There's something about the goverment telling me what can or can't imagine, draw or render that is just not right for me.

For me, and I say this from very personal point of view, there is a difference between a drawing and the actual process of produce or aquire real children pornography, one is real, the other, isnt.

I'm ignorant of the US laws so I'm not gonna say much, but what If they find the artis? would they be charged for possesion too? so you are now being told what you can or can't draw? its like telling you what you can or cant imagine.

If authorities really cared, they would work on the real child porn out there all around the world, there's a whole industry of child being sold and carried in containers for sexual activities, who's suffering here? a guy with a manga collection?

I'll be talking about this issue at college, I might change my mind, its a complicated subject IMO.

Quote - There's something about the goverment telling me what can or can't imagine, draw or render that is just not right for me.

Once again (4th time now?) this body of law has nothing to do with you can imagine, or draw, or render, or possess - it's about what you distribute across wires or physically.  It would be cool if people would actually read the the stuff I take the trouble to link you to.

Quote - > Quote - There's something about the goverment telling me what can or can't imagine, draw or render that is just not right for me.

Once again (4th time now?) this body of law has nothing to do with you can imagine, or draw, or render, or possess - it's about what you distribute across wires or physically.  It would be cool if people would actually read the the stuff I take the trouble to link you to.

Ok, I agree about distribution of such material being out of the law, real or not. But here's a question.

If someone draws what the goverment might consider obscene material, Is it out of the law to just keep it even if you are the artist, or is it out of the law if you start to distribute it?

Well, naturally I suppose, I disagree with all the alarmism. I just don't think you can judge the direction a society is headed by the extreme examples. Maybe I've just been lucky, but I've lived in various parts of the country, and have often worked extensively with young people, have even partied with some, and I just don't see the moral decay everyone is talking about.

Yes, it's always there. But there are also a lot of young people that -- in my experience and observation -- seem well on their way to becoming responsible adults. For some reason, those kids don't seem to get a lot of attention from law enforcement and the media though ...

And as far as the Supreme Court, and children, and consent, my suspicion is that most Americans are getting sick of the extremes. I don't think very many on the left really want to go back to the worst excesses of the 60's and 70's. Maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't see it. And vice versa. I think Americans are becoming increasingly fed up with the extremes and excesses of the right.

Maybe I'm just a polyanna (or maybe being a contrarian is just in my genes), but I think there's a real possibility that we may be in for a little more of the middle-of-the-road approach, both socially and politically, than many here are suggesting ... at least for a while.

That is, of course, not to say that there will not still be abuses of power, moral outrages, etc. I'm merely speaking of the attitudes of the great majority, not the fringes, which always exist in every society.

But it's just my 2 cents, and unlike some, I am readily willing to acknowledge I could be very, very wrong.

Umm

Quote - Any person who, in a circumstance described in subsection (d), knowingly possesses a visual depiction of any kind, including a drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting

It does say possesses.  If you draw it, or render it, you possess it.

Quote - depicts an image that is, or appears to be, of a minor

That's the "anime" part of my original concern.  Most anime characters are cute, cuddly, and it's not a stretch to say they can look really young.

By law, minor simply means below the age of majority - which is higher than the age of consent in a lot of cases to boot.  So in theory, you could render an image of a 17 year old having sex, (an act which would be legal if they were real people), but still come under the law.

Nitpicking?  Sure.  Lawyers live for nitpicking - especially prosecutors.

Oddly, I don't see anything regarding nudity in the quoted section(s) though.  Maybe "Obscenity" is supposed to cover that?

Pop quiz: what is described in subsection (d)?

Quote - If someone draws what the goverment might consider obscene material, Is it out of the law to just keep it even if you are the artist, or is it out of the law if you start to distribute it?

You tell me, what does the law say?

Quote - I think Americans are becoming increasingly fed up with the extremes and excesses of the right.

I actually would agree with you on the backlash against extremes of both left and right, though I quote only this part because that's the only one I can offer a concrete example to support.

Westboro Baptist Church (and I use the term "church" very loosely) and the backlash - not just the Patriot Guard Riders, but more visible community counter-presence when those loonies are out and about.

Quote - `(B) lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value

*Wait, so does that mean if there was a US flag being burned in the background of one of those images the OP told us about that it would suddenly become legal?  I mention flag burning because as far as I know, in just about every case the US Supreme Court has said it was protected under free speech.

We can quote state and federal statutes all day long but the bottom line is, are the prosecutors actually going to get off their arse and prosecute based on those laws?  The most likely answer would be NO due to the courts throwing cases out the window.  It's not worth their time and/or effort.  Again, what about all those 3D cartoon sites that are out there who actually make money off of this concept?  It's not what they can prove, it's what they want to prosecute.

Quote - are the prosecutors actually going to get off their arse and prosecute ...

You may have missed the first post in the thread, that's kind of the point of the discussion.

Quote - Quote - "You're right, Shonner."

The Greek civilization died out.  The Roman civilization died out.  And America is simply only repeating what's already been done in history.

Yep.  I've been making the same point throughout my "active" portion of this thread.    The parallels are truly eerie -- for anyone who's studied the end of bygone civilizations in detail.  I really, really wish that I could be more optimistic about the way that things are headed..........but not now.

When a society is hell-bent on pleasuring itself to death -- persons (including children -- in fact: especially children) become mere objects for our enjoyment, to be used and disposed of as we please.  It's the ultimate fulfillment of the philosophy of De Sade.

Teen mothers have gotten into the occasional habit of throwing their newborns into trash dumpsters -- and then blithely going on to party with their friends as if absolutely nothing out of the ordinary had happened -- for a reason.

I recall a scene from a movie of a couple of decades ago -- Time After Time.  During one scene the main character -- H.G. Wells -- confronts a former friend from his own era who had stolen Mr. Well's time machine.  His former friend is none other than Jack the Ripper, who'd escaped the Victorian era in Well's time machine in order to avoid being hung.  "Jack" had then simply returned to practicing his same bloody trade in the late 20th century.

