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Posted on 09/06/2008 1:56:53 PM PDT by Publius804
Whatever Happened to Family Values?How the GOP gave in to anti-abortion absolutism.
By Jacob Weisberg
Posted Saturday, Sept. 6, 2008, at 7:02 AM ET
In the 1980s, the rising conservative movement tried to frame the pro-life cause as part of a broader family-values agenda that included reducing rates of illegitimate childbirth, welfare dependency, and divorce. To Ronald Reagan and many of his most ardent supporters, abortion-on-demand was the pre-eminent example of the breakdown of traditional morality brought about the sexual revolution. Few remember it this way, but Reagan's "evil empire" speech, delivered to the National Association of Evangelicals in 1983, had more to say about the right of parents to prevent their daughters from receiving contraceptives without their consent than it did than about the Soviets.
In fact, these two conservative social goals—ending abortion and upholding the model of the nuclear family—were always in tension. The reason is that, like it or not, the availability of legal abortion supports the kind of family structure that conservatives once felt so strongly about: two parents raising children in a stable relationship, without government assistance.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
Signed, sick Nazi bastard
I suggest a big hearty laugh at these folks. Their “chickens have come home, to roost! ROTFLMAO!
Their morality is based of relativistic terms and not on eternal values. For them, knowing what's right is determined by how something makes them feel, Chrissy Matthews tingling leg, for instance. They have absolutely no understanding why we think and act the way we do. That's why they thought the 'religious right' would shun Palin when the news broke of her daughter's pregnancy. They know nothing of mercy and loving support. Only of murdering that which is inconvenient and causes them to feel bad, babies, the elderly infirm, and (if they could) Christians.
Is in my opinion, the second greatest Reagan speech EVER, next to "The Speech".
I think Sarah Palin might get some mileage by advancing “Alaska values”, extrapolated to heartland America. In a big way.
That is, much of the rural heartland has been evacuated over the years, as more and more people flock to suburbia surrounding the big cities. So why not recreate rural America as a romantic vision for the future?
Entire towns are now vacant, but the buildings are still there. People who are tired of the city and suburban grind might find a much more pleasant way of life in reborn small town America.
I suggest this for Sarah Palin as a cultural movement to bring back the ideas of America from a long time ago. Like having especially the western States get back most of the lands taken from them by the federal government. Her State alone is 98% “off limits” to the people of her State, for no good reason.
It shouldn’t be the federal government’s land. They have no right to it.
The same applies to middle America. The feds had no right to drive people off the land, just because they didn’t want the people to use it. To prohibit farming because the feds want giant agribusiness corporations to do it, not family farms.
Most of the people who support change in this already support Sarah Palin, but it gives them even more reasons to support her.
Thats exactly it, they do not understand us. Liberals will NEVER understand why people in Kansas vote Republican. The attachment to deeper, eternal principles is more important to conservatives than what is convenient or what will enable a seventeen year old to shop at the mall without worrying about taking car of an infant. It might be convenient to kill the unborn or grandpa but what have we become if we do? It is disgraceful that 80% of Downs Syndrome babies are aborted in this country - liberals are more worried about the fraternity pranks of Abu Ghraib.
This lack of understanding on their part makes the attacks on Palin sort of funny. They kind of start sounding like “yeah, and your momma wears army boots!!”
“Every thing with liberals comes down to materialist concerns”
Yep.
But we get tagged with being the “selfish” party.
Bad plan. I lived in rural America for 10 years,and there is a reason why people move to larger cities. The boonies suck. There is always going to be a tiny percentage that prefers that kind of life, and they’ll stay in the sticks, or move to Alaska which doesn’t even boast the population of a large city, but most folks will stay where the action is.
I agree that there were very good reasons for people to move out of small towns, and those reasons are still there. Just in the last few years, Californians tried moving to rural Utah, and found that not only couldn’t they stand the place; but the locals didn’t care much for the Californian’s efforts to bring city amenities like liquor, drugs, porn, etc. to rural Utah.
But that being said, what is needed is something to attract people to return to small towns. Traditional farming won’t do it, it has to be of high value, a growth business, and in a “blank slate” area, where a new culture can be introduced without friction.
Algae biodiesel production might be one avenue, as it can also be basically processed on site with some ethanol and some sodium hydroxide (lye), both of which can be local production. So based almost entirely on its own resources, the town would produce usable biodiesel.
Another advanced technology idea might be for the town to become a solar water farm, seasonally. It begins by reconditioning an existing hard rock (underground) mine, to turn it into an artificial underground lake. Most of the year, a solar farm saves up energy, so that during the humid months the mine and lake turn into a cooled condensation chamber. Humid air is drawn down by very large fans, then cooled in the tunnels until the moisture condenses, then flows into the lake.
