So abstinence education works?

[Jamisjockey]

By "normal" I mean that 15, 16, 17-year-olds have been being married and/or sought after for relationships all the way up to modern times. Catherine Floyd/James MAdison would have creeped modern editors the hell out.

Or David and Michal.

In modern Amerikua, the average 15,16,17 year old cannot count change, balance a checkbook, or stay under their alloted text-message limit. 

[sanglant]

and yet they can sign on the dotted line, and be on there way to Afghanistan. unless something has changed.

edit: and maybe a small part, but some part of the blame lies on the backs of teachers and politicians pushing pathetically useless coarse work into the class room.

[Jamisjockey]

and yet they can sign on the dotted line, and be on there way to Afghanistan. unless something has changed.

Not quite.  They sign on the dotted line with parental consent.  And having been an 18 year old Marine, I can tell you that we were children with guns, a little bit of cash, and raging hormones. 

[sanglant]

oh, didn't know about the consent req.

[Jamisjockey]

oh, didn't know about the consent req.

I was allowed to enter Delayed Entry Program at 17 with parental consent, and not allowed to ship to boot camp until I'd completed high school.  Recruiter suggested I finish out the summer and go in september about a week before I turned 18.

[Perd Hapley]

In modern Amerikua, the average 15,16,17 year old cannot count change, balance a checkbook, or stay under their alloted text-message limit. 

Check books are supposed to be balanced?

[sanglant]

the license kinda stinks now, but it's still better then money/quicken.

[Jamisjockey]

Check books are supposed to be balanced?

Nope.  You just use a debit card and if there's no money in there you get a payday loan.

[RevDisk]

My theroy is thus. The first generation told their kids one of two things, a. Screw everybody, or b. Don't screw ANYBODY, then the second gen proceded to screw away, got some emotional scars along with the AIDS crisis and such, thus told there kids, 'hey, this is what happens when you screw everybody, but, dude, sex is great when its great, so be careful and be safe'.

Well, that plus the text/twitter theroy, which is great.

I gotta side with Liz's theory.   Granted, I don't have mounts of studies by studied professionals (gigglesnort), but it's probably a somewhat influencing factor.  Anyone mid thirties or younger is aware that nookie can get you killed now. 

In modern Amerikua, the average 15,16,17 year old cannot count change, balance a checkbook, or stay under their alloted text-message limit. 

Most of the children I mentor can fire a rifle (black powder, rifle, pistol, shotgun), pick a lock, install XP, manage their money (maybe not ideally, but basic financial knowledge), read a book and work around web filters.   Children are a lot more capable than believed.  Few folks bother to make children's education very interesting, or frankly worthwhile. 

Check books are supposed to be balanced?

I dunno.  I cut one or two checks per month, and track all of my financials through web portals or my own records.  Aside from my rent, I have my bill process automated.  I could understand balancing a checkbook if you wrote maybe 10-20 checks per month, or had a very tight accuracy necessity (high fees for overdraft, no safety margin in your account).  Anything over 20 checks per month, I'd personally just write or buy an automated system to track. 

It's probably a useful thing to "learn".   It's just annotated simple addition and subtraction.  I think it's meant to be a codeword for financial prudence rather than the act of actually balancing your checkbook (which most banks made relatively obsolete by offering your records in close to real time). 

[Boomhauer]

Most of the children I mentor can fire a rifle (black powder, rifle, pistol, shotgun), pick a lock, install XP, manage their money (maybe not ideally, but basic financial knowledge), read a book and work around web filters.   Children are a lot more capable than believed.  Few folks bother to make children's education very interesting, or frankly worthwhile.

My childhood education included weapons, explosives, heavy equipment use, big power tool use, and so on. Basically, I should have joined the military to become a combat engineer.

[Perd Hapley]

 Children are a lot more capable than believed.  Few folks bother to make children's education very interesting, or frankly worthwhile. 

Probably no one here doubts that kids can learn skills, and even good judgment. It's just that children will only mature as quickly as circumstances demand. The fact that teen-aged girls were mothers and housewives a hundred years ago doesn't mean they will be all grown-up under the current state of affairs.