By way of explanation, Jack the Ripper's character tells a stunned Wells that "Ninety years ago I was a freak.  Today I'm an amateur."

Quote - Yep.  I've been making the same point throughout my "active" portion of this thread.    The parallels are truly eerie -- for anyone who's studied the end of bygone civilizations

I know by now this is pointless nitpicking (in the eyes of some), but some very serious historians (actually, many) would argue the point of Rome's "fall," as well as the cause(s) thereof. Gibbon's "fall" of the Pax Romana has been largely discredited.

All civilizations, including ours, have had periods in which they waxed and periods in which they waned, and often, depending on what one looks at and how one measures, both at the same time. Every civilization that no longer exists, by definition and in some limited sense at least, "fell," and there is no reason I can think of why one should expect any civilization, or any particular mainstream cultural point of view, to last indefinitely.

Greek culture transformed due largely to the failure of the Polis and the rise of Alexander and was eventually adopted and adapted by the Roman empire, and Roman civilization transformed or declined due largely to economic and military factors and gradually became the Byzantine Empire, the barbarian kingdoms of the West, the eventual dominance of European Catholicism, etc.. And there were many, many factors, and given that those successors adapted some of their institutions and officialdom from the Romans, and even in some cases considered themselves a natural evolution of the Roman Empire, there was not exactly a "fall."

"Transformation" versus "fall" -- I suppose it comes down to how one defines one's terms again ...

In any case, while my instinct is to agree that a civilization in which all, or large portions of the population, are only interested in carnal pleasure (the argument presumably being at the expense of more productive and civic-minded behavior) would very likely prove problematic, it is at least arguable how much of the "fall" of these civilizations had to do with people pleasuring themselves to death, and claims that some massive portion of our population are doing that in the present are at least somewhat questionable.

What is factual is that there are now over 300 million people in the US, and over six billion people on the planet, and many of those people living in crowded, close proximity to one another. There are not only very many more people committing crimes and doing immoral things than in the past, there are also very many more people working, raising and taking care of their families, and living largely conventional lives of mostly conventional morality than in the past.

But of course we only rarely see the behavior and activities of the latter folks made into major nightly news stories.

What is also factual is that there has never before the last few decades been a civilization in which the everyman was being so thoroughly inundated -- through mass media, the internet, etc. -- with so much information about illegal and immoral goings on hundreds and thousands of miles away, much of which may have been happening (relative to per capita, of course) without our knowing it many years ago when information did not flow so freely, so far, so fully, or in such quantity.

What is possible is that many of us may not be adapting our attitudes to correctly interpret the meaning and significance of all this new information-rich reality.

And what is at least thinkable is that the perception that so many of us have that things are so terribly bad now might be at least partly due to the above factors.

Of course it is also possible that Xeno and Shonner are right, and the end is nigh, or nearly so.

Something else I probably should've mentioned that some might want to consider is that some of what is interpreted today as signs of moral decay was considered well within societal norms not too long ago.

Several decades ago a man living in a small community could go to a local bar and get into a brawl and beat another man senseless, and sometimes even accidentally to death, and the odds of him being arrested for it were fairly slim.

In what has been frequently termed the "Old South," it was not particularly infrequent for grown men to court and/or marry what today we would all consider to be girls (i.e., children, not adults), and it was likewise true in the Old West that grown men sometimes married child brides of 12 or 14 and sometimes killed each other in the street in front of witnesses and walked away free men.

Some of these matters may have been due to differing economic conditions, responsibilities, etc., but the point of bringing these things up is not to condone (or even to condemn) the behavior of our forefathers, but to argue that, coinciding with the increasing sophistication of our civilization and increasing ubiquity of our institutions have evolved many more laws, more enforcement, and many more generally accepted rules of morality.

And perhaps all that, too, contributes to there being so many criminals and perverts about, i.e., some of such behavior, while it may always have been deemed to be irresponsible or in bad taste by some, was once considered to be neither crimes nor, by many, as particularly immoral.

Quote - I know by now this is pointless nitpicking (in the eyes of some), but some very serious historians (actually, many) would argue the point of Rome's "fall," as well as the cause(s) thereof. Gibbon's "fall" of the Pax Romana has been largely discredited.

Too bad that no one was around to tell the Roman women that in 410 AD.  The Roman women who committed suicide rather than permit themselves to fall into the hands of the Visigoths.

Quote - All civilizations, including ours, have had periods in which they waxed and periods in which they waned, and often, depending on what one looks at and how one measures, both at the same time. Every civilization that no longer exists, by definition and in some limited sense at least, "fell," and there is no reason I can think of why one should expect any civilization, or any particular mainstream cultural point of view, to last indefinitely.

True, insofar as it goes.  But it remains that certain historical cultural trends can be reliably and consistently pointed to as indicative of the character of societies before they fell from within.

Quote - Greek culture transformed due largely to the failure of the Polis and the rise of Alexander and was eventually adopted and adapted by the Roman empire, and Roman civilization transformed or declined due largely to economic and military factors and gradually became the Byzantine Empire, the barbarian kingdoms of the West, the eventual dominance of European Catholicism, etc.. And there were many, many factors, and given that those successors adapted some of their institutions and officialdom from the Romans, and even in some cases considered themselves a natural evolution of the Roman Empire, there was not exactly a "fall."

Aspects of both Roman and Greek culture remain with us to this day.  But, indeed: their nations fell.  And violently so.  The fact that their "ruins" -- both figurative and literal -- remain to this day is merely evidence that the thing itself is gone.  Shadows remain, sure.  But the originators died.

Quote - "Transformation" versus "fall" -- I suppose it comes down to how one defines one's terms again ...

shrug  The city of Rome took on a different character after it was sacked.  The same thing goes for Thebes, Tyre, Carthage, Tenochtitlan, and Saigon.  Some to a greater extent: others to a lesser extent.  There have many, many such.

