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"Solving problems in the context of outdated and crumbling models will only dig us deeper into the hole.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

Quotable Quotes

I should have the following posted on my masthead:

A freewheeling blog where the comments are better than the posts that inspire them!

This is not false humility or a backhanded search for compliments, and I’m not trying to curry favor. I really mean it.

Some excellent debate goes on here, and we are fortunate for the diversity provided by the likes of Jez, Ducky and Jersey, who enter this arena unafraid to duke it out with the conservatives, libertarians and the dreaded tea partiers. I also appreciate people like Jack Camwell and the ever-garrulous FreeThinke, who stake out their own brand of conservatism and give no quarter. Of course, my favorites are those like Z, AOW, Conservativesonfire and MK who agree with me, but that goes without saying…

Anyway, here are just a few of my favorite comments over the past few weeks. As usual, Professor Bastiatarian leads the way.

Bastiatarian:
Each time a liberal/Democrat/leftist/collectivist/progressive blurts out the charge of "RACIST!" I interpret it as that individual saying "Hello, I'm a complete moron. I engage in absolutely no intellectual activity whatsoever. Instead, I emote and repeat the idiocy that I hear spewed out by other imbeciles in my liberal/Democrat/leftist/collectivist/progressive emo club."

As for the moron in the White House, he's as much white as he is black, for one thing. Second, the reason I want him to fail and ultimately be eradicated from any position in which he has any effect on anything at all is not that he is half non-white, but that he is an incompetent buffoon, a genuinely bad person, and an enemy of everything that is important to decent, intelligent people around the world.

When it comes right down to it, the so-called liberals are merely projecting. They don't have the intelligence or integrity to avoid racist thought (or even realize that "race" itself is a pseudo-scientific concept), so they believe that everybody is as depraved and malicious as they are. ( http://westernhero.blogspot.com/2011/08/its-because-hes-black.html)

Trestin Meacham:
If we are ever invaded our only hope is that Washington falls first. (http://westernhero.blogspot.com/2011/08/perfect-storm-of-stupidity.html)

FreeThinke:
Until 911 it was always the Koran. As far as I am concerned it is STILL the Koran and never will be the Qu'ran. I feel the same way about Peking and Bombay and Burma. (http://westernhero.blogspot.com/2011/07/european-terror-fallout.html)


Finally, here is a YouTube sent to me by Mustang as his own response to my Friday post about government welfare programs.  If this doesn't doesn't piss you off I don't know what will.  And why are we giving taxpayer money away to able bodied young adults?




Have a great weekend!

Protesting Reality

 

The Welfare State is in a Death Spiral, and Liberals Can't Handle the Truth

"The spectacle of government workers, cranky retirees, militant unionists, and mad dog socialists locked arm in arm protesting reality is a sight we'd better get used to."  (Bill Frezza - Our Greek Future)

As Robert Samuelson notes dryly, we are witnessing "the death spiral of the welfare state."  Greece now, with the rest of Europe and the US soon to follow.

Virtually every advanced nation, including the United States, faces the same prospect. Aging populations have been promised huge health and retirement benefits, which countries haven't fully covered with taxes. The reckoning has arrived in Greece, but it awaits most wealthy societies.

Budget deficits and debt are the real problems; and these stem from all the welfare benefits (unemployment insurance, old-age assistance, health insurance) provided by modern governments.

 
Taxing the Rich at 100% Still Won't Pay for the Democratic Socialist Agenda

 The Wall Street Journal notes that Obama has set a post-WWII record for government spending.  His feral beast now consumes 25% of GDP, besting Reagan's highest spending level by three percentage points.  Here are a few salient points from the article:  


$$$ Taxing all millionaires and billionaires at 100%  "yields merely about $938 billion..."

$$$ Taxing the "top 10%, or everyone with income over $114,000 [...] throws up only $3.4 trillion."

And that's assuming these job creators will just lay down and take it as federal bandits rape them and steal their property.  Contrary to wild-eyed liberal fantasies, they won't.

Progressivism is morally, intellectually and financially bankrupt.  From Europe to the United States, there's not enough money in the world to pay for the Utopian agenda.

Further Reading:
The Library of Economics & Liberty article Reaganomics does an excellent job combating the liberal lies about President Reagan's record.

End the Welfare State - Towards a New Morality

The Progressive Welfare State encourages irresponsible behavior and enslaves people, making them wards of the taxpayer and eventually rendering them helpless, and hopeless.  It would be less destructive to end all government assistance.

I tire of discussions dealing with how to incentivize the stupid, the irresponsible, the indigent and the downright lazy.  Our welfare system has produced multi-generational poverty and people too fat to leave their government-provided dwellings.  These government slums are gang-infested anyway, so it's not just the morbidly obese who are veritable prisoners in these cinderblock jungles.

Government concerns itself with so many questions.  How do we keep people off of drugs, get kids to go to school, make parents responsible, reduce crime...

A shared code of morality used to take care of much of this, but shame is dead and virtue sneered at.  We're left scratching our heads wondering how we can get irresponsible people to change their destructive behavior.

Natural Consequences

It's time to knock down the taxpayer-funded wall between irresponsible behavior and natural consequences.  You don't work you don't eat.  Blow your mind out on drugs and booze, and you will be living off the charity of others for the rest of your life--Uncle Sam won't help you.  Crank out all the kids you want, but you're paying for them.  You need food and housing?  Work for it like the majority of your fellow citizens do!

The safety net is now a hammock.  The progressive nanny state has spawned multi-generations of innocent victims who no longer know how to care for themselves, and it has also spawned legions of deadbeats gaming the system.  Left unchecked it will destroy America; it is already depriving us of the human capital we need to advance the economy. 

Cut off all public assistance

No housing, no welfare checks, no food stamps.  This would be a wonderful boon to those enslaved by progressivism.  People would learn again to be thrifty and self-sufficient.  Generous Americans would put their money in local charities that are better able to sort the deadbeats from the truly needy.  Best of all, families would grow closer and help one another, as it should be.  The moral choice between buying myself a new car or helping my broken down old Dad is crystal clear.

The beauty of this plan is that the incentives are self-evident and the consequences are natural

If sitting on your ass all day swilling sugared drinks and playing XBox instead of going to school has make you fat and stupid, you're going to have a harder time finding a job.  You will be unable to buy food and shelter, and you will be saddled with health problems.  That's not a nice life to look forward to, but at least you will serve as a warning to others.

WWJD?

Some will call this a cruel policy.  I was called all but un-Christian by a liberal in Left Blogistan for suggesting this in a thread.  WWJD?  I doubt he would advocate a government-run shakedown operation to "spread it around."   He commands us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, take care of the widows and orphans...  families used to do this until Uncle Sam stepped in, short-circuited our charitable activities and shook us down to build a multibillion dollar Frankenstein's monster.

This is why I say progressives are not evil.  They are merely delusional pollyannas who eschew time-tested ways and ignore human nature, instead preferring "modern," "scientific" nostrums cooked up by eggheads.  The more pointy-headed the intellectualism, the better.

They had a good run through the 20th century, but reality has a way of reasserting itself.  The progressive dream has turned into a nightmare, as it spawns an ever growing criminality, irresponsibility, dependency and despondency.  Time to try what's worked since the dawn of time.

A government check lasts days.  Virtue and character are timeless.