Culture of Death

[Anxious Girl]

So...who wants to find the errors in Lori's new post?

lorialexander.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-culture-of-death.html#idc-container

My grandfather's brother got divorced. My ma's side of the family still keeps in touch, especially my grandmother.

... Tell that to my 2nd cousins who're funny, lovable, and pretty.

It's possible to discipline without spanking. Have you ever heard of taking away computers/game systems that children play with for a week? It's a nightmare that kids don't want.

How stupid are you? You do realize that there will be plenty of heterosexuals to reproduce, right?

Purposeful ignorance isn't a hobby, Lori.

QFT.

[chaotic life]

No such thing as the "Good Old Days."

Laura Ingalls Wilder was married to a mess of a deadbeat and had to support her family all by herself. Her daughter Rose Wilder Lane once wrote of attempting suicide she was so miserable in her marriage and eventually divorced. There goes the main heroine of the "Good Old Days" contingent.

I had to read a book called "A Century of Childhood" for a Juvenile Delinquency class. Totally opened my eyes about the myth of the "good old days." I'm currently reading a book When Abortion was Illegal It was completely legal until the mid-1800s and was then outlawed primarily by doctors trying to push midwives out of business NOT for genuine moral issues.

[jenny_islander]

So Wilder married somebody like her dad . . . yeah, I guess that isn't surprising.

Back when women were ladies and men were manly, there was one OB/GYN in this town. One. And he felt free to buckle every woman into stirrups at her annual exams and molest the ones he found attractive. Who could have reported him? He was The Doctor and they were just women.

[Burris]

Our cultural fascination with death (in the news, on TV, etc.) is coupled with a fearful confusion about the natural realities of it. I’d say that underpins a lot of what we produce around death as a society: People often seem desensitized to mortality when it’s one turn removed (such as through a camera lens) but fearful when faced with the corpse of another human being before said has been cleaned, embalmed, and dressed.

That’s not what Lori means, however; and nor does she even mean a culture where life – some or all of it – is actively and systematically devalued in service to some political or ideological goal. (If she were talking about that, then the death-worshipping cults created by religious fanaticism would be high on her list of culprits.)

No. Lori is just up to her usual trick: Fantasizing about a time that never was.

In my mom's generation, they rarely heard of anyone getting divorced. Couples stayed married until one of them died.

...and so they had desertion instead, then as now. Or murder. Can’t say as I’d favor those over divorce.

They didn't have to lock their doors or fear their children were going to be abducted and murdered.

Albert Fish and his contemporaries would no doubt thank them for that.

The worst problems teachers faced in the classroom were chewing gum and talking too much.

Yes, it is much more difficult for teachers now that they have to educate everyone and not just whichever neighborhood white kids weren’t disabled or hobbled in some other way.

Divorce breeds anger in children

Yes – and so, too, does growing up in a consistently angry household.

Few parents are raising disciplined adults. They no longer say "no" to their children, teach them boundaries, or discipline them

How does she know this? I can't find proof for or against this claim, and I doubt Lori even looked. I hope Lori at least realizes that a higher population, along with instant access to global news, can leave the casual watcher with a far more pessimistic view of common behavior than is warranted.

Homosexual marriage is death to procreation of children.

No it isn’t – and if it were, then perhaps there would be another pool of people willing to adopt older and disabled kids from the state foster care system.

[JesusFightClub]

I don't know if we are fearful of death, Burris - surely most of us have seen a dead person or someone die?

I've seen some. A drunk bloke who fell down a flight of steps. I have what they call a catastrophic injury on my foot. He had one on his head. Not coming round from that, and he didn't.

Also two blokes taken unwell on the street. Both had fatal heart attacks. They were fast, actually, much faster than you'd think. It was two homeless alcoholic blokes, I don't think they realised what was going on. People tried to revive them both times but the first aiders were sat up shaking their heads. I was standing about like an idiot not sure what to do. But to be honest I doubt there was anything anyone could have done.

My granny used to say "Whit's for ye'll no go by ye" (You won't miss what's coming to you.) It's usually meant in a good sense. But it has a slightly darker meaning than that too.

[Peas n carrots]

I used to live in Iowa and that case has always haunted me.

The Boy in the Box was a famous case in 1957 of a three year old boy found naked, beaten and dead in a cardboard box. They've never been able to identify him

The Villisca story has haunted me too. They think at least one of the little girls in the downstairs bedroom had heard the killer and was awake for him to bludgeon her and her sister. It disturbs me when anyone...especially a child...dies in terror.