When the original owners are dead, and new owners move in to take over: then I suppose that one can call such an event a "transformation", if one wishes to do so.  Heh -- vestiges of the original owner's culture still cling to the areas, even when their nation died right along with the original owners centuries or millenia ago.

Quote - In any case, while my instinct is to agree that a civilization in which all, or large portions of the population, are only interested in carnal pleasure (the argument presumably being at the expense of more productive and civic-minded behavior) would very likely prove problematic, it is at least arguable how much of the "fall" of these civilizations had to do with people pleasuring themselves to death, and claims that some massive portion of our population are doing that in the present are at least somewhat questionable.

:biggrin:  I'd suggest reading late Roman history.  And then reading about the cultural history of Europe in the decades prior to WWII.  And then reading about the cultural history of the Western world over the last 40 years or so.

And then turning on the television set: and watching a little network TV.

Quote - What is factual is that there are now over 300 million people in the US, and over six billion people on the planet, and many of those people living in crowded, close proximity to one another. There are not only very many more people committing crimes and doing immoral things than in the past, there are also very many more people working, raising and taking care of their families, and living largely conventional lives of mostly conventional morality than in the past.

Fortunately and unfortunately.  But few would argue that the character of what's considered to be culturally acceptable, and what's not -- has not changed considerably over recent decades.  And not just in terms of the quantities involved.

Quote - But of course we only rarely see the behavior and activities of the latter folks made into major nightly news stories.

There's a lot of the other kind of event around to report on.  But it's true: the character of the reporting appeals to the cultural interests of the day.  Our day: our times.  And the culture which prevails in it.

Quote - What is also factual is that there has never before the last few decades been a civilization in which the everyman was being so thoroughly inundated -- through mass media, the internet, etc. -- with so much information about illegal and immoral goings on hundreds and thousands of miles away, much of which may have been happening (relative to per capita, of course) without our knowing it many years ago when information did not flow so freely, so far, so fully, or in such quantity.

What is possible is that many of us may not be adapting our attitudes to correctly interpret the meaning and significance of all this new information-rich reality.

And what is at least thinkable is that the perception that so many of us have that things are so terribly bad now might be at least partly due to the above factors.

Or, alternately, it could be due to the fact that things such as mass school shootings simply did not happen 50 years ago: at a time in which guns (including full-auto machine guns) were easy for anyone to obtain via mail order.  Or at a time when parents -- such as my own parents -- wouldn't give a second thought to their children taking off on their bicycles and being gone alone all day.

Something must have changed in the meantime.  Something more than just the ready availability of "information".  BTW - they had television, newspapers, and radio back then too.

Quote - Of course it is also possible that Xeno and Shonner are right, and the end is nigh, or nearly so.

Could be.  I'd suggest starting a betting pool, only it's not something that I'd like to collect on.

Quote - Several decades ago a man living in a small community could go to a local bar and get into a brawl and beat another man senseless, and sometimes even accidentally to death, and the odds of him being arrested for it were fairly slim.

Overall crime rates were also considerably lower.

Quote - In what has been frequently termed the "Old South," it was not particularly infrequent for grown men to court and/or marry what today we would all consider to be girls (i.e., children, not adults), and it was likewise true in the Old West that grown men sometimes married child brides of 12 or 14 and sometimes killed each other in the street in front of witnesses and walked away free men.

All of those things still happen today......but with certain caveats.  The relationships with younger girls are normally carried out today without any need for complications like marriage.  And as for "killing someone in the street in front of witnesses and walking away": convicted 1st degree murderers in the US spend about 4 years on the average in prison for their crimes, statistically speaking.  That is to say: those few of them who are actually caught and then actually convicted.

IIRC, something on the order of 76% of the murders which occur in New York City go unsolved.  Nobody saw nuthin'.  In most cases, the police don't even have a suspect.

Did you happen to see the recent news report of the old man who was run over, and no one helped -- or even seemed to be particularly interested?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t4wWGH51-A

Typical.

Quote - Some of these matters may have been due to differing economic conditions, responsibilities, etc., but the point of bringing these things up is not to condone (or even to condemn) the behavior of our forefathers, but to argue that, coinciding with the increasing sophistication of our civilization and increasing ubiquity of our institutions have evolved many more laws, more enforcement, and many more generally accepted rules of morality.

As far as marrying young was concerned: depending upon the precise era to which you refer -- people used to have an average life expectancy of 35-40 years of age.  Under such circumstances, getting married at age 14 might have had some legitimate reasons behind it.

Quote - And perhaps all that, too, contributes to there being so many criminals and perverts about, i.e., some of such behavior, while it may always have been deemed to be irresponsible or in bad taste by some, was once considered to be neither crimes nor, by many, as particularly immoral.

True.  In late Rome it wasn't considered to be particularly perverted to sell castrated boys for sexual purposes.  Or to engage in certain other types of activities.

Give us a little time: we'll come around to it.  We've already come around on so much else.  You know: cultural advancement and all of that.

Quote - Give us a little time: we'll come around to it.  We've already come around on so much else.  You know: cultural advancement and all of that.

Well, concerning the imminent collapse of civilization, thousands upon thousands of self-appointed "prophets" throughout all of history would agree, except in regard to their own times and their own cultures. A few were right, the vast majority were wrong. History is replete with Chicken Littles screaming the sky is falling and the end of the world -- or at least as they know it; and occasionally -- as one might statistically expect -- they were right.

Perhaps you will be one of them. On your death bed perhaps you can let me know.

And really, Xeno, on the rest of it, you insist on missing much of my point.

That all these things happen today I don't contest.

Much of my point was that much of what happened in yesteryears was simply never documented and the information never disseminated, either because they were not considered crimes or because those who documented and disseminated such things were nonexistent or in such short supply. We simply don't know how many abortions there were when it was only midwives and pregnant women performing them. We don't have a very good idea how many people were killed in the streets either. We don't know how many kids were abducted or sexually abused.

