’s why he confessed to his parents rather quickly about something that never would otherwise have been discovered and disclosed.

    But Dunham was never reported nor did her parents seem concerned. In addition, everyone keeps saying Dunham was only seven (which, by the way, is NOT too young to have sexual feelings, although it’s too young to have adult-style sexual feelings) when she abused her sister. No—that’s actually when the activities began.

    Here’s the story (as related and quoted by a non-conservative writer discussing the issue):

    However, Dunham and her sister, Grace, have a six-year age gap, and Grace Dunham was just one when her older sister started “experimenting” with her–hardly old enough to say, “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” And had Lena Dunham merely confessed to touching her sister’s vagina, we may be having an entirely different conversation. But it wasn’t. As far as I can tell from her own words, she bribed and coerced her sister into engaging in these activities with her and attempted to manipulate her emotionally by forcing her into a position of dependence:

    “As [my sister] grew, I took to bribing her for her time and affection: one dollar in quarters if I could do her makeup like a ‘motorcycle chick.’ Three pieces of candy if I could kiss her on the lips for five seconds. Whatever she wanted to watch on TV if she would just ‘relax on me.’ Basically, anything a sexual predator might do to woo a small suburban girl I was trying… What I really wanted, beyond affection, was to feel that she needed me, that she was helpless without her big sister leading her through the world. I took a perverse pleasure in delivering bad news to her–the death of our grandfather, a fire across the street–hoping that her fear would drive her into my arms, would make her trust me.”

    In addition, after she learned that her sister is a lesbian and became upset about it, Dunham outed her to their parents.

    While the conversation that Lena Dunham and her defenders are trying to have keeps focusing on that single story about the vagina and the pebbles, Lena Dunham’s critics seem to be much more concerned with the fact that some of the behavior she described sounds a lot like the things abusers do to reduce the likelihood that their victims will feel able to leave or tell someone about the abuse. While this doesn’t in and of itself mean that Dunham abused her sister, it’s a legitimate thing to be concerned about…

    Lena Dunham says in her book that this continued for a while…though she didn’t specify how long…

    Also, I can’t find the specific reference now, but Dunham apparently described masturbating with her sister next to her in bed, when Dunham was 13. I don’t know whether the sister was aware or not, though.

    Again, I’m not stating that Dunham’s abuse of her sister was worse than Josh Duggar’s of his sisters. It doesn’t, however, necessarily sound less innocent to me—it seems more ongoing, more interactive, and it’s very possible Dunham was an adolescent by the time it ended (girls start going through puberty at around 10 or so, and commonly have their first menstruation at the average age of 12, whereas boys are later).

    None of the siblings—neither Dunham’s nor Duggar’s—report the abuse to have been particularly damaging, either. I believe them.

  33. Are issues like this not normally solved by sending the troubled child away?

    The issue is solved by not allowing the State, thugocrats, or Leftists in on it first.

    And whatever they did, they did it in family, which solved the issue. Now that makes little sense to people who think solving an issue requires bringing in health state inspectors and welfare specialists to figure things out because serfs are too stupid or weak to do so themselves.

    The intention of people now isn’t to help the family, but to destroy the family. They can acclaim “good intentions” all they want, but dancing to the Left’s strings means they are destroyers, not healers.

    but the child cannot continue to live at home with other children — the protection of the latter is prioritary with respect to the comfort of the former.

    So you are someone who has a preferred solution and wishes it to be imposed upon others that disagree. Whereas to me, solving a problem means acquiring a fix, not prioritizing a fix and trying to stuff a problem into it.

  34. A family is no longer a family when they must rely on physical or legal borders to separate themselves from each other. That family is easily destroyed by internal or external factors. Which is the goal of the Left. Divide and conquer.

    A military hierarchy only functions when subordinates obey orders and leaders take responsibility for mistakes. If one’s subordinates had to be taken away from them because they were going to harm other subordinates, that means the officers involved are incompetent. They will either be fired or will be executed, depending on the severity of issues.

    A subordinate that is also destroyed because they are not allowed to reform or improve or re dedicate themselves to the chain of command, will also be broken and useless in the future. Useless as a leader for their own subordinates.

