kylemittskus wrote:And this is where my eyes start to roll. Most everything up to this point, though, I liked.

This idea of a sexual revolution just doesn't hold water, in my view (although I am curious enough to check this book out). The difference that has occurred is empowerment. Divorce sucks for children. Period. But is it better than what used to happen -- namely, the wife stayed with the cheating husband? Teenagers are having unprotected sex. This is a terrible idea. But our reaction, as a society, is to hide information about sex and make contraception difficult to get (mark that you can't get the plan b pill without parental consent, but can get an abortion).

The issue is not, nor has it ever been, sex. The issue is responsibility and accountability, from the parents to the children and so forth. And you even state it in your last sentence. If people make a stupid decision, sexual or otherwise, then they should be left to deal with it. I invest my money like an brainiac, don't give me yours. And if I have a baby at 14, don't give me incentive to do it again. But, following the idea of liberty, if there is a sector of society who/that would like to assist these people, then they may do so. But they need to do it privately, like a church or non-profit organization. The gov't shouldn't be using tax dollars for this. And here we come again, back to the welfare discussion.

Well, you really need to read Murray's book. I used the phrase "sexual revolution and the breakdown of traditional morality" as more or less a shorthand description of the things that came together in the '60s and beyond.

The sad facts, which you will encounter in Murray's book - and elsewhere if you've been following the debate over the past decade or so - is that it's really not better for the kids if the parents divorce in most cases, and that single parenthood -- which has become the norm in the black community and accounts for almost half the births in the lower middle/working class - really is a lot worse for kids than the alternatives a couple of generations ago. I know, I wouldn't have thought so either, but the evidence is really in. Upper middle and even (to an extent) middle-middle class kids had the family resources to rebound from the effects of bad choices in the '60s and '70s, whether a pregnancy, a drug arrest or whatever, but the working and lower middle class kids didn't. Bad juju. Unfortunate as hell, but this is "just the facts" - traditional morality "worked" in the sense that it enabled the working class family to thrive, form supportive communities and raise healthy kids. I'm simplifying grossly here, but there is a lot of literature out there on this, and it's really ugly for crusaders for the new morality.

mother wrote:Nevermind, I this strays way beyond the topic of "Ryan was a stupid choice" for which I allowed myself to come in here :P

But I liked the original version better Actually, sounds like we largely agree on this stuff.

rpm wrote:it's really ugly for crusaders for the new morality.

I'm really curious to understand what you mean by "the new morality". Seems our definitions could be entirely the same or almost entirely distinct.

klezman wrote:I'm really curious to understand what you mean by "the new morality". Seems our definitions could be entirely the same or almost entirely distinct.

Again, shorthand. I suppose I mean those who view the traditional nuclear family (M+F+kids) as unnecessary to children's welfare and/or a bad thing generally because it's partriarchal and/or sexually repressive. Shorthand for the traditional notions (ideal, if not always successful) of long-term, monogamous marriage, children only within wedlock (with social sanction for bearing children out of wedlock).

I confess that I've not always been a big fan, and like many guys was very happy to take advantage of the much looser sexual mores of the '60s and '70s which reliable birth control, the counterculture, and the easy availability of psychedelic substances made possible. I was lucky not to have had many negative consequences. But, the consequences for society generally have been largely negative, even if it's been positive for some (largely upper and upper-middle class).

There were several sources of the "new morality" - Freudian/Jungian psychology and various offshoots (think Reich), the Marxist-Freudians of the Frankfurt School (think Marcuse), and the whole Gestalt psychology movement, as well as the hedonistic drug cultural critique of bourgeois society (which has its home in a bunch of the other stuff, as well as traditional bohemianism and anti-materialist critiques from the East.

rpm wrote:Again, shorthand. I suppose I mean those who view the traditional nuclear family (M+F+kids) as unnecessary to children's welfare and/or a bad thing generally because it's partriarchal and/or sexually repressive. Shorthand for the traditional notions (ideal, if not always successful) of long-term, monogamous marriage, children only within wedlock (with social sanction for bearing children out of wedlock).