I could understand balancing a checkbook if you wrote maybe 10-20 checks per month, or had a very tight accuracy necessity (high fees for overdraft, no safety margin in your account).  Anything over 20 checks per month, I'd personally just write or buy an automated system to track. 

It's probably a useful thing to "learn".   It's just annotated simple addition and subtraction.  I think it's meant to be a codeword for financial prudence rather than the act of actually balancing your checkbook (which most banks made relatively obsolete by offering your records in close to real time). 

So true, especially if you're using a debit card with any regularity. I gave up years ago, since banks are always finding fees to tack on, making all my calculatin' useless. Now I just record all my checks on a spread sheet and watch for them to show up on my bank's web site.

[MicroBalrog]

Probably no one here doubts that kids can learn skills, and even good judgment. It's just that children will only mature as quickly as circumstances demand. The fact that teen-aged girls were mothers and housewives a hundred years ago doesn't mean they will be all grown-up under the current state of affairs.

If you expect people to be irresponsible 'tards and try to engineer their lives around that premise, they will live down to your worst expectations.

The western school system and more and more the colleges are becoming a confirmation of that.

[Balog]

I think Micro and Fisty are agreeing with each other in the most argumentative way possible. 

Those under 18 can be mature, functional "adults" and in times past generally were treated as such and expected to act as such. The majority of those =>18 (and increasingly =>25-30 :( ) in modern America are raised with the idea that childhood ends and responsibility begins somewhere between 18-30. Not all, certainly. But that is how the school and legal systems are set up, that is how the culture at large tends to view things etc. I think most people in this thread agree that the view I describe above is foolish and wrong. But that does not change the fact that it is the reality on the ground in this time and place.

[MicroBalrog]

And that is destructive of the underpinnings of Western society.

Several reasons:

1. The main principle of Western liberalism  - the liberalism of Spencer, Jefferson, and Hamilton - is that human individuals are to be treated as responsible for their own actions. This has been undercut in two important ways: one, the decision of progressives to baby everybody so they could have control, and two, the decision of punitarians on both sides to use human responsibility as an excuse for harsh punishments: "We hereby declare wearing green pants is illegal on pain of imprisonment. You KNEW the law, so by breaking it you intrinsically consented to being imprisoned. HEY ARE YOU AGAINST RESPONSIBILITY? ARE YOU?"

It's important to notice that progressives - initially - were not sexual liberals of the 1960's type. Progressives were always meaning to establish a system to make behavior normative through the use of the state. 1960's liberals have affected this slightly, but the tendency has not disappeared - which is why, if you recall, I mock the sex-positive community for thinking liberals are their friends. They are not.

2. The school environment does shape individuals' thoughts, minds, etc. Not to an extent to which some would argue - there is still free will and you can still sometimes come out from the most Communist environment and become a libertarian. However it's difficult to create a large amount of freedom-loving, self-reliant individuals in an environment that's anti-individualistic.

So you have the modern school - with its cameras, surveillance, suspensions-over-offensive drawings. You think that's going to create self-reliant, free individuals? No, it won't.

3. We have the problem that individuals start wanting to have sex, seek out dangerous stuff, drink beer and take drugs at a far earlier age than we trust them to be responsible for this or equip them to be responsible for this. This is because it is a near-biological inclination in many people. Worse yet, we downright expect idiotic behavior. People live down to this estimate.

[MicroBalrog]

But where we disagree is not just that Fistful is coming from a different point.

I think that this political-social reality is not a given - much like all political reality is malleable. And IMO people who are just taking it for granted either through expediency or intellectual laziness are helping maintain the situation.

[Balog]

But where we disagree is not just that Fistful is coming from a different point.

I think that this political-social reality is not a given - much like all political reality is malleable. And IMO people who are just taking it for granted either through expediency or intellectual laziness are helping maintain the situation.

Yeah yeah yeah, we're all lazy traitors to the great legacy we've been given because of societal forces beyond our control, and our refusal to rail against them at every chance on internet message boards.

