>>However, you started this discussion trying to argue that a general breakdown in morality fueled unwed births, and I disagree with that.
Not so. I said it was a confluence of the sexual revolution and liberal social programs that have made single motherhood a viable alternative that have largely caused the problem.
>>The fact that the society has more wealth now than in the Depression is totally illogical to use in drawing any conclusions,because the women who have all those babies do not have more wealth.
It certainly does when the trends are so large and so opposite to your contention that poverty causes illegitimacy, which is untrue. The truth is that illegitimacy causes poverty and government programs which subsidize illegitimacy thereby increase poverty and therefore the need for government programs. A perfect liberal world (or one for liberal politicians).
>>Also, any meaningful welfare reform which actually ends with getting people out of poverty and headed up the ladder of stability and success in this culture will require such a vast investment of public resources that several studies have concluded the cost to taxpayers will be MORE expensive than welfare for the foreseeable future
Amazing how quickly those studies which sought to derail welfare reform have been discredited by reality. Seems many of those on welfare dropped off because they were already working off the books and couldn't make the workfare requirements. Hard to be in two places at one time.
>>If your idea is to cut people off welfare, and not raise the minimum wage so that people can actually live on it, or offer job training and other kinds of support, social pathologies at a level NEVER seen in this society will be the result, and I, for one, will be ashamed to be an American.
The minimum wage is a total fraud perpetuated by politicians, not economists, the vast majority of which reject the concept. The minimum wage causes marginal workers to lose their jobs or entry level workers never to be employed in the first place. The biggest victims are black males who never get on the employment ladder.
Live on the minimum wage? Ridiculous. No one stays at that level for any length of time. I'll even bet that in SF few other than restaurant help get the minimum, because the free market dictates a higher level. Why should employees in rural Arkansas get paid the same as in SF?
>>Incidentally, I agree with Tony Blair totally. Most of your assumptions about my positions are inaccurate. But I do believe we should feed hungry children, and if that view belongs only to the "tired nostrums of the discredited Left", then I am proud to be a leftist, and conclude that only the Left will be going to heaven, because the ruthless tactics the right relies on have no love or tolerance or compassion, and Jesus would be horrified and ashamed for them.
I maintain that you are a good person who wants to do good and should go to heaven. I also maintain that many liberal politicans like Moynihan and the Kennedys know that their policies ruin the poor and should go to hell. Well, maybe not Moynihan, at least he tells the truth.
Btw, the WSJ had a big article on how the Kennedy's and their cronies have made $$$MILLIONS$$$ off their so called charity, Citizen's Energy, which supplies fuel for the poor. Want me to post it? |
