Why Are Struggling Parents Such An Easy Mark?

[Anonymous]

"I find it both scary and objectionable that a person or group of people feel they have the right to alter someone else's psychological make-up so completely and so against the subject's will. To abduct someone and by force take them to a facility where they will be isolated from family, friends, and community; to force them to renounce everything they know and believe in and accept only the program's way of thinking, to hold them against their will indefinitely until they finally succumb to the new way of thinking, is something out of an Orwellian nightmare. This form of so-called therapy is abuse in and of itself. I don't have to hear about the blatant physical abuse to be horrified that a child (or anyone) could be subjected to such treatment in what is supposed to be a fair and open society. It is a violation of basic human rights. Everyone has the right to their own thoughts, their own opinions, and their own ideas. Everyone has the right to self-determination."

I see no connection between your statements and the program I attended.  It was not a "facility" and there was no holding of anyone against their will-at least not at the school.  I guess you could say wilderness kept you against your will.  

You are calling the parents and program graduates immature?  OK.....hmmmm....thanks for the humor.

[Anonymous]

On 2005-09-28 05:00:00, Anonymous wrote:

""I find it both scary and objectionable that a person or group of people feel they have the right to alter someone else's psychological make-up so completely and so against the subject's will. To abduct someone and by force take them to a facility where they will be isolated from family, friends, and community; to force them to renounce everything they know and believe in and accept only the program's way of thinking, to hold them against their will indefinitely until they finally succumb to the new way of thinking, is something out of an Orwellian nightmare. This form of so-called therapy is abuse in and of itself. I don't have to hear about the blatant physical abuse to be horrified that a child (or anyone) could be subjected to such treatment in what is supposed to be a fair and open society. It is a violation of basic human rights. Everyone has the right to their own thoughts, their own opinions, and their own ideas. Everyone has the right to self-determination."



I see no connection between your statements and the program I attended.  It was not a "facility" and there was no holding of anyone against their will-at least not at the school.  I guess you could say wilderness kept you against your will.  



You are calling the parents and program graduates immature?  OK.....hmmmm....thanks for the humor.

"

This isn't Struggling Teens where naming a program is taboo.  What "school" did you attend?  How old were you when you were enrolled? How long did you stay? Did you have any say in whether you wanted to attend this school?  Depending upon the school, I will reserve further questions/comments until I know it's name and the answers to the questions above. Most of us are very familiar with the components of the different specialty schools and programs for troubled youth.

 :smokin:

[Anonymous]

I am going to decline to name my program because from what I have observed on this forum, it doesn't make sense to allow myself to be identified. I was almost 17 when I entered (wilderness before that for a few months). It was a relatively new program (2 years old when I entered) and still had some things to improve upon.  The post-graduation success rate for any of these programs is not good- I'll give you that.  But it is worth a try for many kids.  I did not have real drug issues- the kids who do tend to relapse post-program a lot more frequently.  I was also a lot smarter than a lot of the kids, which meant I really wasn't interested in finishing out my high school years at that place.  I was there for under a year- my parents and I thought I was ready to move on.  I did not buy-in to much of the stuff at the school and I was constantly in trouble, so don't accuse me of being programmed.  I wasn't allowed to talk to any touring parents.  
Also- there are some really screwed up kids in these programs.  I'm not sure you guys realize that.  There are kids dealing with adoption issues who have totally freaked out, there are girls who don't have any boundaries with guys, there are kids who snorted aspirin, antidepressants and anything else they could get their hands on.  At the school, they had to take away our sugar because kids were snorting it!  One kid got kicked out of his boarding school for receiving drugs in the mail packed in peanut butter jars.  ALL these kids had been through every kind of therapy imaginable.  Yep-some of the parents were truly awful and had messed the kids up.  Most, though, were just normal parents who didn't have a clue how to help their kids.  
This is my experience- not many kids left the school I attended with real negative feelings.  They may have thought a lot of it was bullshit, but it was never abusive and it really was a pretty cushy place compared to a drug treatment center or something like that.  A lot of kids had guitars and other instruments, and there were a lot of art projects going on.  We could take AP courses and many of the academic teachers were amazingly good.  Some didn't stick around, because year-round teaching in that kind of place isn't the easiest job.  We got taken to town for medical appointments or to take SATs.
All in all- even though I hated it, I don't know what else would have worked for me.

