Is Condom Distribution Smart Health Policy?

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• Listen carefully, and you might just hear me applauding. Great rant, and right on the point.

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  by Artful Bodger on August 2nd, 2010

• Cheers. :)

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  by Isaac on August 3rd, 2010

• Agreed. Seriously, whats with the church defending these pedophile like how a mother bear ferocious protects its cubs.

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  by ronirahman on August 7th, 2010

• People are going to have sex regardless of condoms or not. That's like saying is it bad to pass sunscreen out to people who are in the sun all the time. They are always in the sun, at least your pushing a little bit more safety on them. If that makes any sense.

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  by bidformaterials on August 25th, 2010

• please learn to spell! Thanks.

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  by live2surfnskate on September 16th, 2010

• I would go along with 'Brandino89' totally...better safe than sorry.

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  by John_A1504 on October 26th, 2010

• When someone is ranting who the hell cares about spelling!

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  by kdcmd on January 13th, 2011

• agree, church is doing only harm and slowing overall progress of humanity

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  by Janis_P on February 6th, 2011

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• Ooops... somebody voted "no". 4 of them, in fact. And don't forget you're talking about a highly-educated sector of humanity here, relative to the billions :)

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  by HasntBeen on August 4th, 2010

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• i know what would slow down the sex diseas... neauter the males ^_^ ..or make a great big lie and send the disease spreaders to jion the military...or something

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  by Jaheira2016 on August 2nd, 2010

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• if there was never any condoms, the human populations would be triple the size already...and we wouldnt be able to have enough land to feed all those humans and it would go down to a good decent size

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  by Jaheira2016 on August 2nd, 2010

• For unwanted pregnancy, sure. But technically, one can acquire STDs without sex. AIDS, probably the worst, is also transferred through breast milk and blood. Even if you get married to a virgin and you are one yourself, there's a possibility he or she is HIV+ or developed AIDS.

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  by SewingNudist on November 2nd, 2010

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• Wow. Another entertaining and fact free anti-school diatribe.
  
  Your image of "...lectured to under minimal supervision while being heartily bored to death...are we surprised that kids turn to sexual experimentation to relieve their boredom?" seems like high school lecture are seas of teenage fucking. Somehow I missed out on that in my high-school years.
  
  But it's this bit of make-believe I like, "For public schooled kids, the likelihood is that most of them will never be equipped to responsibly support a family and there is nothing else for them to do but play around with sex. It is an aimless and boring and desperate life, and they deserve better."
  
  So you are telling us that over 50% (most) public high grads will never be able to have families and instead just screw? I'd love to see a source for that. Please. I dare you. Pretty please? Or... did you just make it up?
  
  :-)
  
  Yes, once upon a time (female) kids who got knocked up were ostracized by their communities while (male) kids got away free. That did scare many (female) kids into not having sex. There were also those glorious days of yore when unmarried pregnant women could be tortured and executed for their crimes. Ahh the good old days, what?
  
  Today we live in different times though. And sexual mores have changed. Simply "teaching" teens to keep their pants on doesn't work terribly well. Even those who take Abstinence Pledges are... you guessed it... "... just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence and are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do, according to a study released today."
  
  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/28/AR2008122801588.html
  
  Interestingly enough, countries where adults don't freak out over teen sex also enjoy the lowest teen pregnancy rates. Honesty and access, it seems works much better than moralizing and preaching. Who would have thought?
  
  Quote:
  The UK has the highest teenage birth rates in Western Europe - twice as high as in Germany, three times as high as in France and six times as high as in the Netherlands.
  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4584175.stm
  
  The US, BTW has over 50% HIGHER teen preg rate than the UK.The highest in the deveoped world.
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1123322/
  
  
  So what is lost by giving away condoms? The opportunity to prevent some number of unwanted pregnancies and diseases?

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  by 23Skidoo on August 3rd, 2010

• You certainly don't read very carefully for someone who is college educated. It seems you read things into what I say so that you can pretend to be outraged. I wonder why you would want to do that? When you read carefully enough to post a relevant objection, I'll be happy to converse.

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  by bagicide stayed 10 months too long on August 3rd, 2010

• I know, Blessed, it's tough to argue with your own words - especially when you make things up.
  
  Enjoy yourself.

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  by 23Skidoo on August 3rd, 2010

• Ah yes, another page from the progressive playbook, accuse, mislead and call names when you can't do anything else.

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  by bagicide stayed 10 months too long on August 3rd, 2010

• What did I accuse you of? making things up? I said why in detail above - you've ignored my invitation to support your claims so far. They stand.
  
  How have I mislead? By posting references to my key points?
  
  And what names have I called you?
  
  So far you haven't responded to a single one of my points. Not one. Yet you have the gall to write this? :-)
  
  By your standards you must be the progressive poster child.
  
  But I'm not getting into another one of these with you.
  
  I've said my bit, called your BS, you've had your chance to respond to the substance of what I said - and as usual, you've ignored it. So I'm done.

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  by 23Skidoo on August 4th, 2010

• Did I say 50% of kids will never have families? No, I did not. I said they would not be equipped to have families. I didn't say they wouldn't do it, you made that bit up. Having no job skills to support a family doesn't mean you won't have a family, it means you'll be on public assistance and live a very minimal lifestyle. And how many kids these days don't even bother to get married? How many boys sire children on several different women and neither marry nor support any of them? How many dead beat dads or dead beat moms are there out there? You know the statistics. Your challenge to support my claim isn't looking for information unless you have your head in the sand and never look around you. Your challenge to support claims I didn't make is designed to make yourself look superior and me look silly.
  
  As for high schools being a sea of teenage sex, how long have you been out of school? Because that is exactly what most of them are now, and the middle schools aren't far behind. It has been eight years since I quit teaching in the middle school, in one of the best rated middle schools in my state. When I started teaching that last year, the doors were already off the boys bathrooms because they were catching too many kids having sex in there. By the end of the year the doors were off the girls bathrooms too. But it might interest you to know that the building used to be the only high school for this county, and it is tiny. They've had to build a new one since I worked there, and it had already been added onto multiple times that had more than doubled its size since it had served as a high school. They didn't used to pack 1500 hormonal teenagers into one building. With the additions, the building could hold 600 kids. I'd guess it had been built to hold 300. With 300 kids under one roof, you might have a hope of them being abstinent. With 1500, there is no way the faculty can supervise all of them.
  
  As for the rest of your points, they actually do a better job of making my points, which I suspect you didn't read. Putting over a thousand kids of both genders in a warehouse size building with minimal supervision is a stupid idea. Neither condoms nor abstinence pledges have much chance there. What has brought the teen pregnancy rate down has been neither of the above, it has been the Depo-provera shot, which gives parents or social workers in the case of kids who are in trouble, the chance to exercise some control over the kids chance of getting pregnant that does not involve the kid remembering or caring in the heat of the moment. It does nothing to reduce the risk of STDs.
  
  If you want abstinence to have any hope of working, you don't drop your kid into that pit.

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  by bagicide stayed 10 months too long on August 4th, 2010

• Just throwing this into the stew...
  
  Out of wedlock briths skyrocketed from the 60s until the 90s. This coincides perfectly with welfare and with the welfare reform of the Clinton administration.

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  by Nate on August 4th, 2010

• Ummm... No. It doesn't.
  
  Clinton took office in 1993.
  
  Births to unwed mothers rose until about 1993, then leveled off - even dipping a bit in about 95, and then rose again sharply in about 2000.
  
  http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db18.pdf
  
  What does that coincide with?

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  by 23Skidoo on August 4th, 2010

• I'm not sure about the up-tick that took place in the new millennium. But how does the initial explosion and leveling off/decrease not coincide with welfare changes?

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  by Nate on August 4th, 2010

• It doesnt. That was your claim. But it does coincide with Republican administrations.

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  by 23Skidoo on August 4th, 2010

• So your theory is that every time a Republican gets elected, kids suddenly start screwing around more?
  
  Could it possibly be that is correlation and not causality? Or would that be too much like good science?

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  by bagicide stayed 10 months too long on August 4th, 2010

• Blessed, normally I encourage people to think for themselves -- but in your case, that's clearly not going very well. 23Skidoo has offered precise and well-documented criticism, and your response seems to be to try to find new ways of misinterpreting his statements each time. This last comment is so wildly illogical that it should have its own cage in the zoo.

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  by HasntBeen on August 4th, 2010

• Well lookie here, now all we need is Moonie to get the party started.

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  by bagicide stayed 10 months too long on August 4th, 2010

• Once again, did I ever claim a causal correlation? No. I was imply refuting utter fantasy ( that anything in the 60's or '70 s had anything to do with Clinton policy) with fact.
  
  You say you were or are a teacher. For the sake of the children, I beg you to stop.

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  by 23Skidoo on August 4th, 2010

• Ah, so at last you get one of the arguments for home schooling.

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  by bagicide stayed 10 months too long on August 4th, 2010

• Yup. We limit the damage teachers who are incapable of rational, modestly complex argument can do.
  
  I'm not sure it's one you'd want... and it would be a strong argumemnt not to home school... but if I had onlt two choices:
  
  A) see that intellect you display teaching 20 or 30 kids every year for a couple decades
  
  or
  
  B) seeing it teaching 2 or 3 over several years
  
  I'd have to take the lesser evil and sacrifice those poor, innocent 2 or 3 for the greater good.
  
  But as I said - for their sake, please don't.
  
  If the Taliban ever planted sleeper agents in the US they couldn't do better than people of your caliber. Do you really want to help THEM?

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  by 23Skidoo on August 4th, 2010

• Blessed, you're not to blame for this kind of thinking. I want you to know that its not your fault. The ideas which infected you have been going for a very long time, and they've had lots of opportunity to refine themselves into an intricate self-contained maze, where each passageway eventually leads back into the center instead of out into freedom.
  
  I realize that you don't think that you want to be free of the maze, but that's only because you don't really understand what freedom is: it's recovering yourself -- taking back what is yours from the ideological disease that has consumed your life.
  
  You probably don't remember being a child, but that open sense of wonder and curiosity that children have, before the adults fill them with bullshit and "knowledge", is what I'm talking about. Being able to LISTEN again, and hear something other than The Borg talking. Openness, freedom from dogma, the possibility of being alive again instead of cooped up inside thousands of years and multiple layers of mythology and superstition... that is the opportunity that presents itself every time you're up against those darn atheists.
  
  Think for yourself, instead of letting The Borg think for you. It truly is the essence of integrity.

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  by HasntBeen on August 4th, 2010

• Oh, like my atheist, socialist, secular humanist, Republican hating family who fantasized about relieving themselves on Richard Nixon? That kind of BS and "knowledge?" You mean the kind of BS and knowledge that took me to see Millhouse when I was eight? The kind that joined Vietnam Veterans against the war? That kind of BS and knowledge that was drilled into my dear little head as a child? The kind that matured in a fog of pot smoke?
  
  You are darn right that I want to be free of that maze, and I am. I finally grew up and learned how to think. I have to thank you and the others on here though, as you greatly accelerated my learning to think. You see, I had never heard of Fox news until you all started talking about how bad it was and that nobody should watch it. I'm not the kind of person to just accept what others tell me to think. I go investigate. What I found was news with citations and a reading list, so I could check into what they had to say. I saw both sides presented, not just one side. I saw evidence and artifacts to back up what they have to say. I'm awake now, and I'm not going back no matter how much you all make fun of me. Have at.

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  by bagicide stayed 10 months too long on August 4th, 2010

• Try using that skill at thinking and, at least once, rebut the substance of what I write.

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  by 23Skidoo on August 4th, 2010

• That's precisely the point, Blessed: you DON'T do any real thinking. You recirculate thoughts, and that's not the same thing at all. Every one of your beliefs leads right back to its starting point, every bit of evidence confirms what you already believe. Every argument someone challenges with you is ignored in the details, and treated as "yet another enemy of the truth" in a vague sort of way that fails to engage but succeeds at deflecting.
  
  You're 100% wrong. There is no thinking for yourself going on, you're parroting someone's views and falsely believing yourself to be a rebel.
  
  Answer the details of the challenges posed to you if you want to demonstrate otherwise. Vague hand-waving does not constitute sound argument.

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  by HasntBeen on August 5th, 2010

• Nope, its not worth my time. I actually have better things to do. People with the wisdom to understand will understand it. As for my little fan club, its not me you are rejecting. Oh sure, I'm the visible symbol of what you are rejecting, but you are and have been rejecting the Lord, the God of Israel and everyone who believes in Him is a target. I really don't care. You can reject me on His behalf all you want. I really don't matter in the grand scheme of things. You can decide I'm stupid, and that's fine with me. Because it isn't my intelligence you are actually mocking. If you have any sense at all, you can see that my vocabulary is not that of an uneducated person, and I clearly write too much on here in a day to be using a thesaurus and an encyclopedia for every word I write. I've told you what my education is, you can believe it or not if you like. It really doesn't matter to me. The bottom line is that you and the others are rejecting me because I believe in, and do my utmost to obey, God. I'm not perfect in that obedience, no human is. That is why Christ made His sacrifice. It is that belief that you reject. I know you and most of the others say that belief in God is silly and that science has proven its just a superstition, but I suspect after two years of talking to you and reading the links you all have put up that it isn't so much that you or Hasn'tBeen or Moonie or even Hitchens or Dawkins really believe there isn't a God. I think it is more that you hate Him. Either way, lack or belief or hate, its your choice. You are the one who is going to have to face Him in the end, and you are the ones who are going to suffer the lack of His blessings in the meantime, and the sad thing is you don't or can't even recognize what that is doing to you now. You can laugh if you want to, plenty of people have in the last few thousand years. Most of them stopped laughing pretty abruptly somewhere along the line, but some of them managed to laugh all the way to their death. It doesn't matter to me. It truly isn't me you are laughing at. You are the ones who are going to have to face a mighty, all-powerful and angry God in the end. You know, they actually found the ruins of Jericho and the walls are actually down and burned. I know some archaeologists try to say that the dates are wrong and it couldn't be the Jericho of the Bible. I guess that is the best they can come up with to rebut it when the charred remains are right in front of them and they don't want to have to face the idea that there really is a God.
  
