As with every other example of moral decay in the US, I blame it all on the decline of the American family farm.

I don't know if it has anything to do with the decline of the American family farm, but it definitely has to do with this feeling of entitlement that Americans seem to have ingrained in their psyches. My mother would have NEVER helped me lie on an essay so I could win a contest. 

The two are related.

In a peasant society, where everyone spends the majority of their time busting their hump to eek out a living, you don't see this kind of stuff nearly so much.  Much as it's not poor people who start wars, people who have to work hard for what they have generally respect other people's property more.

I don't know about that. My mom is as city slicker as they come, but she does not subscribe to that type of thinking, nor do I.

 

I think it comes from a lack of spirituality - not necessarily religion.  Spiritual people seem to have more of a sense of ethics. Most religions regardless of who or what higher power they worship believe in a type of karmic retrobution.

I'd also argue that there is a link between an agrarian lifestyle and spirituality.

I'm not saying that you have to be a farmer to be spiritual or moral, I'm just saying that a work-intensive, close to nature lifestyle is good for the soul.

That's a weak link. My grandfather who was a pig farmer wasn't exactly high on moral standards.  Farming was how he made a living. Period.  Spirituality is about humbling yourself and knowing something greater than humanity exists. When you worship the tangible, like money, material things, sex and power you tend to lose sight of that humility thing.

Farmers generally don't have much material to worship, so I'll stand on my point.

LOL! Alcohol, women / sex, etc. There are plenty of material things to worship.  I stand by my point.

Maybe more well to do farmers than me!

Chasing ass and alcoholism is not relegated to urban living. Both of these by the way, are things people use to gain an artificial sense of power and control.

Whole lot less ass to chase here.

Yet men chase it none the less. Is there a whole lot less alcohol, too?  My grandparents made their own.

 

My grandfather chased a lot of ass. Big fish in a small pond type of thing.  Lack of humility and spirituality is not relegated to urban living.

Of course not, but urban living presents more idols for easy accessibility.

LOL! It's the communication era and it's been the communication era for about 30 years.  You can see the same idols that urban kids see. You can pull up YouTube as easily as I can.  You can read a news story that happened mere seconds ago as easily as I can and you have access to the same idols that I do. You are not as isolated as you want to believe. Sorry.

There is still some latency.  There are a great many people out here without internet access, and I for one don't indulge in the idiot box, save for a special now and again on the History Channel.

We don't have nearly so much of the "stuff."

You for ONE.

You have people in the city that don't have internet access or even a phone. 

 

You have more stuff and more access than people did 30 years ago. When my friends moved to Bahrain in 1983, I had to wait two weeks for my letters to get them.  I had to call them via a bad connection and could only talk 5 minutes.  Internet? what internet? By the time you were born all of these things were passe.

 

You still have alcohol, drugs and sex.  That's everywhere. It's not an urban phenomenon.  Sorry.

I know, but we also have a murder rate of zero and the only crime they can find for our newspaper's crime report is usually a DUI or two(I know, that illustrates the alcohol point you made).

Are we talking about murder rates or lack of spirituality in general?

 

Does your newspaper report the number of STDs or underage pregnancies? Does it report how many people went to church that past Sunday or how many people don't believe in higher powers?  Does it report how many parents engage in bad parenting?  Oh la!

More or less.  Hell, the only thing they could find one week was a picture of my backside while I was bending over a crate of produce at the farmers market.  That was the big picture of the front page of the weekly paper of the two largest towns in the county.

So how many STDs were reported this week?

How many people skipped church?

How many parents beat, verbally abused or neglected their children this week?

I could check on the church one easily enough if it interested me much to do so, most people here don't even know what STD stands for(ignorance is bliss), and I'm not sure how we could accurately compile statistics on that last one.

My point is simply that society as it exists today is a result of changes that have taken place since the bad old days, among them being a complete reversal from farming being nearly the only way of life to us being an endangered species.

I blame the ills of the towns here on the decline of farming in this area as well.  Cities aren't the only place where the family farm is in decline.  Out here there are foreclosures all the time, people who just can't compete in today's money grubbing society.

STD = sexually transmitted diseases.

 

There are foreclosures and businesses closing down here all the time. People are forced out of their homes for development and people lose their jobs because of outsourcing.  None of these are regulated to urban or rural living.

 

A money grubbing society indicates a society that worships money, therefore, my point of a society void of spirituality is made. "The love of money is the root of all evil." The decline of the agrarian society is a symptom of a lack of spirituality, not the the other way around.  Like I said before, most religions believe in karmic retrobution.  You reap what you sow. First ye harm none, etc. When you worship capitalism, you worship a philosophy that basically tells you more is better, which is diametrically posed to most spiritual philosophies that emphasize balance and moderation. Replacing spirituality with the worship of material things cause you to worship hedonism, social class and eventually social Darwinsm.  Notice I say spirituality and not religion. 

