Britney's 16 Year Old Sister Pregnant

[Shogun]

The patriarch of the roman family had the power of life and death over his wife and children.

Slavery, gladiator games, whorehouses located in the heart of the cities with completely unashamed clients...

Homosexuality, pedophilia, group sex, images of human penises painted on the walls of residences of traditional families...

im pretty sure that it wasn't their family structure, entertainment or sexual acceptance that dimmed the light of Rome... I am still curious how your have come to know that their golden years would have expanded had their society been more akin to your opinion of a healthy society. Many, many cultures are known to keep phallic shapes around.. Do you apply this same criticism as the reason they did not enjoy a longer golden period too?

 

[José]

Originally posted by Shogun
im pretty sure that it wasn't their family structure, entertainment or sexual acceptance that dimmed the light of Rome... I am still curious how your have come to know that their golden years would have expanded had their society been more akin to your opinion of a healthy society. Many, many cultures are known to keep phallic shapes around.. Do you apply this same criticism as the reason they did not enjoy a longer golden period too?

Are you sure you're not mistaking me for another poster, Shogun?

I've never made any correlation between Rome's decline as a world empire and its lack of moral rules regarding family structure and sexuality.

I just stated historical facts.

If anything, the fact that Rome never had a strict moral code during its entire history (more than 10 centuries) can be seen as evidence that there is no such causal correlation.

 

[Shogun]

my bad.. I was still looking for clarification from 8ball and misread your post..

 

[Larkinn]

Jose:

I believe your correct Jose. The "but" part is that Romes Golden age could have existed much longer if their parameters of moral in society had been greater, than it was.

The U.S. started with good moral parameters, and now is slipping down a very dangerous slope of pragmatic relativism.

Like blacks being slaves, women being unequal and unable to vote, homosexuals being killed, etc, etc?

I'll take the morals we have now, thank you.

 

[jillian]

But.... but... people talk about... *eek* ... sex now. The horror... the horror.

 

[Larkinn]

But.... but... people talk about... *eek* ... sex now. The horror... the horror.

Instead of talking about it, its much better to kill the black woman that massah got pregnant as opposed to talk about sex. And when the daughter gets pregnant you can disappear her for a year, and then just chuck the baby.

Ah, the good ol' days.

 

[jillian]

Well, FWIW, you know I agree with you on this one. I find the nostalgia for a time that never existed to be really strange... girls who got pregnant and were sent away; or who tried to abort but died in the process. But people were more *moral*???

 

[mattskramer]

I guess that I’m not a fan of US Magazine or Entertainment Tonight or celebrity gossip. Who cares about what happens with this particular Spears family. Britney was a young talented singer who got rich too young and is making a bunch of mistakes with her life but to each his or her own. Her sister is pregnant at a young age. Big deal.

The only reason why I’m bothering to reply is to let you know that I just don’t understand why so many people are interested in her or her sister’s escapades.

 

[LordBrownTrout]

And why this garbage is news in the media when they could be reporting something that is of importance is mindboggling to me.

 

[jillian]

And why this garbage is news in the media when they could be reporting something that is of importance is mindboggling to me.

Well, the answer.. because it gets ratings and sells magazines and newspapers.

But if you notice, no one is really talking about Britney's sister. There are issues here which are important societally.

 

[Eightball]

Like blacks being slaves, women being unequal and unable to vote, homosexuals being killed, etc, etc?

I'll take the morals we have now, thank you.

I totally agree with you Larkinn. I wasn't intimating that the Roman Golden age was something to be copied by our Western culture.

I think you took a big leap there, assuming that I would think that.

The Romans did indeed have slaves, and that is an abomination to any society, in my humble opinion. Their cruelty to both humans and animals in colliseum events throughout their empire were terrible, and wouldn't be tolerated in our present society.
*******

I guess what my Rome comment was meant to mean was that their culture or structure of society was very strong or firm for a long time, but it did gradually disentegrate. I guess the "Why?" part, is up to conjecture. Seems like their Germanic provinces were a real stickler or thorn in their side. They had so many cultures and so much land mass to control, it's amazing that they could keep it as long as they did.
******
I took a presumptious leap in assuming that the Roman empire would have lasted longer if they had maintained a certain moral structure, but I was mistaken in my statement, as others here have corrected me.

When I say moral structure, I don't mean on the same higher plain as our present one here in the Westernized countries.
*****

 

[jillian]

I totally agree with you Larkinn. I wasn't intimating that the Roman Golden age was something to be copied by our Western culture.

I think you took a big leap there, assuming that I would think that.

The Romans did indeed have slaves, and that is an abomination to any society, in my humble opinion. Their cruelty to both humans and animals in colliseum events throughout their empire were terrible, and wouldn't be tolerated in our present society.

He was talking about slavery in THIS country, women not being allowed to vote here! Gays weren't killed in ancient Rome either.

 

[Eightball]

He was talking about slavery in THIS country, women not being allowed to vote here! Gays weren't killed in ancient Rome either.

Oops! Screw up number umpteen million and three for me.

I'm on a roll.

 

[jillian]

Oops! Screw up number umpteen million and three for me.

I'm on a roll.

We all have days like that. Wouldn't sweat it too much.

 

[José]

Originally posted by Eightball
Oops! Screw up number umpteen million and three for me.

I'm on a roll.

Eightball

You can be sure I'm your unconditional fan.

We all know how hard it is to admit gaps in our knowledge, mistakes in our posts, etc etc

Your humility and ability to recognise mistakes is so poignant, so rare on the Internet that I almost feel bad debating with you.

But since debate is what message boards are for, let me try and summarise your position as far as I could understand it.

Correct me if I’m wrong.

 

[José]

You seem to believe in the following correlation:

judeo-christian standards of morality = ascension and decline of empires, kingdoms and nation-states.

