# Jim Quinn: Slaves were better off than those on welfare **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 3, 2009, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-quinn-slaves-were-better-off-than-those-on-welfare/479645 "2009-01-03T00:03:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-quinn-slaves-were-better-off-than-those-on-welfare/479645/41 "2009-01-04T06:14:08Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > S > > Which came about 80 years after the end of The War of North American Treason IIRC. > > _Dixiephrenia- she is a bitch._ It’s not “Treason” if it is successful. Then it is a glorious revolution. Geez dude, get with the Newspeak! ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-quinn-slaves-were-better-off-than-those-on-welfare/479645/42 "2009-01-04T07:17:03Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > I probably don’t want to spend the time looking that up, do I? The Freepers can be fun if you like laughing at willfully ignorant Internet Tough Guys who think their forum is the hub about which the media world turns. Otherwise, no, it probably isn’t worth it. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-quinn-slaves-were-better-off-than-those-on-welfare/479645/43 "2009-01-04T10:07:21Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > It’s not “Treason” if it is successful. Then it is a glorious revolution. Geez dude, get with the Newspeak! More like Oldspeak, actually. [QUOTE=Ovid] Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason? Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-quinn-slaves-were-better-off-than-those-on-welfare/479645/44 "2009-01-04T14:17:08Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > The Freepers can be fun if you like laughing at willfully ignorant Internet Tough Guys who think their forum is the hub about which the media world turns. Otherwise, no, it probably isn’t worth it. That and the ignorance there is so thick it’s hysterical. For example, did you know that Obama wearing his hat backwards during his workout is yet another sign that he’s not fit to be president? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-quinn-slaves-were-better-off-than-those-on-welfare/479645/45 "2009-01-04T20:42:58Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > This isn’t the thread for it, but I think the argument can be made that both parties appeal to the same sort of constituants now as they did in the 1860s . . . Actually, no. The Republicans today don’t even appeal to the same constituency they did in the **19** 60s. A result of Nixon’s [Southern Strategy.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-quinn-slaves-were-better-off-than-those-on-welfare/479645/46 "2009-01-04T20:49:00Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > Does anyone really still think that welfare in the U.S. is a racial issue? Yes. I’m afraid it still is. > [@guizot](#): > > Hasn’t anyone realized that the vast majority of poor Americans (living under the “official” poverty line) are white? And that the vast majority of those on welfare are white? Something like 80%? Those are the facts, but the mythology still persists: That welfare is a program to bribe negroes not to commit crimes. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-quinn-slaves-were-better-off-than-those-on-welfare/479645/47 "2009-01-05T13:42:26Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Actually, no. The Republicans today don’t even appeal to the same constituency they did in the **19** 60s. A result of Nixon’s [Southern Strategy.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy) Evangelicals, farmers, small business people, bankers, and nativists. That’s who they appealed to in the 1860s, and that’s who they appeal to today. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-quinn-slaves-were-better-off-than-those-on-welfare/479645/48 "2009-01-05T15:02:21Z")
> [@Merijeek](#): > > If only there was some way to blame the French and the Jews in all of this… Really, it’s [this guy’s](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Dreyfus) fault. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-quinn-slaves-were-better-off-than-those-on-welfare/479645/49 "2009-01-05T18:08:51Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Evangelicals, farmers, small business people, bankers, and nativists. That’s who they appealed to in the 1860s, and that’s who they appeal to today. Evangelicals? The Pubs didn’t lock up that vote until the 1970s, **after** McGovernite cultural liberals had gained a preponderance of power within the Democratic Party. There was a time when the evangelicals’ great hope was William Jennings Bryan, a Democrat. Same with farmers – they were more likely to be Dem or Populist than Pub. They were largely supporters of FDR. [Relevant article:](http://www.newamerica.net/publications/articles/2008/newer_deal_path_democratic_supermajority_7753) > [@](#): > > Both of the national parties today claim roots in the older eras of Roosevelt and Lincoln. But I am 46 years old, and today’s Democratic Party and Republican Party are younger than I am. What happened beginning in 1968 was that one two-party system – let us call it the Roosevelt Party versus the Hoover Party – gave way to the present two-party system, which pits the Nixon Party versus the McGovern Party. > > Today’s Democrats and Republicans bear little resemblance to the pre-1968 groups of the same name. The pre-1968 Republican Party was based in the Northeast, Midwest and West Coast – the very areas that are the base of today’s “blue state” Democrats. The pre-1968 Democrats were the old Jefferson-Jackson alliance of white Southern Protestants and Northern urban Catholics, plus a big chunk of Northern Progressives, many of them former Republicans. Today the Republicans are a white working-class party based in the South and much of the West with a libertarian Wall Street wing. The Democrats since the 1970s have been an alliance of college-educated white professionals from the North and West with blacks and Latinos. > > Between 1932 and 1964, the Roosevelt Party won seven of nine presidential elections, losing only in 1952 and 1956. Between 1968 and 2004, the