EJM wrote:Fatherless children are vulnerable to say the least.
I heard in the state where I live, 38 out of 40 inmates in prison did not grow up with both biological parents.
Seems like there is a huge shortage of men in the world, there are lots of wimps, losers, bums, and sodomites but precious few men. Most are into porn and avail themselves of much of the wickedness presented to them
and disregard the children they produce.
I feel really bad for the girls in the non CA world looking for a life soul mate.
Welcome to MN -
There is much to grieve.
i pray everyday for children and young people, the world is dumping so much evil on them, right under their parents’ noses. the world is intent on grooming females to equally acquire every failure known to males, so, i “feel bad” for good young men searching for respectable wives, too.
The CDC reports big increases in disease in young people, esp males, teens+twenties, HIV-AIDS, STDs, Hepatitus, certain cancers, etc., how can this be ignored?
Well, not ignored.
gov now offers millions in tax dollars to fund free condoms (not to avoid pregnancy!) - old school.
And, some laws are being passed to protect HIV-AIDS victims from responsibility to disclose the disease to their sexual partners; now, some are pressuring the “necessity” of having sex with infected partners. They can be blood donors. There is no bottom to this pit.
Frankly, lib gov seems intent on SPREADING disease, not mitigating it.
As things are, how will couples ever know they can trust their partners’ background?
How many will make it to marriage without homosexual experiences?
“The drive” seems to be to not overlook a one.
The erosion of the family contributes. Then, these actions/policies further erode the family.
A major societal breakdown. Lib gov in a leading role.
0 x
Most or all of this drama, humiliation, wasted taxpayer money could be spared -
with even modest attempt at presenting balanced facts from the start.
Ahmari wrote:I added, “The only way is through”—that is to say, to fight the culture war with the aim of defeating the enemy and enjoying the spoils in the form of a public square re-ordered to the common good and ultimately the Highest Good.
To me, Ahmari seems to be writing about political warfare with the aim of "destroying" the "enemy" by political means. And I'm puzzled by statements like this:
Ahmari wrote:Voters across the developed world have had enough of depoliticized politics. In the United States, this great “no” culminated in 2016’s election of Donald Trump. With a kind of animal instinct, Trump understood what was missing from mainstream (more or less French-ian) conservatism. His instinct has been to shift the cultural and political mix, ever so slightly, away from autonomy-above-all toward order, continuity, and social cohesion. He believes that the political community—and not just the church, family, and individual—has its own legitimate scope for action. He believes it can help protect the citizen from transnational forces beyond his control.
I don't really know what he is talking about when he suggests that Trumpism is a move toward order, continuity, and social cohesion. I agree that government has its own scope of action, but it's a little jarring to see conservatives saying that a more authoritarian government and more powerful executive branch is the way we solve societal ills.
I worry about setting up a zero-sum game where there is only one winner and Democrats and Republicans are an existential threat to each other. I think they should be the two parties that together, help elect people who run the government, representing different perspectives. I worry about setting up a zero-sum game where Christians and gays each seek to use the government as a weapon against the other. I think we are on much safer ground if we make room for people to live according to their convictions safely and according to conscience.
Can you help me understand what I am missing here?
I'll admit Ahmari has not always been the best champion for his own cause and I don't agree with him on everything certainly. I don't see him as a knee-jerk Trumpian or neo-reactionary wishing to destroy (bodily or otherwise) his enemies.
What he wishes to blow up is the game board we've all been playing on since at least the Enlightenment and probably more profoundly, since nominalism came along in the 14th century. It's a tall order I know.
This is Amhari's position in a nut-shell as I understand it:
- Government is ordained by God to serve specific ends
- One of those ends is to limit man's ability to destroy himself (physically, spiritually, emotionally, etc.) by implementing certain laws.
- Laws can't change our hearts per se but they can facilitate an environment that is more receptive or less receptive to Good and the things of God or Evil and the things of the Evil One.
- Thus they serve not unlike bumpers in a bowling alley keep us out of the gutter as much as possible.
- The better bumpers that exist the more likely more people's hearts and lives will be turned towards the Good and God.
- Liberalism (not the pejorative term used by Republicans but Classical Liberalism) is an Enlightenment political project predicated on the idea that man, through his own unaided faculties of reason, can build a near perfect political structure.
- It recognizes no inherent need for God in justifying its own ends.
- Liberalism, as stated in the name, believes in the radical autonomy and freedom of the individual and actively seeks to liberate man from the restrictive shackles of tradition, religion, coercive government, and biological constraints.
- It pretends to create a neutral public square where all ideas are welcome and can be tolerated.
- Christianity believes in the exclusivity of its truth-claims.
- They are not simply one among many good options.
- They are capital "T" - Truth and the only chance man has for true liberation.