 

If your theory was true, then the old South was more ethical than the North. I'm inclined to disagree for personal reasons, I'm sure you'll understand.  No sense of trying to argue with me on that one.  There were many  major changes in society that led to the decline in parenting and ethics.  Some may even argue that our country started off with a lack of ethics. I'm sure the Lakota may agree with that sentiment. 

 

This woman was willing to lie about something as serious as her child's father dying in Iraq, simply to obtain coveted tickets to a Hannah Montana concert. For her it was all about winning. If she was a spirtitual person, she would not want that kind of a stain on her and especially her daughter's soul. 

 

I have no problem with social Darwinism from a governmental point of view.  It's not the government's place to babysit us.

As for the old South, they definitely had their fair share of Christian men.  Among them were two of the great Confederate heroes, Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee.

The War of Northern Aggression wasn't fought by slave owners against abolishionists.  The vast majority of the men who defended their homeland from the wrath of Northern industry, bankers, and politicians were poor farmers who owned very little, least of all slaves.  While the talking heads in Richmond and Washington talked of high things like slavery, economy(one and the same, for if slavery hadn't been practical and profitable, it wouldn't have happened), Johnny Reb was concerned more with fighting for God and country.  They thought they were fighting a second war of independence, in the tradition of such great Virginians as George Washington.

Social Darwinism caters to capitalism which separates class which does not cater to agrarian values. *sigh* Logic and Politics do NOT mix.

 

Once again I stressed SPIRITUALITY not CHRISTIANITY. (Build that strawman Michael!) Most of the Deists were against slavery.  If the issue of the Civil War was economics, then the issues included slavery. What was the point of keeping slavery around if it wasn't about keeping the South's economic system intact. The majority of the revenue generated by the South came from slavery. Duh! Get real, the "state's rights" argument is lame and bullshit.  Johnny Reb was interested in maintaining his way of life, which included maintaining the system of slavery.Why do you insist on proving my point everytime? THE LOVE OF MONEY IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL. Damn boy.   

A free agricultural market is necessary.  Subsidies and government regulations such as those that prevent dairy farmers from selling raw milk to consumers need to end.

Most southerners did not profit to any significant end from slavery.  It was only the landowning rich who did, much in the way the industrial tycoons benefited at the cost of others in the North.

I agree with you that the love of money is the root of evil, I'm just saying those of us who take up the reigns of small family farms aren't too terribly concerned with money, otherwise we'd be in another profession or at least be making a profit.

And those regulations exist because???

 

When slavery ended, the South was sent into an economic downward spiral. Everyone was affected. That's just like saying only rich people were affected by the Depression.  Uh...not so.

 

And I say, you can say that about many professions. Teachers? Hello?  Social Services workers,  EMTs, police officers, firefighters, home healthcare workers, small business owners and venders... 

"Well somebody told us wall street fell
But we were so poor that we couldn't tell."

That's the story I get from the people I know who lived or had parents who lived during the depression.  The more you have, the more you have to lose.

Some of those people make pretty good money, and there's room for promotion.  Farming is one of very few lifestyles where the longer you do something, the less you make as a rule.  The thing farmers, masons, carpenters, etc. have over some other careers is that we are creators and laborers, something that fulfills an empty place inside.  I know for a fact that I'd be a lesser man had I not been raised with the agrarian tradition and values that have been instilled in me since childhood.

My grandparents lived during the depression, too. While they had better survival skills, they certainly didn't have it easy and they certainly had no savings to fall back on or anything.  When rich people no longer hire you, life sucks. When business fail, the workers fall by the wayside.

 

Which ones make good money? Teachers and cops don't get paid nearly enough for what they do. Firefighters and EMT's?  The first people on the scene of an accident -- the people who have to stablize you before you get to the hospital make a little more than minimum wage. Especially EMTs.  Social service workers?  Hahahahahaha!!!!!  Home healthcare workers actually make about as much as daycare workers which is about 7 bucks an hour. Vendors and small business owners, some of them don't even make a profit their first year.  Come on Michael. You are reaching. All you have to do is look it up.  Look up how much a teacher with a Masters degree makes compared to a LAN technician. Figure in the cost of living and how much money and time it took to get their respective degrees.   

 

My husband is an artist and a graphic designer (who does NOT make a lot of money.)  Does that fill an empty space inside? You don't think teachers and social service workers have jobs that end up being satisfying at some point?