Maybe I'm representative of people you think feel this way? I don't know. I think in certain cases it was patriarchal and sexually repressive, although of course not always. When done "right," it's great and the ideal situation. At least where I grew up, however, it was not always done "right," and it was women who got the short end of the stick, thanks to perhaps an overly literal reading of the bible. When I push back against these traditional values, it's partly because of the way I saw people handle themselves when supposedly following the traditional family model. I'm the product of an intact family though, and so is my husband. I'm thankful for that, I just don't like the uneven balance of power I saw so often. I'm still seeing that with people my age and younger, but now it's serial. I won't pretend to think it's good that a woman's kids get shuffled from man's house to man's house, or that a man's kids never see their father because he's taken in another family and Mom has moved on to a new guy as well. We've kept the bad and none of the good. Obama or Romney, can't fix that.

chemvictim wrote:Maybe I'm representative of people you think feel this way? I don't know. I think in certain cases it was patriarchal and sexually repressive, although of course not always. When done "right," it's great and the ideal situation. At least where I grew up, however, it was not always done "right," and it was women who got the short end of the stick, thanks to perhaps an overly literal reading of the bible. When I push back against these traditional values, it's partly because of the way I saw people handle themselves when supposedly following the traditional family model. I'm the product of an intact family though, and so is my husband. I'm thankful for that, I just don't like the uneven balance of power I saw so often. I'm still seeing that with people my age and younger, but now it's serial. I won't pretend to think it's good that a woman's kids get shuffled from man's house to man's house, or that a man's kids never see their father because he's taken in another family and Mom has moved on to a new guy as well. We've kept the bad and none of the good. Obama or Romney, can't fix that.

No one is claiming - certainly not me - that it was always "done right" as you put it. It's an ideal and as such even the most saintly among us (as I assume you are ) can only approach it in life. Your point that neither Obama nor Romney can fix the problem is true as far as it goes, but the larger and more important point is that they and their parties stand (again more or less, and without consistency) for policies that are either destructive of the nuclear family (Obama and the Democrats) or encourage its formation and maintenance (Romney and the 'pubbies).

While I could ultimately argue the point, I will assume for the sake of argument that most of the policies with respect to the family/marriage/abortion/welfare/etc. the Democrats have enacted over the past 75 years have been done with the very best of intentions to help people. Even so, the effects have been devastating in terms of the virtually complete destruction of the black family and the impending destruction of the working/lower class white family. Which makes inequality much worse because a two parent family will have much greater resources in many ways, not just financially (but that too typically). Frankly, I think those who care about giving kids from the lowest 20% of the socioeconomic ladder a real shot in life would want to do their damnedest to see those kids in intact nuclear families with their biological parents - the opposite of what the policies of the past 60 years have done. You cannot remove the stigma of unwed parenthood and remove the responsibility of men to take care of their offspring without devastating consequences.

rpm wrote:even the most saintly among us (as I assume you are )

Naturally

While I could ultimately argue the point, I will assume for the sake of argument that most of the policies with respect to the family/marriage/abortion/welfare/etc. the Democrats have enacted over the past 75 years have been done with the very best of intentions to help people. Even so, the effects have been devastating in terms of the virtually complete destruction of the black family and the impending destruction of the working/lower class white family. Which makes inequality much worse because a two parent family will have much greater resources in many ways, not just financially (but that too typically). Frankly, I think those who care about giving kids from the lowest 20% of the socioeconomic ladder a real shot in life would want to do their damnedest to see those kids in intact nuclear families with their biological parents - the opposite of what the policies of the past 60 years have done. You cannot remove the stigma of unwed parenthood and remove the responsibility of men to take care of their offspring without devastating consequences.

All that makes sense, but do you think there might be more to it? For instance, I've heard it said that the pitiful state of the black family is due to a legacy of slavery. Either way, I just don't see how Santorum-like preaching about family values will help anyone. Maybe if we could frame it as a matter of personal interest as opposed to "Santorum and God said so..."

chemvictim wrote:All that makes sense, but do you think there might be more to it? For instance, I've heard it said that the pitiful state of the black family is due to a legacy of slavery. Either way, I just don't see how Santorum-like preaching about family values will help anyone. Maybe if we could frame it as a matter of personal interest as opposed to "Santorum and God said so..."

