NationStates

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I felt compelled to make this as a spinoff from the other thread, as I feel this topic, while somewhat related, is still meaningfully distinct.

So I noticed a few people in that other thread started to blame welfare for single motherhood, as if the $250000 it costs to raise a child weren't just as intimidating to the average couple as the average individual woman. This past year has shown that you can't rely on a steady stream of income to keep up with that cost. If anything, I would expect a society where raising children is more affordable to make people MORE inclined toward pair bonding, as now they have something to lose by breaking up. Even childless couples might have less trouble making their relationship work without the stress of poverty hanging over their heads. Conversely, even without welfare programs, single mothers can still afford their children if they take turns getting pregnant off the richest guy in town instead of the most attractive one.

I would hope that if a woman stays with a man she has sex with, it's out of love for him, rather than love for his money. Making her financially dependent on him would, at best, leave behind the question of whether it's for love or for money. At worst, it would embolden the worst kinds of abusers to exploit the fact that she has nowhere to escape to.

And for what? To avoid an increase in casual sex; and/or in keeping the resulting baby; that we cannot prove is any more prevalent in, let's say, welfare-state Scandinavia than in the welfare-restricting USA? How would you even prove that either way? It's possible that marital vows are being faked and that both participants in the marriage are having a bunch of casual sex with strangers. It's also possible that singlehood is being faked and people find who they're dating to be even more embarrassing than the assumption that they're not dating at all.

You want monogamy, subsidizing monogamous couples by taxing the rich might be a justified means (if a bit of a grey area) but forcing it on people through fear of poverty is not an acceptable method. Partly because it sounds too disproportionately cruel a response to acts of mutual pleasure, but it'd also be a joke if you were rich anyway. Just ask Donald Trump.

The OP: 'I totally don't have a fixation on sex, pregnancy and policing womens sexuality what are you talking about''

Also the OP: makes yet another thread about sex, pregnancy and policing womens sexuality

Nilokeras wrote:The OP: 'I totally don't have a fixation on sex, pregnancy and policing womens sexuality what are you talking about''

Also the OP: makes yet another thread about sex, pregnancy and policing womens sexuality

Emphasis mine. I already refuted your little strawman. Trying to repeat it now only makes everyone who would bother to click that link know that not only are you a liar, you don't even have the sense to stick to lies that can't be disproven. Hopefully they have the sense not to listen to anything you ever say! ^_^

https://family.jrank.org/pages/1574/Sin ... rends.html

As stated in the link, Scandinavian numbers of single parents are way lower than American. Unless you would like to claim that America has a generous welfare system, data says NO.

What does heighten the numbers? Poor sex ed. Divorce rate. Poverty.

Tho also the rise in deliberate single parenthood among highly educated people. They aren't dependent on welfare.

I think that every child should have every support possible for success in this world.

When discussing single mothers who aren't widows, these situations are often the fault of men and women who are using one another for short-term pleasure. We all should be taught not to take advantage of each other's struggles with chastity. If we knew how beautiful we really are, we would be hesitant to degrade ourselves and others.

Sundiata wrote:I think that every child should have every support possible for success in this world.

When discussing single mothers who aren't widows, these situations are often the fault of men and women who are using one another for short-term pleasure. We all should be taught not to take advantage of each other's struggles with chastity. If we knew how beautiful we really are, we would be hesitant to degrade ourselves and others.

If they doubted their beauty, they probably wouldn't be publicly showing off their bodies. Something else happened.

I would speculate that...

A: People are skeptical of the notion that a child needs a mother "and" a father when the people saying so were wrong about so many other things (the personal lives of those who say otherwise, etc.) and the fact that other subspecies of great ape most definitely did not need a mother "and" a father in their upbringing...

B: Even some of the people who DO believe a child needs a mother "and" a father might also be too biased in their opinions on which sex is most likely to have lied about their intentions about what to do in the event of pregnancy to trust the legal system to determine this. I definitely notice this the most often with people assuming the guy left after promising he'd stay no matter what, instead of considering the possibility that she kept the baby after claiming she wouldn't if the condom broke (again, I feel for her, but the gov't should pay for that rather than just dragging the guy into poverty) but I've no doubt the biases can happen in the other direction, I just doubt the other direction wins the day as far as influencing the legal system goes. Either way if it is to be considered any business of the rest of us, it should be assessed case by case by the legal system, not just presumed what happened, let alone by the same people who were wrong about everything from what the people advocating this were saying to whether or not they were former "pickysexuals" in their teen years.

. . .

EDIT: To follow up of sorts on Nilokeras' post, as I was a little too caught up in the moment yesterday to bother to more substantially address it. NSG left an impression on me years ago, for good or for ill, about the nature of each sides of the debates over these sorts of things; and which sides of each are the most prone to false assumptions about the personal lives of others, and presumably, to fale assumptions in general. I feel any discussion of these sorts of matters on other sites would be no substitute for them here, hence treating it as unfinished business. (You'll notice I otherwise don't post as much as I used to.) I've discussed other matters here, especially before recently, so it's absurd to look solely at content from the past few days as as representative sample.