 

You don't know for a fact you'd be a lesser man because you can't compare it to you being raised any other way. Oh lord!  

 

Teachers here are the highest income bracket, save for doctors and lawyers.  We pay them well compared to what everyone else makes.

LMAO! You just said, the economy where you are isn't worth shit, so being in the third highest income bracket doesn't mean much when you figure in the fact of 4 years of college and the amount of school loans owed.

What is their starting salary there?

 

 

Not sure, but 75% of  them have been there long enough that starting salary is irrelevant.  All I know is that several of them have told us that they do well for themselves.

Starting salary is irrelevant to teachers because teachers don't do what they do to make money. That does not negate the fact that they make peanuts compared to other people with their level of education.

Higher education is highly overrated.  Look at Bill Gates.

And your point? *strawman, strawman, strawman*

 

 All you have to do is find the starting salary of teachers in your area, figure in four years of college and the cost of living. 

Cost of living here is really low.

Numbers please.

I'm not sure I could even find compiled statistics for this area, and certainly not online.

Statistics don't lie, but liars can use statistics.

And bullshitters use neither. 

We sit on apple crates and milk cans instead.

And build men of straw and defend our own false premises.

They're called scarecrows, and they don't work.  That's what .22 rifles are for.

Nope, they are called strawmen. It's what kids used to practice their sword wielding skills.  If you need a .22 to defend yourself against a scarecrow, you  have bigger problems.

No, the .22 is for the crows the scarecrow fails to spook.  Scarecrows don't work.  Ungodly amounts of firepower on the other hand resolve all quarrels.

Strawmen don't work either.

The more I see, the more I believe that nothing works.

At least not with me.

No, in a broader sense.

It's a natural imperfection in the material, but society can't work.  Nor can a lack of society, of course.

Governments that institutionalize and control everything fail.  Hands off, anarchies don't work, and the things in between will always fail as well.

LOL! I wonder if I was this disenchanted when I was your age. Human beings have been on the planet for what -- 50, 000 or 60,000 years? Yet, everythings going to hell now.  I wonder if people living in the ice age felt the same way.  Anyway, here's a secret. Things always seem worse when they affect us.  It's part of our egocentricsm.

Of course they felt the same way.  Notice my reference earlier to the "bad old days."

We face different problems, and there are more of us contributing to those problems, but the causes are the same, always the same.  We haven't changed that much in all these years.  I am aware.

Gloom, Despair and Agony on me (whoooaaaa).....

Eh?

Sorry a reference before your time, but very apt.

I know what it was from, but it's a curious line to use here.

Why indeed?

Just not the first thing that would have come to mind.

That's probably because it was the first thing to come to MY mind.

Hmm, maybe great minds don't think quite alike all the time!

Maybe they don't.

I was going to add that, too. My mother is a lot of foul things, but if she ever caught me trying to lie like that, she would have made me feel lower than dog shit for doing it. And thats exactly why i'm always honest about my faults and I dont try and cheat people, I remember how ashamed I felt when I was a kid and I did something wrong. Thats good parenting right there, at least my mom got SOMEthing right.

And these same parents are surprised when their brats get into trouble!!

Look what Britney's kids have to look forward to - a drunk/druggie mom!

Truely a piss poor excuse of a parent!!

And that woman who terrorized that girl via MySpace which lead to the girl committing suicide.  That woman truly makes me ill.  I really, REALLY wanted to kick her ass.

I read about this a while back, and I was so disgusted I had to close the window. So many things went through my head that it made me sick to my stomach. I understand when you and your child are starving, and you have to get food any way you can...but tickets to Hannah Montana, you'll stoop this low? I just cant imagine how anyone on any planet could think this was in any way okay.

 

(But it wasnt the mothers fault...it was the contest's rules fault for not saying you had to be honest. )

Lying about the girl's father dying in Iraq! DISGUSTING!  The sad thing is the six year old girl probably didn't even know her mom was wrong. She has to learn right from wrong via her mom's punishment from the media. What a hard lesson! Thanks mom!

Sadao read about this over the holiday break ... it's ... I can't even find the words.

no, this child wasn't to blame, but this mother, this ignorant fool, this .. I have words, but they're not kind ... it's absolutely unfrickenbelievable what some people will do for a freebie. 

I'll leave it at that.

I hear ya. This is how things like Enron scandals get started. 

yep.  

That MySpace mom certainly broke some sort of law. I'm thinking it is at least harrassment or something like that.  A skilled lawyer would be able to come up with something, especially since it is know known that this woman knew the child and knew about the mental problems the child had.

Awww, thanks bookworm! *blushes*