Tag Archives: Out of Wedlock Birth

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19 out of 20 of the most violent cities in America are run by far-left Democrats

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The most violent cities have been run by far-left Democrats for decades
The most violent cities have been run by far-left Democrats for decades

Trump has been talking A LOT about how the riots, looting and arson we are seeing are all being committed by far-left Democrats. But he also mentioned that it’s no accident that this is all happening in cities that have been run by Democrats for decades. When Trump offers to send in more law enforcement, the far-left Democrat mayors and governors turn him down, because they want to appease them.

So first of all, here are the facts from the far-left Washington Post, which is is committed to helping the Democrat party to win in every election:

FBI crime statistics for the most recent year available
FBI crime statistics for the most recent year available

The 19 cities in blue are Democrat-run. The only one that isn’t blue is gray – Independent-run. There are no high-crime cities that are run by Republicans. And the Democrat-run cities have mostly been Democrat-run for decades.

Now, the far-left Washington Post fact-checked Trump to say that the numbers above do not prove that “most” of the high-crime cities are run by Democrats, because 19 out of 20 is not “most” to a journalism major who writes lies for a living. But you be the judge yourself.

The Federalist confirms that this is not getting any better:

Since June, shootings and murders have surged across many of the country’s major cities. Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Nashville, Chicago, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and New Orleans have all seen murders jump over 20 percent this year. The violence is heavily concentrated in the last few months, ever since protests have led to nationwide pressure on politicians to “defund” and “reimagine” policing.

Just as concerning is that these stats do not include data from the end of June and July. Data from New York and Chicago, recent data from which we do have, tells that the last few weeks have seen by far the worst of the violence. Murders and shootings in the Windy City are up about 80 percent, and New York has averaged at a 209 percent over these last weeks compared to the same times last year. It’s likely these disturbing numbers for the cities above only captures a fragment of the lives lost during unrest in which many protesters chant “Black Lives Matter.”

Many Democrat cities took advantage of the COVID-19 crisis to empty their prisons of violent criminals. They were delighted to do that, since they hate the idea of being judged or held accountable themselves. It’s part of their childish nature to oppose punishment.

So, why is crime more prevalent in Democrat-run cities? The answer is that Democrats prefer to side with criminals. When a criminal is shot by the police while resisting arrest and reaching for a weapon, the response of Democrats is to attack the police, charge them with crimes, and defund (abolish) the police force entirely. They think that eliminating the police will reduce violent crime. And that’s why they have soaring crime rates in those Democrat-run cities.

The American Thinker explains:

Liberal cities are governed by the guiding tenets of softness, misplaced “compassion,” and individual unaccountability. Examples include:

  • Hands-off policing style (NYC has long since abandoned the highly successful stop-and-frisk practices of the Giuliani years that led to low street crime).
  • Sanctuary cities, which give rise to higher incidents of crime, poverty, unemployment, and the wasting of taxpayer-funded public resources because of the undocumented population’s draining effect on the community.
  • The inexplicable decision of cities like Boston to no longer prosecute crimes such as shoplifting and breaking and entering, leading to urban stores not being able to remain open and be profitable (thus denying the community of a valuable resource).
  • Widespread locally approved abuse of the SNAP/EBT program, allowing its acceptance for alcohol and other nonessential items.
  • Explicit sanctioning of sleeping on the street or other common public areas and unrestricted public loitering.

Liberal policies have worked almost perfectly to degrade the quality of inner-city life for their residents to the point of abject unacceptability. Instead of raising the standard of living for all the city’s inhabitants, excessive giveaways (too often offered without requiring adequate, verifiable proof-of-need) and lax or missing enforcement of local laws and edicts have the opposite effect — such governmental practice only teaches people that they are forever unaccountable as regards the purported norms of society and that they will be given their daily sustenance for free, without putting forth any commensurate effort on their part. In short, overindulgence by local city governments denies the notion of ownership over their own lives to the lower strata of society. That notion of self-ownership over the control and ultimate destiny of one’s life is absolutely critical to a well-functioning society. Without that sense of personal responsibility, there is no civilized order.

Everyone who has looked at the problem knows that crime is caused by women who have sex with men who don’t commit to them in marriage. Almost 100% of the men in prison are fatherless, and that’s the result of the decisions of their mothers, or their mother’s mother, or their mother’s mother’s mother. Single motherhood is a problem with overindulging women and over-blaming men.And the Democrats participate in this by catering to the recklessness and irresponsibility of single mothers. It’s the same for all races – the common denominator to crime is single motherhood by choice.