[Anonymous]

On 2005-09-27 23:43:00, AtomicAnt wrote:

"

On 2005-09-27 17:00:00, Anonymous wrote:


"It is so clear that the Fornits advocates are young adults who were so screwed up that no program could possibly help- there is probably serious brain damage or medical conditions.  The parents must have given up, leaving these angry people to rage at parents who actually found good programs and were able to help their teens.  


It is a shame that these poor people have to sit and rage from behind their computer screens. You must feel so powerless and unloved. It must be hard to hear about the way the reputable programs have healed many families and allowed the teens to work on some painful issues in a safe environment. It is so much easier for you to believe that they are all bad and that the leaders are only out to make a buck.  I guess that makes the pain of your own pathetic lives easier to bear.


Sorry, but I attribute a lot of my current success and my good relationship with my parents and my friends to the program I attended.  It wasn't perfect, and I hated a lot of things about it. I needed to be there- I was angry, unhappy and suicidal.  I would not go to therapy at home, and if I did go, I lied to the therapist.  I was stealing from people and selling drugs to make money. I was failing in school.  My parents could not leave me alone in the house or I would steal prescription drugs or anything else I could get my hands on.  My parents made mistakes, but they are not bad people.  I was given a lot of privileges, and for many years I appreciated them.  At a certain point I changed and decided to try drugs, started breaking every rule I could, and was seriously on the way to big trouble. I would not listen to anything my parents, counselors or teachers said.  I was 16- my parents could not kick me out of the house.  


What would you brilliant anti-program zealots suggest that my parents should have done?  They were so upset that their own careers were in jeopardy. My younger brother was traumatized and scared that I would be dead.  When the escorts came, I was pissed.  I kicked a hole in the wall. Of course I wanted to stay home and keep using drugs, drinking and sleeping in my nice house. My parents stood there and cried as I was taken out of the house.  It took me about 2 weeks in wilderness- and the drugs leaving my system- to understand what was going on. It took me about another week to understand that I had gotten myself there- it wasn't my parents' fault.  They truly had no choice.  I had used up all the other options.  I think I would have been OK if I had come home after wilderness- most kids would not have been OK.  Oh- I forgot to mention the total degenerates who I called my friends before I went away.  I wish their parents could have done what mine did.  It was too expensive for most of them. One of those kids is dead and one never finished high school.  They were both great students before they turned 16.  I had to go to a therapeutic boarding school so I would be away from the stuff at home for awhile longer and so I could fix the damage I had done to my transcript at school.  I hated the school, but I made great friends and I learned some important things.  I learned that it was OK to have problems and to talk about them.  No one at home (friends) admitted having problems, being sad or worrying about the future.  I learned how to have friends who really cared about me.  The staff had some morons, but most of them were great.  They worked really hard, lived in a shitty small town so that they could work at this school, and spent a lot of time with us on weekends and evenings.  I still write to some of them.  No one was ever abused.  We got yelled at, we had consequences like writing assignments and some clean-up crews.  Also, we weren't allowed to speak to certain other kids if we abused some privileges- like having relationships with girls.  There were good reasons for these rules, which I didn't understand until much later.  I never was good at following rules, and I had to learn by having consequences.  I have been out for a few years, and I still challenge authority in many ways.  I have good friends and don't do drugs. I am old enough to drink responsibly.


So-you should maybe get off your soapbox about these programs and find something to attack that you might actually know something about."

I have read so many accounts just like yours on this site that I question if the story is real or just made up. There are just too many cliches and it all sounds so canned and generic, like the testimonials on the infomercials on TV where people say how many pounds they lost or how much money they made. Meanwhile, those of us with experience and common sense are fully aware that for most people these programs (referring to the infomercials) are not effective. We don't buy them. Someone must or they would not exist.



For the sake of argument, however, I will treat the story as real and genuine. I will not take the bait of the inflammatory tone and anger and the attacks like "So you should maybe get off your soapbox about these programs and find something to attack that you might actually know something about." It is clear that many people at Fornits have been in programs. They do know about them.



I will not attempt to undermine your belief that the program helped turn your life around. Perhaps you would have grown up and changed on your own, perhaps you would have died of an overdose. No one can say. It is pointless to argue the case either way.



I do not dismiss the stories of abuse by others on this board, either. There are many stories of abuse and there are news articles to back them up.



