Tag Archives: Great Society

The Monster Under The Bed

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I guess screaming that President Trump is a threat to our democracy has not worked as well as predicted (we are a representative republic) since he is not the one jailing his political opponents and ignoring the rulings of the Supreme Court, so the Democrats need a new fear. The new monster under the bed is Project 2025. Project 2025 is simply a conservative wish list put out by the Heritage Foundation that would bring America closer to the country our Founding Fathers envisioned.

The Project 2025 website notes:

“Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise” offers both specific proposals for addressing every major issue facing the country and a blueprint for how to restructure each agency to solve those issues.

Among the recommendations in this edition:

    • Restore the integrity of the Department of Justice to ensure accountability by giving the FBI a hard rest, ensuring consistent litigation decisions, and enforcing immigration laws.
    • Solidify our border by restructuring the Department of Homeland Security and its priorities in ways that streamline the immigration process, end unclear immigration visas, and create a more secure immigration process.
    • Break up the Department of Education to strengthen education freedom, enhance parental rights in education, and protect taxpayers from student loan “forgiveness.”

Which of those ideas is objectionable?

The Heritage Foundation posted an article about the effectiveness of the Department of Education in 2019. The article states:

Federal government efforts to improve education have been dismal.

The fact that Common Core didn’t catalyze improvements in the U.S. isn’t surprising. Large-scale government programs rarely, if ever, do. 

The sooner we can acknowledge that improvements will not come from Washington, the sooner we’re likely to see students flourishing in learning environments.

…Heritage’s Jonathan Butcher and I detail Yuval Levin’s theory of government failure in “The Not-So-Great Society.” Levin explains that large-scale government programs fail for three reasons:

    1. “Institutionally, the administrative state is ‘dismally inefficient and unresponsive, and therefore ill-suited to our age of endless choice and variety.’”
    2. “Culturally and morally, government efforts to ‘rescue the citizen from the burdens of responsibility [have] undermined the family, self-reliance, and self-government.’”
    3. “Fiscally, large-scale federal programs supporting the welfare state are simply unaffordable, ‘dependent as it is upon dubious economics and the demographic model of a bygone era.’”

Federal government efforts to improve education have been dismal. Even if there were a constitutional basis for its involvement—which there isn’t—the federal government is simply ill-positioned to determine what education policies will best serve the diverse local communities across our vast nation.

The sooner we can acknowledge that improvements will not come from Washington, the sooner we’re likely to see students flourishing in learning environments that reflect their unique needs and desires.

Let’s restore “equal justice under the law,” secure the border, and bring education back to the local district where it can be properly guided. These are not radical ideas, but don’t expect the mainstream media to tell you that.

Anything the government touches gets worse.

To quote Milton Friedman:

“If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.”

A Study in Entropy

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Entropy is defined as the trend of the universe toward disorder. Entropy is illustrated by what happens to a farmer’s field if he ignores it for a few years. It is also what happens to a tractor or wagon that is left out in a field unattended. Crops do not automatically grow in straight lines, and weeds do not pick themselves. It is not a good idea to let children raise themselves. It takes human effort to keep things moving forward.

Does entropy apply to nations? If freedom and liberty are not carefully nurtured, do they degrade? If the culture is not properly guarded and maintained, does it degrade into unhealthy places?

Recently there was something of an uproar about a commencement speech given by a National Football League player. In his speech, Harrison Butker praised the virtues of motherhood. He praised his wife for the role her support has played in his success. He stated that many of the women in the audience that day will eventually become mothers. They will struggle with balancing their roles as wives, mothers, and corporate employees. All those roles are important, but has our culture devalued the role of wife and mother? A poem by William Ross Wallace states, “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle Is the Hand That Rules the World.” In the past, children learned basic foundational things from their mothers—baking cookies, shopping, language skills and values. In a world where career is valued over motherhood, children may or may not learn these things at daycare. There is nothing wrong with daycare, but I can guarantee that a child’s daycare provider does not love the child the way his/her mother does. I understand that in today’s economy staying home with your children is something of a luxury, but it can be done. Is devaluing motherhood a step forward or a step backward?

The speech given by Harrison Butker would have merely been a statement of the obvious in 1970. What changed?

The programs of the Great Society and the War on Poverty came into their own in the 1970’s. In 1965, “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, the Moynihan Report,” was written by Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He warned against the collapse of the black family unit, noting a rise in single-parent families. The Great Society programs exacerbated that problem by making payments to women only if there was not a man living in the house. The destruction those programs created in the black population later spread to the white population. The 1970’s also gave rise to the Feminist movement and created what was then the cottage industry of daycare—now a billion-dollar industry. This further weakened the family structure—the foundation of a healthy society.

The overspending of the 1960’s and 1970’s and beyond created an inflationary cycle that forced many women into the workforce. One positive aspect of this is that educational and professional opportunities for women increased. That at least was a positive thing.

Is America now experiencing a state of entropy? How many Americans voted in the last primary election? How many Americans voted in the last Presidential election? Are you willing to take an active role in your government? What impact will the dramatic increase in population from places that do not share our culture have on our own already degrading culture?