More specifically, you believe the standards of morality of a given people, as they are understood in Christianity, are directly proportional to their social cohesion and prosperity. The more righteous they are, in the christian sense of the word, the more prosperous and cohesive their society becomes.

It is your understanding that societies that depart from these values become less and less united in a long process that eventually leads to the complete desintegration of the society, and at this point, you cited Rome to back up your case.

If you want your idea to be taken seriously you have to confront its difficulties and come up with reasonable explanations.

One of these difficulties was ironically brought up by yourself:

The case of Rome (as well as many other political entities throughout human history).

Contrary to what you stated in your initial post, Rome didn’t lose what it never had in the first place:

Moral values even remotely similar to the ones of the judeo-christian tradition.

The process of social entropy that eventually dissolved the Roman Empire cannot be attributed to the “loss” of behavioural rules they never had to begin with.

Ironically, the case of the Roman Empire, instead of strengthening your proposition, presents a major stumbling block to it.

If adhesion to judeo-christian moral values was the cause of social cohesion and national prosperity, you can be sure Rome would be remembered today only by professional historians as a small, obscure village in the Italic Peninsula that would have probably disapeared centuries before the birth of Jesus.

 

[Shogun]

speaking of slaves in Rome... Doesn't the OT advocate SLAVERY?

 

[watermark]

I'm a Californian, and here's my take on this situation. It is pitiful in so many ways, but this Spear's family seems to just unravel, and unravel.
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Unless it's changed, a California girl 17 years and under is under-age, and if the male counterpart is 18 or older, he can be charged with statutory rape in that state.

We knew some folks whose 17 year old daughter was dating a 17 year old boy from the same high school in California where we live. The two kids had your typical break-up, and the girl told her parents that she had been having sex with her ex-boy friend in a way to make her look like an innnocent, forced victim. Her boyfrined had turned 18 just a few months before the break-up. The parents of the girl went on a vendetta after the ex-boy friend, and had the boy arrested for statutory rape.

As far as I know the boy didn't get felony jail time, but was put on 3 years probation. The district attorney felt that though the girl was a minor, that the sex seemed to be consensual. The girl, after the breakup, tried to convince her parents that the sex had been forced on her, and the girl's parents went with wild abandon to nail this boy. These parents were upstanding church going folks, and I think they were in denial, that their precious little girl could consensually have sex before marriage or under 18. The case really was the parents of the girl versus the boy. Also the boy's parents were really put through the "ringer", with the possiblity of their son facing felony jail time, and also having a criminal record over this.

The girl obviously was afraid to admit complicity in the sexual liason part of her relationship with her parents, and told Mommy and Daddy that this was a very bad boy. Funny how this little going-steady with the bad boy went for about a 1 1/2 years?

Even though, I think the boy was wrong as well as the girl, I'm glad that the courts showed some leniency on the boy, as the girl and he had been carrying-on sexually when both were under age before the break-up happened when the boy had turned 18.

Felonies in California mean state prison, and an 18 year old boy sentenced behind bars in a California state prison for turning 18 before his girlfriend does, and being charged with rape would have ruined the kid in my opinion. He would have been "ripe" USDA Prime for the perverts in our California state prisons.
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Now if the guy who got Spears Jr., pregnant is 19 that's a little different. That's one big old age difference, and a 19 year old, having sex with a 16 year old, and capping it off with a pregnancy does push the limits of leniency in my opinion. I think the 19 year old Papa needs more than a slap on the hand, and should face some judicial encounter. Also a 16 year old girl may have the body of a mature "of age" women, but mentally, and emotionally she's just a pubescent girl in my opinion. She's ripe for being taken advantage of sexually by older men, if her at- -home parental modeling has been lacking in morals, integrity, etc...

Male, sexual predators, prey on Lynn's age group. They are so vunerable to the older, mature, guy, who gives them that fatherly love image that alcoholic (Spears Papa), absent papa Spears didn't.

There is a reason in California and many states why kids that commit some pretty terrible crimes aren't sent to prison or charged in the same way as the state considers an adult.

There is an accountability level that has an onset with humans, and children often don't see or understand the magnitude of their actions, because of their mental, and emotional maturation levels. They still need some lawful discipline, and that's where there are sentences given out to juveniles, but with some altered approaches, or enactments.

Obviously the state has to put a starting-point for adulthood somewhere, although I'll have to admit that there are a lot of 20,30,40,50 year olds and above that have stunted mental emotional levels stuck back in their childhood years because of drug addiction, or lousy parental teaching/modeling of accountability.

Anyway, statutory rape laws weren't made to protect the victim's or her parent's honor, but to draw a line between accountability and inability to be accountable in the biggest of life decisions; namely procreation and personal human conduct or behaviour. It also has it's cultural impact on the society, because limits must be drawn in sexual behaviour so that society doesn't undo itself at the seams of behavior that divide us from unreasoning animals, and wisdom endowed creatures.

Rome was just one example of gradual creeping anarchy and/or splintering of a cohesive society that became sexually amoral, and fuzzied the lines of appropriate and and inappropriate human/societal behaviour.

If anyone wanting a little understanding of the Rome case; just rent the HBO series called, "Rome" that ran for two years. I understand, that though there was some liberality involved in the drama as far as non-fiction accounts go, the depiction of Roman society was not at all blown out of proportion from reality.

I know a lot of people disagree, but me, having just turned 18, I don't really consider consentual statutory rape as a big deal (whenever those involved aren't children, obviously). I think the age of consent should be 16, and people who have sex with 16-18 year olds should, perhaps, be slapped with a misdemeanor. But as long as there isn't a mandatory minimum, at least, the judge can take that into consideration. They still have to be put on the sex offender list for the rest of their life, however, and will be considered felons on their job application.