Posted on 02/16/2005 7:35:13 AM PST by MisterRepublican
To: Protagoras
Minuim wage, labor needs some means of protecting itself from capitalism, personally I would favor collective bargaining over minuim wage, but since collective bargaining is all bbut dead in the USA I suppose minum wage is better then nothing. But I do have mixed feeling about it.
350 posted on 02/15/2005 3:01:47 PM CST by jpsb
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Some girls dress like that, sure. There have always been girls who dressed a certain way to get the attention of boys. Walk by any high school as the kids are leaving, though, and you'll see that the vast majority of girls are wearing pretty tame clothing.
Why bother googling it, then?
Here is the story about teen birth rates:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1280677/posts
You're just plain dreaming. I lived there, I remember it, they were one heck of a lot more virtuous when I was dating just twenty years ago than they are -- by your own description of your own activities -- today.
If I had suggested what you brag about doing in college to 98% of the women I dated in the early 80's, they would have (a) slapped me hard; and (b) dropped me immediately; and (c) told their girlfriends I was bad news.
You libertine guys can go on chanting your mantra of "it was just as bad in the old days" if it makes you feel better, but that's all it is -- a myth you make up to justify your own behavior.
Did girls get knocked up? Sure they did. They weren't considered to be role models, they were looked down upon. You know, I honestly don't remember any high schools in the 1960's or 1970's with day care facilities for the girls' illegitimate kids, like some of them have now.
Look, I have a son getting ready for high school, and a niece in high school (who dresses that way, to my dismay). I go to high school football games. All the girls are dressed that way.
As I say, the only schools where that isn't pervasive are ones with uniforms or dress codes.
I have to do that, particularly for my daughter.........It's particularly annoying when trying to buy long sleeve shirts for this time of the year.....the sleeves are longer than the body of the shirt, so I wind up rolling up her sleeves in order to have a shirt long enough to tuck into her pants. and she's only 6!!!!!!!!
I did not find any creditable evidence of forced nude swimming in public high schools, BTW. In a few days/weeks this thread will be indexed into google and what's his name post will appear when doing a similar search and regester as a hit. That does not make it creditable either.
When I was in HS, I dated a few girls from Catholic (girls only) schools nearby. They had to wear uniforms and the skirts had to be over the knee. As soon as they left the building they would "roll" the skirts up at the waist to make 'em shorter. They went about an inch above the knee, It was a scandal I tell 'Ya! :^}
What makes you think I feel the need to justify my behavior?
Did girls get knocked up? Sure they did. They weren't considered to be role models, they were looked down upon. You know, I honestly don't remember any high schools in the 1960's or 1970's with day care facilities for the girls' illegitimate kids, like some of them have now.
People used to pretend that illegitimate kids didn't exist. The pregnant girls were sent off to live with another family member when they got pregnant and they would come back after the kid had been given up for adoption.
Take a look at the link at post 125 and tell me that teenagers didn't used to get pregnant. Just because society used to sweep certain things under the rug doesn't mean that they didn't occur.
In large parts of the world (maybe a majority of the world) most people still live this way today. Exposed breasts are common. Modesty was only an option for very few in the upper class.
%%%%%
You are mixing apples and oranges. The western world has made the breast a predominat sexual tease. You also make the 19th century of the working class into "most of history" Most of history included largely agrarian communities, not Dickensian or NYC tenement hovels.
Years ago, I stayed on a Pacific Island where the traditional dress did not include covering a female body above the hips, except for a decorative necklace.
I learned that I had scandalized the locals by baring my legs - wearing a bathing suit to go diving. In their culture it was the area of the female body between the hip bones and the lower legs that was the forbidden to be seen except by a husband area.
In this island culture families slept in small 'rooms' but at a certain age boy and girl siblings no longer both slept with the rest of the family, but one or the other sex went to live with cousins or other relatives, to prevent the natural consequences of puberty temptation, etc.
BTW, I owned a 66 Le Mans convertible when it was new.
Whatever your issues with Protagoras, I've never seen any evidence that he is a liar.
The poster claimed that public nudity was FORCED upon young boys by a PUBLIC SCHOOL. He then went on to claim that some of the boys were in tears at being forces to undress in public. That is a far cry from allowing nude swimming at a YMCA.
And it drives me crazy because it makes it difficult for moms like me to properly dress their 6 year old daughter.
I am no prude, but there are just somethings that 6 year olds should NOT be encouraged to wear, expecially by their mothers, or worse their fathers.
To: Protagoras
No need, I am not an Ann Rand economist, planet earth has lots of experience with unrestrained capitalism, it does not work. Unrestained capitalism leads to a society of the few very rich and the many very poor. Some means of redistrubution of wealth in a captalistic system is neccessary to have a wealthy, moral, educated and lawful nation.
365 posted on 02/15/2005 3:14:18 PM CST by jpsb
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Yes ... it's called a stigma for bad behavior. It's an important factor in discouraging bad behavior. And, frequently ... it worked.
Take a look at the link at post 125 and tell me that teenagers didn't used to get pregnant. Just because society used to sweep certain things under the rug doesn't mean that they didn't occur.
I never said they didn't, in fact, I clearly said they did. However, not getting pregnant is not a sign of morality, and #125 is referring to birth rates, not pregnancy rates, anyway. I'm sure you understand that I don't regard aborting a child as some sort of moral triumph.
As I say, if you think things aren't worse now, you're dreaming. I was there, I lived through it, my parents lived through it, etc.
Ah, the ol' liberal, "Things have always been just like they are now so you can't blame us for making things worse," argument. Sorry, but I'm just old enough to know that while things weren't perfect, they were once better in many regards. And I don't believe that culture and laws have little or no impact on human behavior.
And I also think people are trying to have it both ways. That same lack of privacy that was being touted earlier in the thread by some posters (which also included double-dating, chaperones, and "courting") combined with a lack of birth control created a situation very different from what we have today. The lack of birth control combined with a lack of privacy (not only from tight living quarters but also from the fact that people used to know and talk to their neighbors) provided substantial incentive for more virtuous behavior and there is plenty of reason to believe it was more virtuous, though obviously not 100% virtuous.
You should also note, for example, that the reason why a lot of British women had sex with a lot of American GIs during WW2 (leading to some shotgun weddings and other problems) was that in the United States, it was the woman's responsibility to say no and in the UK, it was the man's responsibility and, yes, that had an impact on how much premarital sex was going on. What happens when neither party is culturally responsible for saying no? That's what we have no and it does not have no impact on human behavior.
Yes, shotgun weddings always happened, even among the Puritans based on marriage and birth records. That still doesn't mean that Puritan women hooked up with dozens of guys before they got married, nor does it mean that premarital sex, overall, was as common as it is today. And what a lot of people seem to fail to realize is that if you want people to achieve a certain level of decorum, the way to do that is not to set your expectations at that level of decorum but to set it much higher. Nobody thinks that a more modest and prudish society will stop premarital sex but there are plenty of reasons to think that it will improve things.
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