State Sponsored Suicide

We've lost the concept of shame.  Or more rightly put, we're only allowed to use it in socially-approved ways now 

The President and the left can scold their greedy conservative enemies about social justice, The First Lady can lecture us on eating our vegetables, but woe to those who enter the public square and preach time-tested, millennia-old Judeo-Christian morality like hard work and being true to your spouse and children.

We can no longer shame "men" who would rather mooch off of the rest of us than get a job, or those serial impregnators who have fun and run, leaving us to foot the bill.  We can no longer shame people for out-of-wedlock births that produce litters of children in single-parent government-provided apartments that are really gang-controlled cell blocks.  Irresponsible adults condemn children to a life of poverty, crime, ignorance and social dysfunction, and the responsible adults who work hard and pay the bills simply keep their mouths shut and go about their business.

MTV’s Sixteen and Pregnant is damn near the only entity publicly calling out bad behavior.  Unfortunately, it is swimming in a sewer of sin and societal decay, diluting its effectiveness.  Despite this, Sixteen and Pregnant shows the consequences of irresponsibility, and does so gently, by example, without preaching.

But we need to start preaching and getting in people’s faces over their behaviors.

"Wanna act like a stupid cracked-out Hollyweird pig?  Then get a job that provides you enough money to do it on your own damn dime and you won’t have to put up with the rest of us excoriating you for staggering through life brain-dead and tapping the rest of us to pay for your mistakes.  Pull your head out!!!"

That's what I want to say, and others bigger and smarter than me are saying it as well, only in nicer terms.

Klaus Schwab, whom I gather is some kind of international plutocrat and a Davos Man, ventilated this lament at the latest global cognoscenti conclave:

"We have a general morality gap, we are over-leveraged, we have neglected to invest in the future, we have undermined social coherence, and we are in danger of completely losing the confidence of future generations," said Klaus Schwab, host and founder of the annual World Economic Forum.

"Solving problems in the context of outdated and crumbling models will only dig us deeper into the hole. (Breitbart)

A Moral Morass

We are in a moral morass, and the elites have led us here.  By their own venal behavior in the world's marketplaces of business and finance, but also by their tacit approval of destructive behavior.  Throwing state money at the poor salves some consciences, but it's done nothing to help the poor pull themselves out of poverty.

State-sponsored social projects have resulted in a split between Belmonters (the haves) and Fishtowners (the have nots), according to the central thesis of Charles Murray's new book, Coming Apart.

Murray notes that before the 1960's, the rich and the poor shared many demographic traits, common mores and shared American values.  Now, they are miles apart.  Percentages in both groups were comparable for marriage, out of wedlock births, unemployment, crime, and church attendance.  All of these social indicators have gotten much worse for Fishtown, while the Belmonters enjoy stability.  Both groups are in a feedback-fed spiral, one virtuous and the other corkscrewing ever downward.

Preach What You Practice

Progressives have generally accepted Murray's observations, but they disagree vehemently with his conclusion:

The best thing that the new upper class can do to provide that reinforcement is to drop its condescending "nonjudgmentalism." Married, educated people who work hard and conscientiously raise their kids shouldn't hesitate to voice their disapproval of those who defy these norms. When it comes to marriage and the work ethic, the new upper class must start preaching what it practices. (WSJ - Murray)

Progressives want more redistribution and government programs.  Niall Ferguson explains why this is folly:

So what is to be done to heal the rift between Rich America and Poor America? There are two obvious problems with the standard liberal prescription of increased welfare spending, financed by higher taxes on the rich. The first, as Murray points out, is that the welfare programs of the Great Society era were in many ways the cause of the breakdown of social order in working-class America.

The second is that this is a very strange time to want to import the European welfare state, with its aspiration to provide everyone with comfort and security from the cradle to the grave. In case you hadn’t noticed, that system is currently on the brink of fiscal collapse in its continent of origin.