Of course, we can guess, and historians can infer, but the fact is that there was simply not the ubiquity of law enforcement or news media or scholars or researchers or institutions which kept track of all these various statistics -- or at least certainly not even remotely on the scale that we have today.

As far as having TV way back then, too, I said several decades, and then, it was 3 channels, no internet, and in a social culture in which most "national" news was almost exclusively about Washington and major metropolitan areas, and many parts of the country strove mightily (as some still do) to keep their crimes and "weird goings on" under wraps for fear it would give their community a bad reputation.

And as far as 410 A.D. goes, and whoever the original owners of Greek and Roman civilization were (who, based on your argument, apparently must have lived for hundreds of years, i.e., not being dead yet), I'll read a little bit more if you will ... but Rome went through a lot of upheavals, up, down, and sideways, and though it was once widely accepted among historians like Gibbon -- whose work is now well over 200 years old -- that 410 was the "official" date of the "fall" -- more recent scholarship suggests that particular take on things is very much an oversimplification ...

Quote - Well, concerning the imminent collapse of civilization, thousands upon thousands of self-appointed "prophets" throughout all of history would agree, except in regard to their own times and their own cultures. A few were right, the vast majority were wrong. History is replete with Chicken Littles screaming the sky is falling and the end of the world -- or at least as they know it; and occasionally -- as one might statistically expect -- they are right.

History is replete with prophets who said "peace, peace", when there was no peace.  Or at least they knew it, and frequently -- they were wrong.

Many of those soothing (It's always been this way......so no need for concern.  Go back to sleep.)  prophets had a lot to say just prior to WWI and WWII.  Not to mention just prior to many other similar events of the more distant past.

It's recently been claimed that over all of recorded human history, there has been 20 years of cumulative "true world peace".  Personally, I tend to doubt that figure.  The "chicken littles" of today have good cause.  The "chcken littles" who took Hitler at his word, before that man had actually moved -- Winston Churchill foolishly believed that Hitler actually meant the things that he had said in Mein Kampf -- i.e. -- that Hitler wasn't just kidding around -- some of us likewise foolishly believe that the leaders of nations like Iran actually mean the things that they are saying that they are going to do to us today.  And that they will be only too happy to carry their words out at the first opportunity.

Those "chicken littles" of the early 20th century were disbelieved at the time by the soothing prophets of peace (of course).

Statistically speaking, I wonder who was right.......?

Quote - Perhaps you will be one of them. On your death bed perhaps you can let me know.

Boy, the places where Freudian analysis could go with that one..........

Quote - And really, Xeno, on the rest of it, you insist on missing much of my point.

Nope.  I just insist on responding to you various points, and pointing out the flaws in them.

Quote - That all these things happen today I don't contest.

Good.

Quote - Much of my point was that much of what happened in yesteryears was simply never documented and the information never disseminated, either because they were not considered crimes or because those who documented and disseminated such things were nonexistent or in such short supply. We simply don't know how many abortions there were when it was only midwives and pregnant women performing them. We don't have a very good idea how many people were killed in the streets either. We don't know how many kids were abducted or sexually abused.

Oh, there were always bad times.  Frequently brought on by people's behavior as a culture......cultures which were comprised of individuals, making individual cultural choices in keeping with their times.  Choices which brought about certain results.  Which takes us back to the examples that we have from history as to the places where certain types of accepted cultural mores will take us........because we have the pattern, oft repeated, of others who've tried the same sorts of social experiments which we are bent on trying today.  From which we expect to see different results than they did -- which someone has called the definition of insanity.

As for "not knowing"......in the Old West (one of the periods to which you refer) -- there wasn't nearly as much internecine warfare as the Saturday Matinee westerns would tend to lead someone to believe.  It depends upon your sources for your history, I suppose.

However, it's easy to suggest that there was a whole lotta child abductin', etc. goin' on that we didn't know about.  Because making such a completely unfounded suggestion represents an attempt to mitigate the guilt of the current era, by implying that "it was always like that -- we just didn't know about it".

When did a high school student shoot up his school a couple of generations ago?  And why was it OK for kids to ride their bicycles down to the creek in 1955, but not today?

Quote - Of course, we can guess, and historians can infer, but the fact is that there was simply not the ubiquity of law enforcement or news media or scholars or researchers or institutions which kept track of all these various statistics -- or at least certainly not even remotely on the scale that we have today.

True -- you are engaging in guessing.  That's correct.

But once again: you are attempting to dodge around my point by first obliquely admitting to it: and then speaking wonderingly of why others can't grasp your logic.  Now that's funny.

Yep, bad things happened "back then" as a result of the paths that people chose to follow "back then".  And while no modern statistician was there at the time to analyze things to a .001% sample (snort), and do so just as accurately as they do today ()........yet the results of their choices remain for us to read in the ruins.

BTW - as a side note on statistical matters: there has yet to be a presidential election since (and including) 1980 where the polls favored the Republican candidate.  The Democrat was always supposed to win -- every single time.  Including in 2004.

Quote - As far as having TV way back then, too, I said several decades, and then, it was 3 channels, no internet, and in a social culture in which most "national" news was almost exclusively about Washington and major metropolitan areas, and many parts of the country strove mightily (as some still do) to keep their crimes and "weird goings on" under wraps for fear it would give their community a bad reputation.

Uh......so what's different today?  Beyond the existence of the internet?  And the addition of some cable news channels?  Big steps, I'll acknowledge.  But people had ready access to information back then, too.

Quote - And as far as 410 A.D. goes, and whoever the original owners of Greek and Roman civilization were (who, based on your argument, apparently must have lived for hundreds of years, i.e., not being dead yet), I'll read a little bit more if you will ... but Rome went through a lot of upheavals, up, down, and sideways, and though it was once widely accepted among historians like Gibbons -- whose work is now well over 200 years old -- that 410 was the "official" date of the "fall" -- more recent scholarship suggests that particular take on things is very much an oversimplification ...

