You, however, believe that people should be rewarded according to their racial categories, which ironically makes your position racist. Not that I personally care, either way: you’re certainly entitled to your racism. But I think it’s a bit hypocritical to suggest that I’m a white supremacist when I’m really just interested in letting winners win. If anything, I would think you’d be interested in going after the people who purposely lumped Asians in the “advantaged” category, and then tried to bar them from entering college.

And not that it matters, but the overwhelming majority of my family are Honduran immigrants.

“During my several years in California’s school system, I never once had a problem with a rude Asian student, never had one steal from me, never knew one who broke the law (although I’m sure they exist, somewhere), never was physically threatened by one, and never had one blame me for any of their shortcomings or demand a handout.”

You completely have disregarded Asians as a race and grouped them with the dominant culture. you obviously don’t know anything about the complexities and sophistication of what it means to be Asian in America. Though you think you are trying to help, you are not. I comletely disagree with these quotas because it is completely untrue that all asians have improved academically or financially. There are about 40-50 ethnic groups in the asian category. Honestly you are an ignorant person who has no true knowledge. Blacks,asians, natives, and latinos have similar struggles and this model minority myth is socially construted by society and reinforced by stereotypes is a form of white supremacy. You are completely clueless.

If that isn’t the purpose of affirmative action, or all the other race-based initiatives the Left has taken (the Community Reinvestment Act, redlining legislation, etc), please–explain. I’d love to hear an alternate explanation.

The Real Man is disappearing because they don’t have an adequate pattern for manhood which isn’t considered discrimination. Aside from that, all the other factors I mentioned are completely valid: men get married later because they’re screwing around, not because they don’t need babies. Men are leaving more illegitimate children behind. Men are also more likely to be ostracized by their teachers in our leftist school system, which seeks to soften the effects of manhood through an overtly feminine approach to education, as well as socially-sanctioned over-medication of boyish traits. If you look at the men on television, they increasing resemble homosexuals in their behavior (watch Friends, if you have to), are less likely to take serious stands, and even less likely to have control of their libido.

This isn’t how men acted 60 years ago, and furthermore, the ideals I expressed regarding manhood are considered discriminatory in the public school system. Manhood has absolutely changed.

Now, on to your rebuttals!

1) Not a political solution. Done individually!

2) As I explained earlier, combating current standards of manhood is only possible if we break from a post-modern, atheistic worldview. As soon as men are given a purpose beyond biology, we can raise the standards. Before then, we’ll be stuck with this stumper of a question: “why should men behave a certain way, instead of the way they feel?”

3) The apostle Paul clearly defined proper behavior and expectations for both men and women, while commanding us to love both within those definitions. If men and women are to be treated the same, then we need to have unisex bathrooms, co-ed dorms, and put women on the front lines.

Furthermore, never once in the Bible are we ever commanded to respect a person’s sin and demand that others pay sinners equally. I put my foot down here because that’s where Christ wants me to. It’s one thing to forgive a person when they wrong you, it’s another to protect that sin (warning: do not bring up Jesus saving the adultress. It’s not found in many of the most ancient Bible copies, and shouldn’t be used since we don’t know if it actually happened).

4) This one’s a good one, buddy! There are certain instances–like marriage–in which a society positively benefits from public ritual. In marriage, the newlyweds have a set of rights and demands publicly placed upon them, so as to legally, socially, and psychologically solidify the new life. As we move away from protecting the rights and demands of marriage, the problems become clear: people who have sex out of wedlock and live with their partner before wedlock are over 30% more likely to divorce.

With manhood, the situation would be the same: men must have certain privileges and responsibilities given to them when they achieve manhood, but few in America know what the responsibilities are, or when they get them. When we as a group get together and publicly initiate our young men into manhood, telling them what we expect and what they’re allowed to do, there will be far less confusion about how a man should behave.

See?

This seems to ignore the societal factors of the feminist movement. In the feminist movement, women are encouraged to empower themselves. They are encouraged to do the normal societal responsibilities of men, but better. Because all this article does is compare the status of men compared to women before the feminist movement and after the feminist movement, and say, “Hey! Men have fewer college degrees compared to women now!” it doesn’t convince me that men themselves are dwindling.

The last point, about men not marrying until later in life seems like it’s an effect of the increasing industrialization of America. Now, there are fewer family farms than there used to be. Because of this, there is less pressure to marry and have tons of babies to help take care of the family farm. In short, as I read the first link, the idea, “correlation does not equal causation” was screaming at me.

About your solutions:

First solution: I think introducing people to Christianity is great! However, this does not seem like it is or should be part of a political agenda. If the government decided that Hindu was a great religion for people and people would do better if they knew about Hinduism, I don’t think a lot of people around here would like that much. If the government started teaching about religion in schools or elsewhere, it would be like the government adopting a state religion, which violates the second amendment.

Second solution: I searched through your post to find what you mean by the “purpose of manhood”. I couldn’t find out why teaching a religious doctrine in public schools as an alternative to a scientific theory would restore the purpose of manhood.

