Liberalism Destroys Families?

[St Leo]

Re: Liberalism Destroys Families?

Originally posted by Berzerker
Lets see if liberalism destroys families:

2) Welfare - who could argue with that? Help the poor, no different than giving money to a charity. Uh oh, out of wedlock birthrates skyrocket because government has taken over the father's role as provider.

Does not.

misia:
Reason 5,987,231 that studying history is relevant: providing some basis for answering claims such as the oft-touted notion that single-parent families are an outcome of twentieth (and twenty-first) century breakdown of "family values."

To wit...

Research on sources surveyed by the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, covering 70 English communities from 1551 to 1851, has revealed that during that period about 19 percent of all families with dependent children were single-parent households, typically headed by women.

The 2000 US Census reported that approximately 9 percent of all U.S. households, were headed by a man or woman raising a child alone or without a spouse living at home.

In the United Kingdom, single-parent family homes were at 5.5 percent in 1999, according to data compiled by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

[Az]

The real question is, do we want to preserve the family structure of the previous centuries or not? The current world is moving towards it's complete distruction, and I, as many others see it as a bad thing, yes. But the previous situation leaves much to be desired too.

The problem is, berz, it is true that some "liberal" things destroy the family, but it's also true that this happens because these tools are applied inefficiently, and the things are destroyed are often quite rotten. Voluntary social experiments worldwide have sort-of-provren that you can keep both community, freedom and long-term sustainable demographics, if you apply universal education, nursing homes and other collectivist measures to what we'd see as extreme measures.

[Hueij]

Furthermore, why is it anti-woman to point out that women who decide on careers with small children at home or on the way isn't wise unless the alternative is worse?

Yeah woman, back to the 1950's with you! And while you're at it, bring me a beer!

[Pekka]

wtf is socially conservative? Guys, seriously, are you making new terms now? This doesn't exist. What, so everyone who is not conservative can't share the values? Stop hogging things you think belongs to conservatives, stop claiming them to be your invention, or even the protector of them. That's just ridicolous.

Liberalism is for penises. So I guess... conservatives don't have penises now. Horraah! Revelation! I knew it!

.. Doh...

I mean.. these things don't make any sense at all.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

St. Leo- I think it's in shockingly poor taste that you should allow real historical data to intrude upon the loving nostalgic fantasy of the past that the conservatives cling to.

Please try to be less realistic and grounded in fact in future. Thank you.

[Ben Kenobi]

I dunno, just because 5% of all 'families' are headed by a single mother, doesn't mean that 'families' are still defined the same between the different groups of statistics.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Feel free to elaborate on that.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Berzerker

Molly

I identified certain policies, liberal policies, that I believe resulted in higher divorce rates and out of wedlock birthrates. If this is the case, higher divorce rates, not divorce itself, are linked to liberalism. You haven't even tried to refute anything in my post so how can you call it bizarre?



You're disputing my critique of the welfare state and the results of it which includes higher divorce rates by sarcastically pointing out that Henry VIII was not a liberal. I never said your defense of the welfare state was effective or even made sense, but since that was all you offered I had to consider it an attempted rebuttal.

Please show where I 'defended' the Welfare State.

If you can't even be bothered to read my posts without interpreting them to your own ends, or putting words in my mouth, what's the point of posting ?

For the record: I pointed out that divorce is part of three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Islam and Christianity (at least the Protestant version).

I pointed out that one of the world's most notable divorcees, pre-Modern Era was a monarch famously obsessed with maintaining or creating a line of inheritance, because of the somewhat shaky basis of his family's claim to the kingdom.

This might have clued you in into what a major aspect of divorce was/is- part of a contract, and recognition (in modern times) that a woman is no longer her husband's or her husband's family's property.

You've shown no intrinsic link between 'liberal' policies as you define them, and divorce, or a higher divorce rate, since you haven't provided us with any notable examples of where a 'liberal' government altered divorce laws to make blame-free divorces or quickie divorces possible.

Quelle shock.


And somehow you converted this into my championing the cause of the 20th Century Welfare State.


Hilarious.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Paraphrasing Ben Franklin, no country was ever ruined by free trade.

He was wrong. The Ottoman Empire was destroyed by free trade.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Pekka
wtf is socially conservative? Guys, seriously, are you making new terms now? This doesn't exist. What, so everyone who is not conservative can't share the values? Stop hogging things you think belongs to conservatives, stop claiming them to be your invention, or even the protector of them. That's just ridicolous.

