Tag Archives: dependency

Adrian Peterson’s Love Child – Never Meant To Be

Posted on by Standard 4

AdrianPeterson[update 10/17/13 th to Hank Jones, related article from Baltimore Sun]

 

Another sad headline via the sports pages:  “Adrian Peterson’s Young Son Dies After Assault”.

Peterson has received much sympathy from the public and his teammates, and has reported that he will unquestionably play in today’s game against the Panthers.  Yes, it’s a tragedy, but it’s not Peterson’s fault.  Or is it?

It’s certainly a tragedy for the two-year child, who did not pick his parents. He was born to Peterson and a “girlfriend”.  Then shaken to death by her new “boyfriend”.  Call me old-school, but I still think kids should be raised by married mothers and fathers, not boyfriends, girlfriends, gay lovers, and Hillary’s “village”.

Kansas City Chiefs fans still wail about the tragedy when star defensive end Derrick Thomas was paralyzed and later died from a car crash while driving to the airport in a snowstorm.  One of his two passengers was also killed.  Thomas left behind seven children by five different mothers, he was not married to any of them, and he blew his millions of dollars so fast he didn’t leave them a penny. State Senator Bill Kenney, a former Chief, called Thomas “a true hero.”

Marriage is now obsolete, and I think this may be the biggest threat facing our society and our economy.  Look at the listing of births in your local newspaper.  Only about half of these precious little creatures are born to parents with the same last name.  The other half begin their journey through life with two strikes against them.  Some will succeed, but most will face poverty and will be dependent on their peers who were raised in a traditional family.

The breakup of the American family, and the subsequent dependency of unwed mothers on the government, has caused an avalanche of social problems.  By eliminating the economic need for fathers, we have done untold damage to generations of kids that will be tough, if not impossible, to reverse.  The solution is not as simple as just cutting back spending on welfare and food stamps – that would only do more damage to the kids. A culture shift is the only thing that will get us out of this tailspin.

Too many parents are now conditioned to think it is “somebody else’s” responsibility to see that their kids get an education.  That they get breakfast and lunch.  That they have school supplies and warm coats.

My wife recently visited with a single mom who was concerned about the federal government shut-down.  “What if they stop Head Start?” the stay-at-home welfare mother asked.  “My kids are supposed to know their ABC’s before they get to grade school.  What am I going to do?”  It obviously never occurred to her to turn off the TV and teach them herself.

I’m guessing all of you who read this are old enough to remember the Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story about a young Puritan woman who was branded as an adulterer and shunned by her community.  It was required reading for junior high kids back when we were in school, when marriage mattered.  The Scarlet Letter is no longer in the curriculum, for two reasons:  One is Common Core, which limits most school reading to non-fiction, featuring themes such as global warming and diversity.  The other is the fact that today’s kids don’t “get it” when they read about adultery.  What’s wrong with two unmarried people having sex?  Doesn’t everybody do that?

I know, I am a social dinosaur, severely outnumbered and out-dated.  But I was here when life was better – back when kids had moms and dads with the same name.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right Side

Love Child, never meant to be
Love Child, born in poverty
Love Child, always second best
Love Child, different from the rest

Love Child – Diana Ross and the Supremes

Looking For Benefits?

Posted on by Standard 1

For some time now, President Obama and his PR department (the mainstream media) have contended that our nation’s biggest problem is inequality.  Not unemployment, not lack of GDP growth, not the national debt and deficit, not the growing number of people on food stamps and other government assistance.  The most important problem, according to them, is the gap between the rich and the poor.

Defining rich and poor is subjective and difficult.  Most often lately, “rich” has been defined as a couple who earns more than $250,000 per year.   Presumably the threshold is lower for singles.

“Poor” is almost never really quantified.   Some of us are old enough to remember the television ads showing skinny Appalachian kids leaning on stick-built porches, wearing rags and sad faces.  I’m not saying those were the good old days, but times have sure changed.  Kids on food stamps today are, as often as not, obese.   Recipients of federal disability payments has increased by 50% in the last ten years.  Since January 2009, the number of individuals on food stamps has skyrocketed from 31.9 million to the current record high 47.1 million. By comparison, in 1969 just 2.8 million Americans received food stamps.

If you are reading this, I’m pretty sure you have never seen the federal government’s “Benefits” website (see graphic above).   The banner headline is:  “Looking For Benefits?”  Apparently plenty of people are – 70% of federal spending in 2010 went to “dependence-creating” programs, compared to 28% in 1962.  Our Secretary of “Labor” (see Hilda Solis’ statement above) now promotes benefits, not labor.

According to the 2012 Index of Dependence on Government:

The great and calamitous fiscal trends of our time—dependence on government by an increasing portion of the American population, and soaring debt that threatens the financial integrity of the economy—worsened yet again in 2010 and 2011. The United States has long reached the point at which it must reverse the direction of both trends or face economic and social collapse.

Programs considered “dependency-creating” are federally paid housing, health care and welfare, retirement, federal payments for higher education, and agricultural subsidies.  One could argue that retirement is not a benefit, because it is supposedly self-funded.  Or that agricultural subsidies are not a benefit – but much of that budget is food stamps, and the rest is mainly farm subsidies to large corporations, both of which cause dependency.  I can think of other spending that creates dependency too, like corporate bailouts and other government investments in chosen industries. In any event, we are looking at the same spending categories from 1962 to 2010 – and they jumped from 28% of the budget to 70%.

We can argue until the subsidized cows come home about what is fair, or whether taking property from one American to give it to another is even constitutional.

But anyone who thinks we can continue our current spending habits, or continue to encourage the use of government benefits – regardless of how much tax is paid by the “rich” –  is dangerously ignorant.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

I hope you hear inside my voice of sorrow
And that it motivates you to make a better tomorrow
This place is cruel no where could be much colder
If we don’t change the world will soon be over
Living just enough, just enough for the city.

Living For the City – Stevie Wonder