- Liberalism cannot tolerate competing ideologies that claim for themselves exclusive truths because they necessarily limit the (libertarian) freedom of man
- Thus the public square created by Liberalism - the public square that insists that there's no discernable value difference between Mr. Rogers and Drag Queen Story Hour or no compelling reason to restrict polyamourous marriages - must be blown up.
To that last point - Stanley Fish, a an atheistic Jewish philosopher, wrote a compelling essay in First Things back in 1996 that presaged Ahamri's ideas by some 20 years and is worth reading in its entirety because it makes a compelling case for the necessity of religion in the Public Square.
The relevant portion from the essay is thus:
If you persuade liberalism that its dismissive marginalizing of religious discourse is a violation of its own chief principle, all you will gain is the right to sit down at liberalism’s table where before you were denied an invitation; but it will still be liberalism’s table that you are sitting at, and the etiquette of the conversation will still be hers.
That is, someone will now turn and ask, “Well, what does religion have to say about this question?”
And when, as often will be the case, religion’s answer is doctrinaire (what else could it be?),
the moderator (a title deeply revealing) will nod politely and turn to someone who is presumed to be more reasonable.
To put the matter baldly, a person of religious conviction should not want to enter the marketplace of ideas but to shut it down, at least insofar as it presumes to determine matters that he believes have been determined by God and faith.
The religious person should not seek an accommodation with liberalism; he should seek to rout it from the field, to extirpate it, root and branch...liberalism rests on the substantive judgment that the public sphere must be insulated from viewpoints that owe their allegiance not to its procedures—to the unfettered operation of the marketplace of ideas—but to the truths they work to establish.
That is what neutrality means in the context of liberalism—a continual pushing away of orthodoxies, of beliefs not open to inquiry and correction—and that is why, in the name of neutrality, religious propositions must either be excluded from the marketplace
or admitted only in ceremonial forms, in the form, for example, of a prayer that opens a session of Congress in which the proposals of religion will not be given a serious hearing.
One final point. With respect to Ahmari's assertions about Trump and social cohesion.
This isn't blood and soil that he's referring to; Ahmari is himself after all an Iranian immigrant.
Rather he's taking a jab at the Republican establishment and their wededness to free market ideology.
Here he's channeling Tucker Carlson who has lately gone on the attack against a zombie capitalism that thinks nothing of destroying communities, families and cultures in name of profit-margins, new markets and cheap labor.
[video][/video]
2014 / “Chicago Unchained: Black Activists Slam Democrat Plantation”
0 x
Most or all of this drama, humiliation, wasted taxpayer money could be spared -
with even modest attempt at presenting balanced facts from the start.
I came across a verse in the Bible that very much dictates why I chose to read the Bible in the first place:
Ecclesiastes 9:18: Wisdom is better than weapons of war: but one sinner destroyeth much good.
Wisdom is very much what this generation is lacking today and because of popular media and entertainment that is keeping people's mind off the wisdom they need to live by
i’ve been thinking about this thread, so much violence/destruction going on in the world, and, many are asking, “Where are fathers?” and, “What are schools doing with/to children+young people?”
the world seems short on joy. esp in young people. what have “we” done?
i stumbled on this. i don’t have a year to attach to it. the older comments are 6 years old.
i’ve seen a few “wedding dance videos.” but, this one, with DAD leading, is special. i’ve not seen one like this before. i hope it can be appreciated. to me, it radiates love, joy, respect. and humor.
the bride is just sweet.
”Best Father-Groom “Temptations” Dance Ever”
0 x
Most or all of this drama, humiliation, wasted taxpayer money could be spared -
with even modest attempt at presenting balanced facts from the start.
temporal1 wrote:i’ve been thinking about this thread, so much violence/destruction going on in the world, and, many are asking, “Where are fathers?” and, “What are schools doing with/to children+young people?”
One thing that has been good because of the lockdowns is parents are forced to parent their own children. It eliminated the nanny state for a few months.
The government has been raising he children for the past 2-3 generations. Not a good thing. Public schools are no longer about education, but now indoctrination. Yes, they do education secondly, but I think they only do that to justify the continual feed into them for indoctrination. The education system has been hijacked. The challenge is we let it happen because it is so easy to send our children away so we can play. It allows the ease of single parent families.
There is a direct connection between fatherlessness and young male violence/crime. If a teen male does not have an alpha to keep it in line, it will step in to be the alpha, but with none of the wisdom and experience to use. I see it often within my own house. The boys often test their position with each other and with me. I often use a term with them. RHIP. That means Rank Has Its Privileges. They know there are things I can do and decisions I make because of rank. We do joke around the house that Mom is the real boss. It is quite true, but they see it is not because of her strength, but because of love and respect.