Where the part about "thinking that the original owners of the Greek and Roman civilizations lived for hundreds of years" came from escapes me.  The "original owners" refers to a society, a culture.  Not to individual human beings. :rolleyes:

Yep.  It's simplified.  As I mentioned earlier: it was a simple matter for the Roman women to grasp.  Vestiges continued after 410.  Vestiges always do.  But there was a cultural / historical process which led up to 410.  And we're doing an excellent job of mimicking that process today.

Well, a lot of high school kids of yesteryear were not actually high school kids. They were laborers, or signed up early for the military, or dropped out to take care of parents, or to look after younger siblings, etc., but I suppose that's really beside the point.

Nor did they have to deal with all the pressures and stresses of rapid scientific, technological, political, racial, cultural, class, and social change, which stresses even adults, as we all know.

They were also a smaller overall percentage of the population in most times, i.e., than we've had since the baby boom, and to some extent, more recently.

But high school shootings now apparently being the primary measure of all things bad and evil (for Xeno), plenty of horrendous crimes were committed, but because they were crimes of a different nature, like unreported and unpunished rapes, and unreported and unpunished wife and child beatings, and unreported and unpunished murders of blacks and homosexuals, etc., I suppose they didn't really happen and don't really count so far as you are concerned.

I suppose this could go on and on as you have now accused me of not having an argument without actually having a particularly coherent or empirically supported one yourself, but obviously, as always, at least when it comes to Xeno, there is no point to any of this.

In terms of how our modern moral decay may or not be worse or more pervasive than other times, I was not claiming to have the truth. For the most part, I have not even argued against many of the points and assumptions you are making. I don't claim to know that what I have offered is the explanation for anything. I was simply asking you, and others, to consider, and perhaps even examine and think about, some other possible explanations for some of what you so self-servingly (considering your political/social philosophy) assume, but I see that it is pointless ...

And strangely, it is not all that rewarding to discuss this, or anything else, with someone who has so obviously and completely closed their mind. Who would have thought? Go figure.

And in any case, at the moment, I've much, much better things to do.

Quote - Well, a lot of high school kids of yesteryear were not actually high school kids. They were laborers, or signed up early for the military, or dropped out to take care of parents, or to look after younger siblings, etc., but I suppose that's really beside the point.

Yep.  It's beside the point.

Quote - Nor did they have to deal with all the pressures and stresses of rapid scientific, technological, political, racial, cultural, class, and social change, which stresses even adults, as we all know.

Ah -- OK.  I get it.  So the pressures of the Great Depression, a couple of world wars, the threat of the atomic bomb, and a few other suchlike minor incidents didn't have much bearing on those young people's lives back then, eh?  It's so-o-o-o-o-o-o much harder today -- with Xbox's and full cable TV + DVD players in every 8-year-old's room.  Tough life.

Those high schooler's of yore had things so much easier than kids do now. :ohmy:

Quote - They were also a smaller overall percentage of the population in most times, i.e., than we've had since the baby boom, and to some extent, more recently.

shrug  The angst of youth was ever thus.

Many popular Victorian novels focused upon the central character of a rebellious teenager.  Often a 17-year-old girl.

Quote - But high school shootings now apparently being the primary measure of all things bad and evil (for Xeno)

Nope.  It's just an example of something that happens now, which clearly did not happen back then.  There are other examples, too.  Like workplace shootings.  And restaurant mass shootings.  And shopping mall mass shootings.  And......well, you get the picture.  Or perhaps you don't.

Quote - plenty of horrendous crimes were committed, but because they were crimes of a different nature, like unreported and unpunished rapes, and unreported and unpunished wife and child beatings, and unreported and unpunished murders of blacks and homosexuals, etc., I suppose they didn't really happen and don't really count so far as you are concerned.

Oh, they happened all right.  Please see my response to you in regards to this same rhetorical ground above.  It might help to clarify things.

But just in case if you missed it, I'll state this again:  "facts" based upon assumptions are no facts at all.  You continue to make the spurious claim that gazillions of crimes were committed that we know nothing about -- in an attempt to make the well-known crimes of today seem less by comparison.  Prove it.  Prove that those hidden events actually happened in per capita numbers to compare to today's outrageous numbers.

You cannot logically make the assumptions that you have to make in order to "prove" such an unfounded point.  You can only guess, and imply, and suggest.  Not establish.

I can point to the ruins of ancient civilizations, and to well-known historical facts.  You are the one who is making assumptions.

Quote - I suppose this could go on and on as you have now accused me of not having an argument without actually having a particularly coherent or empirically supported one yourself, but obviously, as always, at least when it comes to Xeno, there is no point to any of this.

See above in response to this type of rhetoric.  Again.

Quote - In terms of how our modern moral decay may or not be worse or more pervasive than other times, I was not claiming to have the truth. For the most part, I have not even argued against many of the points and assumptions you are making. I don't claim to know that what I have offered is the explanation for anything. I was simply asking you, and others, to consider, and perhaps even examine and think about, some other possible explanations for some of what you so self-servingly (considering your political/social philosophy) assume, but I see that it is pointless ...

History is as history does.  I suppose that one could argue that the Roman empire never actually fell at all.......as you seemed to imply, at least in a measure, earlier.

Tell me -- when will the next Senatorial appointments be made?

Quote - And strangely, it is not all that rewarding to discuss this, or anything else, with someone who has so obviously and completely closed their mind. Who would have thought? Go figure.

Once again: a high mark for ironic humor.  Without any question, DQ is the master of irony.  Especially when he's attempting to be high-sounding with vacuous rhetoric.

Quote - And in any case, at the moment, I've much, much better things to do.

Like sleep. 

Well, philosophically speaking, I remain HOPEFUL that donquixote has a truer world view, but I'm afraid XENOPHONZ more precisely mirrors my own.

I think the next few years will unequivocally chart our course in history. I am pessimistic. Hopeful, but pessimistic.

