Posted on 02/09/2013 8:40:13 AM PST by rhema
In Philadelphia, about half of all students in ninth grade will graduate from high school. The dropout rate is especially high among black and Hispanic boys. President Obama’s answer to this problem is typical of the left: compulsion. Make dropping out illegal. In other words, force boys who are learning nothing to remain where they are learning nothing, to help make sure that nobody else learns anything, either. If they drop out anyway, turn them into criminals to be rounded up.
All this would cost a great deal of money, which Philadelphia does not have. And even if you could compel the boy, seething with resentment and contempt, to occupy a desk in a dreary schoolroom, you cannot compel him to learn. To try is a distant, “technological” response to a human problem. It is a way to pretend to generosity, while keeping those who suffer from your heedlessness far from your sight and smell.
Philadelphia has been engaging in a years-long lawsuit, at great expense, to force the Boy Scouts from their headquarters, which they occupy rent-free. Why no rent? Well, back in 1929, the year of the stock market collapse, the city fathers invited the Boy Scouts to occupy land on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Back then, the city fathers actually cared for the well-being of boys.
So the Scouts agreed. They built the building themselves. They then graciously turned ownership over to the city, with the understanding that they might use the building without paying rent. They, not the city, have assumed all the costs of maintenance ever since. It has not cost the city a penny. The Boy Scouts, in other words, did the city a tremendous favor, and are now rewarded for it with contempt.
(Excerpt) Read more at thepublicdiscourse.com ...
“You loved your vice more than you loved me. You could afford your vices, but I could not. Your vices made your lives, as you thought, more exciting. I did not have your cushion of wealth, so the same vices destroyed me.
“I was lonely, and you bought me a whore. My sisters were lonely, and you made them into whores.
“I needed the Church, desperately, because when a man is poor, he must face his helplessness every day. But the Church would restrain you, so, at every chance you had, you derided religious faith, and thus you snatched from me my most loyal friend.
“I needed a married mother and father, what every child needs, what every child has a right to, and you told me to go to hell.
“I went to hell, and have brought it back with me.”
Great article.
Tweeted link.
But it makes libtards feel good inside and morally superior when they are able to achieve their goals with government intervention, even if there is a perversity of result that harms the people they are trying to help in the long run. They don't care about the long run as long as they feel good now.
On the editing side, I consider this understated: Government's selfishness is the root of many societal problems
I would propose that Government's selfishness is the root of the overwhelming majority of societal problems.
Excellent post! Thanks! One of my favorite writers for a long time. It is good to see his articles posted more.
Wow. Tremendous insight.
Anthony Esolen's articles appear frequently in Touchstone magazine, but they're not always linked and available online.
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