Tag Archives: Personal Responsibility

Commentary

Dennis Prager: Ten ways that progressive policies harm moral character

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Dennis Prager’s latest column is worth reading.

Summary:

While liberals are certain about the moral superiority of liberal policies, the truth is that those policies actually diminish a society’s moral character. Many individual liberals are fine people, but the policies they advocate tend to make a people worse.

The rest of the article outlines the top 10 ways that progressive policies harm moral character.

Here’s one:

1. The bigger the government, the less the citizens do for one another. If the state will take care of me and my neighbors, why should I? This is why Western Europeans, people who have lived in welfare states far longer than Americans have, give less to charity and volunteer less time to others than do Americans of the same socioeconomic status.

The greatest description of American civilization was written in the early 19th century by the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville. One of the differences distinguishing Americans from Europeans that he most marveled at was how much Americans – through myriad associations – took care of one another. Until President Franklin Roosevelt began the seemingly inexorable movement of America toward the European welfare state – vastly expanded later by other Democratic presidents – Americans took responsibility for one another and for themselves far more than they do today. Churches, Rotary Clubs, free-loan societies and other voluntary associations were ubiquitous. As the state grew, however, all these associations declined. In Western Europe, they have virtually all disappeared.

And here’s another one:

7. The welfare state corrupts family life. Even many Democrats have acknowledged the destructive consequences of the welfare state on the underclass. It has rendered vast numbers of males unnecessary to females, who have looked to the state to support them and their children (and the more children, the more state support) rather than to husbands. In effect, these women took the state as their husband.

The political agenda of the left is not good for moral character, or for the family – where moral character is developed. We need to be self-reliant, to work hard, to give to charity and to serve our neighbors individually.

News

Does the limiting of government spending make children starve?

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This is a pretty illuminating article from Forbes magazine.

Here’s the question:

The budget debates have been illuminating. Apparently, those heartless tea partiers would gladly allow children to starve so millionaires can pay less in the way of taxes. The latter has been a recurring slander leveled against welfare reform in the ’90s and more recently in response to Paul Ryan’s budget proposal.

No one starved then. What if Washington stopped doling out relief now?

Wow. Are conservatives really so heartless? Is government spending really necessary to keep people from starving?

Let’s see:

People who oppose government redistribution contribute four times as much charity as those who favor such schemes. This includes 3.5 times as much to secular charities. Those who prefer free markets also give more blood, are more likely to provide directions, to return change given mistakenly or offer assistance to the homeless.

To truly be charity, alms must be given freely, require nothing in remuneration and offer the donor no material benefit. If possible, benevolence should be anonymous. The left hand ought to not even know what the right hand does.

Instead, the Left hand blares a trumpet about compassion while spending others’ money as it shamelessly smears the Right. Who is really heartless: those seeking fiscal responsibility or those spending our children into peonage?

That’s true – all of this government spending certainly isn’t good for our children. Why do we call it compassion when we impoverish the next generation so that we can spend ourselves into a higher standard of living with their future earnings?

But maybe the poor today really do need the money. Maybe charity isn’t enough and we need to government to take our money to help the poor?

Let’s see:

The real vacuum is federal spending. Washington filters our taxes through a bureaucratic black-hole before spewing out waste and vote-buying patronage. Public charity is an oxymoron. There is nothing moral in confiscating property from one to bestow on another.

As discussed previously, society does not revolve around Washington. The building blocks for an ordered, coherent community are families, friends and neighbors and then church (or equivalent). Only if each fails does government have any justification to execute its own counterfeit charity.

[…]Historically, when private parties provided most benevolence, it was generally administered more prudently than politicians redistributing other’s largesse. