Barack Obama gave what appears to have been an excellent Father's Day speech today at a black church in Chicago. Excerpt from the report:
"But we also need families to raise our children," he said. "We need fathers to realize that responsibility doesn't just end at conception. That doesn't just make you a father. What makes you a man is not the ability to have a child. Any fool can have a child. That doesn't make you a father. It's the courage to raise a child that makes you a father."Mr. Obama spoke of the burden that single parenthood was on his mother, who raised him with the help of his maternal grandparents.
"I know the toll it took on me, not having a father in the house," he continued. "The hole in your heart when you don't have a male figure in the home who can guide you and lead you. So I resolved many years ago that it was my obligation to break the cycle -- that that if I could be anything in life, I would be a good father to my children."
Good for Obama. Will this do any good? Who knows. But at least he's saying what needs saying. I also liked this Chris Rockian bit:
Mr. Obama laid out his case in stark terms that would be difficult for a white candidate to make, telling the mostly black audience not to "just sit in the house watching SportsCenter," and to stop praising themselves for mediocre accomplishments."Don't get carried away with that eighth-grade graduation," he said, bringing many members of the congregation to their feet, applauding. "You're supposed to graduate from eighth grade."
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Almost two years ago I sat at my kitchen table and had an hour plus or so conversation with an almost sixteen year old girl. For all practical purposes that young lady is a granddaughter because her dad is like a son to me.
What I believe is the most important thing I told her was, "girl, there are places in this world where a man won't blink an eye for exchanging the value of ten years labor for hand of the woman he loves. Here we have examples of men getting women with naught but a smile all around us."
harvey lacey, First MDavid seems to me be like the man looking at the flat tire on the car and commenting about everything but that touching the pavement as perfectly round. He raves about the beauty of western culture and ignores that the reason it's failed and failing is because of it's inequities.
You are seriously projecting your own views to my words here. I've said nothing here about the "beauty of western culture". I only note that it is, based on the numbers, failing.
I'm looking at the flat tire and noting that it's flat. Duh. Liberals look at the same flat tire and make up all sorts of stories about why it's not flat, or how it's not that flat, or how unjust it is, or whatever. To channel Tommy Lee Jones: I. Don't. Care. I live in the real world, where flat tires are flat my ideology takes second place to reality.
The failure of western culture isn't about declining population.
I never said it was. I only say declining population is merely the undeniable metric. One can't claim a culture is doing well when it shrinks every year.
Those are the questions we need to have serious conversations about if we're going to change this trend of single parent families with that parent being the mother.
Sure, have the conversation. It won't matter. Whilst the West stews in the juices of her own making and has "conversations", more fit cultures are racing to fill the demographic gap. As somebody I used to know would say, good riddance to bad rubbish - history is littered with the bones of failed cultures. Extinction is the norm, and life is the lucky exception. It's merely our turn. Play by the rules of natural law, or vanish. It's a short conversation.
MDavid, nationalism as a culture is doomed for failure because it's core is corrupt. This is also true of cultures based upon religion.
If we look at those cultures rushing into fill the void left by the collapse of the western culture guess what we find? I'll bet the donut against the hole that we have cultures complaining about their decline because of exposure to the western one.
When you talk about shrinking population equating to culture decline I believe you're way out on a limb. There is a thing we all understand about the value of quality over quanity. And when we look at cultures encouraging population control we see cultures with individuals wanting to provide a better life for their kids and better kids for their life. Something you might consider when you rant about population decline is the rate of genetically damaged offspring skyrockets with babies born to older mothers. There might be a message from our genes in there for us to take note.
When you look around at the world and the problems we have one thing is more obvious than all the rest. There isn't enough to go around if the numbers of human beings keeps expanding at the rate it has.
Whilst the West stews in the juices of her own making and has "conversations", more fit cultures are racing to fill the demographic gap. MDavid
Where is those more fit cultures? That's the most outrageous statement I've seen in a long time.
I have to assume you're talking about those that are streaming into the west from the poor nations who are seeking a better life than the one their own culture could provide.
You do have a convoluted perception of our world young man.
"So the first thing we need to consider is why it is men raised by women become men who treat women so badly?"
Because they are biologically related to their mothers, but not to the women they treat badly? (unless they're West Virginia Cheneys, heh heh)
"The reason western culture is falling down around us is because it's ineffective in the face of equality of peoples."
"To paraphrase Rev Wright, "different doesn't mean deficient.""
Which is it, are they equal or are they different?
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