Liberalism is for penises. So I guess... conservatives don't have penises now. Horraah! Revelation! I knew it!

.. Doh...

I mean.. these things don't make any sense at all.

Indeed, it angers me when some American Republicans equate being conservative with being patriotic. Or they equate being conservative with being upright. Or they equate being conservative with valuing family.

As if these fundamental values are automatically excluded from liberals. Such political propaganda is dangerous -- it delegitimizes political opposition, and when it ocmes down to it, dissenting opinion itself.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Doc

We dont have free trade in this country, far from it. But this is where liberalism runs into trouble again, liberals condemn Nike for employing a bunch of people in the 3rd world at low wages but dont want to trade freely with those people. How is the 3rd world to progress if all the left wing countries try to keep them down? Paraphrasing Ben Franklin, no country was ever ruined by free trade.

So the best we can do is try to alleviate the side effects of the reality of the world situation - a vast disparity in the economies of various countries leaves some countries with an advantage in labor cost, thus undercutting laborers in the higher wage countries. Sounds like an argument in favor of certain forms of welfare.

Welfare states have the effect of absolving people of responsibility.

Our culture has been leaning that way for a very long time. It's our essential ego-centrism that does it.

True, but when it comes time for those average teens to raise their child, he does get to walk away because the government is there to take over his job as provider and the extended family may be so split up due to other liberal policies there just isn't enough family support.

I'ver known a lot of these guys. They don't give a second thought to the welfare, or lack thereof, of the mother and baby.

You're confusing libertarianism with libertinism and trying to separate the welfare state from the results we see coming from it. Obviously teens will have sex, that has nothing to do with ideology. But ideology does become a factor when it induces the choices people make after conceiving a child. If the boy can walk because a liberal policy assumes his responsibility, the family is hurt in the long run.

No I'm not. These guys have a "I can do whatever the f**k I want to" and a "me first" attitude". They don't walk because someone is going to assume their responsibility, they walk because they have utterly no sense of responsibility.

Read my first post again, I clearly said these were the socially conservative arguments against liberal policies.
I see you're trying to bring libertarianism into this. Why? This thread is about liberalism and the socially conservative critique of its policies. Furthermore, why is it anti-woman to point out that women who decide on careers with small children at home or on the way isn't wise unless the alternative is worse?

The origin of "Latchkey kids" is women who have to work because they've been abandoned by men with no sense of responsibility, or because they can't earn enough to pay the bills on the husband's income alone. Neither of these conditions is a result of liberalism, they're the result of attitudes that are more akin to libertarianism.

Where did I mention a vast majority of women? And if you think women dont have to work because of the cost of government, you're beyond the outfield wall... Millions of women work because they want careers or because they have to because of taxes. True or not?

Many of these families need the extra jobs just to get their income high enough to a point where their joint income is sufficient to put them into a taxable bracket. Sure there is such a thing as a career woman, but you're talking about more educated, higher paid people. They generally don't have the second job just to pay off taxes, but instead do so because they want to and because it augments the family's standard of living.

Individualism has not been increasing in this country Doc, its been on the decline ever since the welfare state started having an impact. Individualism involves responsibility, welfare states seek to decrease responsibility.

I disagree. In the "good old days" people conducted their lives along lines set down by tradition and community standards. That's not individualism. Today such community restraints on behavior are very much diminished.

You ended your post by quoting me explaining this was a socially conservative critique, why did you keep trying to blame libertarianism for the results of a welfare state?

Because conservatives in general very often adopt libertarian positions when it suits them, but refuse to accept the consequences of their policies when the down side appears.

[Atahualpa]

Originally posted by MrFun
Where is an expert sociologist on Apolyton . . . . . .

Everyone is

[chequita guevara]

Are doctors more likely to be liberal since their job is taking care of people?

[Kidlicious]

The problem with the traditional role of the family is that individuals had to depend on their family. That flys in the face of the idea of freedom.

[C0ckney]

outrage etc.

Originally posted by molly bloom
If you can't even be bothered to read my posts without interpreting them to your own ends, or putting words in my mouth, what's the point of posting ?

someone putting words into your mouth molly, well i'm certainly shocked.