Murray’s conclusion is that Americans need to steer clear of Europe and instead get back to their roots. We should scrap the institutions of the New Deal and Great Society and replace them with the system of guaranteed basic income he first proposed in In Our Hands (2006). And we should pin our faith on the four traditional pillars of the American way of life: family, vocation, community, and faith. These, Murray argues, were the true foundations of the American project, from Kennedy all the way back to Washington. (Ferguson)

If You Love Someone, Set Them Free

A little shame wouldn't hurt either. The fear of shaming myself and my family is what kept me from stealing when I needed more money, or from engaging in other behaviors that were fun at the time but could end in destruction, tragedy or... shame...

My parents also taught me that the bird with the broken wing and the sick fox I captured and nursed back to health had to eventually be let go. We are financing societal dysfunction that has condemned millions to crime-infested neighborhoods and failed schools.

More money and more government has only made things worse for the poor. For the tens of millions on the bottom, The War on Poverty has been lost, and it's not a Great Society. It's time to try something different.

See Also (Walter Russell Mead is especially thought-provoking):

The Welfare State is Destroying America

David Brooks - The Great Divorce
Walter Russell Mead - Crisis of the American Dream, Pt 1
Walter Russell Mead - Crisis of the American Dream, Pt 2

Child Poverty and Single Parenthood

The child poverty rate for single-parent children is quadruple that of children living in a two parent home


While investigating poverty statistics awhile  back, I quickly found myself detoured into a thicket of indignant liberal apologists who blame child poverty on corporations, lack of government assistance, greedy rightwingers, anything and everything except irresponsible behavior.

Underlying much of the liberal argumentation was a barely-contained hostility and scorn for the very institution of marriage.

Has our society become so emotion-driven that we can no longer analyze the facts as they stand?

People on the left hate the single-parent/two-parent poverty rate statistic. There it stands. In black and white. They can’t blow it up, so they instead make the illogical leap of declaring that anyone who mouths this statistic is trashing single parents. This is a non-sequitur. The conclusion that all single parents are bad does not follow from the stated premise. It's a ridiculous strawman. But logic means nothing to the libertine left.  They simply want to blunt the argument and shut down the conversation.

“… a Republican state legislator from Colorado, [...] argued on Monday that families can stay out of poverty by avoiding having kids outside of marriage.

"Those children are almost guaranteed to be in poverty," Swalm remarked in an interview after speaking out against House Bill 10-1002, which would provide much-needed tax relief for Colorado's poor. "You don't want kids in poverty? Don't have kids out of wedlock." (Change.org)

Progressives hate such personal responsibility talk, so they use emotional appeal to demonize people who point out the obvious…

“House Speaker Terrance Carroll rightly identified Rep. Swalm's comments as "an insult to every single person who lives in poverty, who works their butt off every day just to keep their head above water."” (Change.org)

The child poverty rate for single-parent children is quadruple that of children living in a two parent home. That’s a fact, and not one outraged liberal could actually explain how this statistic insults “every single person who lives in poverty, who works their butt off every day just to keep their head above water."

Here’s the best liberal argument I could find:

“It's that he got his causation all mixed up. These statistics shed light on a real problem: single-parent households (and not just in Colorado) struggle with low incomes disproportionately more than families led by two parents.

But whether a child winds up living in poverty can't be boiled down to the number of parents he lives with. Countless factors, like unequal access to affordable health care and educational opportunities, play a huge role.” (Change.org)

Tis true that correlation is not causation, but as any exhausted single mom or dad can tell you, it’s hard work going it alone. This is not about demonizing people who have suffered misfortune, it’s about identifying what works and warning people off a very rocky path. MTV has a whole reality series based on the travails of those who give birth out of wedlock. Refusing to hold up the traditional two-parent family as the ideal is nuts.

“After all, what single-parent families need definitely isn't an extra dose of unfounded criticism. They need the resources to help their children succeed.” (Change.org)

This is what’s wrong with our dialog nowadays. We cannot have a rational discussion without people getting huffy and taking offense. Platitudinous twaddle clouds the issue. Go look at the cited article’s comment thread and shudder. One suggests HUD should do more. Another criticizes mean-spirited conservatives for suggesting that those on the public dole submit to drug testing. Anything to avoid stating the obvious and putting the burden for success or failure where it belongs: On the individual.