Quote -
Ah -- OK.  I get it.  So the pressures of the Great Depression, a couple of world wars, the threat of the atomic bomb, and a few other suchlike minor incidents didn't have much bearing on those young people's lives back then, eh?  It's so-o-o-o-o-o-o much harder today -- with Xbox's and full cable TV + DVD players in every 8-year-old's room.  Tough life.

Those high schooler's of yore had things so much easier than kids do now. :ohmy:

See, that's just the thing...100 years ago, people HAD TO deal with their lives.  The most of a "fantasy" people had to delve into back then was a book, a radio show, or their own imagination gasp.  Now, we've got 500+ t.v. channels, thousands of movies and video games, and no one seems to want to take the blame for anything in society today.  Back then, people had to deal with the depression because it simply was....and it made everyone conserve resources and work hard.  Today?  We've got a recession...But you'd hardly notice it with what people are buying.  Why stock up on non-perishible food items, when you can buy a new PS3?  Or, why buy the $50 converter box for your t.v., when you can spend $1000+ on a brand new flat-screen t.v.?  We don't live in the same reality now that we had 100 years ago.  

Okay, Xeno, I've finished staring into space, twiddling my thumbs, goofing off, and planning all those evil, illegal, immoral, nasty activities we so-called liberals are apparently always about (I told you I had much better things to do), and have decided, very stupidly I'm sure, to take another shot at this.

If some of the following comes across as insulting, I apologize. Call it my high-sounding vacuous rhetoric, if you like (and your anti-intellectual bias is showing by the way; you might want to tuck that in -- or maybe not). It's just that I don't know how to say some of this in a way that could not be interpreted as insulting (if one wants to interpret it that way).

To begin, I'm not much interested in all your barbs and thinly veiled insults. Some are somewhat clever, some are quite vapid, but whatever. I'm just not interested.

Nor am I interested in your throw-out-every-distraction-and-red-herring-but-the-kitchen-sink-then-oversimplify-and-restate-so-as-to-change-the-actual-meaning-of-what-was-originally-said approach to "debate." You make lots of declarative statements about the world as you see it, and I'm sure (make that almost sure) some are fact-based, but it is hard to tell about many of them because you do not generally try to back them up with any argument, and when you do, the facts you use tend to be anecdotal rather than anything that could be construed to be a point-by-point argument. That's fine. That's your style. And I admit, I do a bit of it too. But I am not interested in that either.

Nor am I particularly interested in your apparent need to preserve your apparently very large ego by refusing to ever acknowledge anything unless you said or thought of it first.

Nor am I interested much, anymore, in convincing you of anything. What I am interested in is not leaving others who may be so inclined with the impression that you necessarily always know what you are talking about. I can let a lot of things go, but I simply refuse -- well, while I still have the strength -- to let everything go.

So here goes:

Quote - Uh......so what's different today?  Beyond the existence of the internet?  And the addition of some cable news channels?  Big steps, I'll acknowledge.  But people had ready access to information back then, too.

I can't decide if you are really so unsophisticated or if this is simply part of a strategy to tucker out your "opponent" by demanding one exhaustive explanation after another to support the obvious while offering very little in the way of such explanation to support your own claims ... but in any case:

First off, your offhand near dismissal of the significance of cable channels and the internet is surprising as it should be apparent to anyone here on Renderosity how much they have transformed our lives, our information, and here on the internet, our interactions with one another, etc., and not merely nationally, but world-wide as illustrated by the very many members here from very many nations around the world.

Second, until recent decades, oh, let's say 50 years ago, but even to some extent since then, there were still very many Americans who lived in rural areas, some remote and a few not so remote, who did not have electricity, much less TV sets, radios, etc., and they, along with those who did have all those things, often performed hard labor from dawn to dusk, working on farms, ranches, hauling produce and supplies, working hard on oil wells, clearing land, chopping wood, slaughtering animals, and so forth. Not only did they work hard at hard physical activities, they did not have much in the way of leisure time. It is also true that many more than today who worked in metropolitan areas -- not just rural folks -- worked much harder physically as well, which I will come back to in a moment (with my "hi-faluting" rhetoric, so as not to disappoint).

Further, in addition to fewer TV channels (and far fewer radio stations for that matter), there were far fewer TVs and radios. One did not find a TV at every doctor's office, at every gymnasium, etc., etc., and the 3 channels were not on 24 hours a day, and the vast majority of the programming offered was not news and was of a much more limited variety, and there were certainly no 24-hour news channels, and weren't nearly as many communication satellites (actually none 50 years ago -- (http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/satcomhistory.html)), broadcast towers, cables, phone lines, reporters, news magazines, etc.

Additionally, there is a very good reason for the stereotype of the dumb athlete (and here goes that high-sounding rhetoric you like), and at least one of those reasons is that prolonged physical activity tends to tire one out, burn off nervous energy, release endorphins, etc., and for all those who worked physically hard from dawn to dusk, even those who had access to good reading material, TV, radio and such and wished to know and understand more about the world around them -- as anyone who has ever worked that hard knows -- the temptation to fall asleep during the nightly news must often have been overwhelming.

Having read widely and talked to my mother and father and their friends, and various others from previous generations, I have reason to believe that many -- outside of the best educated -- who grew up in rural areas (as well as many who lived in small to mid-size towns), as little as 40 and 50 years ago got much of their information through word of mouth, and the vast majority of that was local, not national. Many simply worked too hard and too long to have the time and energy to get it otherwise.

And so on. There is also the fact that many Americans were more provincial in their education and concerns. Conversations like this one -- and I'm starting to think it was a good thing -- not only did not take place very often because there was no internet, but because there were limited opportunities and venues for such. Rural citizens cared less about what went on in the cities and vice versa. Crimes that happened among the big city folk was of very limited interest, at best, to country folk, and vice versa. To some extent, it is still true, but not as profoundly.

