| Author |
Message |
    
Tom Reingold
Citizen
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 1738
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 12:10 pm: |     |
I think there's room for people to learn how to have a healthy relationship, regardless of external circumstances. There are things like couples therapy, individual therapy, and a big bookshelf at the bookstore devoted to this. These prove to me that there's a lot to learn.
Tom Reingold the prissy-pants
There is nothing
|
eliz
Citizen
Username: Eliz
Post Number: 663
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 12:26 pm: | |
And you think the government is going to teach it???? |
Tom Reingold
Citizen
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 1740
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 12:30 pm: | |
And you think the government is going to teach it????
I'm not saying any program would be fine. I just don't think the concept is categorically wrong. I've thought for years that something like this could help. But it has to be done right.
And who said the teaching would be by government officials? Is a description of the proposal in writing yet? We could read it.
Tom Reingold the prissy-pants
There is nothing
|
cjc
Citizen
Username: Cjc
Post Number: 695
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 12:33 pm: | |
Concerns over family budgets and quality education have been around since couple's DIDN'T divorce or not even bother to get married.
As for trickle down, there was a thread a while back that said if you do three things -- finish high school, don't have kids out of wedlock, and I think get married -- you have a 98% chance you won't live in poverty (corrections please). Simply raising more and more out of poverty is the trickle-down I was referring to.
|
eliz
Citizen
Username: Eliz
Post Number: 664
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 12:35 pm: | |
Well you can bet the money will go to the Christian right. This is a pre-election bone to the ultra-conservatives who think Bush hasn't done enough for their cause. |
tom
Citizen
Username: Tom
Post Number: 1770
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 12:37 pm: | |
cjc, I remember that thread, and that there was some dispute over whether this was a case of correlation, or of causation. |
Dr. Winston O'Boogie
Citizen
Username: Casey
Post Number: 454
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 12:45 pm: | |
speaking of correlation, the number of mules living in any US state is negatively correlated with the number of Ph.Ds. If anyone ever thinks we have a glut of Ph. Ds, you just need to bring in a bunch of mules. apparently, they cause Ph.Ds to run screaming, pack up their stuff and move away.
(or maybe it's the other way around. the Ph.Ds appear and the mules take off in terror.) |
notehead
Citizen
Username: Notehead
Post Number: 857
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 12:58 pm: | |
I'm with eliz... this has NOTHING to do with serving the public, it is pure politics. If W thinks that helping (strictly hetero) marriages stay strong is such a good idea for society, why didn't this proposal come the pipe 3 years ago?!
And to boost the space budget by a billion dollars a year in an economic climate like this is FLAT-OUT STUPID!! And that's coming from a sincere space advocate. I was disappointed that the space program didn't get more money under Clinton. I truly believe that it is ultimately essential for humanity to spread beyond this planet... but not now, DUH!! We have more important things to work on. |
Earlster
Citizen
Username: Earlster
Post Number: 100
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 1:10 pm: | |
From the article:
"The president loves to do that sort of thing in the inner city with black churches, and he's very good at it," a White House aide said.
Sounds quite condecending to me. But I guess thats what Republicans think of the majority of americans that isn't rich. |
cjc
Citizen
Username: Cjc
Post Number: 697
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 1:15 pm: | |
The real condescension was the War on Poverty and the Welfare State that destroyed those very families. Why get married to someone who will help provide for your family if the government makes it unnecessary? |
notehead
Citizen
Username: Notehead
Post Number: 860
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 1:28 pm: | |
Cjc: are you suggesting that the reason people get married is for the money?
(I mean, that's why I'M getting married, but I don't think most people do that.)  |
Pippi
Citizen
Username: Pippi
Post Number: 24
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 1:46 pm: | |
Notehead -
If you are marrying for money and not for love, does it have to be a government-sanctioned heterosexual union?
cjc - the trickle down effects you mention are exactly what I hoped you were referring to. And that's my point - spend the money to just raise people out of poverty and don't tell them how to live.
|
cjc
Citizen
Username: Cjc
Post Number: 698
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 1:53 pm: | |
Pippi -- the Great Society o9f the 60s when we tried all this transfered some 5 Trillion bucks from people that earned it to people that didn't, and the same percentage of the population remained in poverty! Handouts don't work.
|
notehead
Citizen
Username: Notehead
Post Number: 862
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 1:56 pm: | |
I think if you're marrying for money, the governmental sanction is implicit. At least, with the current government. |
Tom Reingold
Citizen
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 1743
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 1:56 pm: | |
Some safety net money isn't to raise people from poverty but to keep them from starving in the streets.
