whitnebrat Loc: In the wilds of Oregon

Sowell may be right in the value of work, but what about the idea of "you are your brother's keeper.' Sowell seems to be throwing those in need of assistance under the bus. The result of that concept is the same one that generated the French Revolution and the Watts r**ts.
There has to be a happy medium where we encourage people to work and yet care for those that are unable (for any number of reasons) to earn a living. Inherent in that is that there have to be jobs for them to work at. Not everyone can be a robotic technology repairman. It might be that we have to de-technologize some things that have been mechanized in order to accommodate those people that cannot be retrained into hi-tech jobs.
If we don't solve that dilemma, we'll have upheavals and r**ts again. It can't go on like this.

StubbornSenior

Very thoughtful and well said.

hbmac10

Sowell does not address the concept of 'you are your brothers keeper" , which is a biblical concept. He rather looks at empirical evidence and the resulting outcome. As he noted up until the 1960 black and minority families were doing quite well and on par in comparison to the average population. As he noted it wasn't until Johnson implemented his Great Society welfare program ( I'am from the government and here to help) to ostensibly help the poor, which they really didn't need. The problem with Johnson's program was it came with strings attached i.e. the government will give you money to care for your children as long as the father of said children is not in the home. Sowell noted in 1950s some 80% of minority families were two parent homes. Today because of the welfare
state over 70% are single parent homes. In the video the interviewer states " it has been over 60 years of the well fare state and billions of dollars spent and the situation has not improved but actually gotten worse for poor and minority families, "Have we not learned anything". Sowell also noted that during the 60s with the destruction of the minority two parent households the intercities crime rate skyrocketed. His conclusion as well as notable psychologist and other conservative thought is - for children to be successful in life they need to be raised in two parent homes, provided with discipline and a good education and don't have children out of wedlock and get a job.

An interesting story I read was about Davy Crockett riding through Tennessee campaigning for ree******n.
There was the wife of Navy admiral whose husband had died and she was left without much of anything. Congress passed a bill to provide for her. Crockett came across a farmer working in his fields and asked the farmer if he knew who he was. The farmer replied I know who you are and I'm not v****g for you. Crockett asked why. The farmer replied you and the others v**ed to give money to some poor widow and its not yours or the governments to give away to anybody.

keepuphope Loc: Idaho

Back in biblical days families took care of widows. That's what stopped.

hbmac10

We don't live in biblical times. In the US there are many charities that provide assistance to the indiganet and the poor and they do it with out government assistance. In some Muslim countries when a woman's husband dies the village will steal all she has because the woman are not allowed to own property. This is kind of like here - don't' pay your property tax and see how fast the government sizes your home, or carry to much cash and suffer asset forfeiture.
I guess my point in the Crockett story was at that time the Federal government operated under the constraints of the constitution and there was no individual direct tax and the government seemed to function quit well.

We used to have poor farms that provided a place for people who for one or other reasons could not find work or hold a job. We also had asylums for people who had physical or mental problems. Those places were done away with because the ACLU filed a law suite claiming it was a violation of their civil rights. I wonder if that might have had the effect of increasing the homeless population.

I wonder how much money is provided to all of the homeless from the government today.

keepuphope Loc: Idaho

Good point.

whitnebrat Loc: In the wilds of Oregon

Charitable giving has fallen off drastically over the last few years. Most charities are almost running on empty. Gov't assistance is the only way to keep people from dying or turning to crime to support themselves. Cut off the gov't aid and you wind up with the Watts r**ts all over again.


We're all renters ... just temporary custodians of the land.


True for the time, but just a few years later, Lincoln imposed an income tax to pay for the Civil War.


Those 'asylums' were done away with in Calif, anyway, by Ronnie Raygun, with the proviso that the inmates were supposed to be housed in "halfway houses". This never happened because of budgetary constraints ... result was that those former inmates wound up on the street because there was no other place for them to go.


I'm not sure that there is any fed money going to homeless people today. Shelters are usually non-profit run and I'm not sure what fed money is spent on them.

whitnebrat Loc: In the wilds of Oregon

That's true, but the Industrial Revolution threw that one under the bus. Prior to that, families were most times rural and the 'family farm' was the name of the game. Each generation worked the farm in turn. Since the Industrial Revolution, the 'family farm' has largely gone by the wayside, and the younger generation has migrated to the cities to work in offices and factories, leaving the old folks out on the farm without help.
The multi-generational family is a thing of the past. Japan is suffering major problems because of the younger generation is moving to the cities, leaving the parents out on the farm. Productivity of foodstuffs (rice primarily) is going down and they're trying to get people to go back to farming ... but not as a family unit for the most part.
It ain't like it used to be, as much as some of us would like it to be.