So that is just some of how "what's different today." To go into more detail than that would likely require a detailed review of the 2nd half of the 20th century, and I simply don't have the inclination, and perhaps not the expertise.

As far as your other comments, I may or may not review them and respond to them at some point. But it really is a bother -- (if it brings you any satisfaction, you are succeeding somewhat in exhausting me if that is your strategy) -- and it seems so pointless since you seem -- and not just in this "debate" but in others that can be found here at Renderosity -- essentially incapable of acknowledging very much of anything unless, as I have already mentioned, you said or thought of it first.

No time to twiddle my own thumbs right now, DQ.  Other than to mention that you're a bit confused on the "high-sounding rhetoric" bit.  That has to do with your implied lip-curling in regards to your own self-proclaimed Higher Order of Deep Intellectualism: and to the lack of it on the part of any others with whom you disagree.  The rhetoric.......I have to admit.........is equally as profound as its basis. 

Quote - I can't decide if you are really so unsophisticated or if this is simply part of a strategy to tucker out your "opponent" by demanding one exhaustive explanation after another to support the obvious while offering very little in the way of such explanation to support your own claims ... but in any case:

You know -- the irony here is just too great to resist.  :lol:  It's quite funny.  Hilarious, in fact.  Thanks for that one.

As for the remainder: I'll have to get back at 'cha when I have more time to kill. 

Quote - the irony here is just too great to resist.    It's quite funny.  Hilarious, in fact.  Thanks for that one.

Not interested in insults, lame attempts at ridicule, etc., as I have already stated.

Instead, let me respond to some of your other claims with some more high-sounding rhetoric you can then pathetically dismiss as hilarious without any substantive acknowledgment (I am now certain) that you might not be all-knowing:

Quote - Ah -- OK.  I get it.  So the pressures of the Great Depression, a couple of world wars, the threat of the atomic bomb, and a few other suchlike minor incidents didn't have much bearing on those young people's lives back then, eh?  It's so-o-o-o-o-o-o much harder today -- with Xbox's and full cable TV + DVD players in every 8-year-old's room.  Tough life.

Again, you restate and attempt to change the meaning of what I said. I never said or suggested that such events had little or no bearing on young people's lives; and it is quite obvious you don't "get it."

It is well understood by physiologists that an advanced biological organism's average, day-to-day stress level has far more to do with immediate, constant stimuli, constant flux, and the perception of immediate threats than with great, infrequent events occurring peripherally to their direct life-and-death survival. It is true of human beings as it is true of any other creature with a sophisticated, well-developed nervous system.

Call it high-sounding rhetoric if you will, but instead of closing down to every thought but your own, and wasting my time as well as yours with pointlessness, how about go ask someone who has actually studied the subject?

Quote - You continue to make the spurious claim that gazillions of crimes were committed that we know nothing about -- in an attempt to make the well-known crimes of today seem less by comparison.  Prove it.  Prove that those hidden events actually happened in per capita numbers to compare to today's outrageous numbers.

You cannot logically make the assumptions that you have to make in order to "prove" such an unfounded point.  You can only guess, and imply, and suggest.  Not establish.

I can point to the ruins of ancient civilizations, and to well-known historical facts.  You are the one who is making assumptions.

And again you restate in order to change the meaning, and then demand that I prove your mischaracterizations.

I never suggested that gazillions of crimes were committed. What I suggested, as anyone who wishes to go back and read what I actually wrote can attest, is that in many respects we simply don't know, and not knowing means that to insist that our state of immorality or amorality is so much worse today is, at least to a significant degree, as much speculation and assumption as anything else. You are essentially comparing what is largely and thoroughly known, documented, statistically categorized, analyzed, and often covered incessantly by our often sensationalistic media to what is largely unknown, undocumented, etc.,  and saying that what is largely known is far worse. How absurd. I hope this is not what you term "logic." Nor have I ever suggested that crimes of the past in any way make the well-known crimes of today seem less by comparison. And since I never made either one of those claims, I don't feel particularly compelled to prove your mischaracterizations of what I actually said.

As for pointing to the ruins of ancient civilizations, and to well-known historical facts, yes you can do that, and sometimes you do, but mostly you merely claim to be uncommonly familiar with these matters because, presumably, you are such an expert on history. Perhaps this is because you don't have, or don't want to take, the time to actually lay it all out to make a coherent case, or perhaps it's for some other reason. But until you actually do lay it all out, in an ordered, logical, deductive and/or inductive manner, we will all simply have to make our own various assumptions about the depth and breadth of your understanding of these historical matters and how knowing them substantively supports, or doesn't, your point of view. And even assuming you do so at some point, which I don't expect, since as I've pointed out I've never actually made many of the claims you have suggested I've made, it will not be likely to, in many respects, adequately refute many of the various actual points I have made.

In any case, as I said, most of your facts are anecdotal as opposed to an attempt to muster a point-by-point argument.

As for the rest of your recent, various and sundry comments, as I said, I'm not interested in insults, attempts at ridicule and so forth. As is often the case, you resort to these tactics, among others, when you wish to avoid attempts at rebuttal, presumably because, other than such folderol, you have nothing much to say.

Quote - As for the rest of your recent, various and sundry comments, as I said, I'm not interested in insults, attempts at ridicule and so forth. As is often the case, you resort to these tactics, among others, when you wish to avoid attempts at rebuttal, presumably because, other than such folderol, you have nothing much to say.

:lol::lol::lol:

You're killin' me, DQ!  :biggrin:  I gotta admit -- you're one of the more snarky self-important types that I've run across.  It's pretty much a standard forum debate tactic to use ironic projection in the way that you do.........:biggrin:    I note that your last line of defense always seems to be a sneer, and always involves claims of inherent superiority.  I gotta tell ya: I love forumites like that.  They're so much fun to take down.

As for your interests or lack thereof: that's all entirely up to you.  But it's no never-mind to me.