Sawhill and social researcher Ron Haskins authored a book, Creating an Opportunity Society (Brookings, 2009), in which they assess what are in reality the extremely low barriers to exploiting opportunity in the U.S.

They note that a youth who finishes high school, gets married before having children, and maintains a steady job is almost guaranteed middle-class status, no matter what his background. Those three conditions shouldn't prove insurmountable for anyone. (The American Spectator)

Put more simply, here are Dr. Walter E. Williams’ Rules for Avoiding Poverty

* Graduate high school
* Get married before you have children
* If you get married, stay married
* Get a job, any job. A minimum wage job is a stepping stone
* Avoid engaging in criminal behavior

Further Reading:
Heritage – Marriage and Child Poverty
Cornell Study
Kaus Files - no More Brazils

Poverty and Immorality go Hand in Hand

We have really screwed our lives up with our rampant irresponsibility

"The typical homeless family, HUD reported, is a mother with two children." (Catholic News Service - A Mom and Two Kids)

A man pays no price for impregnating a woman and running away. The woman pays a scant cost, and government forces the rest of us help her shoulder the burden.

There used to be a social bargain, an old man once explained to me. Women had the good stuff, and men had the strong backs to bring home the bacon. Man and woman entered into marriage and exchanged these gifts to make a family, a fundamental building block of the community.

A particularly odious scoundrel was a man who got a woman pregnant and took off. He broke the social agreement. She gave him something, but he failed to uphold his end of the bargain by forsaking all others and assuming his responsibility as head of the family. Worse, he condemned his mate and the child to a life on the margins. Today, that bargain is broken. Women give it up for free and men can be perpetual little boys.

Family has now been redefined so that it means nothing whatsoever, contributes nothing to society, and cannot even sustain itself.

I read another heart sob story about a woman and her children in a homeless shelter.

Jasmine turned to the shelter in mid-June, after she and her boyfriend decided it was time to go their separate ways." (Catholic News Service - A Mom and Two Kids)

Imagine that!  They just decided to go their separate ways! …And stick the taxpayers with the bill by throwing themselves upon the mercy of Catholic Charities and various taxpayer-funded federal, state and local agencies.

Her first mistake was getting knocked up, twice, by a man she was not married to. What has turned so many of our women into brainless tramp-stamped candy stores? Her second mistake was letting the little boy pretending to be a man walk away without a care in the world.

The article goes on to explain how single moms saddled with a litter of illegitimate kids and no job skills can't afford an apartment. No kidding.

Your Right to Immorality ends at My Pocketbook

Am I being moralistic? Hell yes! I am a libertarian, but your business becomes my business when government shakes me down because you're fertile, averse to marriage, and like to get jiggy.

Forty percent of births in America are to unwed parents. Broken down by ethnic group, the figures are 30 percent among whites, 50 percent for Hispanics and 70 percent for blacks.

Marriage patterns are creating a caste system in a country that had traditionally enjoyed relative equality. Among the well-educated, marriage rates have remained very stable over the past several decades.

College graduates are thus (mostly) rearing their children in orderly, supportive environments in which kids are taught to study hard, delay gratification and plan for the future. But 54 percent of the children of high school dropouts are illegitimate. Their parents' lives are marked by financial stress, conflict and turmoil. (Mona Charen – Wrong Marriage Debate)

The sad fact is that we have a growing self-selecting underclass with no morals. Marriage means nothing, kids are accidents that get in the way of a good time. And those kids grow up stupid because the nuts don't fall far from the tree.

Educated people and people in the skilled labor force get married, stay married, and see that their progeny do the same. They avoid drugs, sexual license and financial irresponsibility, and teach their kids to do so as well. They may not be driven by Jewish or Christian faith, but they have nonetheless adopted the traditional values of these great religions and are successful as a result. This creates a virtuous cycle, while our new underclass is trapped in a downward spiral.

Regardless of where they come from, morals do matter

Since the 60’s, radical elements in this country began trashing “traditional morality” and deploring the “Christian theocracy,” screaming that we should tear it all down man! Well, you stinking, immoral hippies, you've succeeded.  You’ve torn it all down man!  But for all your talk of morality without God, you failed to replace the old morality with something new.

