Teenage Pregnancy in Poland

You've mistakenly assumed I've done that. I haven't assumed anything except that the Government is completely incapable of managing family affairs in this country.


If you never had sex as a teen then you can cast judgement but for most of us, we simply got lucky in that we didn't become parents in our teens.


Are you trying to express the idea that the difference between a 3rd world and 1st world nation is the need for an alternative to personal accountability? If so, that is complete and utter horsesh*t!

This pathetic tendancy to rely on some agency to take responsiblity for us is rubbish. I say this as someone who grew up in a single parent household in a time when it was not acceptable to do so. I spent time growing up in some housing designated for single parents- it's not a solution and I'm eternally grateful my mother could see where those "solutions" would have led us. Bureacrats end up in the business of trying to obtain more and more funding to "fix" the problem when all they want is to secure their job and maybe make a bit more if their "responsibilities" increase.

When I was growing up, I was the only kid from a single parent family. As I grew up, funding for single parent families increased and guess what? SIngle parent families became and are still becoming more and more common. As government support for teen pregancy "awareness" increased, so did the instances of teen pregnancy and it's still increasing. If you're advocating government involvment, then whether you know it or not, you're advocating for more teen pregnancy.


One can only be expected to treat their family and friends well and be honest with strangers on their way through life. Trying to take care of society is a well intentioned fool's mission that's doomed to make matters worse each and every time. Personal accountability is the long term solution because throwing money at the problem is just going to cost more and more every year. And the people who are employed to take care of the problem will make sure it never goes away so that they always have a job. That is how it is.

Since we all have to pay for it in the end, it's better the state intervene quickly in dysfunctional families rather than let society pick up the pieces later. A stitch in time...


Hmmm


The difference, as you well know, is that in developed countries there's no need to put the burden of fixing problems on families.


And when someone isn't accountable? You'd let them and their kids suffer and compound all their problems in the future? Not how we do it in Europe.


Pay a little now or pay a fortune later.


Nonsense. You are beginning to sound like a faux-Ayn Rand libertarian. Every man for himself.

You know I once heard a particularly f*ckwitted person (Polish as it happens) saying that paying taxes and providing state support for those who need it was like two people on a desert island, one hard-working and the other lazy, with the hard-working guy having to pay cash to the lazy guy. A particularly sill analogy, but to carry it further - the daughter of the hard-working guy, privately educated, healthy, well-groomed - who's she going to marry?

That shouldn't be the measure of a developed country as you SHOULD well know. You seem to accept that there's no other way to improve on this other soon other than handing over responsibility to some state department. It's a sick way of thinking and I honestly doubt you care even a lick about this issue or the people but rather just want to convince yourself that all the real world proof proving my point just doesn't exist.


That's the problem! That is THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM! Read this in your outside voice nice and loud: GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS AND BUREACRATS ARE LESS ACCOUNTABLE IN EVERY SENSE THAN THE AVERAGE CITIZEN. They don't care about fixing anything. They only want to ensure they keep receiving funding to fix a problem that has grown more of a problem as people have relied less and less on the family unit. The amount of money that goes to these state run departments grows regularly-obviously nothing is getting fixed in western countries, teen pregnancy is now commonplace and you advocate a proven failure as the winning formula? Give your head a shake.


Jingoistic bullsh*t! I have given you real world examples of how that is patently false! This problem gets worse with government involvment, that is a fact.

You don't actually want to learn anything here do you? You don't actually want to turn the issue around and examine it from a perspective other than the one you had from the beginning. You are completely wrong on this and despite not one bit of evidence proving the contrary, you're still trying, like a two-bit lawyer to make a case. You don't have one- greater government involvement messes this up more for society because current governments are by nature, corrupt and wasteful because guess what? They're not really accountable at all.

Let's take teen pregnancy in Canada for example. Funding has increased to support teen pregancy and that's exactly what it's done -there are more and more teen moms every year. Who is held accountable for the losing formula? Ministers aren't fired, social workers aren't fired, co-ordinators don't lose their jobs. On the contrary, there's more and more funding for them! Before you can advocate government involvment, you have to ensure there's accountability in government when government policies don't work but there isn't, one administration gets voted out, no laws are repealed and more people pay for an ever growing establishment that seeks to maintain itself over the interests of the citizen.


Don't be such a twit. I am speaking about one issue here and I've supported my point with real world/current examples.

MANDATING financial responsibility for other people's personal decisions costs the middle class and fails every time. Corporations escape these laws, the wealthy escape these taxes and the number of people claiming financial support GROWS- this is a fact and there's not a god damn thing you can say or write to prove otherwise.


You're right, it is a completely crap analogy and I have no idea why you bothered to carry a flawed analogy further.

Or taking responsibility in the form of shared action.


That's just bizarre.


You haven't. You've just ranted about 'big government' and suggested that families should deal with problems, without giving a thought to whether or not they are able to or who will sort out the fallout further down the line.

Perhaps there has to be more funding - if a problem is growing......


And the middle class are precisely the people who benefit because they (in the form of the state) keep a lid on the worst of the squalor and deprivation of the poor. Including the fallout from teenage pregnancies.,#

Amazing how angry and aggressive impotent right-wingers get when allowed near the internet. Trying to take a thread off-topic because of some sort of off-centre political view (usually anti-statism) is pretty typical too.

You can call it that but that is not what it actually is. Please, I emplore you, give examples of the "shared action" you speak so highly of.


What is?


Thes are your problems/shortcomings in this debate:

- You see this as a partisan issue.
- Your opinion on the matter is disproven by facts
- You have offered nothing but catch phrases and appeals to emotion
- You want to be right more than you want the problem fixed.

You, very likely, are the kind of person who allies himself with one party regardless of the issue. I am very liberal when it comes to things like gay marriage, and affirmative action in the work place. This is (at least) one area in which it has been proven government involvment has consistently not worked and is very likely to be a causal source of perpetuating the very problem it was supposed to help remedy. If the best you can do is take words out of context and hope that something sticks then I suggest you go back to the drawing board with your education as you are clearly having problems seperating emotion from analysis.


Perhaps government funding is contributing to the problem.
Having grown up in circumstances when it was an incredible economic burden to be doing so, I speak from experience on this. I saw the difference between my circumstances and later generations of single parent families. And I could, even as an adolescent see how government involvment made matters worse. You can ignore that if you want to as it seems you're ignoring every other indicator there is which proves you're simply wrong on this. Accept this, change your outlook and become a better person.

It's called society, public institutions, civilisation.


Not really. I always used to vote for the same one but do so no longer.


I don't think so - government funding is never quite enough, and whenever there are any genuine initiatives, there are always people sniping about cost.

your response:


Does this mean you can't come up with any examples?


your response:


seems to conflict greatly with your previous posturings and promises:


So government funding will never be enough to fix socially contrived problems but you advocate going ahead and trying it anyhow? For the love of whatever you hold dear, think about this and realize the madness you're advocating. By now, it should be clear to you that you've proven yourself wrong.

- People who get jobs in these areas have a FINANCIALLY VESTED INTEREST IN maintaining the problem.
- There will always be people who make mistakes
- The lesser the consequences, the more people take risks

It's in the interest of Social Welfar officers' and counsellors' families to never fix the problem in the short or long run because then they would be out of work. It's a self perpetuating cycle and you've admitted as much. It's a matter of whether the system encourages others, who would otherwise be careful, in engaging in riskier behaviour or whether the lack of a safety net discourages them from such behaviour. I know, I've grown up with it, I went to school with the generation in which it became "okay" to be a teen mother and what that really meant was that more and more girls became less and less careful. I don't know how much more clear I can make this to you: I witnessed the change of thinking in my generation- the change wasn't good and government safety nets encouraged more teen pregancy along with other social breakdowns.

I gave you three!


Of course - without society we just end up like the third world.


Don't be silly - that is cynical and untrue.



Paranoia.


You're suggesting society shouldn't provide 'safety nets' for those who need it?

Those aren't actual examples. Those are broad concepts that mean nothing without concrete examples.


That is a non-sequitor. I.E. your response in no way shape or form deals with the statement you sought to address.


What is?


What is?


Stop reacting and start thinking. You are operating on a paradigm of: all or nothing; conservative or democrat; black or white.
I am advocating not going with a PROVEN LOSING FORMULA. As much as you want to help those who need it, you must realize the means by which you're advocating doing so HAS PROVEN TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE PROBLEM. I don't know what the solution is but I know what it isn't and if you really cared about the issue, you'd pipe down and realize that your idea doesn't work.