And as for me "wishing to avoid attempts at rebuttal" -- do you really believe that?  Do you think that I have the least concern whatsoever about answering another of your moustache-twirling diatribes?  It's true that RW concerns take me offline for hours at a time, or even for a day or two: but rest assured.......I have no problems over the fearful (snort) thought of rebutting yet another University Freshman mixture coming from you.

Alright, you two.   Seriously, the back and forth is enough.  The personal attacks are a bit much from the BOTH of you. 

Quote - Alright, you two.   Seriously, the back and forth is enough.  The personal attacks are a bit much from the BOTH of you. 

Not a problem, Jen.  It doesn't bother me: such things never do.  But without the personal insults being allowed, I fear that DQ won't have much else left to say..........

But dropping them on this end, as per your indication. 

Quote - Alright, you two.   Seriously, the back and forth is enough.  The personal attacks are a bit much from the BOTH of you.

Okay. In spite of Xeno's characterizations, and yours, I believe I have kept it far more civil (though admittedly "snarky" in Xeno's terminology) than Xeno has. I do not agree that I have engaged in particularly personal attacks other than having said that Xeno is very close minded, engages in ad hominem attacks, and is unwilling to acknowledge much of anything, all of which I firmly believe is evident to anyone who bothers to read his posts, but you're the moderator, so whatever you say.

As I predicted some time ago, and have repeatedly noted, it is all pointless anyway, and I am done here.

*....and as we break for half time, the combatants move back to their rest areas for refreshments.

we were to have the Arakeen Marching Band play for us this week, but due to an unforseen problem, they are unable to attend.

instead we have the Famous Klingon Morris Dancers of Qo'noS performing "arggh ow ow aaarrgh erk' with live painsticks.

So we turn to our Team for predictions on the 2nd half of this exciting match...

Bahhh -- rather than waste bandwidth in citing lines of quotations from your last couple of posts -- I'll just roll over some points of interest here:

You seem to be taking the position that most people living in the 1960's and earlier were a bunch of ignorant, uninformed provincial dunces: and that no one had an educated ear attuned to national -- or even to local -- news events.  And that the media of that day was so limited that the average person simply couldn't hope to grasp the magnitude of passing world events.  :rolleyes:  I have to admit that such attitudes are standard fodder for self-important snobs (who fancy themselves to be Great Intellectuals -- and so superior to all of the mere mortals below), but the realities were (and are) often quite different.

People -- including people living back in the day -- were as much of a mix of the informed and the uninformed as they are right now.  In spite of the famous 24-hour news cycle that we all have the joy of living in today: there are still plenty of people -- as in those that Howard Stern's man on the street reporter recently interviewed -- who when informed that Obama had picked Sarah Palin as his running mate: praised Obama for his wisdom and his foresight in making such a superb choice.  And that's another reason why they were voting for Obama, too..........

So, yes: ignorant people exist in spite of all that the 24-hour news cycle can do for (or perhaps to) them.

I'd take a look at the famous 8th-grade standardized test from 1895 (admittedly controversial as to precisely how we should interpret it in the light of today's 8th graders -- because some people don't like the implications):

http://people.moreheadstate.edu/fs/w.willis/eighthgrade.html

I can tell you something about the 60's - I was there.  Little boys in the 3rd grade even knew about LBJ and "what he was doing about LSD and dope and all that".  Some of them wee saddened that LBJ had chosen not to run again, too.  (shudder)  But after what had happened to him in New Hampshire, it probably couldn't be helped, you see......  We discussed Vietnam, the Soviet Union, Goldwater, WWII and Patton, the Civil War, NASA.......and so forth.  And I was raised in a small southern town.

Information was more than readily available for anyone who cared to casually look.

Attempt to deny the clear facts on their face as much as you like: we, as children, had no fear about going where we liked in those days.  And nothing ever happened to any of us as a result.  Or only fear was from the mean old man or old lady who lived down the street, and that everybody (meaning us kids) hated.  It's not like that today.

People didn't shoot up schools, restaurants, workplaces, shopping centers, etc. in that day, either.  Charles Whitman was the beginning of such: and at the time, he was so notable because he was so totally shocking, an abberation, a freak.  Today he'd be a minor blip in the 24-hour news cycle.  Just another one in a long list.

You know, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, which so galvanized the entire nation's attention in it's day -- and which so outraged the public at that time........to the public of that era: it was an unthinkable, horrific crime.  By contrast: today, a mere incident on the order of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre -- at least in terms of the number of people killed -- hits the news every couple of months or so, at least.  If not more often.  It's another temporary blip on cable.  "Hey, Ethel -- did you see that?  Another crazy killed 7 people because his girlfriend broke up with him.  yawn  Be sure to turn off the TV, will ya?"  One week after, that particular news story involving 7 dead teens-old folks-children-women-whoever will have been totally forgotten by most of the public.  If they ever learned of the incident in the first place.  The once-shocking has now become the everyday, the hum-drum.  So are things different now?  Nahhh.....they just can't be...........

In the 1950's, a divorce was a major cause of scandal for local neighborhoods at that time.  Today, it's nothing at all.

I could go on and on..........

Are things different today than they were a couple of generations ago?  Are people's attitudes different?  Is amorality on the move as a cultural wave in our times?  Yes, it is.  And it's not the ready availibility of the news cycle which has caused this state of affairs.  It's the tenor and the calling of our times: as expressed in the opinions, thoughts, desires, and the hearts of individuals.

No, we didn't get here overnight.  But -- as Rome's fall didn't happen because of the events of a single year: but the cracks in late Roman society grew over decades.........that single year of 410 AD was the result of a society in decline for some time before.  410 was merely the culmination of the effect.  Likewise, a decent structural engineer can see the same cracks forming in our own foundation today.  In fact, a sharp-sighted layman can spot the warning signs -- if he cares to see.

Quote - So we turn to our Team for predictions on the 2nd half of this exciting match...

I dunno -- there might not be a second match.  At least if the combatants are actually "done here".  But then again: you never can tell for sure. 

Ok, that's enough, locking the thread.