I am still 100% against these programs.  Even if there were zero deaths, I would still be against them. Even if they worked for 100% of the kids sent into them, I would still be against them. In fact, the more effective the program, the more I am alarmed. Do you see the danger here?



The danger is that the more effective these techniques become, the more potential there is for widespread abuse. If you can take a teen to a facility and completely unhinge and rearrange their world view this effectively, then what stops the government or others from using the same techniques on anyone that disagrees with them? The answer is, of course, nothing. They do. In the 1960s, China used these same techniques to re-educate large numbers of its population. The Unification Church and other cults depend on these techniques to keep their flocks full. The self-help gurus such as est, Lifespring, The Forum, et al, use these techniques to convince people that they have all the answers to all their problems.

 

I find it both scary and objectionable that a person or group of people feel they have the right to alter someone else's psychological make-up so completely and so against the subject's will. To abduct someone and by force take them to a facility where they will be isolated from family, friends, and community; to force them to renounce everything they know and believe in and accept only the program's way of thinking, to hold them against their will indefinitely until they finally succumb to the new way of thinking, is something out of an Orwellian nightmare. This form of so-called therapy is abuse in and of itself. I don't have to hear about the blatant physical abuse to be horrified that a child (or anyone) could be subjected to such treatment in what is supposed to be a fair and open society. It is a violation of basic human rights. Everyone has the right to their own thoughts, their own opinions, and their own ideas. Everyone has the right to self-determination.



I don't have the answers for solving the problems of troubled teens. I don't need to be an expert on adolescence. I don't need credentials, I don't need experience with programs, to know that treating someone in a cruel and inhumane way is just wrong. It just is. Like murder, it is just intrinsically wrong. To rape someone's mind is no less wrong than to rape their body. To send someone to a private prison without due process of law is no less wrong than chaining them to the radiator in their room.



"

JSA:  How refreshing! Thanks for at last admitting that the problem here is a difference in philosophies.

You know the BS you write about abuse at programs isn't true--unless one accepts the new, improved definition of abuse, a la fornits. Why do you get to remodel the English language to suit your hunger for attention? Man, that white horse you spend so much time on is looking awfully lame.

[Antigen]

:nworthy: Great post!

On 2005-09-27 23:43:00, AtomicAnt wrote:

 There are just too many cliches and it all sounds so canned and generic, like the testimonials on the infomercials on TV where people say how many pounds they lost or how much money they made. Meanwhile, those of us with experience and common sense are fully aware that for most people these programs (referring to the infomercials) are not effective. We don't buy them. Someone must or they would not exist.

I don't doubt that this anon is a real kid and believes everything they're saying. But your reference to bogus infomercials made me chuckle. I read somewhere not long ago about an investigation of these rackets. The usual scam is to get people who are normally very fit and attractive but who are temporarily overweight due to medical issues. They photograph them at their worst, wait 6 months or a year then do the after pictures and testimonials.

Same scam, down to the letter. Exctpt one thing; their hired models know the scam. These kids and parents usually do not. I think it's significant that the founder of Herbalife was a CEDU graduate who died of a drug overdose (combined w/ his own products) in his home. Evidently, he bought into his own bullshit too. Sad as hell, eh?

The danger is that the more effective these techniques become, the more potential there is for widespread abuse. If you can take a teen to a facility and completely unhinge and rearrange their world view this effectively, then what stops the government or others from using the same techniques on anyone that disagrees with them? The answer is, of course, nothing. They do. In the 1960s, China used these same techniques to re-educate large numbers of its population. The Unification Church and other cults depend on these techniques to keep their flocks full. The self-help gurus such as est, Lifespring, The Forum, et al, use these techniques to convince people that they have all the answers to all their problems.

 

I find it both scary and objectionable that a person or group of people feel they have the right to alter someone else's psychological make-up so completely and so against the subject's will.

That is exactly my concern too. What originally got my attention years ago was something Jeb Büsh did just after he took office as governor of Florida. He promised $100 million in public funding for juvenile drug rehab. I remembered when Nancy Reagan took Princess Di on a tour of Straight, Inc. And I knew the Büsh/Reagan political machine was one and the same. So I had to look, like checking for the boogie man under the bed.

