 |
| Society is to blame - time to get outraged by the message |
For example, the letters to the editor and talk back radio linked the story in the same week about the government providing free condoms to 12 and 13 year old's even as others are crying "what went wrong?"
Sean Plunket, in today's DomPost editorial hoped to write something that would make a difference, and generate a change of culture, attitude and responsibility in NZ Male society. Ironically, his article starts with something along the lines of "I don't want to talk about Len Brown and his adultery, I want to talk about something more important." He failed to see the connection between Len Brown, in a position of power and influence, being defended by liberals that his "private morality" is of no concern to us. With that logic, the private morality of these young men is of no concern to us, unless they make it public? Can you start to see how weak that argument becomes?
The defense of Len Brown's affair is perhaps just as much a symptom as a piece of the puzzle, but it's going to take these urban progressives a little more time to start to connect the dots.
Chris Trotter's column yesterday was along the same vein - "oh, where has society gone wrong?". Well, he could start with reading this blog - we've been pointing it out for years. The progressive liberal experiment is failing and what has been sown is being reaped.
One "gotcha" I noticed in his article was when Chris Trotter declared the school sex education curriculum was a huge failure! I don't think he realised just how significant his pronouncement actually is. The school sex education curriculum has indeed been a failure because it avoids making moral and value based judgments, and with "initiatives" such as free condoms, effectively does the reverse. So the answer is not "more of the same, earlier and younger" which is probably going to be the first response to the issue.
The logic that children are going to "do it anyway" makes me wonder why they don't hand out a case of beer, a fast car and a rubber power pole. Perhaps a baseball bat, a balaclava and a guide to effective robberies? I digress.
There's some more bad news to digest for the liberal progressives though if they seek to repair this situation. They simply cannot declare that families need to play their part, and leave it at that. It's not that simple. "The family" as a fundamental building block of society was once based on the "til death do us part" institution of marriage. It isn't any more. Less marriages, more children born out of wedlock, evolving definitions of "the family", both parents needing to work to pay the bills, an increase in outsourcing children's early childhood education, the internet delivering porn and violence unfiltered by positive formative life experience - it's just not that simple anymore.
The good news is that many parents are waking up to Conservativism. They've noticed something is very wrong when their daughters can be raped, the culprits brag about their exploits seemingly oblivious to the harm they have done and the police are "powerless", and the government is on the sidelines thinking it is OK, providing a free condom was used.
Start connecting the dots folks, and we'll begin to see some real discussion and hopefully, some real change.
Zen, thanks for that; that was right on the mark. I found the outcry from progressives over the Roast Busters’ story quite telling; they can actually recognise something is not quite right. Now, however, it is just a matter of them being able to connect the dots, and that I am afraid is going to be a hard ask as their utopian, ideological dreams always trump any form a rationale.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. The only moral angle Progressives can offer on this story revolves around "did the girls consent", because consent underpins their moral philosophy.
ReplyDeleteHowever, aside from that issue being clouded by age and several other factors, it is evident that consent, in itself, becomes too limiting when looking at the situation. It is deficient as a complete moral system, and Christian/Conservative values are needed to fill the gap.
If I get time, I'll expand on that idea a bit further later.
"Private morality" is an oxymoron.
ReplyDeleteWith that logic, the private morality of these young men is of no concern to us, unless they make it public? Can you start to see how weak that argument becomes?
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of weaknesses in an argument, the concept of 'consent' seems to have been overlooked in yours. If you get the idea that consent has a role to play in sexual morality, the approach of progressives to this issue ceases to be confusing.
Sorry, I just noticed that you did actually cover consent in a comment above.
ReplyDeleteAll I can say is that if there are people out there for whom consent doesn't underpin (in fact, "underpin" is too weak a term, let's call it "do almost all the heavy lifting in") their sexual morality, it's no surprise their kids grow up to be rapists. There are other issues involved here, for instance the concepts that pushing people to drink too much so you can take advantage of their impaired brain function is wrong, that breaking the law is wrong, that bullying people is wrong, that boasting is wrong, that publicly humiliating people who've done you no harm is wrong, hell there's a lot of wrong to go round in this story - but the big one, the really major, significant one, is that sex without consent is wrong. No progressive I've ever met is confused about that, but a disheartening number of conservatives seem to be.
Hi PM. I agree, Liberals do indeed say that consent underpins this issue. I am not confused about this in the slightest, and I am also not confused about the importance of consent in the slightest.
ReplyDeleteHowever, my brief comment on this should not be taken that I don't value the essential nature of consent.
I'm suggesting though that to decide that this issue can be sorted by deciding that the element of consent wasn't given, is where the discussion ends too quickly. These are issues that need to be solved by more than just teaching children (13 year olds) that it's just a matter of getting consent.
The glaringly obvious problem here is 13 year old can NEVER consent, according to the current laws. Yet progressives don't seem to mind handing out condoms and hiding pregnancies (and abortions) from parents.
Relying only on whether consent was given or not is just not enough. It doesn't impart the moral understanding and appropriate behaviour required to prevent all of the other issues raised by the story you touched on. Using consent as the "ok, you might not have any morals, any respect for others, any empathy, and any decency, so just make sure you get a signed agreement from someone claiming to be at least 16....", doesn't cut it for me.
Zen Thger'
ReplyDeleteMy only comment on this is that it makes me sad to think that these children are in a situation where this sort of thing can happen ... be they the young victims or the only slightly older perpetrators .... I feel that this is the result of the breakdown of family life over the last so many years along with the intervention of the electric media into our lives with its programmes that have let moral behavior go rapidly out the proverbial window.
Using consent as the "ok, you might not have any morals, any respect for others, any empathy, and any decency, so just make sure you get a signed agreement from someone claiming to be at least 16....", doesn't cut it for me.
ReplyDeleteOn that, we're in complete agreement!
I feel that this is the result of the breakdown of family life over the last so many years...
In 1978, my 16-year-old best friend was in a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old girl I also valued as a friend. Neither set of parents had raised their children in the view that such behaviour was morally justifiable - which meant only that they took steps to conceal it from their parents. The relationship was as illegal then as it is now, and when the parents eventually found out about it they were as angry about it as parents would be now.
The difference between that incident and the Roastbusters one isn't 35 years of social breakdown, it's that my female friend in the first instance was a willing, sober participant and wasn't bullied or publicly humiliated. Even now, with a daughter soon to turn 14 myself, I don't see anything particularly reprehensible about that 1978 relationship. In short, I don't agree this is about some kind of social or family breakdown - it's about rapists raping people.
PM - you are moving away from consent to "was a willing, sober participant", which is one of the reasons consent starts to come loose as the arbiter of morality. Based on consent, the 16 year old was a rapist, and that black and white pronouncement doesn't sit well, but it's all that there is.
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot more I hope to say about this, unfortunately, I don't have time tonight. hopefully, I'll get another post done about it but it might take a week or so.
But is there anything wrong with waiting just a bit longer?
Milt,
ReplyDeleteNo one would disagree that rape is rape and by rapists..... You mentioned 1967 ... by then things had already loosened up ... I meant earlier than that for I did my growing up in the latter half of the 1940s and through the 1950s, things were very different then I assure you . ... things changed in the 1960s.
Mrs Mac