[lubbockjoe]

"Hayuck, yuck, yuck, Them damn lib'ruls just hate the family!" What does this even mean really?

It's dog-whistle speak used to rally the base. The target audience hears, "Remember sodom and gomorrah... Them gay-lovers is gonna tear down the very fabric of society!"

[Optimate]

I don't believe that most liberals/leftists are consciously against the traditional family. However, the outcome of the public policies and values they espouse does undermine the institution of family. There was once a time when men and women got married if they unintentionally conceived a child. This was done for financial reasons and because it was an acknowledged fact that children have the best chance of success (especially boys) when there's a mother and a father raising them under the same roof. Marriage also served to create bonds between different families and therefore create a larger foundation of support. The institution of family is the original welfare system and it is far more efficient than the welfare state.

Now women can just go to the state for resources when they have children. Women can now collect welfare checks and food stamps and make men pay child support for children they never wanted. Women now have complete control over their fertility and whether or not they give birth or put children up for adoption. However, men are forced to offer financial support for children that they never wanted in the first place. Now I'm not saying that these men bear no responsibility for conceiving children. What I am saying is that men don't "get women pregnant" as some people like to say. Women allow themselves to get pregnant. Furthermore, now that they have 100% control over their fertility and whether or not they give birth, they should bear the responsibility if they get pregnant and/or keep children. In my opinion, men shouldn't be forced to give financial support for illegitimate children.

I'm not saying that men should have children and not take care of them, however. I'm just saying that the fact that women can use the state to force men to provide financial support for illegitimate children or children that the man didn't declare guardianship over reduces the incentive for marriage and responsible behavior on the part of women. Not to mention the fact that it gives women the opportunity to trap men, which is why I never take a woman for her word when she says "I'm on birth control".

[Drlee]

There was once a time when men and women got married if they unintentionally conceived a child. This was done for financial reasons and because it was an acknowledged fact that children have the best chance of success (especially boys) when there's a mother and a father raising them under the same roof.

Well let's start here. This statement is, of course, not true. Marriage was not based upon some notion of giving children the best chance. Marriage takes many forms and is practiced for many reasons in different cultures. In Christian societies some people do marry to give children legitimacy. That was common when I was a child. Several of my friends married to 'make an honest woman' out of their pregnant girlfriend and to remove the stigma of bastard birth.

Now women can just go to the state for resources when they have children. Women can now collect welfare checks and food stamps and make men pay child support for children they never wanted.

This ignorant argument just sets me off. Men have 100% control over whether or not to have children. They can keep their equipment in their pants and failing that use birth contol. A vasectomy makes a vas deferens you know.

However, men are forced to offer financial support for children that they never wanted in the first place.

Once a child is born the argument is not about what the man wants or what the woman wants. It is about what is good for their child. I am a conservative. I believe that men should pay for their children. Obviously you do not believe this way. Or are you one of those conservatives who believe we should force women to have children that they don't want? Well obviously you are.
You said:

In my opinion, men shouldn't be forced to give financial support for illegitimate children.

I object to the term "illegitimate children". Children are people with the same rights and privileges and you and I have. It is seriously fucked up for you or anyone else to consider them illegitimate.

So your solution, which goes against everything either a liberal or conservative would believe is that only women should have responsibility for children, that the state has no role at all in the care and protection of children and that men should care for their children but should not have to if they find it inconvenient. That is rediculous.

But wait! What's this? You said:

Not to mention the fact that it gives women the opportunity to trap men, which is why I never take a woman for her word when she says "I'm on birth control".

I see. But if you do NOT decide to be an adult and take responsibility for your own birth control then your error in judgment should be paid for only by the woman and child should you decide to spend the child support money on moon shoes. That my man is a very immature position to take. Happily just about everyone in the world disagrees.

[ralfy]

Likely, increasing prosperity leads to the weakening of the "traditional family" and the rise of liberalism focused on issues involving gender rights, freedom of speech, etc.

[Quantum]

The 'traditional family' (I assume you mean the nuclear family) has only existed since capitalism and is withering due to the societal changes brought on by capitalism, e.g. a decrease in real wages means that women are forced to work to maintain their standard of living and this has a negative effect on family life. The nuclear family is a creation of Western individualism and isn't common outside the West, where living standards are lower and where collectivist values. The nuclear family should be cast aside because it symbolises opulence, extreme individualism and selfishness, plus raising your children by extended families and society in general is healthy for child development, since it encourages socialisation and strengthens civic society.

[ralfy]

The 'traditional family' (I assume you mean the nuclear family) has only existed since capitalism and is withering due to the societal changes brought on by capitalism, e.g. a decrease in real wages means that women are forced to work to maintain their standard of living and this has a negative effect on family life. The nuclear family is a creation of Western individualism and isn't common outside the West, where living standards are lower and where collectivist values. The nuclear family should be cast aside because it symbolises opulence, extreme individualism and selfishness, plus raising your children by extended families and society in general is healthy for child development, since it encourages socialisation and strengthens civic society.

The nuclear family existed long before capitalism and is common outside the West. Extended families are combinations of nuclear families or nuclear families with non-nuclear members.

Nuclear families do not necessarily symbolize "opulence, extreme individualism and selfishness" as they appear when individual family members need to help each other. Extended families are formed when poverty becomes more prominent. In contrast, the break-up of nuclear families, with family members leaving to live elsewhere, is based on higher levels of individualism.

