> Regardless of the existing laws in the land, I based morality in the following commandments: You shall not commit murder, You shall not covet your neighbors spouse and properties, you shall not commit adultery, you shall honor your father and mother, you shall not steal. These commands I think applies to the whole mankind regardless of the religious affiliations and nationality, and if that's the basis, how do you assess the 50 republics or states that you are mentioning?

The answer is not simple. When dealing with 300,000,000 people who live in 50 united but separate and distinct republics that each have their own character, culture and values which show up in their laws and the enforcement of those laws, the answer is going to be very complex.

If you had an average of the character of all 50 of the republics it would be lower than perfect, of course. But you would also find a very wide range.

Two, just next to one another, have radically different morals along those lines, Utah and Nevada. Since you are in the Philippines you may not realize that Las Vegas, Nevada is known as "Sin City" and with reason. Utah is one of the most strictly moral states in the Union and probably at the opposite end of the specturm.

For over 40 years I have heard that half the marriages in the US end in divorce. That was an "I have heard" and it was not true. And over that whole 40 years it was 50% and gettign worse. How can that be? It can't be 50% now and getting worse every year and 40 years later be 50% and getting worse.

So somehow those who gathered and published those "statistics" had bad data.

In 1999 somethign unique happend along the lines on "statistics" about marriage and divorce. Ever last county in every State in the union had their marriage, divorce, birth and death records on computer and linked into some national databases. So the actual count could be done instead of "statistical samplings." The data was there from 1900 forward.

To everyone's shock the 50% statistic had not been reached yet. It was near that,finally, after 40 years of saying it was that.

But, half the couples in the US did not divorce as that might imply.
Over 3/4ths of the first marriages lasted a life time, nation wide. The other 1/4th of the people represented the other half of all marriages. They were just married and divorced three times each on the average.

That say that the 40 year belief that half of the people had married and divorced was wrong and is still wrong. But if you look at it State by State you find that in a large number of the States the total number of marriages ending in divorce is less than 8% and that 8% does not represent 8% of the people, it contains people who were married and divorced repeatedly. That is to say in those states it is more than 92% of the peopel who marry for a life time. Indeed it is almost 98% of the first marriages last a life time in those states. Nevada is not one of them! Utah is. California, New York and SOUTH Florida lead the nation in divorces. North Florida is more like the "heartland" States where the life long marriage rate is in the 90% + range. So what is the real situation? It sort of depends on where you are.

If one were to base their view of the Philippines on a visit to some parts the obvious (wrong) concoulsion woud be thhe Philippines are a Muslem nation. (There are majority Muslem areas and a visitor saw that area so that is the Philippines!)

I have a New York city friend who imagines that all of Texas is cows, farms and cowbys. They can't believe me when I say that in the Houston area 1/3 of planet earths oil is refined. It is. Doesn't sound like farms to me. But, they visited rural Texas and saw some movies. So that was Texas.

Texas is another of those low divorce rate states, but in some of the urban areas where people from all over the world live, it is higher. And in the less urban areas is is rare.

In the county in Texas where I grew up a divorce was unusual. A murder was more unusual. In the 1960s in that county which had 36,000 peoople there was one murder. One. Compare that to just about anywhere.

On Sunday mornigns the stores were all but empty. Yards were not being mowed, theaters were closed because over 80% of the people would be in church. It was that kind of area. But it was also in "immoral America" and thus must be like the worst parts of the homogenious America. Or not.

How do I asses the 50 republics in the things you mentioned? Well, some do well, some do poorly and some do badly. But in each of them there are areas where in the more "moral" republics there are bad areas. In the bad ones, there are more good areas. What is the average?

Well, what is the average person. They are 51% female, 49% male, they are in between the average male and average femal in height and weight ... in other words the average person dose not exist! When dealing with peopel you have to deal with individuals. Assessing a whole nation is very, very hard. Assesing a super national entity with over 50 distinct States in it ... is something I would leave to God.

The press in our country is in part to blame for some of the bad press we get. They like to find the sick and twisted things and blazon those about so that these rare sick and twisted things look common. It is "news" and the editors think the people want it. But if that were true the news media would not be in subscription decine that has lasted and gotten worse over the years. They serve up trash and say that is what the people want. People don't buy it any more and they are bewilderd at falling subscriptions.

Billy Graham was one who for years quoted the 50% divorce rate and climbing. He wasn't lieing, he just read the news. I don't know if they made it up or just did their "statistical surveys" in bad areas using bad methods. But, they mislead him.

If you would like to continue these discussions privately please do. I don't think the chatter thread is the place for them though.

My e-mail link works. Or better, I have a "personal e-mail" that is not work related. Weldon@adair-texans.com.