There's undoubtedly "more to it" but one has to try to isolate the most important things. I don't buy the argument about slavery: the black family has been more matriarchal, but the black nuclear family was pretty much intact before the growth of the welfare state. Gunnar Myrdal - no friend of American treatment of blacks - reported in 1944 the black illegitimacy rate was 11%. That was higher than for whites (which was about 2%), but it shows marriage was the norm as well as the ideal. Not to mention that historically, the black churches have been very strong and preached a gospel of traditional morality (again, even if humans are frail and don't measure up, it was at least what people wanted and were aiming at).

None of this is easy. It's fairly simple, but it's not easy. We don't want to stigmatize people who are illegitimate through no fault of their own, but failing to do so essentially condones the irresponsible behavior of the parents.

It sounds harsh, but if you want to reduce illegitimacy and single parent families in which daddy abandons the mother (or in this era where daddy didn't even know mommy had a baby....) you have to reverse some changes in the law - bring back the legal concept of illegitimacy and the consequences for matters of inheritance - and make it socially unacceptable for women to bear, and men to father, children out of wedlock. You will never eliminate the problem entirely - human nature.... - but you could reduce it to something close to the noise level it was before WWII. To do that, you would have to eliminate state support of any kind for unwed mothers and you'd have to treat unwed fathers one could identify pretty harshly as well. If you do have an illegitimate child and you want the child to have a chance in life and not to be stigmatized, give the child up for adoption - but a real, old-fashioned, no-contact-ever-again adoption.

This flies in the face of our impulses not to be overly judgmental of others and to be tolerant, but those 'good' impulses lead to our refusal to explicitly support standards of behavior for everyone which the upper-middle class assiduously practices itself.

That's been very true of the way the upper middle class has treated blacks since the '60s and is increasingly true of how it treats the while working and lower middle classes.

You really have to read Murray's book. Not that he's the be all and end all, but the book really gives you a feel for the magnitude of the problem and how quickly it's metastasized.

I largely agree with RPM on this issue. I would add, though, that there is an internal cause and effect that is occurring with the lower class and black/Hispanic families that is exacerbating the problem. In response to the increase in teen pregnancy rates (which will increase the likelihood of illegitimacy due to the lack of maturity of both parents), the parents of the teens and young adults have doubled down, so to speak. Instead of educating their children about the consequences of the decisions -- consequences that the teens see in others around them -- they hide sex education, make contraception difficult to obtain, and pretend that talking causes action. And this is where my problem with the republican push for a better family-based American arises. Like these families, a lot of the 'pubs would like to do the same -- hide sex education, make contraception difficult to obtain, and pretend that talking causes action. Their goal is admirable but their approach is absurd to the point of comedy. Young people will have sex. Period. And not telling them about how to do it safely is not going to stop them from doing it.

Taking away birth control will do nothing to better the ideal or practice of nuclear families in America. And abstinence-only education will do nothing to stop teenage hormones raging. Both the parents of the families that are being broken apart and the law-makers that want better families all around need to understand that their religious beliefs and desire for a different ideal fail when real-world situations are present. The welfare state sure as hell isn't working and it should change. Likewise, the religious ideals superseding logic and eduction sure as hell arent working and need to change.

kylemittskus wrote:I largely agree with RPM on this issue. I would add, though, that there is an internal cause and effect that is occurring with the lower class and black/Hispanic families that is exacerbating the problem. In response to the increase in teen pregnancy rates (which will increase the likelihood of illegitimacy due to the lack of maturity of both parents), the parents of the teens and young adults have doubled down, so to speak. Instead of educating their children about the consequences of the decisions -- consequences that the teens see in others around them -- they hide sex education, make contraception difficult to obtain, and pretend that talking causes action. And this is where my problem with the republican push for a better family-based American arises. Like these families, a lot of the 'pubs would like to do the same -- hide sex education, make contraception difficult to obtain, and pretend that talking causes action. Their goal is admirable but their approach is absurd to the point of comedy. Young people will have sex. Period. And not telling them about how to do it safely is not going to stop them from doing it.

Taking away birth control will do nothing to better the ideal or practice of nuclear families in America. And abstinence-only education will do nothing to stop teenage hormones raging. Both the parents of the families that are being broken apart and the law-makers that want better families all around need to understand that their religious beliefs and desire for a different ideal fail when real-world situations are present. The welfare state sure as hell isn't working and it should change. Likewise, the religious ideals superseding logic and eduction sure as hell arent working and need to change.