[CounterChaos]

Quantum Leap! So many of us were raised in the "Leave it to Beaver" "Father Knows Best" environment, that we "assume" that this post-war picture is what a family should be. Who really benefits from that assumption and who pays the price for trying to reach that goal in modern industrial society? Capitalists benefit and women pay the price. Quantum hit it on the nail-head when she said opulence.

Remember the old African proverb that Hillary used?: "It takes a village to raise a child."

Of course Africa is not modern industrial society.......It's the real world.

Modern Industrial Society is not the real world people........So unfortunately, real world rules don't apply.

Welcome to Chaos.

[Unthinking Majority]

I don't know, I'm not liberal. I was hoping the anti-family left could tell me.

LOL what?

I've only met a couple people who could be considered 'anti-family'. They didn't want to have kids. But then again, they still had families!

[opticaljim]

Since you claim to be a conservative and consider anyone outside of your philosophy to be a liberal, then I suppose you are including libertarians like me. I consider that somewhat ironic since it is the libertarian who the true conservatives.

There is no such thing as a traditional family. There never has been.

Throughout the history of man there has been disease, war, natural disasters and young mother and fathers taken before their time. This has been far more natural than the idea of a "traditional" family. Almost all famlies throughout history banded together from the remnants of previously broken ones. Families took in orphans, fathers remarried and gained children, households consolidated simply for the purpose of survival. The tragedies they shared, the hardships they overcame, and the faith they depended on was a far stronger bond than blood.

This is the true American way, this is what family values is all about. It's about willingly creating families that include those who are too small or weak to survive without them, parented by those with the compassion to give all when they were required to give none.

I suppose these would include men and woman who are gay, polygamist, or who comprise some type of different community structure. God knows these people, he knows their heart, he needs no assistance from a "conservative" to determine whether forming such unions are "moral".

[USB]

You'll be surprised that despite their support for abortion rights, liberals are the most grateful sons and daughters by way of taking care of their elders when they reach senility and old age. A lot of Conservatives throw their ailing parents in senior's homes and let them remain comatose without concerns of whether they're already dead or not. Money matters are usually the cause of these ungrateful decisions.

[EastCoastAmerican]

I believe that liberals want people to have the freedom to raise and care for children in whatever way that they find best. The "traditional" nuclear family is just one of many family set-ups, and liberals believe that other forms of families are just as valid and worthy of respect.

Divorce is regrettable, but sometimes necessary for the welfare of the family. The alternative is for couples who don't love each other to live together. Liberals are in favor of divorce because they realize that many marriages cannot sustain a healthy relationship. In this case, single parents did not "fail" their children through divorce.

Same-sex couples, as proven by objective scientific studies, are just as capable of raising children in a loving environment. Liberals believe that such unions can strengthen family bonds.

Additionally, liberals believe that women should have the choice as to whether or not she wishes to raise children and marry. Many conservative Christians criticize the Woman's Rights Movement for encouraging females to become financially independent, but marriage should be a choice rather than a must-have goal forced upon women through societal pressure.

So no, liberals don't hate the traditional family. They believe that the nuclear, heterosexual family is just one of many options, and what works for some people does not work for others.

[Negotiator]

Personally I highly value the "traditional" family as a good emotionally stable environment for children to grow up in.

That doesnt mean I would want to force anyone to create such a family, or that I want to priviledge people who have such a family.

It should just be an option available to everyone.

[kronEve1]

Personally i don't want kids., that's all it boils down to. I think lower birthrates are good because the world is becoming massively overpopulated.

[SE23]

I believe that traditional nuclear families work out the best for society, espescially during hard financial times, and the role of fatherhood has been severely undermined by feminist propagandists and other groups over the years, ironically fundamentalist christians started this off, but thats another story.
However choice is important and it is equally ignorant to dismiss any other types of families as being "invalid".

[Tirunus]

What the hell is the "Traditional family"? Are we all pretending as if the nuclear family is not a modern invention?

[Decky]

Are we all pretending as if the nuclear family is not a modern invention?

Right wing people do that. Go ahead and present them with evidence that the nuclear family is a product of the industrial revolution, I guarantee you they will totally ignore it.

[Rei Murasame]

Pretty much. But I think that they actually know that this is the case, because when they are complaining about "Cultural Marxism", they acknowledge that all of this, this which we are presently living in, is a capitalist structure which was assembled by centre-rightists, and that it is supposedly under attack.

So when they ignore your observation about the nuclear family, that is a tactical ignoring that they are doing, because to the public they must say that everything somehow emerged spontaneously, but amongst themselves they are fully aware that they have "Cultural Capitalism" which was, like anything else, in fact assembled.

[Jeliza-Rose]

Liberals: Do you really hate the traditional family?

[sarcasm]Oh yeah, why do you think there are so many Kennedys?[/sarcasm]

I gotta hand it to the PoFo'ers, you guys can really run with even the most idiotic thread topics.

[AdamSmithfanboy]

Long term loving relationships and parental love seem like two of the most blissful things in the world to me. That said, I don't see why long term loving relationships and parental love can't involve two partners/parents of the same gender.

[Decky]

Pretty much. But I think that they actually know that this is the case, because when they are complaining about "Cultural Marxism", they acknowledge that all of this, this which we are presently living in, is a capitalist structure which was assembled by centre-rightists, and that it is supposedly under attack.

So when they ignore your observation about the nuclear family, that is a tactical ignoring that they are doing, because to the public they must say that everything somehow emerged spontaneously, but amongst themselves they are fully aware that they have "Cultural Capitalism" which was, like anything else, in fact assembled.

I think you sound a little paranoid to be honest.

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

I just think they assume the current family has exist since the world was created 6000 years ago and that auguring against this would make the baby Jesus cry.