Lightly parented?
George better get back to base-a-ball. Either that or he is in need of the spotlight again at any cost, because this ought to get him pillaried by the left and the right.
Hit da ball, get da check
Posted on 09/13/2005 8:01:51 AM PDT by Clint N. Suhks
Because it was released during the post-Katrina debacle, scant attention was paid to the National Center for Health Statistics' report that in 2003, 34.6 percent of all American births were to unmarried women. The percentage among African American women was 68.2.
Given that most African Americans are middle class and almost half live outside central cities, and that 76 percent of all births to Louisiana African Americans were to unmarried women, it is a safe surmise that more than 80 percent of African American births in inner-city New Orleans -- as in some other inner cities -- were to women without husbands. That translates into a large and constantly renewed cohort of lightly parented adolescent males, and that translates into chaos in neighborhoods and schools, come rain or come shine.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Uh oh... George is treading into PC hell....
Having now read his entire piece, I have a riddle...
What is blunt, yet sharper than a razor?
The Landrieus are a corrupt political family.
Any discussion about rebuilding New Orleans should start with this very relevant point. If Ground Zero is any indication of what's in store in the aftermath of Katrina, it will be a thousand years before anything gets rebuilt in New Orleans.
What I have read and understood from the Bible is that God and Jesus wants us to help each other by using our own time, treasure and talent and to give from our hearts (Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. - 2 Corinthians 9:7). Nowhere have I found anything along the lines of "Go out and institute huge bureaucracies that will take money from some people at the point of a sword and give that money to other people as a politician sees fit."
Our Founding Fathers were Christian and very pious men. They founded this country under strong Judeo-Christian tenets and reflected on their religious beliefs on all their decisions. They wrote nothing into the Constitution of any type of government "aid" to help the poor, children or anyone else on purpose. They wanted a very limited government for good reason. Limited government is the best way to ensure that freedom will be preserved. The Scottish philosopher Alexander Tytler, who lived during the time of the American Revolution and writing of the US Constitution, summed these views:
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure.
From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years.
These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage."
There are many interesting questions if citizens rely on government to do "God's Work."
If a government takes a portion of a man's wages and does good with it, has the man also done good? If a government takes away a portion of a woman's property and does evil with it, has the woman also done evil? When a rich man pays more in taxes than a poor person, is he more Godly? If the government then does evil, is he more to blame? A woman works for the government and uses other people's tax money and does "God Work" with it, is this government woman now a good/Godly woman? If I legally try to avoid paying taxes, does that not make me an "Ungodly" man?
Today, the US government (federal, state and local) takes nearly 50% of a middle-class person's paycheck after all taxes are factored in (income taxes, Social Security, sales tax, real estate taxes, gas tax, death taxes, phone taxes, highway tolls, sad etc.). Uncle Sam will spend more money in just this year (2004) than it spent combined between 1787 and 1900 - even after adjusting for inflation. I cringe at those numbers. The Founding Fathers wanted nothing like the tax-consuming monster that we have as a government today. I also think of all the good work that could have be done if people were allowed to keep more of their own money and give it to organizations/people that they believe in their heart are doing God's work. Maybe it comes down to trust. Will people do the right thing with their own money or must a government take a huge chunk of it to do the "right things?"
Except government rarely does anything right except for those tasks that were explicitly outlined in the Constitution as the Founding Father intended. I could cite many examples (such as where would you rather put $10,000 in retirement money - in Social Security or in your own 401k plan?) but the plight of black America illustrates this failure beyond comparison.
In 1965, the US government was going to wipe out poverty by the "Great Society" programs, in which to date over 3.5 trillion dollars has been spent. These federal programs were designed to "help families and children" or "buy votes" depending on your political viewpoint.
At the beginning of the 1960's, the black out of wedlock birth rate was 22%. In the late 1975 it reached 49% and shot up to 65% in 1989. In some of the largest urban centers of the nation the rate of illegitimacy among blacks today exceeds 80% and averages 69% nationwide. As late as the 1970's there was still a social stigma attached to a woman who was pregnant outside marriage. Now, government programs have substituted for the father and for black moral leadership. The black family and culture has collapsed (and white families are not that far behind).