Paying single mothers welfare money to have children out of wedlock (a Democrat priority) only makes things worse. And these are real children we’re talking about here, real children who have a right to grow up in a stable home with their biological parents. Democrat policy is not just abuse of the unborn – it’s also abuse of born children at the hands of their selfish, irresponsible mothers.

Interestingly, Democrat lawmakers were given an opportunity to solve what they say is the problem: the police being too rough on criminals. But when a bipartisan bill came up for a vote, they voted it down. They don’t want a solution, they want their base angry so they vote against Trump. They’ve had the reins of these cities for decades, and they haven’t solved the problem because they don’t want to solve the problem. White supremacists couldn’t do a better job of keeping black people down if they tried.

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Red families v. blue families: which states have the strongest families?

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Map of marriage rate by state
Map of marriage rate by state

This article from The Daily Signal talks about a recent study.

It says:

According to a study from the Institute for Family Studies, red counties tend to have more married adults, more children born within marriage and higher levels of children living with both biological parents than blue counties.

“The reddest counties have higher rates of family stability, which is surprising because red counties, especially in the South, tend to have higher divorce rates,” said W. Bradford Wilcox, senior fellow with the Institute for Family Studies and author of the study. “But what seems to be happening here is that non-marital childbearing has emerged as a bigger engine of family instability than divorce in America. And this brief indicates that non-marital childbearing is lower in redder counties.”

[…]Wilcox acknowledged in his report some of the most stable families do come from blue states, such as Massachusetts and Minnesota, and that, indeed, the most stable families exist in the most extreme red and blue states.

But Wilcox said the state-level data addresses only part of the equation because it does not explain the “connection between family stability and political culture” at the local level.

“At the local level, red counties typically enjoy somewhat stronger families than do blue counties on at least three measures worth considering: marriage, non-marital childbearing and family stability,” Wilcox wrote in the report.

“The bottom line: The marriage advantage in red America helps explain why children in red counties are somewhat more likely to enjoy stable families than are children in blue counties,” he added.

I’m going to guess that the reason why people in blue states have lower rates of marriage and higher out-of-wedlock birth rates is because of higher tax rates, marriage penalties at the state level, and big government welfare programs that reward single mothers. Smaller government helps economic growth and leaves money in the pockets of responsible people. It’s much easier to take the marriage track when you have more of your own money in your pocket.

I also think that Judeo-Christian values are a huge factor. People who are religious have the habit of unselfishness that is necessary to get married in the first place. Marriage is about self-sacrificially loving another sinner, and that is attractive to religious people. Marriage is not so attractive to people who think that there is no afterlife, that the purpose of life is fun, and selfishness is awesome. If you believe that this life is all there is and there is no objective morality, then there is no rational basis there for serving others when it goes against your self-interest.

Regarding that last point, about how religious people are more suited to unselfishness and cooperation, there is a new study out.

Consider this recent study from the University of Toronto, in Canada.

The abstract says:

A large literature is currently contesting the impact of religion on prosocial behavior. As a window into this discussion, I examine the close social networks of American adults and consider whether religious traditionalists are more likely than other network members to supply several basic forms of social support. Analysis of the Portraits of American Life Survey reveals three main findings. First, a majority of Americans—religious or not—count at least one perceived religious traditionalist among their close network ties. Second, American adults are more likely to receive advice, practical help, and money from ties identified as religious traditionalists than from other types of ties, a pattern that held among both kin and nonkin network ties. Finally, although perceived traditionalist network members appear especially inclined to assist highly religious people, they nevertheless offer social support to Americans across a broad spectrum of religiosity. Beyond its relevance for debates on religion and community life, this study also proposes a novel strategy to assess prosocial behavior. Asking people to recount the deeds of their network members can reduce certain self-reporting biases common to survey research and helps locate prosocial activity in concrete and meaningful social relationships.

So, people who are more religious and traditional already have the character traits to be unselfish. And what is marriage, but the promise to be unselfish, for the sake of your spouse, and eventually, for the sake of your kids?

News

Is the root cause of crime poverty or fatherlessness?

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Marriage and family
Marriage and family

If we were really serious about stopping crime, then we should go after the root cause of crime. So what is that root cause? The answer might surprise you.