I had never heard of the boy in the box until recently...it breaks my heart that the poor boy was never id'd. We had a similar case in Nebraska...the Little Boy in Blue http://luannschindler.com/nebraska-isms/remembering-little-boy-blue/ However that case was solved a few years ago when it was proven the child was the murdered son of Eli Stutzman, an Amish serial killer.

How about Leopold and Loeb? In the 1920's these college students (both of them from wealthy, well educated families) wanted to commit the perfect crime, so they kidnapped and murdered a 14 year old boy. That my friends, is pretty damn cold. And it happened in a few years before my grandma was born.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_and_Loeb

[nokidsmom]

My sister's MIL found out a few years ago that her late father had another family before hers. She was contacted by someone telling her that he was her half brother. It seems that dear old Dad had married a woman down in NC, had a family, then suddenly abandoned them, came up to IL, and married her mom afterward, though it's not clear that would have been legal because there is no record of a divorce from the first marriage. This was in the 20's. The first family had no idea where he was until after his death. MIL's family had no clue about Dad's previous life. After doing some checking to be sure it was for real, she has connected with this family and has gone down to visit them.

[mirele]

Baby farming. That's all I have to say.

I should post that over at Lori's.

[Conuly]

Baby farming. That's all I have to say.

I should post that over at Lori's.

And, for the more realistic, simple infanticide, with or without the changeling excuse. Huh, talk about killing kids with Down's syndrome! Now when they're born you're not allowed to do that, but Martin Luther was far from the only one who thought the moral choice was to kill the soulless monsters. (His ideas, definitely not mine.) And because we've moved past ignorant superstition, we at least know what causes it, so we don't think stupid things like "fairies" and the like.

[snarktastic]

Mmmm, let me think about things that my family personally have told me about the good old days.

In my grandmother's village (early 20th century) incest was very common - people were so poor that all the kids shared beds and teenaged brothers and sisters shared rooms. My grandmother was also aware of young girls having babies which were generally assumed to have been fathered by the girl's own father.

Handicapped and premature babies were put in hospital sluice rooms and allowed to die. Again early 20th century.

Men returned from WW1 to find surprise new children in their family, which they had certainly not fathered.

I'm sure that there's plenty more I can't think of right now.

And FFS if you just think a little about history - we all know what went on right across Europe in the 1940s. Does this woman really think that things have all gone downhill since the HOLOCAUST?!

[Bredonny]

This is one of my favorite quotes of all time, and it seems applicable here, and to much of what fundies say about the good ol' days.

"The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know." Harry Truman

[SamuraiKatz]

Lori dwells in completely different universe. The 1950's weren't all that great...i've listened to old Dragnet radio shows....murder, child abuse, child molestation, drugs, gang activity....

[Claddagh]

My Dad remembers living in Australia and having night terrors after hearing about a boy who was kidnapped and tortured to death in the late 1950's.

My grandmother's uncle was robbed and killed in 1910 for no reason other than he was "there."

[Buzzard]

Lori dwells in completely different universe. The 1950's weren't all that great...i've listened to old Dragnet radio shows....murder, child abuse, child molestation, drugs, gang activity....

The mob... SSDD

[NotALoserLikeYou]

Nothing has ever offended me at free jinger until I just saw someone insult PA INGALLS! :lol:

[lilwriter85]

Mmmm, let me think about things that my family personally have told me about the good old days.

In my grandmother's village (early 20th century) incest was very common - people were so poor that all the kids shared beds and teenaged brothers and sisters shared rooms. My grandmother was also aware of young girls having babies which were generally assumed to have been fathered by the girl's own father.

Handicapped and premature babies were put in hospital sluice rooms and allowed to die. Again early 20th century.

Men returned from WW1 to find surprise new children in their family, which they had certainly not fathered.

I'm sure that there's plenty more I can't think of right now.

And FFS if you just think a little about history - we all know what went on right across Europe in the 1940s. Does this woman really think that things have all gone downhill since the HOLOCAUST?!

This is something that I bet Lori and others who cling to the "good ole days" never think about. In past eras, people with various disabilities were treated terribly. The book The Memory Keeper's Daughter was based on a real incidents. My boyfriend's mother is a retired occupational therapist and she said during her OT school years, she read many horror stories of what happened to disabled people prior to the 1970s.

