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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
 Posted - 07/26/2005 : 21:17:53 [Permalink]
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Gee Mack said: "Everyone, whether they have children or not, pays taxes that help support everyone else's children, as if it was their responsibility. That, of course, more than accommodates the social responsibility requirement. Situation resolved."
So you are OK with it when the govenrment decides what needs are and forces businesses to favor employees with children, and taxes people with children less. But if an boss takes it apon himself to remedy what he sees as a unresolved need of an individual who works for him or her, they are practicing unethical discrimination.
The situation is hardly resolved. If it were, then having a child wouldn't be a huge economic handicap for poor single mothers. It's all well and good that a person working for a big company making middle classes wages can get compensated time off, or can afford to take less pay to take care of their kids, but when you work for an hourly wage in customer service jobs, or if your spouse is unemployed for a while, those laws don't really do you any good. You speak of personal choice. I suppose it's just irresponsible for poor people to have kids at all, eh? |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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| Edited by - marfknox on 07/26/2005 21:22:50 |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 07/26/2005 : 21:30:56 [Permalink]
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GeeMack said: "Exactly what source should be referenced to determine what is and is not a need?"
Obviously that would be up to the employers discretion in these sorts of cases. I'm talking about exceptional actions that are usually done by small businesses where people don't make a ton of money. That's why I used the coffee house example.
Also, while people technically "choose" to have children - that's a far more complicated issue than you are making it out to be. All these theories of consistent policy are nice and all, but in the real world, people tend to help each other out, and the world is often a better place for it.
But as I said to Humbert - we can agree to disagree here. Basically you're taking a more philosophical libertarian stance (which is fine. I totally respect your position on the matter, even though I don't accept it. I'm not going to make fun of you like Humbert seems to make fun of me.), and I'm taking a more, I suppose you could call it a culturally organic/socialistic stance. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 07/27/2005 : 05:23:05 [Permalink]
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I have come to the conclusion that anything labeled a 'benefit' that does not apply to all, is actually a penalty for those it does not cover.
Such as Bush's Tax Break, Marriage taxes, child tax credits, school taxes etc. I pay for these and get nothing in return.
Oh I am Kid and Wife free and plan on remaining that way, to the dismay of my large Catholic family. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 07/27/2005 : 08:01:10 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by marfknox
This increase in the number of people making a clear life-choice to not have kids is being called the “childfree movement” by a lot of my female friends. A pretty nifty thing, in that having children should be a conscious and carefully thought out choice, not a social expectation of women or married couples.
And this was called the ZPG (Zero Population Growth) movement 20 years ago. Relabling established movements sometimes will get more adherents. |
Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 07/27/2005 : 10:14:39 [Permalink]
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| Nah we need the NPG, or at least India. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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Hawks
SFN Regular
Canada
1383 Posts |
Posted - 07/27/2005 : 14:46:53 [Permalink]
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quote:
A pretty nifty thing, in that having children should be a conscious and carefully thought out choice, not a social expectation of women or married couples.
I wouldn't expect wanting to have children comes from either careful thought or social expectation. I'd say it's a biological "need". People who want children would have greater reproductive success than those who don't (back to good old evolution). Therefore, social expectation and careful thought might today make you decide NOT to have children. Thoughts?
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METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
It's a small, off-duty czechoslovakian traffic warden! |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 07/27/2005 : 17:41:11 [Permalink]
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Thoughts for Hawk
Careful thoughts and social expectations about procreation are also a manifestation of biological needs. In the book "Mother Nature : A History of Mothers, Infants, and Natural Selection", the scientist Sarah Hrdy explores what is and isn't maternal instinct. Much of the arguments are about how the human animal depends more on culture than instincts, and much of it also goes into evolutionary explanations of why middle and upper class women tend to have less or no children, and why neonaticide (mothers killing their newborns) and abandonment of newborns is a "natural" phenomenon.
To horribly simplify Hrdy's incredible book, in the condition which humans evolved, there was no birth control. Thus, it was most successful for women of high social status to focus on quality of their offspring, while it was more successful for women of low social status to take their chances with quantity of offspring. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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| Edited by - marfknox on 07/27/2005 17:42:37 |
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Bradley
Skeptic Friend
USA
147 Posts |
Posted - 08/26/2005 : 10:46:36 [Permalink]
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This may come as a complete shock to some, but there are a great many conscientious and rational individuals who simply are not particularly fond of children and have no desire to procreate more little consumers.
