DB “Col.. much to think about there... pity we don't have a coffee table between us :)”

I think from your past posts you are in Melbourne,

I am in the Melbourne (Southbank) most work days, currently.

Happy to handle a coffee…

GY has my email.

Forward something and I will happily respond.

As for the social trends. Life is like that.

What I think is important is we live in a less repressed and less authoritarian society than that of even just 40 years ago. Pregnant girls and their boy friends being forced into marriages against their will. Abortion being illegal.

I have no doubt the social dysfunction of say 150 years ago were far more damning than they are now, when alcohol use was not regulated and abortions were legal (being prior to the mid 19th century legislation) and children stuck up chimneys to clean them.

The natural effect of a period of social liberation, as was experienced in the “consumer liberalisation” following the WWII austerity era is “excess”,

A similar thing happened in the old USSR when the Communist system collapsed.

The pendulum then swings back. However, hopefully it is not swung with the influence of the enforced prudery from a puritanic backlash/revival but more common sense and self accountability.

I am an advocate for social liberalisation but I recognise the “price” of liberalisation is self accountability and responsibility.

We only grow through exercising choice and living with the consequence of those choices (good or bad). A society which regulates the individuals who comprise it effectively deny those individuals that opportunity to “grow”.

I think Col said it pretty well, DB. Elvis's pelvic thrusts were indeed harmless.

You speak of the number of marriage breakups increasing since the 60s, and say this is evidence of a downward spiral.

I say, it's evidence people now have the freedom to live their own lives.

Regrettably, there would be no accurate statistics on how many people lived miserable lives, locked into marriages they didn't want. I have a suspicion it was quite high. I dare say, domestic violence statistics and so forth from that period, are also nigh on impossible to collect, which is a shame.

Because it certainly wouldn't be the Christian shang-ri-la 'good-ole-days' that many people with a conservative bent like to pretend.

Also consider, that people are living longer than ever. 'Ever after' is a hell of a lot longer than it used to be, and the sad fact is, some people grow apart. Some don't. Hopefully, most experience the latter.

But to be locked into it because the culture expects you to, would be hellish. I for one, am glad of it. If this is what Elvis's pelvic thrusts were indicative of, I'm damn glad he did it.

"Rape Dance video shocks Memphis Community"

By now most of you would possibly have heard about this on the news.

KEY QUESTION. "Is this an 'isolated' attention grabbing exercise" or.. is it a serious litmus test of social depravity?

I looked at video and my first impression was it was mocking our PC society where americans cant even say wheres the toilet , but say where's the bAAthroom but [like you] are obsessed by the "wild oats" sex they missed out on and are glued to plastic sex as Sex in the City, Big Brother etc

secondly there was no suggestion of rape, so yes as you demonstrate this is attention grabbing exercise, not by kids but by PC pedants, espec those who claim to "have God on their Side"

but nuthin new - the Spanish Inquisition was just this, and went for 500 years

COL....thanx..I've written to GY for ur email.

Col says:

I am an advocate for social liberalisation but I recognise the “price” of liberalisation is self accountability and responsibility.

Agreed.. but the degree to which we 'self regulate' is determined by conscience and how 'finely tuned' it is(Garbage in/Garbage out). That happens when our awareness of acceptable values is high. The problem is..'who' defines acceptable values. With MIUAUG the loudest voice does.
In one sense I'm really just calling (as I've done once or twice on OLO)for national repentance and faith :) a re-orientation of our values. But repentance must be by choice also, it cannot be legislated. Even in the absense of a strong awareness of Gods values, we can still make good laws, but capitalism generally takes us the other way. (Socialism is just as bad)

TRTL says:

<<Regrettably, there would be no accurate statistics on how many people lived miserable lives, locked into marriages they didn't want. I have a suspicion it was quite high.>>

So... in reality ur saying that the 'absence' of visible family breakdown 'then' and the 'prevalence' of that breakdown now.. are both evidence of how screwed up we were then..and STILL are.

Thanx :) u made my day.

But..having said that, I can vouch for the reality of how much less one is prone to going astray when the values your community holds dear, are reinforced regularly and at every level of community life.

Of course, in that I'm referring to a prayerful, worshipful,caring Christian community as we had in Malaysia.

Of course we had the ratbags and people who went down the moral gurgler, ur ears would tingle to know some examples...I still remember the day I passed one of the Bible school teachers wives on the track as she returned from having it on with a local bloke in the town across the river.
Such things are like emotional earthquakes in the community, but they don't change the predominant direction.

Actually boaz, I said that there's no evidence either way, so we can never know for certain what life was like.

But I added that in my opinion, it would be a foolhardy optimist (or someone who for their own reasons, would like to curtail liberal freedoms) who thinks that just because the culture didn't allow marriages to dissolve, that people must have been happy in them.

A slight difference, but in debates such as this where the evidence doesn't exist, one persuasive tactic is to attempt to shift the onus of proof... but that proof doesn't exist either way.

And I don't think it's screwed up to have the courage to leave a partner if that partner is making you unhappy. Sometimes, people are better off apart. Sometimes, it's better for both. Sometimes it's also better for the children if they're involved.
The conservative cultural approach doesn't appreciate that. The individual's right to choose what's best for them is curtailed in favour of a one size-fits-all proposal.
I find that far more 'screwed up.' In fact, I think what we have now is far, far superior to what existed in the supposed glory-days of the 50s.

DB “(Garbage in/Garbage out).”

Sometimes but not always.

However, societal censorship simply means “Nothing In / Nothing Out”. The result, an unfulfilled life experience and no responsibility / accountability either (cannot be accountable for what is banned and unavailable).

“Acceptable values” remain, liberally defined through statute rather than being micro-managed by intrusive statute.

“national repentance and faith “ that is like asking for national compassion and love.

These uniquely human qualities cannot be transferred or assigned to governments or bureaucracies. People who misguidedly expect them from government (particularly those beguiled by the first lie of socialism, who believe that government cares) are fools.

I keep saying it in various ways, government does not and never will care about the best interests of the electorate, because anything approaching “interest” will be first diverted to the benefit of the elected and the bureaucrats, leaving the electorate to share the spin and the scraps.

This is why I believe in smaller government, not larger and in the value and in the significance of the individual, as the pinnacle force of all human endeavour.

“we can still make good laws, but capitalism generally takes us the other way.”

Of course we can still make good and valid laws, regardless of a theological base and capitalism is an economic method, not a moral position. Capitalism is good because it is propelled by the innovation, energy and passion of individuals and not by the dead hand of a dispassionate and emotionless government (the latter being what makes socialism bad).