  
  You don't need me to rebut anything. You know what the statistics are.

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  by bagicide stayed 10 months too long on August 5th, 2010

• It's nice to see high levels of intelect cornering another maybe high level of intelect but not using it properly. :D
  
  No im not going to join into your little debate continue as if this comment wasn't here :D

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  by warex255 on August 5th, 2010

• We're not rejecting you, Blessed (and we're not your little fan club either). In fact, there's no "we". There's no club of people organized against you or your imaginary friend. Really. I don't even think 23Skidoo likes me much, and he sure disagrees a lot. We sure don't sit around thinking "how can we catch Blessed off-guard?".
  
  You've just encountered two entirely unrelated individuals who both think you're full of it. That does not constitute a conspiracy.
  
  I do think it's fascinating how believers always try to turn themselves into persecuted victims -- as if the multiplicity of people who think they're full of shit somehow validates their heroism instead of their full-of-shitness. Ah, the martyrdom! So thrilling to be so special and heroic.

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  by HasntBeen on August 5th, 2010

• You are quite funny, Hasn'tBeen. Since I hadn't heard of Fox before you all turned me on to it, and I've held most of these views for 8-10 years, where do you think I got these thoughts to recirculate them? I don't listen to talk radio either, by the way. I think it is you that is looking for thinks to confirm what you already believe. Yes, since you all pointed me toward Fox, I've found other like-minded people, but my thoughts are my own.
  
  I never said you all were a conspiracy, just that you believe similar things.
  
  As for the last paragraph, thanks for tearing the mask off so we can see who you really are.

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  by bagicide stayed 10 months too long on August 5th, 2010

• You haven't got a fan club. That's just your ego wishing for validation. I was interested inn this subject and curious when I saw your answer. I usually ignore you when I see your comments.
  
  You don't have time to answer? That's funny - you have plenty to avoid the question. :-)
  
  Wisdom? There ain't a big enough slimy for that one. :-) But I'm chuckling away here.
  
  You really are too funny. And you've supplied me with absolutely priceless material. For your own sake I hope you're making all this up and having a good laugh at our expense but I'fear that isn't the case.
  
  If you ever "find the time" in your busy schedule of writing nonsense and very verbosely avoiding the issues, I would love to see a rebuttal. But I won't hold my breath.
  
  Thanks again. Utterly priceless... :-)

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  by 23Skidoo on August 5th, 2010

• I like the "you all turned me on to" Fox. More of the vague thinking you're becoming famous for. Who is "you all"? I don't think I've ever mentioned Fox to you, I rarely even think about it.
  
  You think in vague generalities and broad strokes. Everyone who doesn't agree with you is God's enemy, all conservative views are right and all liberal views are wrong, etc. This is not critical thinking. Critical thinking is precise and detailed. It distinguishes (for example) between me and 23Skidoo. It distinguishes between the different forms of theism and atheism. It distinguishes between the different kinds of fallacies and it gives them names.
  
  You don't do anything like that: you have one color of paint, and you paint everything with it. When its done, it's just a big featureless blob.

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  by HasntBeen on August 5th, 2010

• Got to give hasntbeen credit he makes great point in his arguements can't deny that

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  by three cousins from the 313 on August 5th, 2010

• Yeah, it makes a whole lot of sense until you talk to him for a while and find out that he really doesn't give a hoot about most of the people on here unless they agree with him. I called him on it a few months ago. He kept plowing the same ground in conversation over and over and over and I called him on his short memory. At that point he confessed that he didn't bother to remember most people on here or what they had to say. I guess it wasn't important enough to him.
  
  I, on the other hand, do remember most of the people I talk to and most of the conversations I have with them. Stinks, doesn't it?
  
  Just to let you fellow know, the more you insinuate that I'm unintelligent and have nothing of worth to say because I happen to believe in God and believe in this country, the more determined I become to stand my ground and keep talking. I'm like that. I'm polite and I do my best not to offend anyone, but boy don't push me or try to shut me up. That is when I stick my toes in and refuse to move. I think you'll find that most of your fellow citizens are like that.

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  by bagicide stayed 10 months too long on August 6th, 2010

• Your memory seems to be a bit short, Blessed. We have been questioning your intelligence not because of god or country, but because you continuously avoid the material element of conversations - this thread is a wonderful example - and so refuse to show any.
  
  I'll give that you are very creative in your avoidance.
  
  But once again - (I rely on your elephantine and most caring memory, how many times have I asked you to address the points I've made?) please... will you show us the fruit of your intellect?
  
  BTW - no one here has suggested you stop talking. That's just another red herring you tossed in. Dig all you like. Keep it up. But some sign of intelligence would be grand. Really.

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  by 23Skidoo on August 7th, 2010

• 23, I am not refusing to answer your points because I can't. I'm refusing to answer your points because it is stuff you see on the evening news every night. I know you know it already. There is no point to it.

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  by bagicide stayed 10 months too long on August 7th, 2010

• "For public schooled kids, the likelihood is that most of them will never be equipped to responsibly support a family and there is nothing else for them to do but play around with sex. It is an aimless and boring and desperate life, and they deserve better." This has got to be one of the most absurb statments I have read on AB....Followed closely by this one:
  
  "Most home schooled kids that I know are too darn busy and too self-directed and active with their learning to be side tracked into having sex instead."
  Sounds like your using your self as the model for abstinence, Just because you didn't get laid, does not mean the rest of us didn't. These home school kids of witch you speak, I guess they tell you everything, and confide in you everything about there sex life? Or are you just making assumptions? How many of them do you know any ways?

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  by Reptar on August 7th, 2010

• Maybe they are silly to you because you've never thought about it. Who do you think those home schooled kids would be having sex with? Their little brothers and sisters? Perhaps you don't know any home schooled kids? Do you even realize that major universities are actively recruiting home schooled kids precisely because they have learned to be self-directed learners who don't need to be coached to get their studies done? Our little town produced a home-schooled kid who graduated college at 15 with a double major in music and music composition 12 years ago. Last year one of the home school group kids was recruited (not accepted, recruited) by MIT. Do you think that kid had time for aimless sex while getting himself noticed and recruited by MIT? Our lives are meant to be about more than our genitals. Where kids are given something else vital and interesting to do, they generally don't think that much about sex.
  
  Have you not seen the statistics lately on the number of public schooled kids who never graduate? Who graduate functionally illiterate? Who graduate with no jobs skills, and grades and skills so low that they have no hope of even going to trade school? Have you read about or watched news shows on the number of schools that are filled with violence so that you don't learn in them, you survive them? Do you really think that is because a large percentage of the kids in schools are so genetically inferior that they can't learn to read and think? Where were they all prior to the founding of public education? How come they just magically materialized in the last eighty years or so? Because unless you are so racist or so classist that you think that many kids are genetically inferior, you are left with turning around and asking what is the fatal error in public education that is so radically failing so many kids.
  
  I mean really, the fact that anyone is even questioning those statements makes me think they must totally have their heads in the sand and aren't paying any attention to what is going on around them, or they have an agenda to advance and they are willing to appear clueless in order to support that agenda. I don't think that statement has been in question at any time in the last 25 years or so. What year did Why Johnny Can't Read come out? How many politicians have campaigned on saving education in the last thirty years, while education has gotten worse and worse and worse? When I was in Junior High, most of us didn't even know what sex was, and were just having our first crushes. When I taught in middle school, we had to take the doors off the bathrooms to stop the kids having sex in them. And that is considering that I attended Junior High in the school with the worst reputation in my inner city, but I taught in a middle school with the reputation of being one of the best in my current rural state.
  
  By the way, your comments are good evidence for my point, since you don't seem to know which witch is which. And if you are a self-directed learner, you should already know this stuff without wasting my time to go look it up for you. It is one thing to ask me to support something that isn't common knowledge, but this has been common knowledge and endlessly researched for so long that the only way you wouldn't know it is if you are totally lazy, and I'm not looking it up for you for that reason.
  
