Sure.
I wonder how many Americans he would have tortured in order to prevent the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi lives taken in an invasion he supported. Since he supported it I’d wager ‘none’, and I consider his claim of concern for the lives of others to be simply false.
If the State of California pays me $9,000 a year in food stamps and U.S currency, how does that lead to the destruction of the family? I’m gonna be hitting refresh a 1000 times just so I can read the answer to this one.
And wore suits to baseball games.
Or the time someone called on him for swearing (after him complaining how no one did back in his youth), and he said that he too, was ruined by the influence of the counter culture.
Oh, and let’s not forget his all time favorite:
Alas, he has yet to prove this, or give us examples.
Starving Artist, I don’t think you’re a “bad” person. I do, however, think you’re a “stupid” person.
Please keep in mind that since I don’t agree with the proposition, I’m certainly not the best person to be arguing on its behalf. I dare say that disagreement makes it difficult to not assert or prioritize weaker arguments, so grant me just a little leeway.
But in essence, I think the argument goes something like this. You get $X from the government, merely for being a human. Because your basic needs are met, you have no incentive to take a job that pays you any less than $X. It’s not making you rich, but you get to spend your time in relative leisure—though you’re not jetting off to Vail, sitting on the stoop with your friends and relatives is in many ways an idyllic life.
This disincentive to work is supported by a framework and cultural construct that tells you you’ll never really make it out of the inner city. You can turn to drugs or crime, but really your only choice to “get by” is via a government handout. Looking at it from a macroeconomic point of view (albeit on a microcosmic level), since the majority of your peers are either making similar amounts (or just a little more) or on welfare, the relative richness and stratification of the society is maintained—a functioning economy evolves. Note that anyone who begins earning substantially more than the bare minimum (or welfare amount) is likely to move out, leaving the baseline society behind.
Allow me to pause for a moment to recognize that there are inherent generalizations here, and recognize that exceptions continually occur.
Within that economy, people make rational choices. An unwanted/unanticipated pregnancy results in enormous financial pressure—pressure to not only provide for the child but also to provide for the caretaker. “Shotgun” weddings, in addition to maintaining honour, have substantial economic motivations. If the state is meeting the financial needs of the child, there is less incentive for the parents to pool resources, and by extension less incentive for the extended peer group to internalize the norm of marriage post pregnancy.
There is also the notion that the existence of such a backstop allows greater freedom of movement out of marriage. While there are a host of reasons to stay together for he sake of a child, among them is the base financial notion of providing for the child’s needs. If the state takes over that role, well-intentioned as it is, that decreases the pressure to keep a family unit intact. This release of pressure can form an incentive for either party, whether to leave (and not worry about causing financial harm) or to evict (and not worry about suffering financial harm).
This is not to say that all people are that base or that it is a predominant driver of relationships. However, the argument suggests that even a relatively small percent will have an out of proportion influence on the culture as a whole.
As noted, there are exceptions galore, and this is a quick oversimplification. However, there is an internal rationality and an internal consistency to the argument (especially when made by a true proponent, one who is much more versed in the paradigm). We can disagree with it, we can provide counter arguments and examples. We can point to other causes, or, as alluded to in my first post, debate the very existence of a decline in black families (either on its own or in relation to other subcultures). However, I do not think we can deny that there is a body of thought that is more developed than the drivel one finds on talk radio.
Dude. Did you not catch that, in a limited way, I was agreeing with you? Or did you just “go with your feeling” on that bad boy?
Yeah, in a limited way that was 70% critical and insulting.
With agreement like yours, who needs opponents?
My mama would tell you not to look a gift horse in the mouth, my dear.
Oh, you’re still here?
I find it ironic that in a thread where you complain about people picking and choosing which of your views they wish to discuss, that you would be so limited in which posts you choose to respond to.
Like I said earlier, I’m having a pleasant day and I’m not really in the mood right now to get heavily into all this. So if, when I happen to check the thread and see something that could be replied to quickly and easily, I might do so. In other cases, such as with Guinastasia, I find the posts to be too stupid and full of errors to bother with. Then there are others that would require more substantive responses and take too much time.
So in other words, I’m pretty much just coasting right now and posting as time and inclination permit.
Which liberalism are we talking about, here? The liberalism of the early 1800’s,with the radical notion that men without property had equal rights to men who didn’t? The liberals who insisted that children shouldn’t work in coal mines? The liberals who thought pensions and rights for workers was a pretty keen idea? The liberals who thought women should vote? (OK, maybe not the best idea ever, jury’s out on that one…)
Riiiiiight. That explains the whole current state of "Obama is a terrorist/the Antichrist/whatever tone of dialog from the right.
In that case, may I suggest you take the same view toward those who only choose to bring up your point about the decay of polite society. Rest assured that they are only going after the low-hanging fruit of your arguments, metaphorically speaking. No doubt they could respond eloquently to the more substantive issues, if only the time and inclination permitted.
Cut them some slack; they’re having a nice day, too.
Okay, the day is just about over. I’m listening to music and tryin’ to get myself worked up to tackle this thread, but how can a person get all stabby while listenin’ to stuff like this.
'Night, all. 
I think Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. understood quite well that sometimes civility has to go by the wayside. The man who wrote the letter from the Birmingham Jail understood quite well that in the face of indecency, civility for its own sake is no virtue.
I distrust the word “civility”, quite frankly. It should be a means to an end, but these days it’s treated as an end in and of itself, and as a result we get a world full of smiling bastards who are shocked, shocked I tell you, when anyone is so uncivil as to actually call them on their indecent behaviour. Fuck civility. Treat people decently, and all else follows.
When men were men, and sheep lived in fear.
Ascribing welfare as primarily responsible for “the breakdown of the black family” suggests that black families were doing just fine before then. I suspect this was not the case. Factors such as poverty, lack of education, limited employment opportunities and general societal discrimination are far more likely to be key components in this matter, and in fact one can still see more broken families amongst the poor and uneducated today (of any race).
Which is not to say that welfare, implemented to solve some of the key problems of poverty, didn’t create new problems of its own including a culture of dependence. But to suggest that the problems start and end with welfare is to ignore a lot of history (and sociological study).
The beautiful thing about that statement is that, by its inherent implication that liberals are bad people, it is ultimately self-disproving. No other counterexamples are required.
Left to their own devices, most dogs would not go to the vet for their rabies shots. The shots are necessary to the well being of the dogs, but try to tell a dog that.
Starving Artist, just think of liberals as those who ensure your well being despite yourself.
If you like we can take a different image from it. Maybe that you want to go back to a time when marital rape and other forms of domestic abuse were rampant.
Very nice. But wouldn’t a song with such frankly sexual lyrics be repressed if not for the liberal free speech movement of the 1960s?
Don’t forget the fine manners displayed by Lester Maddox and his axe handle.