Maybe. I'm not so sure, and I really don't have any satisfying answers here. There will always be some teen sex, but should we treat it as "perfectly normal, here's the birth control, and have fun"? That doesn't seem to have worked very well. Hiding information doesn't seem to work very well either. How can we, as a society, discourage children from active sex lives at an age when their bodies are ready but emotionally they're not? One wants to encourage a healthy sex life primarily within committed relationships. Within the upper middle class family, that's a matter of individual family behavior and teaching, but how do you inculcate those values back into the lower middle and working classes? Back in the bad old days - think the Victorian era and the first half of the 20th century - one of the most important factors in the improvement of the lot of the working and even lower middle classes was their adoption of the 'bourgeois' values of thrift, sobriety, hard work, fidelity and marriage, etc. All that repressed stuff the counterculture hated, but enabled people to improve themselves and the prospects of their children.

Or we say, "it's not normal so no birth control or education for you" and nothing will change. I do not, for a second, think that lower income and black/Hispanic teens have sex at a rate higher than their opposites. However, their rate of teen pregnancy is substantially higher. The question is why.

I don't for a second pretend to have the answers. I think a large part of it is the horse we've beaten to a pulp -- the lack of accountability due to the welfare state. However, I do know that taking away a form of prevention and withholding information will do nothing but make the situation worse. I know this from both logic and empiricism. Studies and assessments have been done on these topics and they don't suggest anything positive for those who want the word "sex" to be stricken from our vernacular or have birth control made illegal with that terrible drug marijuana and satans juice, alcohol. Religious-based, illogical (redundant?) policies make things worse, not better, especially when it comes to matters of prohibition.

kylemittskus wrote:Or we say, "it's not normal so no birth control or education for you" and nothing will change. I do not, for a second, think that lower income and black/Hispanic teens have sex at a rate higher than their opposites. However, their rate of teen pregnancy is substantially higher. The question is why.

I don't for a second pretend to have the answers. I think a large part of it is the horse we've beaten to a pulp -- the lack of accountability due to the welfare state. However, I do know that taking away a form of prevention and withholding information will do nothing but make the situation worse. I know this from both logic and empiricism. Studies and assessments have been done on these topics and they don't suggest anything positive for those who want the word "sex" to be stricken from our vernacular or have birth control made illegal with that terrible drug marijuana and satans juice, alcohol. Religious-based, illogical (redundant?) policies make things worse, not better, especially when it comes to matters of prohibition.

The problem with teen pregnancy (and a host of other problems) in lower income brackets especially in black and Hispanic culture stems from the erosion of the family unit. A complete set of loving guiding parents can do a lot for keeping kids out of trouble. Society and school certainly cant be asked to make up for a lack of foundation in these kids lives. It has nothing to do with what society provides these kids, we are all paying for generations of fathers not sticking around to support and care for their children one way or another.

cortot20 wrote:The problem with teen pregnancy (and a host of other problems) in lower income brackets especially in black and Hispanic culture stems from the erosion of the family unit. A complete set of loving guiding parents can do a lot for keeping kids out of trouble. Society and school certainly cant be asked to make up for a lack of foundation in these kids lives. It has nothing to do with what society provides these kids, we are all paying for generations of fathers not sticking around to support and care for their children one way or another.

True, but the reason the fathers haven't been sticking around/women have been willing to have children out of wedlock has largely been the welfare state that made it economically possible.

rpm wrote:True, but the reason the fathers haven't been sticking around/women have been willing to have children out of wedlock has largely been the welfare state that made it economically possible.

Agreed with to a certain extent. I think there is a major cultural issue at work amongst the black and Hispanic communities that maintains the spiral of poverty that is fueling everything being discussed here. I do not care for the welfare state as I have seen how the money they pull from pay check gets used. But at the same time I almost feel like I should in some way take back some money from the state. Hello baby bonding time

cortot20 wrote:Agreed with to a certain extent. I think there is a major cultural issue at work amongst the black and Hispanic communities that maintains the spiral of poverty that is fueling everything being discussed here. I do not care for the welfare state as I have seen how the money they pull from pay check gets used. But at the same time I almost feel like I should in some way take back some money from the state. Hello baby bonding time

Not sure what your last sentence means.