  No, I'm not making assumptions. Do you think I graduated college with a teaching degree and with honors without learning something about the history of education? And I am a self-directed learner. I have continued to read about the history of education and to talk to both my elders and to kids about education. That is why I have become adamantly opposed to public education. I suppose if I had just drifted along thinking I already knew all there was to know, and that the way things were was the way they always had been, asking no questions and seeking no answers, I might still support public education.

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  by bagicide stayed 10 months too long on August 7th, 2010

• For the record, I do not support public education, or more correctly, I don't support the curriculum the school board uses here, in my district of Ontario, though from what I've heard we have a much higher standard then the average public school in the USA.
  
  As per your observation of which witch I use, I do confuse a lot of words like that, this stems from a learning disability, which thanks to one really dedicated teacher was discovered, a little late perhaps(Grade 9)Did you see that sentence? I didn't just fracture it, I shattered it. This is something I have almost overcome and constantly battle with. The fact that I'm able to converse with you right now via written word (well, typed word, but you know what I mean) is a testament to how much the public school system has helped me over come this learning block.
  
  Your observations of Home schooled kids not having sex are stretched if you think the girl next door doesn't provide the same stimulus as the girl in the next seat at school. I've known, and still know many people who have been home schooled. One of the major concern I see, is the lack of social skills, and complete ignorance of the social structure that our society is based on. There's a fine line between being sheltered and being home schooled, and unfortunately, from my personal observations, sheltering is the motive of most parents. This is not healthy, nor productive.
  
  Sex education is a big part of growing up weather it's self taught, or learned from parents, family or what ever. I've never met a teacher who said something like, "well, here's a condom, go have a bunch of sex"
  No, it was more along the line of "If you decide to have intercourse, please use protection, I'll now demonstrate how to properly use a condom"
  
  What is wrong with letting people know what condoms are and how and when to use them? Do you think this is counter productive?

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  by Reptar on August 7th, 2010

• Did you actually read the original answer? The first sentence says that I chose no because there was no "other" choice. There is nothing wrong with making condoms available. The problem is that this is the wrong debate. I'm not going to retype the whole original answer.
  
  As for your learning disability, I used to believe that discovering learning disabilities was one of the good things public schools did, until a got a little experience with both teaching in public school and in teaching home school. I've seen one of my friend's kids diagnosed with a learning disability, which according to the school system, was going to require years of special ed. She pulled the kid out and home schooled her and by the end of that same year the kid blew the top out of the CTBS. Experience has taught me that there are a few kids that have a bona fide learning disability. There are far more whose "learning disabilities" were actually caused by the school system. It is very possible that had you been taught at home, you might not have developed a "learning disability" for them to swoop in and save you from.
  
  As far as the socialization argument, you do realize that consolidated public education has only been around for about 80 years, so the argument that you are making is that everyone older than your great-grandparents were social idiots? You do realize that colleges are actively recruiting home school kids, so you are saying that they favor social idiots over those who are properly socialized? You do realize that there are studies out there that are demonstrating that home schooled kids are actually better socialized and more likely to participate in social activities after graduation than those who are educated in public schools? They are more likely to participate in churches, social organizations and club, sports teams, and volunteer groups than those who are educated in public school? That they are more likely to be politically active? They are more likely to vote, run for office, speak up in meetings, read books, magazines and newspapers and use the internet? How did the human race ever function before public schools swooped in and saved us from our socially idiocy only eighty years ago? Why, that must mean my great-grandparents lived in institutions all their lives! Oh my, I never knew! I think you need to go back and rethink that argument. Maybe you need to ask some better questions and do some better research. I suspect you haven't actually researched it at all, you are just repeating what you've heard people say about home schools.

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  by bagicide stayed 10 months too long on August 7th, 2010

• No, I made a point of saying that I've based my opinion on people I've met...I'm not at all opposed to home schooling, as long as it's a choice made to provide a student with a better education instead of sheltering them, I thinks a noble thing to do. I also firmly believe that one should not negate the other. Schooling should never stop at school, and those parents who have their kids in the public system, should themselves, fill in the gaps left by teachers and curriculum.
  
  I did read your answer, and staments like: "Once upon a time, kids were expected to learn self control as they matured. Yes, some kids failed to learn it, but most did. Now we don't even ask them to try. We just throw condoms at them and tell them to remember to use them when they lose their self control. Guess what? A kid who has not learned self control is not going to have the self control to stop and put on a condom. A kid who has not learned to value others is not going to care." Are not an educated response, it's silly and leaves a bitter taste. No one is just throwing condoms around at kids and leaving them to their own devises. I make sure to keep all channels open to my kids to ask what ever they want about any subject, including sex. My kids will know how to use condoms, and why they should long before the school decides they're ready to tell about it. Though I know some parents who can't even think of talking to their children about it.
  
