Posted on 05/07/2006 11:05:36 AM PDT by mathprof
Daniel Defoe is best remembered today for creating the ultimate escapist fantasy, "Robinson Crusoe," but in 1727 he sent the British public into a scandalous fit with the publication of a nonfiction work called "Conjugal Lewdness: or, Matrimonial Whoredom." After apparently being asked to tone down the title for a subsequent edition, Defoe came up with a new one "A Treatise Concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed" that only put a finer point on things. The book wasn't a tease, however. It was a moralizing lecture.[snip]
The sex act and sexual desire should not be separated from reproduction, he...warned, else "a man may, in effect, make a whore of his own wife."[snip]
The wheels of history have a tendency to roll back over the same ground. For the past 33 years since, as they see it, the wanton era of the 1960's culminated in the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 American social conservatives have been on an unyielding campaign against abortion. But recently, as the conservative tide has continued to swell, this campaign has taken on a broader scope. Its true beginning point may not be Roe but Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 case that had the effect of legalizing contraception. "We see a direct connection between the practice of contraception and the practice of abortion," says Judie Brown, president of the American Life League, an organization that has battled abortion for 27 years but that, like others, now has a larger mission. "The mind-set that invites a couple to use contraception is an antichild mind-set," she told me. "So when a baby is conceived accidentally, the couple already have this negative attitude toward the child. Therefore seeking an abortion is a natural outcome. We oppose all forms of contraception."
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Beautifully said!
But what a shame that some people need to be reminded, eh? :)
It's like saying the human heart should be viewed with extreme skepticism, because it always seems to want more blood, and it can fail.
Nonsense. History is littered with the wreckage of "godly" societies, and the present day is swarming with thriving "godless" ones.
In post #105, you said that a government which takes away the ability to do what you just described is tyrannical. But how can protecting individual liberties be tyrannical?
I'd also like to know your opinion on which individual rights can be restricted for which institutions, and to what extent this can be done.
For example, legal marriage, with benefits and responsibilities, has been culturally defined as between one man and one woman. Other definitions are imaginable, and may technically afford some legal benefits and symbolic acceptance otherwise unavailable to some. But it is imperative that this legal definition be a legislative not judicial matter. Giving judges the power to willy nilly change the culture is not good.
Do you ever suppose it is appropriate for a judge to play a part in shaping the culture? Or is it always bad and best left to the legislature?
If the latter describes your view, what do you think of judicial interference in the institution of marriage in Southern states in previous decades? In these states, marriage was culturally defined as existing between one man and one woman of the same race. However, the courts willy-nilly changed that definition to just one man and one woman. Was that an instance of tyranny? Would that issue have been better left with the legislatures (or the people) of those states to deal with?
Tyranny? OK, I agree it is not comparable to death squads. Rule by judges is a soft tyranny which to my mind is a significant danger for liberty.
In those instances where judges compel action, I may agree with you. I fail to see how a judge protecting individual liberties, is a danger to liberty. Or how preventing government control is an instance of tyranny.
If a couple only has sex when they know there is an incredibly small chance of pregnancy, aren't they also separating the conjugal act from the procreative act?
There are valid, prudential reasons for wishing to avoid the birth of a child. None of those reasons justify the sin of contraception (in Catholic theology), but simple abstinence within marriage is not contraception, is not a sin, and is even encouraged in the bible.
The abstinence is fine, but what about those periods where the couple is not abstinent? What is so different between reducing your odds of pregnancy by having sex when you know it will likely not lead to pregnancy, versus using a barrier that will make sex likely not lead to pregnancy?
NFP can become tainted by the contraceptive mentality and be used for illicit reasons, but this is a completely different sin than that of using artificial contraception, by reason that it does not interfere with the nature of the sexual act.
What does it mean for NFP to be "tainted by the contraceptive mentality"?
How does contraceptive use change the nature of the sexual act in a way that NFP does not? In both cases, steps are taken to reduce the likelihood of pregnancy. That seems pretty similar to me.
Does this mean I willfully or ignorantly believe I'm smarter than God because I went to Wal-Mart and bought 6 gallons of Rust-Aid® to remove the rust stains the water from my sprinkler system made on my fence, house, and patio? Or am I willfully or ignorantly believing I'm smarter than God because I use sprinklers to begin with, and won't let my lawn turn brown and die? Or, for that matter, because I won't let my lawn grow more than an inch?
Well, if you want pictures:
You have no place on FREE REPUBLIC. Go. Now.
When self-government has been eradicated, a state of tyranny exists.
Lasted long enough to rip the guts out of the Roman (Catholic) Empire.
Who is talking about eradicating self-government? If anything, protecting individual liberties only increases self-government- we actually let the individual govern their own life to a greater extent by allowing them the freedom to make their own decisions. Again, how is that tyranny?
Or perhaps you are talking about democracy, even though I thought you believed we were a republic. Or perhaps you mean the ability of people to tell others how they must act. You might be able to call those things self-government, and I suppose respecting individual liberties does restrict them in some ways. But it in no way eradicates them.
If you are required to respect individual liberties, you still have the ability to choose your leaders, to choose how to deal with the violation of individual liberties, to set rules governing public property...all those aspects of self-government are still intact. You can't, however, "self-govern" to the extent that you can control any aspect of an individual's life. Is that really so tyrannical?
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