{"id":24975,"date":"2015-02-11T15:15:44","date_gmt":"2015-02-11T20:15:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=24975"},"modified":"2015-02-11T15:15:44","modified_gmt":"2015-02-11T20:15:44","slug":"truth-doesnt-change-even-when-society-does","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=24975","title":{"rendered":"Truth Doesn’t Change–Even When Society Does"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

The article in the Wall Street Journal reports:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fundamental problem is that of family structure,\u201d wrote Moynihan, who had a doctorate in sociology. \u201cThe evidence\u2014not final but powerfully persuasive\u2014is that the Negro family in the urban ghettos is crumbling.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

For his troubles, Moynihan was denounced as a victim-blaming racist bent on undermining the civil-rights movement. Even worse, writes Harvard<\/a>\u2019s Paul Peterson in the current issue of the journal Education Next, Moynihan\u2019s \u201cfindings were totally ignored by those who designed public policies at the time.\u201d The Great Society<\/a> 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\u2014and paid them well.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This, of course, made the problem of fatherless families worse–not better.<\/p>\n

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

The article points out:<\/p>\n

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 <\/a> 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.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/strong><\/p>\n

So what have The Great Society and the Voting Rights Act accomplished?<\/p>\n

The article concludes:<\/p>\n

But even as we note this progress, the political gains have not redounded to the black underclass, which by several important measures\u2014including income, academic achievement and employment\u2014has 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.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1051,5261,213,7973,675,8729,285],"class_list":["post-24975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-african-american","tag-aid-to-families-with-dependent-children","tag-daniel-patrick-moynihan","tag-great-society","tag-lyndon-b-johnson","tag-the-negro-family-the-case-for-national-action","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24975"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24976,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24975\/revisions\/24976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}