  The question is: Is Condom Distribution Smart Health Policy? No matter what, this is a smart healthy policy.

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  by Reptar on August 7th, 2010

• Its the wrong debate. The better health policy is for kids to learn self-control, both so that they won't have sex and so that if they do, they'll use the condoms they've been given. The question did not offer an "other" option.

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  by bagicide stayed 10 months too long on August 7th, 2010

• Okay, so I went off and thought about your last response for a little while and I have another difficulty with it. You stated that you think home schooling is a noble thing to do as long as the primary reason is a better education and not to shelter the kids. Tell me, do you believe it is not a parent's job to shelter kids? Should we let them ride motorcycles without helmets at six? Should we let them bungee jump at will? Eat all the Big Mac's they want, washed down with all the Big Gulps they want? What is a parent's job except to shelter and guide their kids? Aren't we supposed to protect them?

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  by bagicide stayed 10 months too long on August 7th, 2010

• Now your being deliberately obtuse, Of course I'm not going to let my six year old ride a motorcycle, let alone ride one with out a helm it. Yes I will let them bungee jump when their old enough, Big Macs are a rear "treat" and I have no idea what a Big Gulp is...but I primarily give them water to drink.
  
  Sheltering is a counter productive form of protection when taken to extremes. Our kids need to know the realities of life. Last year, I lived in a small apartment, with a yard that had a huge fence. After repetitively telling my youngest son to stop climbing the fence (I would watch them from the window) one day I decided to let him learn a little about cause and effect. I watched him climb up(all my instincts screamed to get him out of harms way) I watched him precariously stand on the top of the fence (I was literally shaking with the urge to go and get him off) , then I watched him fall. That was the last time he tried to climb the fence. He got a good scrape on one arm, and nasty bruise on his leg, but he learned a lesson only he could teach. In school, we learn a lot about how to interact with our peers. Sometimes this is negative, sometimes not. We learn how court prospective dates, how to deal with rejection and acceptance. We learn our limits when it comes to peer pressure and by simply witnessing how others behave, we learn what kind of person we want to be. I make sure my kids have all the tools to make the right choices, but I would be failing them if I didn't give them a chance to make those choices.

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  by Reptar on August 7th, 2010

• I'm not being deliberately obtuse, I'm working toward a point. And I absolutely understand what you are saying about the fence. For the same reason, I put a helmet on my child when she rides a bike but not elbow or knee pads. You have to skin your knees occasionally in order to learn caution and safety.
  
  But now take that a step further. Is it only the government that we should trust absolutely and not shelter our kids from? Is the government always benign? Is it possible that the government never has an agenda to unleash on our kids, or never makes a mistake or is never corrupt? Should we just drop them at the school door and trust that a benign and benevolent, never corrupt and never criminal civil service will care for a child and we don't need to shelter them for that 7-8 hours of the day? Is it possible that the schools are crime and corruption free zones?

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  by bagicide stayed 10 months too long on August 7th, 2010

• You said: "They aren't going to waste time on sex." Are you kidding? I don't believe teens think of sex as a waste of time and that their home schooling as not leaving time for it.

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  by Kevin Scott on August 8th, 2010

• If a kid is trying to get noticed by an Ivy League school with the hopes of getting a scholarship, what do you think their mind is going to be on? Seriously? Do you really think that all kids throughout the ages think exactly the same way, or do you think it might just be possible that some are different from others? Do you think a kid gets into med school by just sitting around fantasizing all day, or do you think some of them, just maybe, develop the self control to keep their mind on their studies so they can achieve a goal? If you don't, I hate to say it, but it is one more jot against public school. If your mind is so far gone from the idea of self-discipline that you can't even comprehend the idea of keeping your mind on a goal, then you have really been let down by the schools you've attended.

