Comments on: GOP candidates under fire for signing family pledge

By: Emily K

Emily K — Wed, 30 May 2018 20:31:34 +0000

by the way, by “non-existent” I meant that this utopian age never existed – indeed, and unfortunately, the negative consequences of a repressive post-war American society did exist.

By: Jayhuck

Jayhuck — Wed, 30 May 2018 20:31:34 +0000

Carol,

The Sixties were about empowering as well as enslaving (talk to the working mother who tried to balance work, marriage, children and managed to find unhappiness in trying to have it all and talk to the kids); about independence that led to a growing dependency; about working for the benefit of others yet glorifying the self; about seeking health and enlightenment and finding neither; about demanding greater liberties and shirking greater responsibilities.

You make it sound as if these things are unique to this generation and they are not. Women tried to “have it all” as you say before this decade. YOu are right in saying there has been good and bad which has come from your generation, but that is true for all generations – and *sometimes*, what is good and what is bad is in the eye of the beholder!

By: Emily K

Emily K — Wed, 30 May 2018 20:31:34 +0000

I said nothing to glorify the sixties, nor do i think any decade has some aura of greatness that surrounds it – not the 80s, not the 90s, not the 2000s, not this decade. I simply stated what I learned happened then, something that people conflate with “sexual anarchy as caused by those dirty hippies,” as opposed to the pristine and perfect 50s. neither era actually existed.
by the way, don’t forget to check out http://www.encyclopediadramatica.ch. their page on the term “offensive” is like nothing i’ve ever seen before, even on the internet.

By: Teresa

Teresa — Wed, 30 May 2018 20:31:34 +0000

Following is a quote most often attributed to Andrew Frazer Tytler; however, it's never been verified to be such. It is commonly called the Tytler Cycle. It seems to fit quite nicely with our current situation:

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.

By: carole

carole — Wed, 30 May 2018 20:31:34 +0000

Emily, I can tell you didn’t live through the Sixites even if you had never mentioned that fact. I think I probably have the same feeling as I read your words that my father had when he asked me at the dinner table each night, “What did you learn in school today?” While he was always interested as I struggled to find the energy or the interest to tell him, he was especially interested in hearing what I told him I learned about the Depression and WW11, events both he and my mother lived through.
Your understanding of the 60s is limited to what you have read and what you have gleaned in talking to others, just as my understanding of the 30s and 40s is limited to what I have read and discussed with those who lived through those years. I think it fair to say that “limited” is a proper word choice. From a limited perch, conclusions are often. well, “limited,” for all of us.
American society, unlike say Japanese society, doesn’t stress that those who’ve lived through an era have attained some wisdom that those who come later cannot possibly have. All anyone can hope to do is listen to those who’ve lived something and attach some worth to what they say.
There was much good about the 60s, much bad. We have reaped both. I hope you don’t fall for the glorification of that era, and I hope that you understand that even the good can turn bad.
New marketing techniques and the growing sway of television had elevated youth to great heights and these media had found a way of extracting money from a huge group of Boomers who had grown very heady about our new powers, with all the attention given us, and who had grown convinced of our moral superiority to our parents, convinced of our greater wisdom than our parents and grandparents, convinced our of destiny in building a better society.
While historically the attention to Youth had a precursor for a short time, the 20s, I think it fair to say that never before had a young, a very young generation, considered itself so in possession of knowledge and wisdom that their parents didn’t have, and never before had a young generation which had not proved itself in any great way by sacrificing had so much power. (Only certain guys had to go Viet Nam).
I don’t mean to suggest that you are wrong in suggesting that every generation feels, to some degree, that the society in which they grew up was superior to the one supplanting it, but it’s true that not all that is new is good, and it is true that that which is good can be perverted into bad.
The Sixties were about empowering as well as enslaving (talk to the working mother who tried to balance work, marriage, children and managed to find unhappiness in trying to have it all and talk to the kids); about independence that led to a growing dependency; about working for the benefit of others yet glorifying the self; about seeking health and enlightenment and finding neither; about demanding greater liberties and shirking greater responsibilities.
Unfortunately, it seems to be in our national character to mix up moving forward with moving. It would be nice if we could criticize ourselves as much as we praise ourselves. It would be helpful if we could concentrate as much on what was left behind that was good as much as identifying what might be good.

By: Timothy Kincaid

Timothy Kincaid — Wed, 30 May 2018 18:31:13 +0000

As I see it, politicians who sign “pledges” are seldom really showing their commitment to the words of the pledge. Rather, they are publicly identifying with an ideology that is held by the sponsor. They are saying, in effect, we are in the same camp and your views are shared by me.
It is no surprise the Bachmann and Santorum would affiliate with this group. They have long been Culture Warriors and have actively sought to advance the political goals of theocratic social conservatives (ie seeking social conservative policies because of their religion rather than due to beliefs about the effectiveness of certain social policies).

By: ken

ken — Wed, 30 May 2018 17:27:41 +0000

From what I’ve seen of this pledge, it seems more like it was written by a democrat trying to embarrass republicans, rather than by a republican.
If someone who signs this pledge were to win the primary, Obama would have a field day using it against that person in the general election.

By: Teresa

Teresa — Wed, 30 May 2018 17:27:41 +0000

Dave, my goodness, what history are you reading? What’s the definition of a conscientious Christian? The South, the very place that had minister after minister, be it Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, and Catholic used Scripture to validate the ‘peculiar institution’, you’re depicting as ‘conscientious Christian’. There was a split in the Protestant Churches between North and South over the slavery issue; and, part of the reasoning at the time was the very one you’ve cited: they’re better off here without freedom, than back home. Nothing new with that argument. It just a shame we must refute it again and again, a 150 years later.
Dave, I would argue most slaveholders in the South were not conscientious Christians in the true meaning of that word. The African end of enslavement that you mention was simply a holding place on the Western Coast of Africa. The European, Brazilian, and American desire for slaves initiated that whole cycle. The infamous Middle Passage was the awful piece of the journey to Brazil or America.
And, no, Dave, these ‘conscientious Christians’ you talk about were not afraid of freeing their slaves because they’d end up at slave auctions. Again, what history are you reading? The slaveholders were afraid of losing their livelihood. These ‘conscientious Christians’ bred slaves to sell at slave auctions. They bought at slave auctions. These ‘conscientious Christians’ kept the slave auctions in business, and some of them owned and operated many of these slave auctions.
I can do no better than cite Abraham Lincoln on slavery:

This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.
–April 6, 1859 Letter to Henry Pierce

“So plain that no one, high or low, ever does mistake it, except in a plainly selfish way; for although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being a slave himself.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, “Fragment on Slavery” (April 1, 1854?), p. 222.

“Whenever I hear any one arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VIII, “Speech to One Hundred Fortieth Indiana Regiment” (March 17, 1865), p. 361.

By: Teresa

Teresa — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 20:20:52 +0000

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.

By: Jayhuck

Jayhuck — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 19:40:05 +0000

Carol,

The Sixties were about empowering as well as enslaving (talk to the working mother who tried to balance work, marriage, children and managed to find unhappiness in trying to have it all and talk to the kids); about independence that led to a growing dependency; about working for the benefit of others yet glorifying the self; about seeking health and enlightenment and finding neither; about demanding greater liberties and shirking greater responsibilities.