  35. Ymarsakar:

    First healthcare, now “imposing” my preferred fixes onto others or *necessarily* wanting to involve the State into family issues… I must be really bad at expressing myself – or you are acquiring a habit of reading various opinions I do not actually hold INTO my comments.

    Look: *IF* we talk about how exceptional the Duggars were to report the incidents (at the time I assumed Neo meant to the authorities), *then* I point out that there is, actually, a problem or two with their report. The fact that I point it out, in such a context, does not necessarily mean that I endorse, let alone WANT TO IMPOSE, involving the State as a part of the solution to begin with – either in this particular case or as blanket approach to all family issues. It just means that I commented on an aspect of the problem which was brought up. The comment about downplaying referred to the *reactions* with which this incident was met: it is *my* estimate, within *my* value system, that the incidents as described are of greater gravity than accorded by most people I know – perhaps it is in poor taste that we discuss it at all, but *if* we discuss it already, then I think many people are downplaying the moral autonomy, overall agency, and the expectations of self-control for a 14-15 year old. C’est tout.

    That all of that is completely irrelevant by now goes without saying. Josh is very obviously a normal, moral young man.

  36. Neo:

    This actually does sound a lot more disturbing than I initially thought. I did not really follow the Dunham case as I know virtually nothing about her (never watcher her show or read her book), but I assumed it was all about a limited time frame in her very early childhood. When put this way, I am inclined to agree with you that the two cases are a lot closer as to their “gravity” than I initially thought.

  37. Anna:

    Yes.

    One big difference, though, is that Josh reported and the Duggars reacted—initially, within the confines of the family and church institutions and therapists, and later, with the police. It’s not clear what the Dunhams knew and what Lena told them, but they sure don’t seem to have done anything about it.

  38. perhaps it is in poor taste that we discuss it at all, but *if* we discuss it already,

    The Left is discussing it, and they’re stimulating their obedient zombies to do the dirty job of producing pretexts for doing something about it.

    Josh is very obviously a normal, moral young man.

    That’s what you say, but your own reactions imply something else is going on.

    The fact that I point it out, in such a context, does not necessarily mean that I endorse, let alone WANT TO IMPOSE, involving the State as a part of the solution to begin with

    It’s not going to be people like you imposing things. You’re just here to produce the “debate”, the “social consciousness” that acts as a pretext to it.

    then I think many people are downplaying the moral autonomy, overall agency, and the expectations of self-control for a 14-15 year old.

    In reality, the people the Left are overriding and destroying are adults, not the children of last decade. And they do so using the social consciousness produced by their zombies. The rationalization is always that there’s some kind of social problem, that must be fixed. With the fix being unspecified, and the reason being justice or equality or some kind of social norm. The end result tends to be the Gaystapo or Christian bakers being forced to submit to the new aristocrats.

    Libertarians and other people may claim 10 or 20 years ago, that when they supported the homos, that they weren’t “imposing” any solution on Christians or Americans. Whether that’s a lie or not depends on their IQ, on their ability to transcend being a puppet of the Left.

    It’s not the context of what you are replying to Neo that I’m basing my response from my. It’s the context going all the way back to the first Dug post. Square 1

    First healthcare

    If you want to clarify your position on some other nation’s healthcare, feel free to do so.

  39. I changed countries a couple of times, how much of the public system you can use for free depends on several factors (not the least of which is whether you have an EU citizenship – if you only have the US one you are an extracommunautaire and will have to be insured differently). Many people have additional private insurances and/or use the private healthcare sector in combination with the public one. That alone is quite indicative.

    The system itself is not of poor quality, but it is largely so because it profits from medical and pharmaceutical research done elsewhere. Economically I doubt it is viable long-term, although there are countries (e.g. Switzerland) where it does not seem to present the kind of impact it does in the EU, so I wonder on what variables it depends.

    That is as far as the *practical* aspect is concerned. I am not well-versed in economics so I cannot really comment as to how efficient or wasteful the system is.

    But, speaking of *principles*, I think a privatized system is a preferable solution.

  40. Thank you for the answer. In the future, I’ll be sure to remember it so I don’t make a mistake due to recollection or surmise.

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