Nihilism has filled the void. Congratulations.

How to Avoid Poverty

The child poverty rate for single-parent children is quadruple that of children living in a two parent home

While investigating poverty statistics,  I quickly found myself detoured into a thicket of indignant liberal apologists who blame child poverty on corporations, lack of government assistance, greedy rightwingers, anything and everything except irresponsible behavior.



Underlying much of the liberal argumentation was a barely-contained hostility and scorn for the very institution of marriage.

Has our society become so emotion-driven that we can no longer analyze the facts as they stand?

People on the left hate the single-parent/two-parent poverty rate statistic. There it stands. In black and white. They can’t blow it up, so they instead make the illogical leap of declaring that anyone who mouths this statistic is criticizing single parents. This is a non-sequitur. The conclusion that single parents are bad people does not follow from the stated premise. Any of us who know single parents know how ridiculous this is. But that’s not the point. The point is to blunt the argument and shut down the conversation.

“… a Republican state legislator from Colorado, [...] argued on Monday that families can stay out of poverty by avoiding having kids outside of marriage.

"Those children are almost guaranteed to be in poverty," Swalm remarked in an interview after speaking out against House Bill 10-1002, which would provide much-needed tax relief for Colorado's poor. "You don't want kids in poverty? Don't have kids out of wedlock."  (Change.org)

Progressives hate such personal responsibility talk, so they use emotional appeal to demonize people who point out the obvious…

“House Speaker Terrance Carroll rightly identified Rep. Swalm's comments as "an insult to every single person who lives in poverty, who works their butt off every day just to keep their head above water."” (Change.org)

The child poverty rate for single-parent children is quadruple that of children living in a two parent home. That’s a fact, and not one outraged liberal could actually explain how this statistic insults “every single person who lives in poverty, who works their butt off every day just to keep their head above water."

Here’s the best liberal argument I could find:

“It's that he got his causation all mixed up. These statistics shed light on a real problem: single-parent households (and not just in Colorado) struggle with low incomes disproportionately more than families led by two parents.

But whether a child winds up living in poverty can't be boiled down to the number of parents he lives with. Countless factors, like unequal access to affordable health care and educational opportunities, play a huge role.” (Change.org)

Tis true that correlation is not causation, but as any exhausted single mom or dad can tell you, it’s hard work keeping it all together. This is not about demonizing people who have suffered misfortune, it’s about identifying what works. Refusing to hold up the traditional two-parent family as the ideal is nuts. Single parents will tell you that a two-parent family is the ideal.

“After all, what single-parent families need definitely isn't an extra dose of unfounded criticism. They need the resources to help their children succeed.” (Change.org)

This is not about criticizing single parents; it’s about warning other off this very difficult path. MTV has a whole reality series based on the travails of those who give birth out of wedlock.

This is what’s wrong with our dialog nowadays. We cannot have a rational discussion without people getting huffy and taking offense. Platitudinous twaddle clouds the issue. Go look at the cited article’s comment thread and shudder. One suggests HUD should do more. Another criticizes mean-spirited conservatives for suggesting that those on the public dole submit to drug testing. Anything to avoid stating the obvious and putting the burden for success or failure where it belongs: On the individual.

Sawhill and social researcher Ron Haskins authored a book, Creating an Opportunity Society (Brookings, 2009), in which they assess what are in reality the extremely low barriers to exploiting opportunity in the U.S. They note that a youth who finishes high school, gets married before having children, and maintains a steady job is almost guaranteed middle-class status, no matter what his background. Those three conditions shouldn't prove insurmountable for anyone. (The American Spectator)

Put more simply, here are Dr. Walter E. Williams’ Rules for Avoiding Poverty

* Graduate high school
* Get married before you have children
* If you get married, stay married
* Get a job, any job. A minimum wage job is a stepping stone
* Avoid engaging in criminal behavior

Further Reading:

Heritage – Marriage and Child Poverty

Cornell Study

http://www.newsweek.com/blogs/kausfiles/2010/12/27/obama-and-inequality-no-new-brazils.html