We youth at EvC are in Moral Decline

As you might already suspect, people who have lived together before marriage have a higher divorce rate than those who don't.The commonly held explanation is that those people who refuse to live together before marriage do so out of religious obligation - which, later in life, generally prevents them from abandoning a harmful marriage. Ergo lower divorce rates.Now, I don't support a position of total sexual promiscuity - simply a position of serial monogamy, with marriage as a goal. It's worked for me, so far. (Just started the marriage part, actually, so we'll see how that goes.)

Then why do the people who study homelessness largely disagree?After all it's their opinion - based on a wealth of data - that largely the reason people can't pay rent is because rent costs some 70-80% of a minimum wage income in most places, which hardly leaves room for food or health care.Rent is outrageously high for the economy we have. If wages are down, shouldn't rent be, too?

Yes, I discovered the same thing a year or two ago when the Red Cross changed the rules - I had lived in England for 6 months or so in 6th grade and that's too long for the Red Cross now. A pity because I had been a very avid blood donor since I was old enough to do so.

He's talking about the higher salaries that drinkers make, i.e an extra two thousand pounds per year. (Pounds being the British monetary unit, you see.) That's what, 3400 US$ or so?

Losing moral values? Or finding better ones, perhaps? I'm all for gay marriage, for instance. That doesn't mean I have less morals than Buz (for instance), just that I have different ones. (He may disagree.)But this is the oldest argument around. "Kids! What's got into these kids these days?" Even Plato made this argument, and you know what? It isn't any truer now than it was then. I drink beer and also have an interest in the future of our country. And our country won't have a future so long as the Bush regime insists on perverting the memory of 9-11 to push all manner of draconian restrictions on American freedom.Sorry, didn't mean to launch off onto a soapbox tirade, but so many old people look at me like I'm a punk with no morals for no other reason than they've bought into a load of horseshit about how my generation has no morals and no work ethic.

That may very well be, but what exactly are we asking from kids these days? To take drastic moral or ethical action without being old enough to have the wisdom those actions require?I dunno, somehow it doesn't seem like a big deal to me. Kids aren't supposed to be thinking about big, wieghty moral issues, are they?It's the apathetic adults that bother me. Like the ones that refuse to stand up against the gradual erosion of our freedoms. Yeah, I'm sorry - I was all set to judge you and be like "what, you can't handle alcohol, so you avoid it altogether?" until I realized that's actually just what I would want somebody who wasn't confident about their ability to handle the use of alcohol to do - avoid it. So, more power to you. Sorry to get all judgemental. Sure. Didn't mean to come down on you, really. I'm just of the opinion that the greatest danger to the future of our country isn't inactive teens, but too-active grown-ups with old-fashioned ideas about other people's freedom.

Hrm, I was all set to chalk you up as an ok guy, but then you said this: Maybe you'd like to rephrase that without the offensive anti-gay slur?

While that may largely be true in your peer group it's really not in mine. I wonder - what do your gay friends think about the use of that word?

Well, of course that's what he tells you. I've met a bunch of adults of about the same age, and they all say "everybody was doing the drugs, except for me." If that's the case, who was doing all the drugs?Other than that it appears you have a pretty simple morality: bad = immoral = bad. Not uncommon at your age, though.

I would point out that most - every one, in fact - of the bars I've been into around here actually sell tobacco, so the invitation to smoke is pretty clear to everybody.