Edsall notes that one-third of American children -- and almost 70 percent of African American children -- are born to unmarried mothers. Then, in an astonishing passage about this phenomenon, which is the cause of most social pathologies, from crime to schools that cannot teach, he explains how Americans differ concerning what he calls "freedom from the need to maintain the marital or procreative bond."
"To social conservatives," he writes, "these developments have signaled an irretrievable and tragic loss. Their reaction has fueled, on the right, a powerful traditionalist movement and a groundswell of support for the Republican Party. To modernists, these developments constitute, at worst, the unfortunate costs of progress, and, at best -- and this is very much the view on the political left as well as of Democratic Party loyalists -- they constitute a triumph over unconscionable obstacles to the liberation and self-realization of much of the human race."
Looking for the real reason for the rise of "Red America"? Read that paragraph again.
Why we have Red America
Sunday September 17, 2006
George F. Will knows. Excerpt from Will's review of a new liberal tome by Thomas Edsall:
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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My husband was stupid enough to knock up a woman he had a one night stand with 11 years ago. He now pays almost $1500/mo after tax money to her in child support. The mother hasn't worked in ages and feels entitled to her tax free money. I'm not saying he shouldn't be paying support, but unfortunately while you and I may not look at getting child support as a reasonable offset for the risk of having a child out of wedlock, there are people who do. There have been several cases of women deliberately targeting NBA players to become pregnant and collect child support from them. There was even one case a couple of years ago where a women became pregnant with a condemn taken by her friend from the trash after having sex with an NBA player. A judge ruled that the player must provide support to a woman he never even slept with because the child was his. Obviously this is an extreme case, but the fact of the matter is that when we accept such things we lessen the incentive people have to avoid making dumb choices. The problem is that by removing some powerful disincentives to making poor choices, we make it much more likely that those choices will become acceptable. As they become acceptable, they happen more often. However, when those powerful disincentives are in place, it is inevitable that there are individuals who will legitimately be treated unfairly. This seems to me to be a quintesential divide between liberals and conservatives; liberals seek to avoid individuals unfairly suffering at the expense of the larger society. Conservatives seek to preserve the good of society at large at the expense of some individuals. Perhaps the ideal is that as we move through this time of reigning liberal ideology, people will eventually learn to use their freedom more responsibly resulting in a society which is more in line with what conservatives seek. Of course, the collateral damage along the way is horrendous and if we do reach a better equilibrium eventually we'll be back where we started with individual choices to do the right things becoming societal norms enforced by law and group pressures at the expense of some individuals. However, given the fact that people are fundamentally kind of foolish when it comes to denying themselves an immediate pleasure, it seems quite possible, if not likely, that we will never reach a time when people just make good descisions without being strongly influenced by societal norms and laws which encourage denial of self for a greater good.>
re conservatives and using law to promote positive outcomes. The thing is that what I am talking abotu isn't forcing people to behave in certain ways, but to make it easier to make good descisions and harder to make poor descisions. For example, I don't think anyone is advocating making divorce impossible, but there are things like manditory counseling and mediation, requiring cause for unilateral divorce and such which will not force people to stay in bad marriages but which will greatly increase the odds that those whose marriages can be saved do so. Or we could look at putting reasonable requirements on recieving child support, like an automatic "best interest of the child" custody hearing which puts mother and father on equal footing and requiring an accounting to the court of how child support money is spent to ensure that the money really is being used for the child and not to support the mother's shoe fetish. Or capping child support to an amount reasonably needed to cover half the expense of raising a child rather than basing it on 20-30% of the non-custodial parent's income. The point wouldn't be to force people to do certain things or unduly punish them, but to create better incentives for good choices and a disincentive to making poor choices. I think we need to look more creatively at how to preserve some of the positive results of our more liberal attitudes about family and children without making it so easy and acceptable to make disasterous choices. I think the problem is that right now our laws and practices reflect a very lefty POV which seeks to eliminate consequences for poor descisions and elevate a person's "right" to do anything and everything they want above all other concerns. I'm saying we need to tweek our laws to reflect more conservative ideas of family which benefit children and society as a whole. It's not about forcing people to behave in certain ways, but about putting conservative ideals of family and responsibility back into the legal fray. (BTW, I should have used "leftist" rather than "liberal" in my previous post.)>
Rebeccat,
You present a rational argument that is obviously well thought out. Unearned wealth is a hot topic lately, what with the estate tax controversy and the widening gap between the low- and high-income ends of the bell curve.
The dividing line I see is this: we must be prepared to help people get back on their feet, but we must not then destroy their self-sufficiency by letting them become dependent on that help. I don't know what the right mixture is, but I do know that our society as a whole is not prepared to deal with these people consistently. It should be based on a social ethic, not on the whims and agendas of politicians.>
M.Z., I'm just not used to seeing a person write with such careful attention to word choice. I apologize for any negative implications in my questioning. Thanks for clarifying.>
I just work, pay my taxes, vote, and live my life. I don't like the fact that my tax dollars allow deadbeats to lounge around, fornicate all day and make more out-of-wedlock babies, but there's not a whole lot I can do about that now, is there? They're free to be just like I am, and I'm here to tell you, they're not all black Americans (No, they're not "African." They were born here!) either. The Bible says if a person won't work, neither should they eat. That of course wouldn't apply to the physically infirm, who should be the only recipients of welfare benefits. I do remember watching a documentary many years ago that was done in Appalacia where this couple living together had about 10 young-uns and another on the way. They weren't married and the reporter conducting the interview asked the father, "Well, why don't you marry this woman, get a job, and support these babies?" He said, "Why should I? The government would stop sending us checks then." That really rubbed my fur backwards and I've been down on welfare ever since. There should be a time limit and a child limit imposed on such people. Like say, support for the first child, but if it happens again after that, no more. We're only enabling laziness.>
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