As to the first part, there is something cultural going on. Not only does it affect blacks and Hispanics, but it has devastated the white lower class and is spreading into the white working and lower middle classes. Very bad juju. This, to a large extent, is an important message of Murray's book Coming Apart.

However, trying to remain somewhat agnostic on the cause, it's sure coincidental that this cultural rot did not exist to any large extent even in the black community before the creation of the entitlement-driven welfare state. Moreover, it did not begin to spread widely in the Hispanic or lower class white communities before the expansion of the welfare state in the Great Society, the "sexual revolution" (shorthand reference) and the counterculture, and the breakdown of the legal and social stigmas to bastardy and being a public charge.

rpm wrote:...and the breakdown of the legal and social stigmas to bastardy and being a public charge.

Seems to me the stigma of being born out of wedlock is more destructive than helpful - the opposite of the stigma of being a public charge. Perhaps the linking of these two concepts is part of the problem. I understand there's correlation, but there need not be in the ideal (likely fanciful) world. Being a public charge ought not to be fun or encouraged, but I think stigmatizing children born out of wedlock is a road that's fraught with peril.

klezman wrote:Seems to me the stigma of being born out of wedlock is more destructive than helpful - the opposite of the stigma of being a public charge. Perhaps the linking of these two concepts is part of the problem. I understand there's correlation, but there need not be in the ideal (likely fanciful) world. Being a public charge ought not to be fun or encouraged, but I think stigmatizing children born out of wedlock is a road that's fraught with peril.

One wishes it were unnecessary, perhaps, but if you want to strongly discourage bastardy, you can hardly treat those born out of wedlock the same way you treat those born within wedlock - at least absent some intervening circumstance such as adoption (which of course legitimizes the person into a new family). This is a case where what is good for society may have negative consequences for an individual, and where taking the compassionate approach towards the individual encourages the behavior society is desperately trying to discourage.

Not nice, not pretty, I don't like it. But I'm not sure I see a very good alternative. It's a blunt instrument approach, but in dealing with those who are not educated and who don't look very far into the future, it may be necessary. As I said in an early post: not easy. Not comfortable. Very hard choices.

rpm wrote:As I said in an early post: not easy. Not comfortable. Very hard choices.

This I think is entirely accurate.

I also just came up on a few statistics from here most of the way down the page:

A February 2012 study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities of all federal entitlement programs — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program, unemployment insurance, food stamps, Supplemental Security Income, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (welfare), the school lunch program, Earned Income Tax Credit, and the refundable Child Tax Credit – finds that non-Hispanic whites, who make up 64 percent of the nation’s population, received 69 percent of the total benefits. Hispanics, who make up 16 percent of the population, received 12 percent of the payments, and blacks, who account for 12 percent of the population, received 14 percent of the benefits.

rpm wrote:Not sure what your last sentence means.

As to the first part, there is something cultural going on. Not only does it affect blacks and Hispanics, but it has devastated the white lower class and is spreading into the white working and lower middle classes. Very bad juju. This, to a large extent, is an important message of Murray's book Coming Apart.

However, trying to remain somewhat agnostic on the cause, it's sure coincidental that this cultural rot did not exist to any large extent even in the black community before the creation of the entitlement-driven welfare state. Moreover, it did not begin to spread widely in the Hispanic or lower class white communities before the expansion of the welfare state in the Great Society, the "sexual revolution" (shorthand reference) and the counterculture, and the breakdown of the legal and social stigmas to bastardy and being a public charge.

I have always felt that the american dream was that individuals from even the humblest beginnings had opportunities to pull themselves up their boot straps and change the hand that history dealt them. The welfare state completely undermines this and in my view destroys the American dream. I think we're roughly on the same page on this.

The baby bonding comment is where the state of California pays fathers to take time off to bond with their children for up to 6 weeks with full job protection and pay equivent to what you would make on unemployment. I'm only taking 2 weeks worth though, but it still feels odd to be collecting money for sitting at home.

cortot20 wrote:I have always felt that the american dream was that individuals from even the humblest beginnings had opportunities to pull themselves up their boot straps and change the hand that history dealt them. The welfare state completely undermines this and in my view destroys the American dream. I think we're roughly on the same page on this.