At the bottom of the lake hydrolysis produced oxygen gas is bubbled through the water to sterilize it, and after some years of storage, the water can be pipe lined to where it is needed during drought months.
Several such artificial lakes could insure that water remained plentiful even when reservoirs were low, and there would be less worry about depleting aquifers.
There could be a restoration of “company towns” designed specifically for work visa aliens. The Americans there would provide the support structure and retail needed by the workers.
Lots of ideas like this, but all amounting to a reason to return to rural America.
While that all sounds good, you’re going to have to convince an awful lot of educated, technical people that the height of culture and entertainment is bass fishing and high school football games on Friday night.
As I said, rural America is now populated by that tiny segment that truly enjoys rural life, and there is nothing wrong with that. Where your plan goes awry is thinking that urbanites could be attracted to such a life simply by offering them jobs.
It’s not the lack of employment that makes rural life such a living hell for so many of us, it’s the stifling lack of...well...everything.
The whole concept is predicated on creating an attraction to rural life that cannot be found in the suburbs or cities. That is why the old version failed, because it couldn’t offer that. When most of those towns were created in the first place, suburbs didn’t exist and life in the cities was awful.
So that being said, what would bring people back to rural towns? Probably a combination of four things: more money and lower prices; better schooling for children; aesthetics and community; and entertainment-recreation.
Some of this is already happening with the religious community megachurches that are rising up in some suburban metro areas. But these are still dependent on their suburb area for external employment and entertainment-recreation.
Before I suggested algae based biodiesel production, because this is closest to the two main rural small town economies of the past, farming and mining. As secondary industries, perhaps growing hardwood forests for fine furniture would also help with aesthetic improvement.
Small towns have always been dependent on transportation, so are still reliant on railroad terminals and mostly freeways, or at least state highways.
But the sky is the limit to figure out the bottom line—that living in a small rural town is in some way or ways better than living in the suburbs or the city. Until that is figured out, small towns will continue to die out.
It's dead Jim, let it die. Small towns aren't dying because they're supposed to be dying. Small towns were at their heyday (and ironically their largest populations) when we were primarily an agrarian nation with an agrarian economy.
Then the industrial revolution came and small towns dwindled and petered, because, well, they weren't as necessary and city life was better for most folks. Times changed and we adapted.
Now, we're way past the industrial revolution, past the atomic age, and well into the information age. The need for small towns is still there, but with modern technology you don't need many people there. Industries that once required a hundred workers to operate now only need ten, and those ten produce twenty times as much as a hundred did a century ago.
Let rural America die a dignified death. Don't try to repopulate it unnecessarily.
Always the better mousetrap. If there is a reason for small towns in the future, that is where the people will go. Once they can offer better living than the suburbs and the cities, that is where the people will want to go.
If they never can, then they will only exist for esoteric reasons.
An interesting example is Phoenix Metro. During WWII it had only about 50,000 people. What made it a going concern was first, the swamp cooler, then air conditioning, and then consumer electronics. From there it branched out, and today has about 2M people. But in the final analysis, there is nothing inherently about Phoenix that should have ever made it more than a bunch of small towns.
More importantly, it kept finding new reasons to continue to exist.
And the same applies to other towns and cities.
I guess the important question, and one I should have asked sooner is: Why is it so important to you to have small towns? Small towns are by definition are small, and small is limited.
To me, almost everything about a small town is bad. There are fewer things to do, because a small population can’t support more. There is usually a complete lack of diversity, and diversity is not a dirty word in my lexicon. The dating poll for my children would be small. I don’t see the positives.
Well, assuming some of the other things I mentioned, that would give a basic reason for a small town to exist in the first place, benefits of such a place could include:
1) Less intrusive government. Over time, even large local government and quasi-government organizations like HOAs, can make city or suburban life onerous.
2) Better quality education. While small towns cannot provide a complete education, they can provide far better, more personal and less wasteful elementary and sometimes secondary education. And while students may not have as many distracting entertainments found in suburbia or the city, they will likely be better prepared for success in adulthood. Teachers also have to be respectful of community standards, so radicals and hotheads do not last.
3) Far less crime. This has a big appeal for those who have been tormented by crime in the past.
4) Wilderness. There are still many people who are attracted to things like horseback riding, hunting game for their family, small scale farming and animal husbandry, beekeeping, handmade rural crafts, etc.
5) Growth. If a small town is a success, it will want to grow in several directions, attracting new and better amenities and reasons for being.
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