What keeps my three boys in line is relationships. I do draw a strong line and they know when they cross it. If you watch primate culture, you will see this happen often within it. The young males test to find their place. It is part of our makeup and wiring. Without fathers at home, the young males have little to test and find firm boundaries. Without firm boundaries, people feel insecure and lost. They fill that with things that bring them security ie guns and gangs.
Unless there is some major change in culture, we are doomed to collapse within the next 20-40 years. Maybe AI (computers) will take over and straighten us all out. Nothing could go wrong there, could it?
Our culture is collapsing from within. All I can do is try to get these three boys into adulthood without loosing one of them to crime, stupid choices, and a failed system we are already working within. The system is not about to fail. It already has.
0 x
Try hard not to offend. Try harder not to be offended.
Just because you are paranoid, doesn't mean they are not after you.
I think I am funnier than I really am.
Of course fatherlessness is a problem. Is there any doubt about that?
Americans still need to think about how best to structure schools and policing to meet the needs of local communities. And that includes schools and policing for communities that have significant numbers of fatherless children. And fatherless children may need more support than other children.
I'm not sure what we can do to reduce fatherlessness. It seems to be on the rise, actually, and it is now up to 30% for non-Latino whites.
0 x
Is it biblical? Is it Christlike? Is it loving? Is it true? How can I find out?
This video may be posted elsewhere on MN, i’m not sure. i’m not sure of the date.
Because fatherlessness is a repeated theme, it belongs here, too.
i’ve viewed 3-4 times.
Typically, i avoid anything about celebrities. Fatherless homes is of interest.
The black celebrities speaking, interviewing, or referenced, includes:
(not in any order)
Don Lemon
Morgan Freeman (mobs)
Lil Wayne
Denzel Washington
David Webb - Booker T Washington
Anthony Mackie
Roman J Israel
Obama
Larry Elder
MLK Jr (recorded on riots)
See what celebrities think about racism
The problem of fatherless homes has been recognized WITH ALARM by some for decades.
SOME have tried to find answers, preventions, mitigation of damages.
MEDIA and some politicians are NOT INTERESTED. David Webb quotes Booker T Washington on this, and speak to the view, too many do NOT want to FIX these problems. Some careers would end. (Few are sufficiently noble to put themselves out of work.)
Strangely, i recall BILL COSBY speaking to this problem (if i recall, 1980-90’s Oprah?) ..
he dedicated a couple of surprisingly somber moments on premium airtime to warn about the coming crisis of young men raised without fathers present in the home. He was allowed to speak, but there was no accompanying dialogue.
Oprah’s audience was mostly women, many white, across socio-economic groups. She “swore” to “never” get into politics, her audience trusted her on this. (She lost a lot of respect by going political with obama.) She built her fortune on the promise not to go political.
i recall, Bill Cosby (and Oprah) alluded to the existence of a (not prime time) group of accomplished, influential black leaders (i had the impression, black men) that were mostly focused on the increasing problem of black female single parent homes, and the crisis this makes for children, esp boys.
i was impressed, and hoped for the best. mothers are incredible. mothers can’t replace fathers.
neither can government.
Josh has made some good points on this, some addressed in the above video. One is about how, in the 60’s, MOST black fathers were present in their homes. Now reversed. Josh also noted this trend is not isolated to black communities. i sure see it.
marriage can be hard, and not convenient.
i believe this is one of the most important reasons to have solid marriage CONTRACTS. contracts are intended to protect all parties involved, even through the hard times, because, there will be hard times. “all parties involved” includes children.
when gov provides alternatives that erode the value of the marriage contract, this directly erodes marriage. it upsets critical balances. the less necessity of marriage, the more convenient divorce, the less necessity for a primary provider, the more likely homes will be without fathers.
gov is great at “good intentions.” not at all great at foresight of unintended consequences.
also not great at admitting error and reversing bad policies.
instead, gov’s go-to response to failure: increase funding (for even more failure, normalize failure). gov never admits error. gov deeply believes throwing more taxpayer funds at failures is THE answer.
somewhere, an observation appeared that gov funding has replaced the necessity of fathers in many homes. (women married to gov, not men.) many women prefer to “be the boss” without bothering with husbands-fathers, they need the cash/benefits to do it. perhaps, a sort of present-day matriarchal system. (matriarchies appear where there is a shortage of men, often due to wars.)
we do not have a shortage of men. we have lots of women who do not want to be bothered with men. gov provides. then, these men do not feel inclined to be present.
i suspect the problem isn’t “only” that men don’t want to be present for their families.
how many have been booted-out?
their children pay the high prices. eventually, they take it to the outer culture.
BBC / Teenage Elephants need a father figure
“The swaggering, the aggression, the attitude … headstrong teenagers can be scary.
