Why I Am Not a Liberal

The New York Times ^ | David Brooks

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Last May a study came out suggesting that merely giving people money doesn’t do much to lift them out of poverty. Families with at least one child received $333 a month. They had more money to spend, which is a good thing, but the children fared no better than similar children who didn’t get the cash. They were no more likely to develop language skills or demonstrate cognitive development. They were no more likely to avoid behavioral problems or developmental delays.

These results shouldn’t have been a big surprise. As Kelsey Piper noted in an essay for The Argument, a different study published last year gave families $500 a month for two years and found no big effects on the adult recipients’ psychological well-being and financial security. A study that gave $1,000 a month did not produce better health, career, education or sleep outcomes or even more time with their children.

Way back in 1997, Susan E. Mayer, a University of Chicago sociologist and behavioral economist, published “What Money Can’t Buy.” She began her research believing that cash transfers would make a big difference in people’s lives but was persuaded by the evidence that even if you doubled a family’s income, it would have a limited effect on their children’s dropout and teenage pregnancy rates or other outcomes. She stated her findings clearly: “The results in this book imply that once children’s basic material needs are met, characteristics of their parents become more important to how they turn out than anything additional money can buy.”

She added, “Parental income is not as important to children’s outcomes as many social scientists have thought.” Rising out of poverty also requires the nonmaterial qualities we now call human capital, such as skills, diligence, honesty, good health and reliability. Mayer concludes, “Children...”

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Pant-crease man says he is not a liberal.

[Fledermaus]

Yes he is

[vaskypilot]

Yes you are!

[Paladin2]

He’s a LibTard.

[Jonty30]

I ran a convenience store for about three years. In that time, I learned the hard way that you cannot help poor people because it is their mindset that keeps them poor and not anything that they think society does to them.

[ifinnegan]

The lady doth protest too much.

[Tench_Coxe]

If you have to say it.....

[Gene Eric]

is this the dude with the weird hairdo?

[Worldtraveler once upon a time]

"If there is no transcendent, eternal moral order, then morality is just a process of civic negotiation and everything is up for grabs. David Brooks can affirm same-sex marriage and early-term abortion and indict the nuclear family as a mistake—and yet remain comfortable within his worldview of manners and moral sentiments. Conservatism lives or dies on the belief that we are conserving created reality and serving eternal truths. Otherwise, all that remains is custom, manners, and moral sentiment—and they are no match for the forces of progressive morality.

"About a year ago, David Brooks cited the philosopher Isaiah Berlin and described himself as belonging to 'the extreme right-wing edge of the left-wing movement.' Well, in that formulation, the left-wing movement always wins, and that’s the plan."

Source: Sir, you are not a conservative World, by R. Albert Mohler Jr., 13 December 2021.

Really? Yup.

The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake The Atlantic, David Brooks, March 2020 Issue.

[sauropod]

Brooks is spewing male bovine fecal effluvia.

[rellic]

“The results in this book imply that once children’s basic material needs are met, characteristics of their parents become more important to how they turn out than anything additional money can buy.”

Most comments and liberal ideology blast right past this fact.
Liberal parents produce idiots, just like them.
You can spend millions, but you can’t teach ethics
to a liberal, since everything is about them.
My father and I had very different views on
politics and governance, but he and others
taught me how to think!
So I grew beyond his boundaries.
And my mothers problems.

Most kids can’t do that if they
have politically Liberal parents.

[Texas Eagle]

And Gov. Creosote of Illinois is not a fat-ass.

[metmom]

The parents just waste it on themselves.

They don’t give a rip about their kids.

[ModelBreaker]

He’s not a liberal. He’s just adamantly opposed to anything that would reduce the power of progressives.

[rwfok]

I saw the headline. It piqued my interest. Then, I looked at the by line and just busted out laughing. Thanks, I needed that.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

In other words, a government stipend may help good people who are down on their luck, but it won’t, on its own, turn sh!tty people into good people.

[TalBlack]

…and low income doesn’t cause crime.

[HIDEK6]

In other words, a government stipend may help good people who are down on their luck, but it won’t, on its own, turn sh!tty people into good people.

You can pay a $2/hr. man $10/hr. and he’ll still be a $2/hr. man.

[Old West Conservative]

In diarrhea form

[VanShuyten]

Another piece of evidence supporting my urban social re-education camps, complete with dunce caps, confession chest plaques, and public self-criticism sessions.