If Americans want to save our country from entropy, they need to stand up and fight for the values and culture that made this country great. If we do not do that soon, we will go the way of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome.

Ignoring The Root Of The Problem

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Thomas Sowell posted an article at National Review today about how government policies since the 1960’s have hurt the black community and are partially to blame for much of the unrest we are seeing now. As the article states, most of those policies are favored by the Democratic Party. One can’t help but remember that it was Democrat President Lyndon Baines Johnson who stated, “I’ll have those n—–s voting Democratic for the next 200 years” as he confided with two like-minded governors on Air Force One regarding his underlying intentions for the “Great Society” programs.

The article at National Review reminds us:

In 1960, before this expansion of the welfare state, 22 percent of black children were raised with only one parent. By 1985, 67 percent of black children were raised with either one parent or no parent.

A big “favor” the Obama administration is offering blacks today is exemption from school behavior rules that have led to a rate of disciplining of black male students that is greater than the rate of disciplining of other categories of students.

Discipline is part of the process of becoming an adult and a responsible citizen. We are not allowing children to develop properly when we refuse to discipline them. That is a very large part of the problems with youth we are having today.

The article further notes:

Kids from homes where they were not given behavioral standards, who are then not held to behavioral standards in schools, are on a path that can lead them as adults straight into prison, or to fatal confrontations with the police.

The article notes that one of the things that has helped children in the ghettos is the emergence of Charter Schools. Oddly enough, Democrats and the NAACP both oppose Charter Schools.

The article concludes with the explanation:

The Democrats’ special interest is in serving the teachers’ unions, which oppose charter schools and support Democrats financially.

The NAACP’s special interest is in serving the same donors — and in keeping ghetto schools controlled by racial activists, as part of their turf.

Unless the black community wakes up to the damage the ‘generosity’ of the Democratic Party has done to their culture, they will not survive as a community. There are a number of black churches in the city where I live in that are working to bring a healthy culture back to the black community, but it is an uphill battle. Theoretically life in America means that we are all pulling the same wagon together. Those that seek to divide us so that they can climb into the wagon and get a free ride need to either help pull or get out of the way.

A Difficult Balance

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Tonight I had the privilege of hearing two very knowledgeable speakers on the subject of immigration in America–Jim Robb, Vice President of Operations at Numbers USA and Ron Woodard, Director of NC Listen. It was a very informative evening, but I left with a realization that at some point in the near future, America was going to have to balance the interests of Americans with the desire to help immigrants. Right now we are not balancing those two things–our current immigration and refugee programs (or lack of them) are hurting Americans and need to be reevaluated.

One aspect of this problem is illustrated by two graphs at the non-partisan Center for Immigration Studies website:

centerforimmigrationThere is something seriously wrong with this picture.So what is going on? There are two groups who are happy with the current situation–for very different reasons. Democratic politicians want to create a permanent dependent class that will continue to elect Democrats in order to get government handouts. It was President Lyndon B. Johnson who stated as he worked to pass his expansive ‘Great Society‘ program, “”I’ll have those n—–s voting Democratic for the next 200 years.” The other group is the Chamber of Commerce. This group has put the idea of cheap labor above the welfare of Americans. Businessmen who support excessive immigration in order to pay workers less (both legal and illegal immigrants) in order to make a bigger profit are not ethical and do not have the best interests of American workers in mind. I think both the Democratic Party and the Chamber of Commerce have lost their way.

Sane immigration policy is possible. It begins with closing the borders to all but legal immigrants who have passed thorough background checks, tracking people who have overstayed their visas (a group that would include the 911 hijackers), and deporting anyone who is arrested, caught driving under the influence, or commits any illegal act. Sane immigration would also include the U.S. Government determining who immigrates to the United States–not the United Nations. Right now the United Nations totally controls the American refugee program. We need to reclaim our sovereignty and our country’s borders.

Making Welfare Work

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The budget for food stamps and other public welfare programs has gotten totally out of hand both at the state and the federal level. There are many people who have learned how to take advantage of the welfare system over the years, and the problem has been how to separate those who truly need assistance from those who don’t. Well, it seems as if the State of Maine has found at least a partial answer to the problem.

CNS News reported the following yesterday:

A Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) spokesman tells the Associated Press that 12,000 non-disabled adults were in Maine’s SNAP program before Jan. 1 – a number that dropped to 2,680 by the end of March.

More than 9,000 Maine residents have been removed from the state’s food stamp program since Republican Gov. Paul LePage‘s administration began enforcing work and volunteer requirements.

The article further reports:

State Rep. Scott Hamann (D –South Portland) has introduced a bill that would direct the administration to seek a waiver for certain counties with high unemployment or a lack of jobs.

The measure may not gain support from LePage’s administration. HHS spokesperson David Sorensen says, recipients only need to volunteer for 24 hours a month to comply with the requirements and the administration believes there are enough opportunities even in the most economically depressed regions.

No one wants to deny food to the needy, but the time has come to realize that there are people who are taking advantage of the various welfare programs available. The government really does not help anyone by giving them food without requiring them to work (unless that person is truly disabled in some way). The action that Governor LePage has taken will encourage the work ethic that has been lost in America since the Great Society laws were passed by Congress.