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  by bagicide stayed 10 months too long on August 8th, 2010

• blessed, you seem to be implying that by having sex you are ruining your productivity as a fuctioning member of society. I can give evidence right now that sex has nothing to do with it:
  My sister was always an achiever and a romantic she has had at least six serious boyfriends whom she had regular protected sex with since she had hit puberty. Me on the other hand, I'm a depersonalized schizoid and have never felt the need for a boyfriend. Here's where it gets strange, my sister was excepted into an extremely difficult highschool that she cempaigned for months to gain entry to. There, where many students had emotional break down from the sheer amount of work placed on them, she acheived straight A's in nearly every subject (while having regular sex). She then graduated highschool valedictorian and the very next semester, enroled, and was excepted into the best theatactrical arts school in Canada. where they only except 12 new students every year. She is currectly in her second year there (with her boyfried whom she has regular sex with) and has already produced several plays that received stunning reveiws and an award. And she has just announced her engagment.
  and me who is now an 18 year old virgin with a 145 iq, I dropped out of highschool two years ago and am working as a house cleaner.
  So I can personaly garuntee you that sex has nothing to do with success. Its about determination. If anything my edivence shows that by having regular sex you releive stress which allows you to concenrate better on other more important aspects of life.

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  by newgurl on August 10th, 2010

• I think you completely missed the point.

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  by bagicide stayed 10 months too long on August 10th, 2010

• I'm sorry. did you not say:
  "Without self-control, your relationships will founder, from friendships to relations with your parents to marital relationships to your parenting. Without self-control, you can't participate fully in your community. Without self-control, you will never be the person you were meant to be."
  "Under the circumstances of a modern middle or high school, are we surprised that kids turn to sexual experimentation to relieve their boredom? We throw them into a sea of temptation with absolutely nothing else to do (lets not pretend that what is taught to them is taught in a relevant manner so that they feel compelled to learn it)."
  "Most home schooled kids that I know are too darn busy and too self-directed and active with their learning to be side tracked into having sex instead. They know where they are going and they are busy achieving a goal. They know that they have work to do and the sooner they master and complete it, the sooner they can move on. They are not trapped into sitting in a classroom for hours a day when their work is done. If they have mastered the work in four hours instead of seven, they can move on. They aren't going to waste time on sex"
  and finally:
  "For public schooled kids, the likelihood is that most of them will never be equipped to responsibly support a family and there is nothing else for them to do but play around with sex. It is an aimless and boring and desperate life, and they deserve better."
  
  You stated that by letting our children have sex we aren't teaching them self control, which affects their later lives. I showed you that having sex in no way effects your ability to contribute to society. how is that missing the point?

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  by newgurl on August 10th, 2010

• Young, aren't you? Having self control and having sex may be related, but they are not necessarily related. If I meant having sex keeps you from participating in your community, I would have said precisely that. Abstaining from sex is only one of many ways of expressing self control. It is an important way, but it is far from the only way. Without self control, you don't go to bed on time at night, you don't show up for work on time, sometimes you don't show up at all. Without self control, you talk on the cell phone, text and play games on the computer when you should be working. Without self-control, you don't make sure you have clean, pressed clothes to wear to work. Without self control, you might not shower or shave or make sure you use deodorant. Without self control, you might balloon up to 500 lbs. All of those involve self control. Not one of them involves sex.
  
  By not teaching them to have self control with regards to anything, including sex, we are setting them up for failure in life.
  
  By the way, being jealous because your sister has a way cooler and more successful life is not evidence that having sex early is good for you. There is more than one kind of success in life, and I suspect that while she may be making more money than your and doing cooler things, twenty years from now she may have failed at more important things and you may not be jealous at all anymore.

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  by bagicide stayed 10 months too long on August 10th, 2010

• -_-

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  by warex255 on August 13th, 2010

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• i think it is a good thing people are going to do it reguardless....and if they didnt distribute condoms then the ppl would find other ways to get them.

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  by Lorissa_B on February 21st, 2011

• Its true.....either way their going to have sex with or without the condoms we just prefer them to be safe

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  by Siesha on February 28th, 2011

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• Abstinence worked out real well for Bristol Palin.

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  by navyboy on February 22nd, 2011

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• I think thats where he's going anyways....

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  by Reptar on August 6th, 2010

• Good point

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  by Vaporeongirl on August 6th, 2010

• Do you not understand that both sides of the argument are supported by Catholics? i mean I agree with on the first part but saying the pope "can go to hell and stay there" is pretty extreme
  ( Coming from a gay mans point of view).

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  by Piano playin unicorn with a hat ™ on August 6th, 2010

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• Unfortunately this is true.
  I think a lot of people here try to talk about controversial subjects like politics, history, and religion and then try to act like they're knowledgeable and understand what they're talking about even though the truth is they don't at all.

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  by anonymous on August 6th, 2010

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• That is a hard road you are on. God bless.

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  by navyboy on February 22nd, 2011

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• What if your "one man/woman" happens to have an STD? And what if you don't want a baby? Sex isn't just about getting off; for most mature people it's the ultimate expression of love and trust.

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  by popcorn on October 28th, 2010

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