Bring back hanging and National Service to the UK.

Some salient points there Elvis' Babe! Good post!

Wise words indeed from Elvis' Babe.

Good points Elvis' Babe. And I'm really glad to see you back!!

Carolyn.....I agree with your thoughts about the extended family. Our society is so transient that our families end up spread all over the map. Mine certainly is. That sort of a support system is invaluable.

i was also an odd kid. but more of the anti-social depressed reject type. i also had a hard time forgiving my parents for sending me to a tough love program for troubled teens in ensenada, mexico for my depression (i'm sure i've given you the story before on here--think bad. very, very bad. the program got shut down by the authorities.)

parents do make a lot of mistakes. best thing that my parents have learned with me, because i am such an odd case (asperger's syndrome being part of it), is that i am mentally much older than i am, and my opinions do matter. however, i was never a free-range kid growing up. in fact, i was way overprotected. i had to rebel before they loosened up. it used to be that i was forced to do things like sports and instruments so i would be like the other kids on all stars etc... then they loosened up and realized that i'm not other kids. i'm me.

one of the greatest things my parents did though was when i was interested in something historically, they would do their best to take me places that i was fascinated by. a recent trip to memphis comes to mind, though my mom kinda forced my dad into it. but this same principle has sent me to england, germany, austria, and even a nile cruise in egypt. not to mention the 5+ times i've been to boston.

these weren't parents going to have a good time and leave the kid with a babysitter vacations. they were let's give our daughter the best education possible--and they were enjoyable on top of that for them.

my parents have always been very anti-babysitters. they want to raise me. not leave me with some nanny--only good thing about nanny's is if you get a foreign language speaking one the kids can become bilingual. the problem with nannys and babysitters is that the parents miss out on watching their own kids grow up. my parents and i all believe that being the main nurturing figures in the kid's life is best.

in fact, my parents didn't get babysitters very often, and only a few times when they weren't allowed to take me. there were many occasions that they were invited to that they didn't go to because they didn't allow kids. in fact, i went to some of these occasions as an exception because they wouldn't have gone otherwise and i was good-mannered. i always went out to dinner with them. and when my mom had to go pick up my dad at the airport, she'd rather i stayed home on the couch reading a book (i still remember reading jane eyre on the couch in 4th grade while she was picking up my dad) home-alone than hire babysitters and what-not. she didn't believe in them. though i have done a little babysitting myself. a kid can be taught to be responsible, i think. though i was probably a very special case. my half-brother was out of control, and my mom (his step-mother) pretty much ended up trying to put him on track from a mess caused by his real mother.

my step-sister went to live with her real mother and ended up getting an abortion at 15 (which my dad had to pay for). one of the things my dad regrets most is letting his other two kids live with their new-agey (i think she was an alcoholic?) mother for their high school years. they've somewhat straightened out--especially eric who appreciates my mother, but elizabeth is still sore about her jealousy for my dad being with my mom--part of the reason she went liberal is to spite my dad--and then she has the nerve to ask him for money all the time. and she hates my mother a lot even though my mom in her 20s and early 30s was raising her for her entire childhood. elizabeth tends to associate me with my mom as well. she left out my mom in her wedding pictures and didn't want me in the picture with her siblings. eric still can't stand up to his real mother though--he always plays the nice guy.

i suppose it helped that i was such a sweet little child that never was hyper and was always really good mannered. but i think part of the kids that act up have that problem because they are trying to get attention. i suppose it's the only child thing for me. i never had to try to be the center of attention. i always was in my parent's lives. they never saw me as a burden, even though i did give them hell in my early teen years.

i think the reason my mom in particular worked so hard to give me the best childhood possible was she wanted to give me everything she never had. her father was frugle and not a very warm person--though he got better when he got older (though he is the only grandparent that i've really known and actually like), and her mother ran off with the neighbor. and you've already heard about my dad's experience with his mother--he left home at 17 for a reason. my parents make it very clear that they'd rather work through their tough spots than do what their parents did. i think that's a part of the reason they try so hard to do the best for me...

it took my mom a long time to admit she wasn't perfect. the thing is, is that my parents have stuck together through a few things that most couples wouldn't have tried hard enough to work through. that's my biggest problem with divorce. a lot of couples get it that only get it because they don't want to admit they have faults and work through the tough spots. sticking together through thick and thin actually meets something to them, as well as me. and their relationship is better for it.

my personal theories.

Last edited by Elvis' Babe on Thu Aug 04, 2005 5:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

Did I stumble upon Elvis' Babe's "blog"?