So this is Saiwana's puppet, right?

Did you used to be LimaUniformNovemberAlpha, OP?

Nanatsu no Tsuki wrote:Did you used to be LimaUniformNovemberAlpha, OP?

Think so.

Nanatsu no Tsuki wrote:Did you used to be LimaUniformNovemberAlpha, OP?

Ding ding ding! We have a winner!

Others used to guess it via PM, but nonetheless, it's interesting to see a right guess from someone bold enough to put it out there on the main board.

Because in the minds of certain people, anything that costs them (personally) money, is ascribed to a moral defect. So anything that drives up their (personal) taxes must be morally reprehensible. And few things are so morally reprehensible (in their personal minds) as being a slut, and single mothers are equated with being a slut.

Hence: punish the sluts for having children, take their welfare away.

The mind is its own place, and can make an angel of demons, a demon of angels.

GuessTheAltAccount wrote:

Nanatsu no Tsuki wrote:Did you used to be LimaUniformNovemberAlpha, OP?

Ding ding ding! We have a winner!

Others used to guess it via PM, but nonetheless, it's interesting to see a right guess from someone bold enough to put it out there on the main board.

That confirms it. Ok.

Blattodean Dictyop wrote:Because in the minds of certain people, anything that costs them (personally) money, is ascribed to a moral defect. So anything that drives up their (personal) taxes must be morally reprehensible. And few things are so morally reprehensible (in their personal minds) as being a slut, and single mothers are equated with being a slut.

Hence: punish the sluts for having children, take their welfare away.

The mind is its own place, and can make an angel of demons, a demon of angels.

If that were the case, wouldn't at least as many voters have supported making amount of welfare paid inversely proportional to however many sexual partners others believe she had? If not, something else happened.

I suspect people have been brainwashed into this image of welfare as enabling mooching, by people who've been taught to ignore the lesson of Scandinavia; namely, that when you pay workers a living wage, they don't use as much welfare, even if you're not drug-testing them as much as the USA does. It's almost as if these people either were never really moochers in the first place or even moochers can be incentivized to work if you don't rob them of their rightful share of earnings for contributions to productivity.

There's also the libertarian-types who know that welfare recipients aren't moochers but somehow feel that giving them tax dollars is wrong anyway because taxation; except for the most strict bare minimum of gov't; is theft or whatever. Perhaps their votes combined with the conservative vote are what lead to the US restrictions on welfare. But they, too, are playing right into the hands of the 1%, regardless of their relatively more nuanced take.

Nanatsu no Tsuki wrote:Did you used to be LimaUniformNovemberAlpha, OP?

Holy crap no wonder I haven't got a clue! I used to participate in several threads of this poster back in July 2020. So much stuff has happened since then that I completely forgot his esoteric word salads posting style.

GuessTheAltAccount wrote:

Blattodean Dictyop wrote:Because in the minds of certain people, anything that costs them (personally) money, is ascribed to a moral defect. So anything that drives up their (personal) taxes must be morally reprehensible. And few things are so morally reprehensible (in their personal minds) as being a slut, and single mothers are equated with being a slut.

Hence: punish the sluts for having children, take their welfare away.

The mind is its own place, and can make an angel of demons, a demon of angels.

If that were the case, wouldn't at least as many voters have supported making amount of welfare paid inversely proportional to however many sexual partners others believe she had? If not, something else happened.

No, most voters are clever enough not to take measures that demonstrate the twists of their worldview, and even when they are not, their elected representatives are clever enough to protect these voters from being exposed as (fill in pejorative noun).

I suspect people have been brainwashed into this image of welfare as enabling mooching, by people who've been taught to ignore the lesson of Scandinavia; namely, that when you pay workers a living wage, they don't use as much welfare, even if you're not drug-testing them as much as the USA does. It's almost as if these people either were never really moochers in the first place or even moochers can be incentivized to work if you don't rob them of their rightful share of earnings for contributions to productivity.

Completely agree. But then, all of the above is compatible with my own observations.

There's also the libertarian-types who know that welfare recipients aren't moochers but somehow feel that giving them tax dollars is wrong anyway because taxation; except for the most strict bare minimum of gov't; is theft or whatever. Perhaps their votes combined with the conservative vote are what lead to the US restrictions on welfare. But they, too, are playing right into the hands of the 1%, regardless of their relatively more nuanced take.

I can't say that I agree or disagree, since I know fewer Libertarians than you probably do. If you say this is the case, then I will go with what you say.
I fail to see how any of this is somehow in contradiction of my own reply, since the belief that tax is evil is also a moral qualification. If these beliefs are then impressed by those who believe welfare is slutty, the slut-shaming is still the primary driver behind the blame game that is the subject of OP's question. The "libertarian moderate" is, in the scenario you have painted, merely an auxiliary.