Alarmingly, I found what I was looking for. Anybody who wants to get all the greusome details can take advantage of Wes Fager's extensive research at http://TheStraights.com/

I don't know much about what the CEDU/WWASP branch has done w/ their political currency except that they invest a whole lot of it in Republican causes. I can guess that if one were to thoroughly look into it, you'd find a pattern of preference for what we sometimes call the "extra chromosome" Republicans or Religious Reich or Jacobians or Neocons.

But, while I was busy putting the whole thing behind me, making a family and all, the Seed/Straight branch has been busy, busy, busy! They've established a plethora of organizations all geared toward promotion, public funding and legal mandate of their world view, products and services.

I remember the discussion among drug policy reformers after 9/11. The concensus among the celeritys and leaders in the movement was that we should take a vacation and go help out the victims of that disaster; that this inner family squabble could and would keep till after the immediate crisis and that we should all pull together as the one nation that we are. I was a dissenter in that view because I know how completely deranged these people are. And, shaw' nuff, the Super Bowl comes around and these lunatics had invested several million on the most expensive advertising available in the market, all geared toward placing international political terrorism at the feet of 13yo suburban pot smokers.

While there was some degree of shocked criticizm in the media over this, I think they missed the point entirely when they described it as callous capitalism. Nothing could be further from the truth. You must understand that the core cadre of drug war proponants have, themselves, put their own kids and grandkids through their programs. Moreover, unlike the WWASP type programs, parents in the Seed/Straight line are required to attend weekly or (for out of town families) monthly meetings structured roughly like an AA meeting w/ the kids and to provide daily lodging (w/ locks or alarms on the doors), food, transportation and total enforcement of all of the rules and dogma to those kids while they're in the program.

It's nothing at all like cold, cynical profiteering. Anything but. It's more like manic, passionate zealotry. These people can and will justify any gross abuse in what they view as the cause of saving the world.

Just one little flaw in that outlook. None of the elements of this crisis to which they've dedicated their lives and souls and our public policy and funding is actually a crisis at all. Drugs and rebellious kids have been with us always. For the past 30 years or so, they've gone balls to the walls promoting their cure. We now spend a documented $73 billion annually on domestic drug policy enforcement and untold (litterally... much of it is black budget spending) billions on international drug policy enforcement.

For all that we can show zero improvement by any reasonable measure. But the people driving this toughlove hategroup movement are completely impervious to any kind of sensible, reasonable, logical thinking on the topic. The only answer they can fathom is to redouble our efforts. In a very real sense, they're addicted to it.

If they really were just an ineffectual weird little cult, I wouldn't bother worrying about it. But they're not. They're heavily invested in public policy focused on coercing the rest of us to take even more of their medicine and to pay for it. I think that if most Americans understood just how crazy these people are they'd all have to go out and get real jobs. Just imagine the tax savings if we could only get this monkey off our backs.

The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of each citizen to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do his share in this defense are constitutional rights secure.
-- Albert Einstein

[Antigen]

On 2005-09-28 06:49:00, Anonymous wrote:

Yep-some of the parents were truly awful and had messed the kids up. Most, though, were just normal parents who didn't have a clue how to help their kids.

....


All in all- even though I hated it, I don't know what else would have worked for me."

Well, here's my take on it. Those normal parents who didn't have a clue how to help their kids are, for the most part, over reacting. And yet I don't really blame them entirely. We all were raised during or after the Nixon admin. Then came the Reagans/Büsh admin, who's leading "first lady" cause was taken entirely from Straight, Inc. founder Betty Sembler's cause.

Compare your teenage years to what was going on in the `30's and `40's. I can tell you a little about that based on what my father and his sisters have told me. His father was the chief of police while his uncle was the mayor and the most powerful bootlegger in the area. There were all the same things going on then, but the rules were a little different. Alcohol was illegal, except for medicinal/personal use. We still have the same laws on the books and in practice for personal production. I think we're allowed something like 40 gallons per year per adult in residence. You can look it up on any homebrewing website. Cannabis was legal. That's right, legal for anyone of any age to grow, purchase, sell, possess and use. Heroin was marketed by Bayer Pharmaceuticals for the same price per dose as Aspirin.

At the same time, there were rapes, date rapes, teen pregnancy, vandalism, burglaries, shiftless, dangerous bullies and all the rest. And there were some phenominally bad parents and some heroically good ones. Most fell somewhere in between, just like now. But there was just no broadly held perception that anyone needed professional help in raising kids, troubled or otherwise. Families, communities, churches and other spontanious, traditional entities did all of that for free as a matter of course.