Very much so.

cortot20 wrote:The baby bonding comment is where the state of California pays fathers to take time off to bond with their children for up to 6 weeks with full job protection and pay equivent to what you would make on unemployment. I'm only taking 2 weeks worth though, but it still feels odd to be collecting money for sitting at home.

I had no idea such a thing existed in this country.... I'm gobsmacked.

cortot20 wrote:The baby bonding comment is where the state of California pays fathers to take time off to bond with their children for up to 6 weeks with full job protection and pay equivent to what you would make on unemployment. I'm only taking 2 weeks worth though, but it still feels odd to be collecting money for sitting at home.

Seriously? Wow...that sounds kind of out there, even to me. Do other states do that?

klezman wrote: your statistics

Most of this is the result of the fact that the average age of non-Hispanic whites is probably higher generally, and non-Hispanic whites may have somewhat longer life-expectancies, and therefore represent a larger percentage of the social security and medicare population. I'm not sure how the statistics are meaningful in the context of this discussion.

rpm wrote:I had no idea such a thing existed in this country.... I'm gobsmacked.

To clarify. For a newborn child only.

cortot20 wrote:To clarify. For a newborn child only.

So I assumed.... but thanks for the clarification.

cortot20 wrote:To clarify. For a newborn child only.

So, not for puppies or kitties. Too bad.

chemvictim wrote:Seriously? Wow...that sounds kind of out there, even to me. Do other states do that?

Not sure. In california there are a number of similar programs that are intertwined into a big bureaucratic mess. But I do know that due to equal rights fathers are given similar time to mothers for a newborn child. 6 weeks partially paid using the Paid Family Leave. There is another California law called kincare which allows an employee to use sick time to care for a sick spouse or child.

So for example. Here is how it worked for me. I took a total of 2 1/2 weeks of work off for my newborn.
The state doesn't pay anything for the first seven days off, it then pays between 50-60% of your normal weekly wage for the next 5 weeks. So the state ended up paying for 11/2 weeks of my time off but at partial pay. My company then allowed my to fill in the difference with my own accrued PTO (paid time off) to bring me to full pay. If the program wasn't available I would have still taken the same time since I have nearly 2 full months worth of PTO on the books, but in filling out the paperwork I managed to save about 30 hours of it.

Edit: in the end it proably wasn't worth the time or effort looking at the vacation time that was saved since I have so much of it.

cortot20 wrote:Not sure. In california there are a number of similar programs that are intertwined into a big bureaucratic mess. But I do know that due to equal rights fathers are given similar time to mothers for a newborn child. 6 weeks partially paid using the Paid Family Leave. There is another California law called kincare which allows an employee to use sick time to care for a sick spouse or child.

So for example. Here is how it worked for me. I took a total of 2 1/2 weeks of work off for my newborn.
The state doesn't pay anything for the first seven days off, it then pays between 50-60% of your normal weekly wage for the next 5 weeks. So the state ended up paying for 11/2 weeks of my time off but at partial pay. My company then allowed my to fill in the difference with my own accrued PTO (paid time off) to bring me to full pay. If the program wasn't available I would have still taken the same time since I have nearly 2 full months worth of PTO on the books, but in filling out the paperwork I managed to save about 30 hours of it.

Edit: in the end it proably wasn't worth the time or effort looking at the vacation time that was saved since I have so much of it.

So the state pays for the mother's time off too, both of you for 6 weeks?

I'm paying taxes in the right state, but living in the wrong one.

chemvictim wrote:So the state pays for the mother's time off too, both of you for 6 weeks?

I'm paying taxes in the right state, but living in the wrong one.

Mother actually gets an additional 6 weeks of disability. And yes taxes are ridiculous here because of two things entitlements and social welfare programs are out of control and the people who support these things are not the people that pay for them. Surprise! Surprise!

I didn't take rpm's earlier comment re the sexual revolution to be about just that; I took it as a reference to morality changing in general, and the domino effect of that change. Maybe I was incorrect.

I was in elementary school when I heard Goldwater speak in our town outside of LA; what an impression was made upon me, mainly becasue my parents were Kennedy supporters. I do remember thinking, why did they bring us here, when they don't agree with this guy? Years later, my mother said it was because it was such a big deal, like seeing a celebrity. For me, a seed was planted that there was a different
way to think than what I was being taught at home and in school.