Here is Dr. Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation to explain:

Census data and the Fragile Families survey show that marriage can be extremely effective in reducing child poverty. But the positive effects of married fathers are not limited to income alone. Children raised by married parents have substantially better life outcomes compared to similar children raised in single-parent homes.

When compared to children in intact married homes, children raised by single parents are more likely to have emotional and behavioral problems; be physically abused; smoke, drink, and use drugs; be aggressive; engage in violent, delinquent, and criminal behavior; have poor school performance; be expelled from school; and drop out of high school.[19] Many of these negative outcomes are associated with the higher poverty rates of single mothers. In many cases, however, the improvements in child well-being that are associated with marriage persist even after adjusting for differences in family income. This indicates that the father brings more to his home than just a paycheck.

The effect of married fathers on child outcomes can be quite pronounced. For example, examination of families with the same race and same parental education shows that, when compared to intact married families, children from single-parent homes are:

  • More than twice as likely to be arrested for a juvenile crime;[20]
  • Twice as likely to be treated for emotional and behavioral problems;[21]
  • Roughly twice as likely to be suspended or expelled from school;[22] and
  • A third more likely to drop out before completing high school.[23]

The effects of being raised in a single-parent home continue into adulthood. Comparing families of the same race and similar incomes, children from broken and single-parent homes are three times more likely to end up in jail by the time they reach age 30 than are children raised in intact married families. [24] Compared to girls raised in similar married families, girls from single-parent homes are more than twice as likely to have a child without being married, thereby repeating the negative cycle for another generation.[25]

Finally, the decline of marriage generates poverty in future generations. Children living in single-parent homes are 50 percent more likely to experience poverty as adults when compared to children from intact married homes. This intergenerational poverty effect persists even after adjusting for the original differences in family income and poverty during childhood.[26]

People on the left claim that poverty causes crime, but they don’t look for the root cause of poverty. The root cause of poverty is the decline of marriage, which produces fatherless children. Unfortunately, some people promote the decline of marriage because they do not like the “unequal gender roles” inherent in marriage. So what is the main tool that the anti-marriage people use to increase the number of fatherless children?

Dr. Michael Tanner of the libertarian Cato Institute explains one of the causes of fatherlessness in his testimony to Congress:

Welfare contributes to crime in several ways. First, children from single-parent families are more likely to become involved in criminal activity. According to one study, children raised in single-parent families are one-third more likely to exhibit anti-social behavior.(3) Moreover, O’Neill found that, holding other variables constant, black children from single- parent households are twice as likely to commit crimes as black children from a family where the father is present. Nearly 70 percent of juveniles in state reform institutions come from fatherless homes, as do 43 percent of prison inmates.(4) Research indicates a direct correlation between crime rates and the number of single-parent families in a neighborhood.(5)

As Barbara Dafoe Whitehead noted in her seminal article for The Atlantic Monthly:

The relationship [between single-parent families and crime] is so strong that controlling for family configuration erases the relationship between race and crime and between low income and crime. This conclusion shows up time and again in the literature. The nation’s mayors, as well as police officers, social workers, probation officers, and court officials, consistently point to family break up as the most important source of rising rates of crime.(6)

At the same time, the evidence of a link between the availability of welfare and out-of-wedlock births is overwhelming. There have been 13 major studies of the relationship between the availability of welfare benefits and out-of-wedlock birth. Of these, 11 found a statistically significant correlation. Among the best of these studies is the work done by June O’Neill for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Holding constant a wide range of variables, including income, education, and urban vs. suburban setting, the study found that a 50 percent increase in the value of AFDC and foodstamp payments led to a 43 percent increase in the number of out-of-wedlock births.(7) Likewise, research by Shelley Lundberg and Robert Plotnick of the University of Washington showed that an increase in welfare benefits of $200 per month per family increased the rate of out-of-wedlock births among teenagers by 150 percent.(8)

The same results can be seen from welfare systems in other countries. For example, a recent study of the impact of Canada’s social-welfare system on family structure concluded that “providing additional benefits to single parents encourages births of children to unwed women.”(9)

The poverty that everyone complains about is not the root cause of crime. The poverty is caused by fatherlessness. The fatherlessness is caused by welfare. Fatherlessness is also caused by laws and policies that make it easier for people to divorce, e.g. – no-fault divorce laws. Again, it’s people on the left who push for no-fault divorce laws. So the left is pushing two policies, welfare and no-fault divorce, which cause crime.