[Ohioan]

With regard to drugs and sexual promiscuity, the answers are not so clear. Traditional America relied purely on stigmatization to control sexual behavior and substance abuse. It was only as we came into the 20th Century, that Liberals, Moderates & even some Conservatives, got the Government into trying to deal with the social consequences of these.

I just looked over my last post #150, and realized that the above could easily be misconstrued. Obviously the sexual behavior that society conrolled by stigmatization was promiscuity. We did not control rape by stigmatization, of course. Indeed, in the more Conservative America of yester-year; rape could lead to an early death, or treatment which might make the rapist wish he were dead.

The point is, that in repressing what we do not like, the traditional--that is the Conservative--approach, is not a uniform reliance on one form of dissuasion. But in understanding what is in fact the Conservative approach, you need to refer to those different forms of dissuasion. You cannot say that because we hung rapists, we should therefore jail anybody who has an affair. When you start extending the traditional role of Government, then you violate the most sacred of Conservative principles, including legitimacy, predictability, and personal honor and responsibility.

To the Conservative, the end never justifies the means.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

[r9etb]

I basically agree with what you're saying, except on one point:

The evidence is reasonably convincing that the relaxation of the stigma of sexual promiscuity, and the consequences thereof, is more than just a rejection of a set of meaningless prudery. If you look at it, sexual promiscuity has been among the primary drivers for the growth of the nanny state.

There is good evidence to suggest that bastardy has more far-reaching effects than merely the lack of an inheritance, or ending up poor on welfare. It also leads to bad behavior of the sort that causes legislators to pass laws against guns, or to declare a "War on Drugs."

(One may safely assume that few of the nice boys who killed those two guys in Chicago has ever known their fathers in any familial sense. It's certainly true of a very high percentage of the prison population.)

One might well consider divorce to be a more subtle form of promiscuity -- and that has its own set of ill-effects on society.

Sexual promiscuity doesn't explain everything, of course. But it explains a lot.