Maybe the problem is that there shouldn't be anything wrong with being a teen parent in the first place. Maybe the problem is that society is at odds with biology. Maybe we need to change how we think and operate. Until then, teen parents are more likely to raise teen criminals and until we can figure out how to fix that, government should be kept out of social issues as much as possible.

Consider yourself educated.
Have a nice day.

OK, perhaps I should get the phone book out and give you the address of the local Child Protection Unit, where the police and other professionals intervene in the most tragic cases, the city's Mother and Baby Unit where young women in a bad situation without the support of a loving or responsible family are saved from the gutter and the Street Workers who hepl women who've fallen into drugs and prostitution not fall any further.

But I suspect it would be a waste of time, since you seem to believe they:



It is entirely true, and you know it.


So tell us what's a PROVEN WINNING FORMULA.


That doesn't really make much sense.

I wrote this in the hope it would motivate you to think a bit more than you've done thus far. You have not responded to that as I had hoped.



I did not write that no one is ever helped, you keep thinking that I'm saying government spending is an all or nothing solution when that is not what I'm warning against. You're failing to see the big picture and focusing too much on emotion without any hard analysis. Spare me the sob stories, I grew up in one and I'm unmoved. Maybe you don't believe me but I couldn't care less. The overall effect is that with increased government involvement, these societal problems worsen and the real world shows this -what have you to say to that?

I realize you want to help people but your solution simply isn't the way. It's like trying to respond to increasing numbers of fires but increasing the number of fire trucks and firemen. You do realize how that wouldn't work, don't you?

Besides that, "shared action" is not child protective services nor is it the mother and baby unit. Nobody is sharing the responsibility beyond throwing money at the problem in hopes it gets fixed. Those are tertiarary services, not primary. Band-aid solutions are not preventative ones and preventative ones most certainly have to involve society as a whole.


What is?
Lord have mercy on your ignorant soul, look at the number of questions I have asked you which you simply have failed to answer or avoided completely, you truly are one of those types who will argue to be right instead of argue to find what is or isn't the answer. That way of thinking is a cancer in this world as ever discussion gets messed up by being polarized because someone's ego needs to be "right."


As I've told you before, and since my initial response to your suggestion. I am only saying what you're advocating is a proven Losing Formula in western/free market/capitalist/consumer driven societies. I never claimed to know what the answer is but I definitely know what the answer isn't and reality has proven this.


What doesn't?
Please clarify exactly where you think the breakdown in logic is in the quote you responded to. Keep in mind I wrote what potential problems there might be in society that are causing the rise of teen pregnancy and how it is at odds with...

....
..you know what? I have had it with you, I don't say this very often in honest debate but you're actually too stupid to understand anything beyond monosyllabic monochromatic ideas. Take this entire transcript to someone you regard as WAAAAAAY SMARTER THAN YOU, but be choosey as the list is going to be long and maybe they can dumb it down for you in a face to face meeting.

If you're trolling me then congratualtions on wasting my time.

So at least you concede that state involvement has its value.


No and that's the problem - you claim to dislike the existing provisions made by society, making patently untrue statements like


however you don't ever go beyond that cynicism to say what you'd like to see instead.


No trolling, but it would be nice to have discussed this with someone who is a. not as ill-mannered as you are or b. is able to see the bigger picture without resorting to hollow libertarian rhetoric and bizarrely claiming that democratically controlled organisations who have to fight to get a budget in the first place have some sort of vested interest in not actually doing their job. Odd logic...

I'd like to see a society in which bringing a baby into the world is never seen as anything more than joyous occassion, always to be celebrated, never to be regretted.


My statements are true and the fact that you don't want to believe them doesn't make an iota of difference. Just to keep you up to date, when you give government institutiions an increased mandate to fix social "problems." Those problems are never fixed and they become bigger and bigger. This is the result of how the system is set up. Social workers aren't rewarded for what they prevent, they are rewarded for who they rescue. The more people that "need rescuing" the more social workers, prison guards etc ensure their livelihood.

Here's another real world example for you: prison guard unions, prison corporations and police unions are some of the biggest lobbyists in keeping marijuana illegal in the U.S. I'm sure even you can see their motive in doing that- it is all to do with perpetuating their "need" in society and financial benefits they can obtain for their members.