Now we've got a multibillion dollar public policy effort ongoing for decades and augmented by the private reform school industry. But are we showing any better results than we have historically? I don't think so. And I do think the methods employed by this industry do an awful lot of harm to individuals and families in the course of failing utterly to deliver any meaningful results.

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.
--George Bernard Shaw, Irish-born English playwright

[Anonymous]

Well- I know I needed help that I couldn't get at home or from my community at home.  I think the most important thing was the feedback I got from my peers at the program. Unlike what is claimed on this forum, our group sessions were frequently excellent. I refused to buy into the crap about really dumping on another student just to make myself look like I was making progress, and I wouldn't rat out kids who broke rules.  What was good, though, was my peers calling me on my bullshit and my arrogance.  Even the hugs were good for me, because I was too tough back at home to ever hug anyone.  What the therapeutic process did for me, both in wilderness and at the school, was allow me to let go of a lot of anger and other crap.  I didn't have to demean other people to make myself feel good.  
Antigen- it isn't the same world as it was in other decades.  The moral decline, the electronic communication, the increase in wealth- all of these contribute to the too much-too soon issues today's teens face.  More couples are divorced, more mothers work outside the home, the pressure to achieve is more intense.

[Anonymous]

Good post., Anon. A few positive words here: Ginger, I don't agree with a lot of your posts, but you do show a willingness to consider thoughtfully the other views on the forum.
 :nworthy:

I agree with this last one from anonymous, and would like to add a thought: Whether you think the program approach is abuse, or just think it's not a good idea in general, the piece that seems pretty important to me is the reason for their existence. They couldn't be there without a need and I can tell you, from a program that has a long waiting list, no one has to create a market here. Kids have always rebelled--healthy behavior. Kids have always needed to find their own way---also healthy. But mistakes now are a lot costlier than they were a generation or two ago: AIDS, death by meth, capital punishment as imposed by gangs, parenting by playstation---This is not your grandma's adolescent angst. Trial and error looks pretty scary when your kid goes from being a decent kid to being a meth prostitute in three months.

Sometimes interrupting the destruction by removing the kid from all that is the first step. It may be that the thousands of parents sending their kids to programs reflects an epidemic of lousy parenting, but I think that's kind of a stretch. At the same time, there MUST be bad things going on, or why all the stories? Maybe the best thing would be for people to admit that parents today--many of whom really did fall short, but are looking for ways to recover their families and do better--may need extraordinary means of support, and allow that programs--well run, with extensive family involvement--may be a part of the solution.
 :grin:

[Anonymous]

On 2005-09-28 11:09:00, Anonymous wrote:

"Well- I know I needed help that I couldn't get at home or from my community at home.  I think the most important thing was the feedback I got from my peers at the program. Unlike what is claimed on this forum, our group sessions were frequently excellent. I refused to buy into the crap about really dumping on another student just to make myself look like I was making progress, and I wouldn't rat out kids who broke rules.  What was good, though, was my peers calling me on my bullshit and my arrogance.  Even the hugs were good for me, because I was too tough back at home to ever hug anyone.  What the therapeutic process did for me, both in wilderness and at the school, was allow me to let go of a lot of anger and other crap.  I didn't have to demean other people to make myself feel good.  

Antigen- it isn't the same world as it was in other decades.  The moral decline, the electronic communication, the increase in wealth- all of these contribute to the too much-too soon issues today's teens face.  More couples are divorced, more mothers work outside the home, the pressure to achieve is more intense.  "

trolls are out in force!

[Antigen]

On 2005-09-28 11:09:00, Anonymous wrote:

"Well- I know I needed help that I couldn't get at home or from my community at home.  I think the most important thing was the feedback I got from my peers at the program.

I'll buy that. In fact it reminds me of an interesting tid-bit I ran accross recently. This link should drop you into the middle of a page right at the relavent spot. If not, search on "patty-cake" to find it.

http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-eff ... patty_cake

Here's a narrow quote from that reference:

Now, to be fair, all of the treatment programs did score a percentage point or two better than the control group which got no treatment at all, which seems to indicate that just getting the alcoholics and drug addicts together in a room and letting them talk helped a little. The groups provided a sense of community and gave members some moral support, and encouragement to "make it", and succeed in abstaining. And sometimes they may have even shared their stories and given each other some helpful advice, now and then. But the inescapable conclusion was that all of the treatment programs were basically just taking the credit for the spontaneous remissions that were occurring anyway. The treatment programs were just taking the credit for the people's own hard work to save themselves.

