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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (111318)	5/17/2009 11:54:15 PM
From: Bread Upon The Water	Respond to of 541851

Middle middle middle class that had a solid extended family so I did have a support system. And now I contribute to my niece's children's support in the absence of their father. I do think my niece left her marriage because she thought she could get a better deal from the government. I grew up in America before it was a welfare state. Poverty is never pretty--with that I agree. The main question here is it better for individuals to rely on each other and family to raise children or the state? There is not an absolute right answer to that--only a relative one. Having seen the other America I prefer that one. One has less choice so one has to make it work. Its a universe with tighter rules and tighter bonds--when it works. I say go back to it. Give up this impersonal paternalism that encourages fatherlessness. What we are doing here is letting the state take over all aspects of our individual responsibility: our finances, our health care etc. In the end we will stop doing for ourselves.

To: epicure who wrote (111318)	5/18/2009 11:44:04 PM
From: Bread Upon The Water	Respond to of 541851

PS. The Western Democracies that have socialized child rearing have done this in what has been, for them, a golden economic age---largely helped on by America picking up the lion's share of their defense umbrella. This condition is changing as poorer countries join the technological revolution and become more industrial and as America starts to having to choose between "guns & butter" as its population ages and its medical bills rise. It will be interesting to see what part of the socialization of child rearing these democracies will be able to afford to keep.

To: epicure who wrote (111318)	5/19/2009 10:50:42 PM
From: Bread Upon The Water	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541851

PPS: NPR today did a story today on a Chicago Priest who is Flying the American Flag upside down (a distress signal) to call attention to the 36 Chicago Public School Children (all minorities) who have been murdered this year. The Priest's point: If these were white children the hue an cry to fix this problem would be deafening. My point: This is what you get when you raise male children without Fathers or other positive role models. You can grow up right despite being poor if you've got a guiding figure. This assumes of course the Father had a Father. This is the back side of welfare that doesn't get much ink.