see..i go back and forth on stuff like this. have we really gotten to the point where we have ZERO shared values as a culture? so far along the road of liberty, or whatever you want to call it, that we can't collectively, publicly, support anything?? including something like marriage and family structure? if so..that's really quite sad.
That could be... I suspect the way you argue about finances is more important than the finances themselves... still, it's got to play a big role and pursuing sane fiscal policy that actually creates jobs is one area where the Feds could do something to help people out
i'm not saying it's not a strain...but it's funny how married people all seem to look back so fondly on the times when they had less than they do now...when it was more of a struggle.
We can collectively and publicly support marriage and family structure as a culture w/o government interference. The goverment should be there to ensure our basic rights are upheld, protect us etc.... But I still think that most problems are fixed when good people band together and fix them.. One example. For the last 15 years I have been a counselor at a camp for children with special needs. The entire staff is volunteers. The campers come back year after year and many parents have told us that this is the only place they have had a positive overnight away from home experience. All the people there love to be there and want to be there. Everyone pitches in -- when there is a hard or difficult job to be done everyone volunteers to help. I also "worked" one summer at a camp that was funded with state funds and the staff was paid. It was an entirely different attitude. The counselors watched the clock arguing about when they got to go on break and who did and didn't have to do the unpleasant jobs. Attending to the campers was a chore and a job not an act of love. Which one impacted the children more?
"In the last few years, some liberals have also expressed interest in marriage-education programs. They say a growing body of statistical evidence suggests that children fare best, financially and emotionally, in married two-parent families."--New York Times, Jan. 14
i'm with ya...i'm not exactly mister tax and spend, the government can solve all that ails us. but at the same time, i think it's funky that we've gotten to a point where we claim to have no shared moral values that can be of any importance to us publicly, i.e. through the way our government spends the money it taxes from us.
I don't see the zero... We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --TJ Let us at all times remember that all American citizens are brothers of a common country, and should dwell together in bonds of fraternal feeling. The ballot is stronger than the bullet --Lincoln There are many others, including the rights of minorities... but does everything we support need to be collectively and publically supported?
I'm with you 100% IN THEORY, but don't you think the government would find a way to screw everything up even if it had the best of intentions? Especially with all the money involved. IMO these are the kinds of programs that would be put to better use by the private sector, not the government.
By the way George, what exactly is your position? "I will support a constitutional amendment which would honor marriage between a man and a woman, codify that, and will — the position of this administration is that whatever legal arrangements people want to make, they're allowed to make, so long as it's embraced by the state, or does start at the state level." "I have just enormous respect for his brain, his engagement, his interest, his probing questions, his constructive and positive approach to issues." --Rummy on W.
you're guilty of a bit of dowdification here. the quote comes from the NYTimes and was correct by the Times a few days later. the qualifier "If necessary," should be inserted atthe beginning of the quote, which changes it's entire meaning...