Just kidding. Hey, you sound like a survivor. Hang in there!

Thanks Squirrel for backing me up.

I was just trying to get the point across that there is a big lack of discipline in todays society.
(It seems by Stephen's comments that you need to have been in the armed forces to have an opinion on this topic.)
Im not saying that all young men/women are like that but thats just my opinion.
Im not blaming them or the parents is just that way its turned out.

I think that if anyone who commits a certain crime, and if that person is found guilty, then it should be up to the victims families to seal the fate of that offender.The court system in the UK is a complete joke.

When i was a teenager ,i was scared of the police but now they are looked upon with no respect, especially from the young thugs that roam the streets just looking for someone to beat up or some house to ransack.

Maybe National Service was abit extreme but i think young offenders should be treated with more harshness than they do.

I also think that teenage girls who get pregnant should get NO money off the government at all.They want a baby then they take on all the responsiblities that go with being a mother.

Sean

I also think that teenage girls who get pregnant should get NO money off the government at all.They want a baby then they take on all the responsiblities that go with being a mother.

That's the problem. The government give the money to the baby VIA the mother. Unfortunately the mother thinks it's hers for having the baby.

Sean:

I have nothing against your motives for wanting tougher crackdowns on crime. I agree with you fully on that, and also that the courts system in this country is a complete joke. It seems to me that the police waste more time making sure you get three points on your licence for doing 34mph in a 30mph zone than they do making sure people who sexually assault old ladies in their homes are brought to justice.

I was just trying to get the point across that there is a big lack of discipline in todays society.

Because people may get offended by discipline.

"That's offensive!" waah cry is the most powerful tool in this day and age.

It's incredible the amount of leverage it brings.

Offended by this...offended by that....

It actually disciplines us - at least attempts to thru peer pressure, company policies, new laws and lobbys - to conform the world to some offense-free utopia-goal of social behavior and reformed thinking.

Meanwhile, kids in school can't reference that offensive ol' bible, but can (even must) read a koran
- see? Tolerance and Discrimination simultaneously.
neat trick

Take God/Prayer/Pledge out of school and the worldly ways come in.
Crime and violence enters the school.
Drugs. Teen pregnancies, juvenile crime. School shootings.

But at least that pesky ol' painting of Ten Commandment tablets was taken down.
That alone made the school a much worse environment.

Drugs. Murders. Crime. Runaways. Teen Sex. Teen Moms.
was that happening with the youth in 1940-1960 for example?
No.
Barely a slim minority of such things happening.

More sensible times. More conservative times.
Kids got spanked too. Lotta church going too. Just ask them Presleys.
More safer and self-reliant times for being a kid and parent.
But shame,s ome say, on the ways and times of 1940-1960

Thank heavens that secular polticial correctness and extreme liberal ideaology has come to change and save the world in the past 30someodd years.

yes, isn't the quality of life, liberty, school and safe neighborhoods so much better now?

My grandfather, 81, has seen America and the world change in 8 decades.
The gadgets get better but prices climb higher and humanity gets lower.

As a country boy he didn't get much schooling back in those days but when he was 14 he had a job - he wasn't a teenager - he was a YOUNG MAN. Like many in his generation, had been raised to be a self-reliant man by 14-16, and he worked hard for decades - worked all over from Oregon to the UK - and there in the Air Corp, he fought in WWII - he sure as hell didn't dodge it and sit around smoking crack complaining about Roosevelt.
and quoting Fogerty.

GG,

Yeah, your gonna have to write that again cause i didnt understand a word of that.

Sean

Yeah GG, I'll give an answer but it is kiinda more of a guess.

Is it 137 ?




I don't know if all that is true, it just seems to be.

Was the grass greener and the sky really bluer back then ?

Hi Steve,

Yeah, its a bit of a tricky one.
Im sure there is a message in the post GG put but its just getting it coded properly.


Sean

haha code this, mutha fu-

you twerps feigning comprehension are so cute.


YES.
Many things were better back in a time period when kids were better behaved. Better disciplined. Better reared. Better mannered.
Before drug use by kids. Before school shootings.
Back when your kids could walk to and from school or to town without fear of vanishing without a trace because of perverts, or being accosted to try dope.