The myth that has been forced down everyone's throats by vested interests is that a woman is not "fulfilled" until she has given birth, preferably several times. Have any of you ever seen one of these women at a shopping mall with five kids, all aged nine months apart, in tow? One can bet that she didn't look very fulfilled. The ones I've seen looked for all the world like they'd rather be doing something else - like hanging out on a beach in Acupulco with a couple of muscular young men and some reliable birth control. Do any of these breeders - men as well as women - ever take an honest inventory of themselves to see if they have anything of value to impart to the next generation?
The specter of eugenics doesn't frighten me half as much as the prospect of semi-literate yokels using fertility drugs to spit out litters of future criminals, slaves, and cannon-fodder. |
"Too much doubt is better than too much credulity."
-Robert Green Ingersoll (1833 - 1899) |
| Edited by - Bradley on 08/26/2005 10:48:47 |
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Siberia
SFN Addict
Brazil
2322 Posts |
Posted - 08/26/2005 : 11:19:10 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Bradley
This may come as a complete shock to some, but there are a great many conscientious and rational individuals who simply are not particularly fond of children and have no desire to procreate more little consumers.
Such as myself.
I'm fonder of little animals (puppies, kittens, foals, baby rhinoceros) than of little humans. Don't ask me why, I just am. Besides, I won't risk passing arthritis on. |
"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa
"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 08/26/2005 : 12:44:06 [Permalink]
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| Probably because puppies wont grow up and trick you into appearing on Maury Povich to tell you they are running away with and sexually involved with a troupe of French Canadian dwarven transvestite mimes. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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Siberia
SFN Addict
Brazil
2322 Posts |
Posted - 08/26/2005 : 12:57:19 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
Probably because puppies wont grow up and trick you into appearing on Maury Povich to tell you they are running away with and sexually involved with a troupe of French Canadian dwarven transvestite mimes.
lmao!! |
"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa
"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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| Edited by - Siberia on 08/26/2005 13:27:44 |
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ooh_child
New Member
USA
30 Posts |
Posted - 08/26/2005 : 14:42:59 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
Probably because puppies wont grow up and trick you into appearing on Maury Povich to tell you they are running away with and sexually involved with a troupe of French Canadian dwarven transvestite mimes.
I'm thinking BigPapaSmurf has some issues...
MHB |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/26/2005 : 18:54:06 [Permalink]
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quote:
The specter of eugenics doesn't frighten me half as much as the prospect of semi-literate yokels using fertility drugs to spit out litters of future criminals, slaves, and cannon-fodder.
Add in insane religious fundamentalism and you are describing the the year 2005.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 08/26/2005 : 22:39:57 [Permalink]
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Eugenics isn't necessary if people are educated and women are given equal opportunities. Education has proven to have the greatest impact on reducing the number of children a woman has in her lifetime.
In regards to this that Bradley wrote: "semi-literate yokels using fertility drugs to spit out litters of future criminals, slaves, and cannon-fodder."
I have no idea what this refers to. Fertility treatements aren't cheap, and the people using them are pretty much middle class people in the first world who typically stop after 2 kids. These aren't the people causing an overpopulation problem (despite the frequency of twins and triplets due to the drugs - that is still not having a major impact on population growth), nor are their children most likely to become criminals, slaves or cannon fodder. You seem to have fused together two separate social issues - use of fertility drugs by the middle and upper class and high birthrates among the poor. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 08/27/2005 : 01:50:00 [Permalink]
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I don't think there is a big social movement by women to be childless. It's probably a bigger percentage than when that's all women had to achieve, marriage and children, but I doubt it is a huge percentage.
As to the paying for schools, I don't use the police very often and I've never needed the fire department. I don't drive on every road and use every bridge. Heck, we in this county voted not to fund the new sports arenas and the county managed to tax us another way to build the stadiums with public money. To single out costs for children is narrow sighted. If you don't want to fund schools you might just need to pay a bit more for police and prisons. |
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