Illegitimacy leads directly to poverty, crime and social problems. Out of wedlock children are four times more likely to be poor. They are much more likely to live in high crime areas with no hope of escape. In turn, they are forced to attend dangerous and poor-performing government schools, which directly leads to another generation of poverty.
Traditional black areas of Harlem, Englewood and West Philadelphia in the 1950s were safe working class neighborhoods (even though "poor" by material measures). Women were unafraid to walk at night and children played unmolested in the streets and parks. Today, these are some of the worst crime plagued areas of our nation. Work that was once dignified is now shunned. Welfare does not require recipients to do anything in exchange for their benefits. Many rules actually discourage work or provide benefits that reduce the incentive to find work.
The black abortion rate today is nearly 40%. Pregnancies among black women are twice as likely to end in abortion as pregnancies among white and Hispanic women.
The "Great Society" programs all had good intentions. Unfortunately, their real world results are that they have replaced the traditional/Christian models of family/work with that of what a government bureaucrat thinks it should be.
I could make an excellent argument that if the US government had hired former grand wizards of the KKK to run the "Great Society" programs, and if they had worked every day from 1965 to today without rest, they could have hardly have done better in destroying black America than the "Works of God" that the government has done or is trying to do.
I have visited many countries in which the government "guarantees" that everyone has a job, a place to live, education, health care and cradle to grave "government help" for all children and families. It all sounds great except that the people in these countries are/were miserable. They wanted to escape but were forced by their governments, at the end of a gun, to stay. The "worker's paradises" of socialist and communist counties are chilling reminders of letting governments do "God's Work."
The Bible clearly states that we are to help those in need. The question is "Who should help those in need?" I firmly believe that scripture and the historical evidence strongly support that individuals, private organizations and churches should be the ones doing the heavy lifting. Government help should be the last resort.
Very Sincerely,
2banana
Many Democrats will say that George has "blamed the victim." Well folks, they ought to know a victim when they see one. After all, victims are a large part of their constituency.
I live in an affluent northern Virginia city where Democrats have held sway for decades. Nearly ALL of the crime in the city emanates from housing projects that are lumpy with angry black kids with no hope and no dads. These people all vote Democratic - when they vote. Why? What good is it doing them?
Then look across the Potomac at DC. If ever there was a superb example of a "caretaker state" gone mad, it is the District of Columbia. Not counting the city's Ward Three and the federal mall area and the CBD, DC is, essentially, a third world nation. It is chock full of poor black folk who have grown up sitting in the lap of the federal welfare programs. Its schools are a nightmare, its city government is a joke, and the city's leadership is myopic...and they are nearly all Democrats. Why?
The whole thing about this business in NO is idiotic. It is like a warm DC. Perhaps I should say "warmed over" DC?
Lightly parented?
George better get back to base-a-ball. Either that or he is in need of the spotlight again at any cost, because this ought to get him pillaried by the left and the right.
Hit da ball, get da check
Considering the highly probable succession of reconstruction "Czars", the undoubtedly fat new books of federal, state, and local regs (which you can bet will grow and spread like moss in a Louisiana swamp), the social and economic problems which Wills outlines, and the unavoidable grasping hands of politicians present and to come, I predict a new Brazilia (the legendary lost city in the Brazilian jungle) arising from the swamps. But slowly, very, very slowly.
Now there's a sobering thought.
They've made the calculation that no hope and a monthly check is preferable to a little hope and no check. ;)
"Lightly parented?"
What am I missing here? Why do you object to that phrase? If anything, I think George is being gentle.
Its what LBJ had in mind. A permanent and growing plantation class that can dependably turn in votes for the Donks.
George Will's wit?
well said. well said.
--- George Will's wit? ---
Specifically, yes.
Generally speaking, the truth.
" ... This will become of intense interest to the "czar" or "czarina" -- this republic has a fascinating reflex for cloaking improvised offices with the dignity, such as it was, of defunct Russian royalty -- who is charged with "overseeing" the "rebuilding" of New Orleans. He or she can exchange notes with our "nation-builders" in Iraq, now learning conservatism's core truths about the limits of government's abilities to know and control things. Or he or she can glance at Ground Zero in Manhattan where, four years later, the "rebuilding" of a few square blocks is not going well."
"czar" or "czarina"? "nation-builders" in Iraq?
Perhaps it is my imagination, but Mr. Will seems to want to take his bat and ball and go home.
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