But most people who receive welfare only take it for a short time.
I suppose you'll counter that point by mentioning abuses of the system. If we are going to hand out any money at all, we have to acknowledge that there will be some abuses. I don't think shutting things down because abuses exist isn't a sound policy.
Tom Reingold the prissy-pants
There is nothing
|
tom
Citizen
Username: Tom
Post Number: 1772
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 2:01 pm: | |
see http://www.census.gov/income/histpov/hstpov16.lst for the refutation of this. The current rate is 10% lower than pre-Great Society levels, especially lower among the elderly. |
Pippi
Citizen
Username: Pippi
Post Number: 25
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 2:02 pm: | |
I am not talking about a handout....I am just talking about common sense. It's pure common sense to be sure everyone is fed and clothed and possessing health care on our homeland, before we go off exploring another planet! (Or before we go telling them how to conduct their marriage ) |
Kenney
Citizen
Username: Kenney
Post Number: 311
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 2:17 pm: | |
Instead of increased funding for welfare programs, raising the minimum wage along with reasonable labor regulations would go a long way in aiding those less fortunate.
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today..FDR..
Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth...G.W.
Everyone wants a voice in human freedom. There's a fire burning inside of all us...L.W.
Dave Ross is the coolest!!(being banned sucks) |
cjc
Citizen
Username: Cjc
Post Number: 699
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 2:31 pm: | |
Your common sense sounds like a handout, Pippi. And the program is to promote marriage and equip them with skills to stay married once they get there, thereby joining the preponderance of couples who -- when married -- are not in poverty. |
Cato Nova
Citizen
Username: Cato_nova
Post Number: 31
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 3:02 pm: | |
What they should do is teach advanced sexual techniques, but only open enrollment to those who can produce a valid marriage license. That might help strengthen marriages. |
drewdix
Citizen
Username: Drewdix
Post Number: 439
Registered: 7-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 3:19 pm: | |
so cjc, I'm not getting a ringing endorsement here- is spending the the $1.5 billion on this transparent, petulant backlash at gay marriage driven by fear and ignorance ok with you?
Seriously-Are these conservative groups (yikes) going to help develop "interpersonal skills for sustaining healthy marriage" to gay folks who can now tie the knot in Massachusetts?
The vast majority of broken homes I'm aware of were soaked with conservative interpersonal skills.
|
Kenney
Citizen
Username: Kenney
Post Number: 313
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 3:24 pm: | |
Another example of why we need a third party.
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today..FDR..
Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth...G.W.
Everyone wants a voice in human freedom. There's a fire burning inside of all us...L.W.
Dave Ross is the coolest!!(being banned sucks) |
sportsnut
Citizen
Username: Sportsnut
Post Number: 847
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 3:41 pm: | |
For me this proposal would have far more credibility if it weren't associated with the "fanatical right." |
cjc
Citizen
Username: Cjc
Post Number: 700
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 3:45 pm: | |
I'd have to see what form this takes, in all honesty. If it turns out to be a program that decries some "homosexual agenda ruining the world" (whatever that is) I'd be seriously disappointed. But....if it helps people stay married and teaches them skills and approaches to do that, I'd be for that. If it promotes marriage as it stands in the country now as an institution, I'm OK with that. I've not got my opinions on gay marriage and other forms of matrimoney entirely formed yet, but I don't know if this addresses things that aren't widely practised in the US.
Would you support them decrying multiple marriages as practised by conservatives in Utah and the Muslim world?
I'm not aware of what a conservative interpersonal skill is, exactly. And are 'liberal' skills more condusive to happy arrangements? I know open marriages were a fad, but I have no stats on their longevity or happiness factors. |
Tom Reingold
Citizen
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 1751
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 3:45 pm: | |
Well, that's my point, sportsnut. The thing that disturbed me was that the first notes on this thread seemed to say that the concept is flawed. It isn't. The implementation is likely to be very flawed and skewed, because of who is proposing it.
Tom Reingold the prissy-pants
There is nothing
|
Montagnard
Citizen
Username: Montagnard
Post Number: 361
Registered: 6-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 3:45 pm: | |
Sorry, three-way activities have been outlawed, and government-funded snoopers are looking at your posting even as I write.
Their budget has just been juiced to the tune of $1.5 billion. Better watch out. |
Closed: New threads not accepted on this page