(emphasis added)

I think there's a fair, measured argument to be made for all sides. However, that's not what they tell the parents when they're angling to get heads in the beds. They fan the flames of the parents' fear while making expansive promises of miraculous success that are simply unfounded.

And, not only do they not mention the down side, they'll sue your ass if you do. Not speaking specifically of the program you were in. Just the industry in general. And I've got a stack of threatening letters from various lawhers and program administrators to prove it. One day I may put them all online. Maybe your program is one of them.

Antigen- it isn't the same world as it was in other decades. The moral decline, the electronic communication, the increase in wealth- all of these contribute to the too much-too soon issues today's teens face. More couples are divorced, more mothers work outside the home, the pressure to achieve is more intense.

Well, in some respects that's true. But the more things change the more they stay the same. I'm with ya' on working mothers. Even when the mother in question is dysfunctional, there's a lot to be said for just having a neighborhood full of familiar people 24/7. Most of us just don't live together anymore. But I don't think shipping kids off to an even more regimented and alien environment is a good answer to that.

Not to brag or anything, but I think I did it a little bit better. When I was a young mother, I hated leaving my kids w/ strangers in day care. And I hated never being able to really throw myself into any career. Fact is, kids get colds and have other pressing needs, day cares are only open certain hours and, at the end of the day (or when you get a call before lunch time) the kid comes first. So I quit trying to work about 5 minutes after I realized I could replace what was left of my take home pay w/ just a couple of babysitting jobs.

But it was nothing like the lifestyle of the stay-at-home moms in my childhood neighborhood. The only other neighbors to stay home were crack heads and other dead beats. No good company for me or the kids and, in fact, more of a danger to guard against most of the time.

I do wish more people would give fulltime homemaking a shot so we could have that kind of security and good company in our neighborhoods again. And I wish people would quit stressing over the perceived dangers and let their kids be kids and go out and play.

But little else has changed, really. Kids are still kids and there's still no magic cure for troubling teenagers. Most, like you, run into some sort of wake-up-call and/or simply reach a level of maturity where they decide to get their act together. Some don't. That's true, and probably in equal numbers, of kids who get sent off and kids who don't.

Duct tape is like the force; it has a light side and a dark side and it holds the universe together.
--Jedi Knight school drop out.

[Nihilanthic]

On 2005-09-28 14:03:00, Anonymous wrote:

"

On 2005-09-28 11:09:00, Anonymous wrote:


"Well- I know I needed help that I couldn't get at home or from my community at home.  I think the most important thing was the feedback I got from my peers at the program. Unlike what is claimed on this forum, our group sessions were frequently excellent. I refused to buy into the crap about really dumping on another student just to make myself look like I was making progress, and I wouldn't rat out kids who broke rules.  What was good, though, was my peers calling me on my bullshit and my arrogance.  Even the hugs were good for me, because I was too tough back at home to ever hug anyone.  What the therapeutic process did for me, both in wilderness and at the school, was allow me to let go of a lot of anger and other crap.  I didn't have to demean other people to make myself feel good.  


Antigen- it isn't the same world as it was in other decades.  The moral decline, the electronic communication, the increase in wealth- all of these contribute to the too much-too soon issues today's teens face.  More couples are divorced, more mothers work outside the home, the pressure to achieve is more intense.  "

trolls are out in force! "

Wow man, first someone talks about the mindfuck seminars in a positive light about 'feelings' and 'breakthroughs' as if anyone would fall for that bullshit, then turns around and spews made up bullshit or outright lies in the statement to antigen. Hiding psychological and emotional manipulation with happy feel good words and speaking as if you had your ego functions reduced to nothing isn't going to work here.

Last I checked people had the most (inflation adjusted!) wealth in the 1970s, not now, and the 'moral decline' has been met with.. REDUCED CRIME RATES!!!

Hey, jackass, why not go read the published, freely available facts before you come in spewing utter bullshit, unless you LIKE being bitchslapped.

Yes, indeed, the trolls ARE out in force!