Nixon Party won seven out of 10 presidential elections, losing only three times, to Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996. Was this because red-state Rooseveltians were won over to supply-side economics, while blue-state blue-bloods suddenly became enamored of abortion rights and separation of church and state? No. Today’s red-state Republican children of New Deal Democrats still like Social Security, and the Republican grandparents of today’s blue-state Protestant Democrats were in favor of birth control – for the Catholics, in particular. The values of these voting blocs didn’t change. The issues that defined national politics changed. > > The Roosevelt Party ran on economic issues, and didn’t care whether voters were in favor of sex or against it on principle as long as they supported the New Deal. The McGovern Party, by contrast, has made social issues its litmus test. Economic conservatives have had a home in the McGovern Party, as long as they support abortion rights and affirmative action, but social democrats and populists who are pro-life or anti-affirmative action are not made nearly as welcome. > > Beginning with its namesake, George McGovern, in 1972, the McGovern Party has been trounced repeatedly by the Nixon Party, not because of its economic agenda, which the public actually prefers to the alternative, but because of its unpopular stands on issues like race-based affirmative action, illegal immigration, crime and punishment, and national security. Progressives are fooling themselves when they dismiss these as insignificant “wedge issues.” What can be more important than whether civil rights laws apply equally to everyone – even those wicked “white males” – regardless of race and gender, or whether, in an age of terrorism, the nation’s border and immigration laws are enforced? There is no democracy in the world today where a party that stood for ethnic quotas that excluded the national majority or welfare benefits for illegal immigrants would not be in political danger. (As I write, all of the major European democracies except Britain are governed by parties of the right that are more nationalist and populist than the left parties they have defeated. And Gordon Brown isn’t looking too hale either.) > > Franklin Roosevelt’s Democratic majority, despite defections by Southern segregationists, wobbled on until 1968, 23 years after his death. FDR was able to assemble his coalition only because social issues did not divide his voters. Nobody ever asked FDR or Harry Truman or John F. Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson their views on contraception, or abortion, or censorship. Not only were those issues not central to the message of the New Deal Democrats, they were not even national issues. Before the Supreme Court federalized them, they were fought out in state legislatures and city councils by the very same people who came together on Election Day to send Democrats to Congress and the White House. FDR’s followers disagreed about Prohibition, but they agreed about the New Deal. ---
**Author:** ![myskepticsight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cc9497/32.png) [@myskepticsight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/myskepticsight)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-quinn-slaves-were-better-off-than-those-on-welfare/479645/50 "2009-01-05T18:29:29Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > Does anyone really still think that welfare in the U.S. is a racial issue? Hasn’t anyone realized that the vast majority of poor Americans (living under the “official” poverty line) are white? And that the vast majority of those on welfare are white? Something like 80%? I don’t want to argue the point you’re making but I do want to argue the numbers. But please someone else check the numbers and make sure I am correct. It’s an Excel file and a bit confusing to me at least when making sure I am comparing the right numbers. Found here: [http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/histpov/famindex.html](http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/histpov/famindex.html) The first table. EXCEL FILE but you have to click on it directly, the link above is not an excel file. Looks like in 2007 (numbers in thousands) that there were 53,927 white families (including married and unmarried people) and 3184 of them were below the poverty line so 5.9% of white families, with and without children were living below the poverty live. (cell 210) There were 9259 black families in 2007 with 2045 of them living below the poverty line for 22.1% total living below the poverty line. (cell 296) Again, disclaimer, I am not 100% sure I understood the spreadsheet correctly but someone smarter than me please look at it and correct me if I am wrong. But if my numbers are at all correct it does prove that a higher proportion of african americans are below the poverty line in relation to the proportion of whites. There are a lot more white people in the US so it’s not that notable that more white people are below poverty than blacks in simple numbers. So yes there are more white people below poverty and more getting assistance I’m sure, but a higher percentage of the black population in this country is below the poverty line in comparison to whites. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-quinn-slaves-were-better-off-than-those-on-welfare/479645/51 "2009-01-05T18:51:40Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Evangelicals? The Pubs didn’t lock up that vote until the 1970s, **after** McGovernite cultural liberals had gained a preponderance of power within the Democratic Party. There was a time when the evangelicals’ great hope was William Jennings Bryan, a Democrat. Same with farmers – they were more likely to be Dem or Populist than Pub. They were largely supporters of FDR. If you read Richard Carwardine’s “Evangelicals and Politics in Antebellum America”, he talks at great length about the influence that the northern Evangelical churches had on both the Whig and then the Republican party. In fact, he argues that the Republican Party was itself based on an an evangelical Calvinist ethic. Bruce Gourley has a good summary of the histiography of religion and the Civil War [here](http://www.brucegourley.com/civilwar/gourleyhistor1.htm), including a look at religion and the formation of the Republican party. As for farmers, they were a fundamental part of the Republican coaltiion in 1860. There’s a reason the party platform said: > [@](#): > > That we protest against any sale or alienation to others of the Public Lands held by actual settlers, and against any view of he Homestead policy which regards the settlers as paupers or suppliants for public bounty; and we demand the passage by Congress of the complete and satisfactory Homestead measure which has already passed the House. and that it was the Republican party that passed both the Homestead Act and the Morrill Act. There’s a reason the party’s slogan in 1856 was “Free soil, free men, Fremont”. ---
**Author:** ![Sweetums](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Sweetums](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sweetums)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-quinn-slaves-were-better-off-than-those-on-welfare/479645/52 "2009-01-05T18:55:24Z")
> [@Baldwin](#): > > So, one more guy with a talk radio show who’s either a genuine idiot (like Sean Hannity) or says ridiculously stupid things just to get a reaction (like Rush Limbaugh). ``` Having tried to listen to Quinn (and if you have an IQ above room temperature, it can be hard), I would definitely say it is the former. The best way to describe Quinn is a former "morning zoo" host who has now turned into a third string Sean Hannity clone. The morning zoo experience might make one believe that he is saying things for shock value, as per Limbaugh or Coulter. Listening to him really gives the impression that he has gone rather curmudgeonly in his old age and actually believes what he says. ``` ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-quinn-slaves-were-better-off-than-those-on-welfare/479645/53 "2009-01-05T18:59:57Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Those are the facts, but the mythology still persists: That welfare is a program to bribe negroes not to commit crimes. Also, the mythology that that accounts for a significant portion of whites’ tax bills, when in fact it never has (AFDC is about 1% of the federal budget, I believe). I recall as a kid in the '70s I went trick-or-treating for UNICEF, and one old Cracker (who was willing enough to give us candy) said, “Nope, I work too hard supporting these niggers over here to support those niggers over there.” An assumption steadfastly held, without reflection or examination, by many white Americans. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-quinn-slaves-were-better-off-than-those-on-welfare/479645/54 "2009-01-05T21:29:06Z")
> [@Sweetums](#): > > Having tried to listen to Quinn (and if you have an IQ above room temperature, it can be hard), I would definitely say it is the former. The best way to describe Quinn is a former “morning zoo” host who has now turned into a third string Sean Hannity clone. > > ``` > The morning zoo experience might make one believe that he is saying things for shock value, as per Limbaugh or Coulter. Listening to him really gives the impression that he has gone rather curmudgeonly in his old age and actually believes what he says. > > ``` I remember that guy – he was a DJ in Pittsburgh in the early-mid 1980s. He got his pants sued off for a series of ongoing on-air remarks he made about his female newsreader. The remarks were basic Howard Stern boilerplate. E.g., he claimed that she enjoyed giving oral sex so much that she’d had the words, “Don’t pull on my ears, I know what I’m doing” tattooed on her forehead. She eventually quit and filed the suit after Quinn made a particularly tasteless comment alleging that insanity ran in her family (her brother had had some mental health problems – I went to high school with her, which is why I remember all this). The judgement was big. Quinn and his partner tried to joke about it the day it came down, repeatedly telling their _new_ newsreader how much they ‘honored and respected’ her. I’m a little disappointed that the twit still makes a living sitting down, but not the least surprised that he now fancies himself a big thinker. Morons usually think they’re smarter than everyone else. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-quinn-slaves-were-better-off-than-those-on-welfare/479645/55 "2009-01-05T21:45:10Z")
> [@F.U.Shakespeare](#): > > I remember that guy – he was a DJ in Pittsburgh in the early-mid 1980s. He got his pants sued off for a series of ongoing on-air remarks he made about his female newsreader. The remarks were basic Howard Stern boilerplate. E.g., he claimed that she enjoyed giving oral sex so much that she’d had the words, “Don’t pull on my ears, I know what I’m doing” tattooed on her forehead. She eventually quit and filed the suit after Quinn made a particularly tasteless comment alleging that insanity ran in her family (her brother had had some mental health problems – I went to high school with her, which is why I remember all this). > > The judgement was big. Quinn and his partner tried to joke about it the day it came down, repeatedly telling their _new_ newsreader how much they ‘honored and respected’ her. > > I’m a little disappointed that the twit still makes a living sitting down, but not the least surprised that he now fancies himself a big thinker. Morons usually think they’re smarter than everyone else. So how come Howard Stern can make a **career** out of that sort of thing, and Quinn gets **sued?!** ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-quinn-slaves-were-better-off-than-those-on-welfare/479645/56 "2009-01-05T22:20:15Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > So how come Howard Stern can make a **career** out of that sort of thing, and Quinn gets **sued?!** The same reason women will smile while Ron Jeremy blows a load on their face while hot Bob from accounting will still get fired for attempting the same at the company X-mas party. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-quinn-slaves-were-better-off-than-those-on-welfare/479645.md?page=2)