Understand that Sean?

i made the very point gg.

remember the story i told about how my dad and his brothers would go to nyc on the train BY THEMSELVES to go see the yankees?

would you let your two 8 year olds and a 7 year old go on the train to nyc today by themselves?

end of story.

yeah, the 40s - early 60s were better. if you exclude the hippie feminist liberal culture that was on the EDGES of society, even the 70s were pretty innocent.

it's the liberal element that has created drug problems among youth, free sex (and calling it "love"), kids not having a parent at home to raise them, loose definition of the word "marriage" and making it popular to divorce for any selfish reason, the rewriting of history to brainwash youth into believing their agendas and infiltrating the school systems and teacher's unions, dumbing down the school system and punishing those that want to learn, etc...

good job liberals.

You're a very smart and reasonable woman,-young lady
and intelligent member of this MB

Best to you and yours.

GG

GG, c'mon this isn't strictly true, is it ?

I mean you're right about certain things being better back then, I have no doubts about that, but to say todays thinking and todays liberal influences are damaging (which I agree overall they are) tends to suggest you are saying that there was no damage being done 30,40,50 years ago or at least comparatively.

Yet I think back to the KKK, I think back further to a young girl not being allowed to go to school, not because she was disruptive to her peers, not because she didn't want to learn, but because she was the wrong color.

And things were better back then ?

No. Some things were much much worse and some things were better. Things have changed for good and some things (maybe more things I grant you ) for bad.

the kkk did less damage than the hippies and the feminists. the kkk was never popular. the hippies and feminists are glamorized in today's culture. conservatives hate the kkk and racism--they were always outskirt elements. the liberals LOVE hippie culture, feminism, and INSANE political correctness to the point of you can't say anything they don't agree with. even though all those groups were on the outskirts of society--it ain't the conservatives embracing any of it.

for example: the ACLU is trying to make the mexican border open because it's "discrimination" to block the border to illegals. true story that's happening right now. that's why we have our minutemen out there, and why the ACLU is trying to sue the hell out of them.

the ACLU just likes to sue people i think. i don't think they have brains.

How many did the femenists murder ?

:lol: haha code this, mutha fu-

you twerps feigning comprehension are so cute.


YES.
Many things were better back in a time period when kids were better behaved. Better disciplined. Better reared. Better mannered.
Before drug use by kids. Before school shootings.
Back when your kids could walk to and from school or to town without fear of vanishing without a trace because of perverts, or being accosted to try dope.

Understand that Sean?

Yeah i understand that now GG.But what i dont understand is why you didnt just put that in the first place instead of getting all flash. You could have saved yourself alot of time unless you have nothing else to do.

Sean

How many did the femenists murder ?

How many abortions has there been since Roe vs. Wade?

How many did the femenists murder ?

How many abortions has there been since Roe vs. Wade?

sobering point, Pete.

How many did the femenists murder ?

How many abortions has there been since Roe vs. Wade?

Well, we're averaging about 1.4 million per year. This is the blood sacrifice of the Religion of the Left......

How many did the femenists murder ?

How many abortions has there been since Roe vs. Wade?

What sentence did they get as an average ?

Sean:

This generation of whizzkid politicians are not far sighted enough to invest properly in teachers and resources in our schools so they naturally buckle under the responsibility of having up to 60 a class in some areas. The natural consequence of this is that what teachers there are left are too overwhelmed and physically incapable of giving detailed attention to every child so the child feels that no-one gives a toss about them. Thus, they go out looking for attention in any half-brained way they can.

This is the generation of politicians who have increased education spending by billions year-on-year? There are 25,000 more teachers and 80,000 more support staff than in 1997. It's misleading to pull a figure of 60 a class out of the air when less than 2% of primary school children are in classes larger than 30. The average class size for primary schools is around 26 and for secondary schools around 22.

I agree with your point about parental responsibility though. If a kid enters school with no social skills and an unwillingness to learn, the battle is half lost. Parents who don't place any value in education will inevitably pass that on to their children. More often than not, the real problem is not class size, but unruly children.

TJ:

Unfortunately these figures you quote are in themselves misleading. The reason why there are 25,000 more teachers and 80,000 more support staff is because there should be 115,000 more teachers. Support staff are now doing the jobs that teachers used to do. Not that that is in itself a bad thing, but where the money should be going is keeping schools open. That was my point, where you have classes of 60 (my wife has taught classes of this size) is because all the schools in the local area are closing. Where I live in Borehamwood, all bar one of the secondary schools have closed, and over half of the primary/junior schools in the last 10 years. And that is thanks to our short-sighted, whizzkid politicians.

My point is that it is obviously cheaper to pay non-qualified support staff than to pay for the equivalent number of teachers in schools that central government should be keeping open.