A free man must be able to endure it when his fellow men act and live otherwise than he considers proper. He must free himself from the habit, just as soon as something does not please him, of calling for the police.
http://www.mises.org/liberal/ch1sec11.asp' target='_new'>Ludwig Von Mises

[Antigen]

On 2005-09-28 11:45:00, Anonymous wrote:

"Good post., Anon. A few positive words here: Ginger, I don't agree with a lot of your posts, but you do show a willingness to consider thoughtfully the other views on the forum.

 :nworthy:

Thanks very much!

It only takes a little prescience to understand that we're all fair game for the deeds we condone.

--Antigen

[Antigen]

On 2005-09-28 11:45:00, Anonymous wrote:

 Then support that with reasonable regulation, help programs network with the public and other health related fields, and make it work better for everyone. It isn't nearly as entertaining as ripping folks up on a website, but it could have better long-lasting results.  

I'll make this one comment before my head explodes. Because of the profuse spamming for these reform efforts, I've stayed out of the debate. I don't want my efforts to control spam to be confused w/ opposition to the effort.

Actually, I'm not entirely opposed to the effort. I think it's well intended and fairly well thought out, but irredeemably flawed in one respect. The medical profession is not doing so well under all the layers of regulation. In many cases, they manage to do right by the patients in spite of all that. I've seen good doctors bend rules, take sensible short cuts and even scam the living hell out of public funding in order to accomplish their patient care goals.

It's my opinion that we just need to enforce existing laws against various kinds of abuse and fraud. But bringing the other side of the issue into the public policy dialog is a good thing, even if it does likely result in a lot of expensive, ineffective and often absurd regulation.

So carry on, but don't hold your breath for the people who brought us FEMA and compulsory public schooling to fix this for us. As in every disaster in recent memory, we'll have to address the problem ourselves on a freelance basis. Maybe one day we can offer these kids the opportunities and freedom we once did as a nation (i.e. gimme back that half of my pay that you call taxes!) But for now, we have to work around it.

...the coercive collectivist State is distinctly uninterested in the cultivation of intelligence and wisdom. This is understandable...for the State has no uses to which persons of intelligence and wisdom can be put.
--Albert Jay Nock.

[Anonymous]

Just when it seemed possible to have a reasonable interchange on this forum, Nihil had to bring his personal anger and attacks to ruin it.
You just can't stand for someone to have actually come out the other end of a program and not be bitching and moaning, can you Nihil?  Not everyone deserves your ugliness.  This kid shared what he believed- why dump on him because you are still fucked up?

[Nihilanthic]

Ah, the loaded question - that assumes I ever was, or still am, fucked up.

Also, you say "bitching and moaning"... whats the implication there. That any grievances are just "bitching and moaning"? Discrediting the nay-sayers and me in one fell swoop, touche!

Oh, wait, so sorry, it doesnt work that way.

What he said was the kind of loaded language and 'feeling' based expressions and descriptions, which are the hallmark of LGA based seminar 'therapy'. When you reduce ego function and make it all about feelings and structured affection and confrontation, you're doing.... well, emotional manipulation, and people who come out often speak that way and avoid criticism and critical thought.

Basically feel, no thinking. I dont buy it, I dont like it, I dont see the efficacy and I HAVE seen the damage it can cause.

Maybe we should ask dear Amanda and Perrigaud in here to say their peace? Maybe these two PhD's? http://perso.wanadoo.fr/eldon.braun/awa ... hology.htm

Maybe Ginger might have something to add.?

I will admit Im still bristling from a debate that turned into a flamewar... in a car forum over engine vs engine (20b naturally aspirated vs a 2.3 liter turbo, in the context of cost/performance and power delivery, and then reliability of the latter powerplant) and shouldnt have been that piercing, but the points I made still stand.

I'll just be sure to keep it uninflamatory so I dont hurt someone's feelings or open myself up to ad-hominem attacks and thinly veiled attacks to discredit me and criticism, in the future, of course - but I find that so utterly ironic when the LGA seminars are about confrontation and riling up emotions!


 :silly:

After all, who wouldn't prefer Middle Earth, unless they've been corrupted by a Ring of Power?

http://www.lewrockwell.com/elkins/elkins73.html' target='_new'>Jeff Elkins; Tolkien's Libertarian Vision

[ This Message was edited by: Nihilanthic on 2005-09-28 15:17 ]