When social workers get rewarded for preventing problems then I'll be more accepting of more government involvment but until then it just becomes another government beast that costs more and more because in your own words in the exact context we are discussing:


Bye.

Not so joyous if it's a single woman, shunned by her family. Or one in a Mother and Baby Unit, pregnant for the seventh time before her 24th birthday, each kid taken away as soon as possible after what happened to the first three, or a baby daughter in a culture where sons are a partial route out of poverty and too many daughters are a tragedy for the family.


You don't do that though. You keep such things under democratic control to prevent the situation you describe from arising.


It's an interesting idea, but no co-incidence that their members are probably social conservatives. In the UK the initiative to legalise cannabis came from the police and the prison and probation unions.


They do get rewarded. Most struggle under an appallingly large caseload. One file closed is what they dream of.

No sh*t Sherlock but you asked me what I'd like to see and I told you, so what's your problem? Are you really so naive as to think that every teen mother fits the portrait you've painted. How do you reconcile that in Western Nations with increased social spending on single (largely teen) parents, new instances of single (largely teen) parents increases?


Although that isn't what has happened, I'm open to the idea that it could be done. How would you keep such "things" under control?


Yes of course, it must be those pesky conservatives at the root of every problem. Police Unions in the UK would never support anything that benefits them though.*sarcasm*


Ask them if they'd prefer to be unemployed instead.

I'm going to do a basic intelligence test on you and if you can answer this correctly then we can continue, you have limited time so don't take too long. I wrote you before about coming up with a solution if you there were a town or city with a growing problem with fires. Would your solution be to hire more fire fighters and invest in better fire fighting equipment?

The problem is that your solution is highly impractical at best and Victorian squalor an misery at worst.


Happens in the UK.


Pretty well.


They supported legalisation of cannabis.


Most are well enough educated to have quite a range of choices - and indeed there is a high turnover rate since most of them can earn far more in the private sector for far less work.


Don't be silly.

Your reading comprehension is lacking as is your knowledge of the English language. I didn't offer a solution, I told you the end result I'd like to see- you are confusing means with an end.


That's not an answer as to how you would keep "things" under control. You also didn't answer how you reconcile that as social spending has increased, so have instances of teen pregnancy.


That's a retort at odds with your previous proclamation:



Well enough educated doesn't mean well educated and one would think with such a cornucopia of educated people, the problem would be solved. They're educated to think one way and one way only. The private sector? Gee I wonder what the chances are that the private sector in this area receives government funding and subsidies.


The answer is to find the reason for the fires (societal or technological) and weigh the costs of prevention versus the costs of putting out the fires. Proceed from there.

I wish I had been kinder to you as it's obvious you're quite young and, with that, a bit naive- I should have encouraged you more and for that I'm sorry. That being said, you have got some work to do in how you go about trying to analyze what's going on in society. You may think you have all the answers but as you've proven numerous times in these exchanges, you're simply out of your element. You're too proud/stubborn to accept the ideology you've ascribed to is flawed and unable to perceive there is a way of thinking that doesn't have to follow a linear spectrum (political or other). Like I wrote before, you're arguing to be right even though it's obvious you're wrong. That kind of thinking is cancerous, you really owe it to yourself to correct that.

adieu

You keep on saying:


But keep on coming back for more. Yet none of it actually makes any sense and you compensate for lack of joined-up thinbking by abuse in every post!


I wonder if you actually think the pregnancies are due to what you call 'social spending' rather than the other way round!


That is just bizarre, and dismisses thousands of people in one fell swoop as not "well educated" and "educated to think one way only". Clearly you don't know much about either the education system or jobs market in the UK.


I would disagree - you don't weigh costs against each other - you provide services as appropriate.


Unkind - no - just abusive due to having your rather jejeune statements about society (or as you called it, government agencies) supporting teenage mothers demolished.


Nobody has all the answers - however the professionals you dismiss as not 'well educated' are a darn sight closer than the neo-Victorian laissez-faire idea you're pretending to support.


Quite the opposite in fact - right in my element.

Tell me, if the state withdraws support from teenaged mothers and their families are unable or unwilling to help, who should provide it?