Arcana XV

I think it's a lot more than just a few.

It's a small world. People exchange ideas all the time. I don't see this as a bad thing. What you do with those imported ideas is your problem. You're perfectly free to outright reject them or alter them in a way that will suit your particular social environment.

The US is unique enough in many ways that it's not surprising at all that what works over here will not work over there without a lot of changes to the original idea. Hell, sometimes what works in New York will fail miserably across the country.

How old do you think I am exactly??

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aegyptos

[quote=Arcana XV;1057598233]I think it's a lot more than just a few.

It's a small world. People exchange ideas all the time. I don't see this as a bad thing. What you do with those imported ideas is your problem. You're perfectly free to outright reject them or alter them in a way that will suit your particular social environment.[quote/]

Too small. When experience shows that ideas originating from a certain attitude or frame of reference tend to be not only bad but very bad indeed, its wise to try to nip them in the bud and to distrust the source and blackguard it a priori.


This is true. However, I'm not so sure that those ideas have worked out well on your side of the pond but I pay my taxes elsewhere so its not an immediate concern. Its interesting to note that New York wasn't always so out of touch with its hinterland.

Old enough to read history, obviously.

Arcana XV

Heh. If you've tried them and they've clearly failed, then of course the smart thing to do is to get rid of them. This doesn't mean that you should disregard everything else from the same source. That would be very shortsighted and you might miss on the only good idea that WILL work for you. Like for example the Swiss health care system. Personally, I think it's the only universal health care system that stands a ghost of a chance of ever working in the US. But then again, Switzerland is also in many ways an anomaly as countries go. There's a reason they modeled their constitution after yours.

Well, the only thing the history books have made crystal clear to me is that the world was never "a better or safer place" at any point in time. It wasn't better or safer before your country was founded, it wasn't better or safer after it was founded and it still is not better or safer than it ever was. Same bull****, different actors.

I'm not exactly sure what kind of answer you're looking to see from me when you use words like "admit it". What am I supposed to be admitting here? I get the feeling you think I'm one of those people who blames the US for everything that is wrong with the world. If this is what you think, you could not be more wrong. But I'm assuming a lot here, so I'll wait for you to clarify things before I add anything else

partier9

oh thank god finally, i hope that they do cut the funding im sick and tired of hearing about abstinence. And yes its failed. 60% of the kids in my freshman grade have had sex, though probably more. And its a private catholic high school. Though it's true catholic school girls do put out more.

Though in middle school we got it a lot more, it was public. Also nobody actually pays attention to it. It's a complete waste of time, it would be better to actually teach us somthing or let us do our homework. They should talk about all approachs to sex not just abstinence. Condoms, birth control pills, and safe sex. Though i will give my high school credit they were much better at explaining abstinence than middle school.

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1069

I imagine there's an enormous amount of peer pressure for students to actively display their disdain for such lessons.
I cannot imagine a classroom full of 14 and 15 year old boys nodding earnestly and taking notes as a teacher drones on about the virtues of abstaining from sex.
More likely they'd be leaping around making rude noises and boasting about how they'd been having sex since they were eight.
While the girls passed notes or stared, glaze-eyed and unhearing, out the window.

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talloulou

I just think it's sort of ridiculous that we're worried kids won't know about condoms and/or birth control. Meanwhile they've all got their own myspace pages. They're not stupid. The problem isn't ignorance. Teens are reckless risk takers. I imagine condoms can't possibly be harder to acquire than beer and cigarettes and I don't recall having a problem getting any of that stuff. The only thing that might be effective is scaring the piss out of 'em and we're unwilling to go there. And even that would only work on some of them. Many would remain immune to any tactic. I rode in cars with guys that had been drinking when I was a teen despite movies showing cars wrapped around trees and a school assembly featuring a guy who came to talk about why he was in a wheelchair.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, teens are notoriously stupid. Don't give them too much leeway and just hope and pray they're one of the lucky ones that survive those years intact. Most do.

1069

I kept my kids from trying pot for the longest time by earnestly explaining to them that it was, of course, their choice but that it would be unfair of me not to warn them that marijuana would increase their estrogen levels and cause them to grow breasts. It helped that the men in their lives who smoke are all a bit chubby, so I could basically point to them and say, "See? Boobs."
Of course, this didn't work forever.

talloulou

When my brother was little I told him STD stood for sick tragic dick. You know you've got it when your penis turns black and falls off.

1069

Before the advent of antibiotics (in the 1940s) that wasn't far from the truth.
My great-grandfather died from complications of syphilis (and alcoholism, although that was no doubt related to being publicly disgraced, kicked out of his house, and relegated to a hotel suite, where he quietly rotted away for the remainder of his pathetic life).

Kali

They need to teach about REAL SAFE SEX and SEX. Not in textbook speak either they need to get real with kids because there are still a lot of uptight parents in this country who are trying to teach their kids sex is dirty or that refuse to talk to their kids at all.