Most people vote based on their personal experience; not what is to their advantage, or what is to the country's advantage (hopefully the same thing in the long run). It is nigh impossible for many people to vote that way; they vote because they are angry about a situation that affects them, they vote because the guy is cute,
they vote because the other cute guy told them to vote a certain way. (Anecdotal observation, not scientific, on my part to be sure). Then, you have politicos figuring out the best way to get people to vote for them, capitalizing on this "vote by feeling", making the effort to manipulate them as they are, making little if any effort to educate them in the process. Some people, like some of you here, do educate themselves as a matter of course, and vote accordingly.

In this day and age, we shouldn't have to vote according to economic liberty versus social liberty, but it is coming down to that, and many people don't realize it. I picture it like a pendulum swinging in the extreme when you first push it in motion. It swings far out to the left and then to the right, and eventually settles into a balancing rhythm. We are living in a time that needs a significant correction; these exaggerated corrections wouldn't be so necessary, except these developments have been in the making over a long period of time.

rpm wrote:I had no idea such a thing existed in this country.... I'm gobsmacked.

Yeah,i used vacation time for mine, but when my bosses asked me if two weeks was necessary I told him if happily take the six.

Edit, I should mention, my state doesn't pay for jack, but does allow me the time off without fear of dismissal. It may be fmla related actually.

cortot20 wrote:To clarify. For a newborn child only.

And adoption, any age I think for adoption.

bhodilee wrote:And adoption, any age I think for adoption.

So I can adopt you and get another 6 weeks off of work? Sweet!

cortot20 wrote:So I can adopt you and get another 6 weeks off of work? Sweet!

Might be the only way for him to get out of Nebraska and away from his boss Mrs. Hannigan

cortot20 wrote:So I can adopt you and get another 6 weeks off of work? Sweet!

I'm OK with this. So long as my bottles are chilled correctly. You'd hate to have me cry

cmaldoon wrote:Might be the only way for him to get out of Nebraska and away from his boss Mrs. Hannigan

Once the oldest graduates I'm gone. Thinking Oregon, and not just because of sake one.

cortot20 wrote:Mother actually gets an additional 6 weeks of disability. And yes taxes are ridiculous here because of two things entitlements and social welfare programs are out of control and the people who support these things are not the people that pay for them. Surprise! Surprise!

This is fascinating, really. We talk about entitlements and welfare a lot here, but this seems like the first, real-live, specific example of a program that made me say "WHAT????" The fact that it's California, with such well-publicized money problems, makes it even more eye-opening. I assume this is confined to California? I think I'd be pretty unhappy about paying loads of taxes to support this kind of thing. Does that make me selfish and cranky? Maybe.

Sanity - do we have any crazy stuff like that in NV? I don't know much about politics here yet. Eeek it's August...not much time.

chemvictim wrote:This is fascinating, really. We talk about entitlements and welfare a lot here, but this seems like the first, real-live, specific example of a program that made me say "WHAT????" The fact that it's California, with such well-publicized money problems, makes it even more eye-opening. I assume this is confined to California? I think I'd be pretty unhappy about paying loads of taxes to support this kind of thing. Does that make me selfish and cranky? Maybe.

Sanity - do we have any crazy stuff like that in NV? I don't know much about politics here yet. Eeek it's August...not much time.

Pretty sure maternity leave is a Federal thing and paid out under FMLA. Paternity leave, is a newer thing and only covered under FMLA if your wife had a c-section (I think). California of course is wonky and I would be zero surprised to find out you could take a month off fully paid for adopting a dog or Vietnamese pot bellied pig.

bhodilee wrote:Pretty sure maternity leave is a Federal thing and paid out under FMLA. Paternity leave, is a newer thing and only covered under FMLA if your wife had a c-section (I think). California of course is wonky and I would be zero surprised to find out you could take a month off fully paid for adopting a dog or Vietnamese pot bellied pig.

Right. FMLA is there and I could get time off, but not paid time off. I'm free to use annual leave or sick leave too, but there is nothing specifically allocated to maternity or bereavement, etc.

double post

chemvictim wrote:Right. FMLA is there and I could get time off, but not paid time off. I'm free to use annual leave or sick leave too, but there is nothing specifically allocated to maternity or bereavement, etc.

I thought after the first week of FMLA you qualified for Short Term Disability (provided you have it of course)