Pity the poor moderate, me, pressed from the left by abortionists and on the right by people who think sex is degenerate.



Times are tough for 19th century Liberals.

Harry: "Degeneracy" doesn't seem to enter into it, in this case; the article deals entirely with health issues, not with morals.

Nobody thinks sex is degenerate, Harry. And this is not a time for us 19th century Liberals to be whining about how tough times are. It's time to seek allies wherever they may be found and build a better tomorrow, with courage, hope, and optimism.

As George Dangerfield said of Asquith: "he represented--or seemed to represent--all those dangerous and possibly subversive opinions of which Liberalism, in its grave game of progress, was forced to tolerate."

John, direct your comment to Orrin. I didn't call Clinton degenerate. I don't know of any evidence that he is.



I have been reading Orrin's stimulating posts for a few weeks now and remain confused whether he is a libertarian, straight out conservative or, as now proclaimed, 19th century Liberal. I usually can recognize a straight out conservative when I encounter one, having encountered hardly anything else during my first 30 years.



If you like freedom, it's hard to get cozy with conservatives, who were always telling me what to do, such as (true story) that I couldn't shoot basketballs in the backyard because it was Sunday.

Harry:



Our grandfather was a Sabbatarian, but even he would have let you shoot hoops.

D'oh! *smacks self in head* Sorry about that, Harry; I thought you were trying to refer to something in the linked article.



But OJ didn't say sex was degenerate; he said Clinton was a degenerate. It's fully possible to believe that sex is a wonderful spiritual thing and still think that Clinton is a slut.

Clinton's admitted assaulting women like Paula Jones and I don't believe he's ever denied raping Juanita Broaddrick.

I'm currently reading Epidemic by Dr. Meg Meeker -- hair-raising book. One can go on and on about separating sex and morality, etc. but the simple fact of the matter is there is a terrible health consequence to having multiple sex partners even if the sex isn't sex as our former beloved President would so define it.

Trust me, Harry, male libertarians don't have it tough. A bitter pill, for women, is that freedom has a cost and we haven't wanted to admit it. Maybe this is where some of the vehemence in support of abortion comes from because that is a freedom that seems to have little cost for women but more for men (in the sense that men wield little or no power in the decision), and of course we can ignore who pays the most in that equation because they have no voice in the matter. But at this time, when it is far easier than at any time in history for two people to do whatever sexually with little or no approbation from society, family or really anyone, I don't see how you can say times are tough or imagine a church lady behind every bush. And I doubt conservatives will ever be cozy 'cause they know freedom also has responsibility and they can so readily imagine the wages of sin.

Blither:



Have you ever read And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts? It's frightening to read all the medical conditions that gay men routinely suffer from because they come in such frequent contact with fecal matter. It made it very difficult to even perceive that AIDs was a new disease.

Not being a conservative, Buttercup, I do not

recommend that women seduced and

abandoned throw themselves in the river. I

will cheerfully make exceptions for women in,

say, India, but I'm not sure what consequences

you are talking about for American women.

Haven't you heard about contraceptives and

prophylactics?

Harry -- and neither do I, even for women in India.



The abortion rate shows that many are flat out willfully ignoring contraceptives. Why would someone do that? Why do men not use condoms all the time? I hate to go all "When Harry Met Sally" on you, but generally speaking, women want more. This has been seen as a weakness by feminists and a good deal of energy has been spent over 30 years to convince everbody otherwise. So there are other consequences besides unwanted pregnancy and disease. We've been trying the "love the one you're with" method and it doesn't seem to have a high level of satisfaction.



Besides, I still want to know how it is so tough, sexual or otherwise, for libertarians? Which is the problem libertarians, they seem to think a well-ordered society can materialize out of nothing because they live in a well-ordered society, and choose to ignore how it came about. And so any rebuke of a persons questionable sexual behavior amounts to a revival of the Inquisition.

Not to mention that abortion is now used primarily as a means of selecting male children and aborting females.

OJ: You've said that many times and I've seen statistics bearing this out for other countries, but has anyone shown this to be happening in the US or other western countries? I'm just wondering if sex selective abortion is going on here and ignored or if we have enough outrage still to keep the practise at a minimum?

I'll look and see if I can find an article about it, but here it is mainly happening in immigrant communities.

Clinton's a degenerate because he put his sex life over everything else, including his marriage and the office of the President. He also callously abused and discarded his lovers - for instance, if that blue dress hadn't turned up most people would still think that Lewinsky was a delusional stalker, a Big Lie put out by Clinton and his staff. The whole idea that "it's all about sex" is another Big Lie put out by Clinton defenders. And I say all this as a hardcore libertarian.

Buttercup, my apologies, I expressed myself

imprecisely. I don't want Indian women

throwing themselves in rivers. But I understand

why they may find themselves seduced and

abandoned and in trouble.



In America, women will find themselves seduced

and abandoned but there is no justification for

finding themselves in trouble, too.



Or, as my friend Donald Kaul once put it, in

a democracy, it's hard to work up much

sympathy for an oppressed majority.



And I am not a libertarian, I am a 19th century

Liberal, the last one. When I said it was

tough getting squeezed, I was not referring

to sex -- I've been married for 34 years -- but

to politics.