Third solution: If what you mean by “gender neutrality” is treading homosexuals and heterosexuals as the same, then I can sympathize with you. If what you mean by “gender neutrality” is not treating men and women equally, I ardently disagree. However, I believe there should be some anti-discriminatory measures against homosexuals, such as equal pay for equal work, and making sure that if they put in an equal amount of work in society, they get an equal amount back out. This, however, is much more a moral argument, and what people feel morally all right with, instead of a political argument, however. I’m afraid that if I belabor this point too much, it will turn into two people screaming, “nah ah” and “yah ha!” at each other because the two people disagree on the moral premise.

Fourth solution: I looked in your article for why we must have ritualistic ways of inducting young men into society. I can’t refute this argument, because I know not why it is to be a good solution.

Thank you for the feedback! As far as David’s comment goes, I actually have another article about the dangers of prohibiting abortion, and how it could lead to massive increases in violence. If you’re interested, take a look :)

http://americanclarity.com/2009/07/29/eugenics-in-american-policy/

And thank you, by the way, for addressing a serious concern!

-J

http://escholarship.org/uc/item/00p599hk

I do have to insert my two cents here. I do believe the definition of Conservative and Liberals are slightly narrow in ratio compared with the scope of libertarian. There are actually eight schools of thoughts on libertarianism. I’d just like to focus on what I believe to be the main two:

1) Libertarian Conservativism… See More
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_conservatism

2) Left-Libertarianism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-libertarianism

Though there are some definite differences on between their beliefs on property rights and self-ownership, I will ignore their points and bring it back to your debate between them and the Biblical structure outlined by the Mosaic law.

First Off: Most of the Mosaic Law was created to assist in forming a culture and society that would, through the input of “laws” create a reflection of the image and character of God/Christ. Before the implementation of the Mosaic Law, men of God walked by faith, believe in the Messiah and the forgiveness of their sins - this hasn’t changed in 6000 years, which is why Abraham and Enoc are listed in the “Hall of Faith” in Romans. Their faith applies to us today, and they didn’t even have a bible to read from.

Second: The Mosaic law was created not only to mold and form a God’s chosen race, but also to bring people to the knowledge of sin. We can never uphold it perfectly, no matter how hard we try. Salvation exists through faith alone in the salvation of Jesus Christ, and our “good works” come from a transformed mind as we begin to see the world through the eyes of its Creator.

Libertarians are quite broad and varied in their beliefs, so I’m going to pick on Libertarian Conservatives. Their goal is to keep government small: not stretching to Anarchism, but the attempt is to take the responsibility of social morality and capitalism out of the hands of the federal government and distribute it to the states. In fact, the less restrictions we have on either, the better. I will be the first to admit that this promotes social prejudice and discrimination, and it rightfully should. Social groups will arise that have their own standards, and those individuals that do not meet those standards will be ostracized from their group. This gives those ostracized the freedom to leave and start their own group and start their own societal sect, keeping the initial group free from opposing influences. The theory is, that if a group’s structure is fallible, eventually, their members will dwindle until they are no more, thus promoting the growth of a effective society over a bad one, and keeping those who wish to poison the effective society out through legalized discrimination.

The whole point of this is to have the people be responsible for their morality, no the government, which, should it become corrupted would have no influence over the groups of people beneath it. Its sole purpose should be to protect our borders (military) and international relations. Those are the only purposes our government SHOULD have.

I do claim to be a Libertarian Conservative, so in my philosophical views, this is the best form of government. One that, no matter how corrupt or righteous a government gets, it has no ability to influence the “people” groups it protects, deferring all moral and capitalism decisions to either state or local offices.

It IS a struggle to learn and grow from the old man, but it is worth it.

Mark Driscoll had a sermon about how when we are feeling bad about ourselves or something else to praise Him and worth Him. If worry is causing us problems, praise Him and worship Him. It is in relying on Him and His word that we grow.

Thank you for sharing and teaching us God’s amazing truths!

One key thing you have to understand about Judeo/Christian beliefs is that the bible is the infallible word of God, sent from Him to us through His prophets.

Why is it prideful to take a stand on ones beliefs? And why is it arrogant to have a particular belief in Christianity but not some other religion for instance? Why wouldn’t you stand up for what you believe if one really truly believed? One would have to be insane to have deeply rooted beliefs and then not put up a fight or refute other beliefs. You said that the writer was closed off to science? Did you even go to the links that were provided? There is science in ALL the research. Believe it or not, theology and science DO work together, beautifully, I might add!

Also, where do you get that Horus/Rah was born of a virgin. I have heard about this story before, the only problem is that you forget to mention that the story keeps changing. Rah evolved into so many different “gods”. The so called similarities between the two are very minimal and I have still yet to find any legitimate sites with credible information on the matter. All I’ve been able to find is stuff from people like you.

I mean that last statement with no disrespect. I was once in your shoes a few years ago. It is natural to be skeptical about the world and beliefs in it. I would encourage everyone to learn as much as they can about science and theology. But ultimately, you have to decide what you think this life is for. God has done an amazing work in me and helped me see that it is much more than mere science or others things to distract us here on earth. It is about a LOT more than that! God bless you. Merry Christmas!

Also, Very good article, American Clarity!