 

Truth Doesn’t Change–Even When Society Does

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Today’s Wall Street Journal posted an article about next month’s 50-year anniversary of Daniel Patrick Moynihan‘s report on the black family. At the time the future Senator was serving as assistant secretary in Lyndon Johnson‘s Labor Department. Senator Moynihan (he was first elected to the Senate in 1976) was concerned about the increasing number of fatherless homes in the black community.

The article in the Wall Street Journal reports:

“The fundamental problem is that of family structure,” wrote Moynihan, who had a doctorate in sociology. “The evidence—not final but powerfully persuasive—is that the Negro family in the urban ghettos is crumbling.”

For his troubles, Moynihan was denounced as a victim-blaming racist bent on undermining the civil-rights movement. Even worse, writes Harvard’s Paul Peterson in the current issue of the journal Education Next, Moynihan’s “findings were totally ignored by those who designed public policies at the time.” The Great Society architects would go on to expand old programs or formulate new ones that exacerbated the problems Moynihan identified. Marriage was penalized and single parenting was subsidized. In effect, the government paid mothers to keep fathers out of the home—and paid them well.

This, of course, made the problem of fatherless families worse–not better.

The article reminds us that we are also approaching the 50-year anniversary of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which ensured that the black minorities were able to vote.

The article points out:

With a twice-elected black man now occupying the White House, it might be difficult for younger Americans to appreciate this milestone. However, in 1964, three years after Barack Obama was born, black voter registration in Mississippi was less than 7%, the lowest in the South. By 1966 it had grown to 60%, the highest in the South.

Today black voter-registration rates in the South, where most blacks still live, are higher than in other regions of the country, and for the first time on record the black voter-turnout rate in 2012 exceeded white turnout.

So what have The Great Society and the Voting Rights Act accomplished?

The article concludes:

But even as we note this progress, the political gains have not redounded to the black underclass, which by several important measures—including income, academic achievement and employment—has stagnated or lost ground over the past half-century. And while the civil-rights establishment and black political leaders continue to deny it, family structure offers a much more plausible explanation of these outcomes than does residual white racism.

In 2012 the poverty rate for all blacks was more than 28%, but for married black couples it was 8.4% and has been in the single digits for two decades. Just 8% of children raised by married couples live in poverty, compared with 40% of children raised by single mothers.

One important lesson of the past half-century is that counterproductive cultural traits can hurt a group more than political clout can help it. Moynihan was right about that, too.

The country needs voters of every ethnic group–but they need smart voters–voters who will vote for things that will strengthen the family and foundations of society–not voters who support the undermining of those things.

One Opinion On The Cause Of Ferguson

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Yesterday PJ Media posted an article entitled, “The Real Villain of Ferguson.”

The article opens with the following comment:

It’s hard to have sympathy for anyone in the Ferguson affair — the cops, the demonstrators, the pontificating politicians, the exploitative media or we its pathetically loyal audience that keeps tuning in.  The whole event plays out like the umpteenth rerun of the famous quote from Marx about history repeating itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.

The events in Feguson have gone on for a number of days now. It is unfortunate that a young man died, but I just don’t understand why that justifies looting and violence. As more evidence becomes public, the story changes from the original sympathy for the innocent young man brutalized by the police to a young man, possibly high, charging a policeman. We shall see how all of this shakes out.

Meanwhile, the story at PJMedia concludes:

But, you say, this was a white-on-black crime. An o-fay cop offed a brother. (Never mind that brothers can butcher brothers like it’s going out of style, this pig had white-skin privilege.)  Well, yes, and we don’t yet know the circumstances, but even accepting the narrative of, say, the Huffington Post that the cop was the reincarnation of Bull Connor and that the “youth” was a “gentle giant” on the way to a contract with PBS as the next Mr. Rogers, the event is basically a charade.  Everyone knows we’ve seen it before and everyone knows we’ll see it again.  In fact, many parties don’t want it to go away.  The beat must go on.  It has to go on or their very personalities will disintegrate.  And I will tell you why — what caused it.

The Great Society.  There, I’ve said it.  The Great Society, which I voted for and supported from the bottom of my heart, is the villain behind Ferguson.  Ferguson is the Great Society writ large because the Great Society convinced, and then reassured, black people that they were victims, taught them that being a victim and playing a victim was the way to go always and forever.  And then it repeated the point ad infinitum from its debut in 1964 until now — a conveniently easy to compute fifty years — as it all became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The Great Society and similar policies screwed black people to the wall. It was racist to the core without knowing it.  Nobody used the N-word.  In fact, it was forbidden, unless you were Dr. Dre or somebody.  But it did its job without the word and did it better for being in disguise.  Those misbegotten kids running around Ferguson high on reefer and wasting their lives screaming at cops are the product of all this.  Stop it already.  No one has said this better than Jason Riley, author of Please Stop Helping Us.  Listen to Jason if you want to end Fergusons.

There are people out there who represent the voice of reason. We need to start listening to them instead of those the media places in front of us.