Even more so when they’re eight feet tall and weigh six tonnes.” https://www.bbcearth.com/blog/?article= ... her-figure
i believe the elephant phenomena showed up years ago. i’m foggy about when i first read about it.
Human babies are not born civilized.
God entrusts parents with a lot of responsibility.
0 x
Most or all of this drama, humiliation, wasted taxpayer money could be spared -
with even modest attempt at presenting balanced facts from the start.
temporal1 wrote:
i’ve been thinking about this thread, so much violence/destruction going on in the world, and, many are asking, “Where are fathers?” and, “What are schools doing with/to children+young people?”
Robert:
One thing that has been good because of the lockdowns is parents are forced to parent their own children. It eliminated the nanny state for a few months.
100% agree.
100% unexpected, what an opportunity for parents to rethink their children’s education and needs, AND an opp for them to be empowered with their abilities as parents.
Parents are the #1 influence on their children’s lives.
From what i read, many who have not before are now considering home school.
Robert:
The government has been raising he children for the past 2-3 generations. Not a good thing.
Public schools are no longer about education, but now indoctrination.
Yes, they do education secondly, but I think they only do that to justify the continual feed into them for indoctrination.
The education system has been hijacked.
The challenge is we let it happen because it is so easy to send our children away so we can play.
It allows the ease of single parent families.
Yes. The DOE is in need of a complete overhaul. DeVos is not up to the task. Some believe the DOE needs to be defunded (traditional definition).
The U.S. Treasury should not be hijacked for partisan politics, but it has been, no greater example than in the DOE. It’s been going on for decades, becoming so normalized, those doing it have no ability to discern.
Unions are part of the problem.
Teacher unions, like police unions, and other unions, have the dreadful flaw of returning bad apples to active work.
Robert:
There is a direct connection between fatherlessness and young male violence/crime.
If a teen male does not have an alpha to keep it in line, it will step in to be the alpha, but with none of the wisdom and experience to use.
I see it often within my own house.
The boys often test their position with each other and with me. I often use a term with them. RHIP. That means Rank Has Its Privileges.
They know there are things I can do and decisions I make because of rank.
We do joke around the house that Mom is the real boss. It is quite true, but they see it is not because of her strength, but because of love and respect.
My parents, together, provided an impenetrable wall. Children test. How fortunate for them to have boundaries, which is actually #1 that they are seeking! They can then look forward to having privileges with adulthood.
Of course, they don’t see the RESPONSIBILITIES that go with the rights. It comes with time.
Robert:
What keeps my three boys in line is relationships.
I do draw a strong line and they know when they cross it. If you watch primate culture, you will see this happen often within it.
The young males test to find their place. It is part of our makeup and wiring.
Without fathers at home, the young males have little to test and find firm boundaries.
Without firm boundaries, people feel insecure and lost. They fill that with things that bring them security ie guns and gangs.
Many animals teach their young “social” skills, and survival skills. It’s interesting. When the teen elephant story ^^ came out, it’s easy to relate. God puts a lot of trust in humans. Human babies take a very long time with parents, we’re slow learners. Science believes this is because our brains are bigger, potential functions are more complex, it takes longer to get there.
i sure noticed how “the boys” in our church group (which happened to be almost all boys) would THRIVE in their groups, with excellent male leadership. i was a helper, i was there often, a regular. an interested witness.
i noticed a particular loneliness in teen boys.
why not? “the rules” for boys are mostly unspoken, and rigid. they must act, speak, dress “just so.” the social penalties for mistakes are harsh, PLUS, they are specially sensitive to them. no surprise gangs develop.
with good leadership, tho, i saw these boys anxious to be present, they did not miss coming.
with good leadership, they had so much ability! - and, as a group, it was fun for them. they learned satisfaction of positive behaviors. they were empowered by doing. they did a lot for church, and community. they have so much physical strength and energy. with good leadership, their potential is amazing.
Robert:
Unless there is some major change in culture, we are doomed to collapse within the next 20-40 years. Maybe AI (computers) will take over and straighten us all out.
Nothing could go wrong there, could it?
(i think) “we” are not at all good at assessing where “we” are, we tend to be behind understanding where we are. Add in denial.
i must add.
God works in our brokenness. we are most likely to, at last, turn to Him, when defeated.
Robert:
Our culture is collapsing from within.
All I can do is try to get these three boys into adulthood without loosing one of them to crime, stupid choices, and a failed system we are already working within. The system is not about to fail. It already has.
The internet shines a light on many faults that were easy to deny in the past.
This gives an illusion of magnified problems. It also serves as a vehicle to magnify problems!
0 x
Most or all of this drama, humiliation, wasted taxpayer money could be spared -
with even modest attempt at presenting balanced facts from the start.
no surprise gangs develop. 