Nanatsu no Tsuki wrote:

GuessTheAltAccount wrote:Ding ding ding! We have a winner!

Others used to guess it via PM, but nonetheless, it's interesting to see a right guess from someone bold enough to put it out there on the main board.

That confirms it. Ok.

It was already pretty obvious.

Blattodean Dictyop wrote:No, most voters are clever enough not to take measures that demonstrate the twists of their worldview, and even when they are not, their elected representatives are clever enough to protect these voters from being exposed as (fill in pejorative noun).

That's a little like saying "it's true but I can't prove it." When you are claiming to know precisely what's going on in someone else's mind, you need something better to go on than merely assuming that they somehow have more incentive to hide their real opinions than they have to avoid harming non-sluts who made a sincere attempt at a monogamous relationship and got dumped anyway.

Even if their opposition was to non-monogamy, you're accusing them of also prioritizing a coverup over minimizing collateral damage.

Blattodean Dictyop wrote:I can't say that I agree or disagree, since I know fewer Libertarians than you probably do. If you say this is the case, then I will go with what you say.

It's pretty obvious, in and of itself. A plurality of voters keep re-electing the public officials who drug-test the hell out of welfare recipients and restrict the hell out of how EBTs can be spent. But these same voters can't bring themselves quite as often to outright defend the characterization of welfare recipients as moochers. It's possible such voters are merely cowards, but many of them are from the deep south, and you'd think a coward wouldn't put themselves in the path of hurricanes and tornadoes on purpose. More likely they just object on principle to welfare even though they know recipients aren't moochers. And the closest-to-nuanced takes on this sort of thing from its opponents seem to come from libertarians. (Penn Jillette comes to minds.)

Sigh, just so much wrong in this thread.

In the states it is easier for a single parent to get government benefits than a married couple. So if you are a welfare mother near the benefits edge and you get married, the spouses income is counted with your own and often pushes you over an income threshold for receiving welfare or subsidized housing.

Therefore the claim is made, and is sort of accurate that the American welfare system produces single parent households

Spin doctors and manufactured consent, by their very existence, demostrate my point for me.
Can we please stop with the efforts to foster disagreement between us? It's starting to annoy.

Ethel mermania wrote:Sigh, just so much wrong in this thread.

In the states it is easier for a single parent to get government benefits than a married couple. So if you are a welfare mother near the benefits edge and you get married, the spouses income is counted with your own and often pushes you over an income threshold for receiving welfare or subsidized housing.

Therefore the claim is made, and is sort of accurate that the American welfare system produces single parent households

Then how come the conversation is almost always framed around decreasing welfare access for unwed mothers instead of increasing it for couples?

GuessTheAltAccount wrote:

Ethel mermania wrote:Sigh, just so much wrong in this thread.

In the states it is easier for a single parent to get government benefits than a married couple. So if you are a welfare mother near the benefits edge and you get married, the spouses income is counted with your own and often pushes you over an income threshold for receiving welfare or subsidized housing.

Therefore the claim is made, and is sort of accurate that the American welfare system produces single parent households

Then how come the conversation is almost always framed around decreasing welfare access for unwed mothers instead of increasing it for couples?

I dont know what fantasyland you are in that discusses it that way. In the states a new child tax credit was passed in the last stimulus bill. In fact the payments just started going out.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-polic ... ax-credit/

Ethel mermania wrote:

GuessTheAltAccount wrote:Then how come the conversation is almost always framed around decreasing welfare access for unwed mothers instead of increasing it for couples?

I dont know what fantasyland you are in that discusses it that way. In the states a new child tax credit was passed in the last stimulus bill. In fact the payments just started going out.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-polic ... ax-credit/

Didn't a lot of conservatives and libertarians criticize the Biden child tax credit, though? After spending 4 years being cool with a President who was promiscuous because he knew he could afford the child support bills anyway?

GuessTheAltAccount wrote:

Ethel mermania wrote:I dont know what fantasyland you are in that discusses it that way. In the states a new child tax credit was passed in the last stimulus bill. In fact the payments just started going out.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-polic ... ax-credit/

Didn't a lot of conservatives and libertarians criticize the Biden child tax credit, though? After spending 4 years being cool with a President who was promiscuous because he knew he could afford the child support bills anyway?

Ethel mermania wrote:

GuessTheAltAccount wrote:Didn't a lot of conservatives and libertarians criticize the Biden child tax credit, though? After spending 4 years being cool with a President who was promiscuous because he knew he could afford the child support bills anyway?

Have any actual counterargument?

GuessTheAltAccount wrote:

Ethel mermania wrote:

Have any actual counterargument?

You didn't make a first one. I showed you where you were wrong and then you decided to insult Republicans. When 30 posters point out why your arguments in other threads are sexist you just double down.

There isn't a lot left to say except,

Whatever you say dear.