[charmedjenny]

I just WTF'd over this explanation by Ken

"The fact is that gay men and women can procreate, but many choose not to. A gay man can and will have sex with a woman given the right circumstances, and many probably do. Their sexual preference is gay, but they still have the ability to have heterosexual sex. "

[Turtle]

No such thing as the "Good Old Days."

Laura Ingalls Wilder was married to a mess of a deadbeat and had to support her family all by herself. Her daughter Rose Wilder Lane once wrote of attempting suicide she was so miserable in her marriage and eventually divorced. There goes the main heroine of the "Good Old Days" contingent.

I had to read a book called "A Century of Childhood" for a Juvenile Delinquency class. Totally opened my eyes about the myth of the "good old days." I'm currently reading a book When Abortion was Illegal It was completely legal until the mid-1800s and was then outlawed primarily by doctors trying to push midwives out of business NOT for genuine moral issues.

I thought Almanzo Wilder wasn't a deadbeat but rather paralyzed from diphtheria (the good ol days when vaccines didn't protect from horrible illnesses)? I'll have to look that up.

[lilwriter85]

That explanation by Ken is kind of weird. It is true for some gay men. I find it funny that Ken and Lori continue to ignore the fact that many heterosexual people choose not to have children. There are heterosexual couples who only adopt and don't have biological children of their own.

[lilwriter85]

I also laugh any time Ken posts on the comments section. He is always white knighting Lori. At least with the PP and Zsu, the PP lets Zsu's blog be her own blog. Zsu never has PP white knight her.

[chaotic life]

Back when I was researching the Wilders, most of the information said that Almanzo was not a great providor before he was paralyzed. He wasn't as bad as Pa Wilder but he wasn't Fundie worthy of praise either.

But then, back in the "good old days" most people lived marginally and scraped by, undernourished and with little safety net beyond their immediate family.

[Dysfundamental]

I just WTF'd over this explanation by Ken

"The fact is that gay men and women can procreate, but many choose not to. A gay man can and will have sex with a woman given the right circumstances, and many probably do. Their sexual preference is gay, but they still have the ability to have heterosexual sex. "

It's like Ken never heard of a turkey baster!

[kolga]

The Way We Never Were is also a great book to inform the fundies on exactly how their "good old days" weren't. It's a bit dated now, having been published in 2000, but still an interesting historical account of the mythologies about the American family that the fundies seem to worship.

[Vex]

What is Lori TALKING about? My parents are from the same generation as hers and people got divorced all the time in the 50's-70's. Nobody did in my parents' families (although my parents and aunt and uncle almost did a few times) has gotten a divorce but my parents knew plenty of people their parents' age who did.

I'm not sure that gay people only comprise 10% of the population, but even if they were a much larger percentage, a lot of gay couples have kids and there will ALWAYS be hetero people who don't want or can't have their babies or kids. What the hell is with this belief humanity will die out because of the gays, when in fact it's more overcrowded than ever?

As for TV and video games trivialising death and destruction? Sure, some do. I'm a big gamer and I'm a particularly big fan of the zombie genre, but most of the games I play definitely do not make light of death. Okay, maybe Dead Rising. She wants to talk about trivialising death and destruction? What about when that tornado hit Kelly of GC and the stupid bitch just raved about how she was getting brand new appliances because THE LORD PROVIDES and refusing to share any of her bounty with the other victims around her? She didn't care one iota for the death and destruction happening around her, just what happened to her.

[Guest Anonymous]

What is Lori TALKING about? My parents are from the same generation as hers and people got divorced all the time in the 50's-70's. Nobody did in my parents' families (although my parents and aunt and uncle almost did a few times) has gotten a divorce but my parents knew plenty of people their parents' age who did.

I'm not sure that gay people only comprise 10% of the population, but even if they were a much larger percentage, a lot of gay couples have kids and there will ALWAYS be hetero people who don't want or can't have their babies or kids. What the hell is with this belief humanity will die out because of the gays, when in fact it's more overcrowded than ever?

As for TV and video games trivialising death and destruction? Sure, some do. I'm a big gamer and I'm a particularly big fan of the zombie genre, but most of the games I play definitely do not make light of death. Okay, maybe Dead Rising. She wants to talk about trivialising death and destruction? What about when that tornado hit Kelly of GC and the stupid bitch just raved about how she was getting brand new appliances because THE LORD PROVIDES and refusing to share any of her bounty with the other victims around her? She didn't care one iota for the death and destruction happening around her, just what happened to her.

Not to mention that she saw a tornado in the shape of a heart.