[MicroBalrog]

Social forces beyond our control?

Do elaborate.

[Perd Hapley]

If you expect people to be irresponsible 'tards and try to engineer their lives around that premise, they will live down to your worst expectations.

The western school system and more and more the colleges are becoming a confirmation of that.

Which explains why teenagers aren't to be trusted with sex, or a dozen other things you seem to think they should feel free to make their own judgments on. If we want to mature children as quickly as possible, we could declare them all adults at the age of 10 or 12 or 14 or whatever. But as it is, we require schooling until sixteen or so, and seem to think they should be full-time students until they complete high school, college, trade school, or what have you. They can be dependent students or adults. Very few of them are going to be both.

It would help if society didn't accept and even glorify the idea that the teen and college years were a time for partying and sexual experimentation, which is itself a way of treating them as children.

[Jamisjockey]

Most of the children I mentor can fire a rifle (black powder, rifle, pistol, shotgun), pick a lock, install XP, manage their money (maybe not ideally, but basic financial knowledge), read a book and work around web filters.   Children are a lot more capable than believed.  Few folks bother to make children's education very interesting, or frankly worthwhile. 

Capable, yes.  But the average American doesn't put the work into their children to produce children with the skillset to become adjusted adults. 











BTW, I taught my 7 year old how to stop a bleeder the other day.  Its funny the things he remembers so easily.  Tell him to make his bed, he forgets in thirty seconds.  Tell him to apply direct pressure to a wound that won't stop bleeding, and he's telling all the neighbor kids he can stop a gusher....

[Balog]

Social forces beyond our control?

Do elaborate.

I cannot make meaningful changes to the common societal perceptions of Americans as a group. I can (and do ftr) try to influence what I can, but your standard "You aren't being outraged enough about [Micro's pet issue] therefore you're part of the problem" schitck is annoying. But tens of millions of people will have their worldviews shaped by mass media, their parents, and their social peers. I can directly influence less than 100 people, and make meager contributions to .orgs working to make changes (or preserve good things already in place). And the things I really care about don't involve the subject of this thread.

So stop acting like people not being outraged about [subject X] on an internet forum is causing the downfall of Western civilization. I don't hold you responsible for Israel's political issues, stop trying to hold those of us on this forum responsible for our society because we aren't getting worked up enough for you.

[MicroBalrog]

1. If you feel I am insulting you in some way, I apologize. That isn't my intent. Contrarily, I feel that you are attacking/mocking me for being outraged about certain things. I'm sure it's not your intent, but it does come across that way.

2. In my view all the main social issues of our day are the same across Western society. Israel might suffer more from some issues and less from others, t I wouldn't even be talking about these things if I felt that you were incapable of understanding these issues here.

3. I don't believe Western civilization will fall in the foreseeable future. It may become less free, but I don't feel the SHTF, rioting in the streets, Muslims-reclaiming-Europe shtcik is realistic. As a matter of fact, I feel that even the permanent-progressive slavery scenario is realistic. But you know that.

[MicroBalrog]

It would help if society didn't accept and even glorify the idea that the teen and college years were a time for partying and sexual experimentation, which is itself a way of treating them as children.

This I think is where me and Fistful should respectfully agree to disagree.

[Perd Hapley]

Maybe I didn't express myself well. Currently, American society seems to expect that teens and young adults (at least the male ones) will (or even should) take every opportunity to drink heavily, try a few illegal drugs, blow off school-work, and nail anything that moves. Like overgrown children.

[BlueStarLizzard]

Maybe I didn't express myself well. Currently, American society seems to expect that teens and young adults (at least the male ones) will (or even should) take every opportunity to drink heavily, try a few illegal drugs, blow off school-work, and nail anything that moves. Like overgrown children.

I know very few male teens/young adults who actually do that. Beleive it or not, teen tv shows are actually fiction.
 

Sure, theres some partys and such, but I think you have gotten it blown out of preportion. Most of whats actually going on is normal and fine.

[MicroBalrog]

So how is this different from the life of the vagants?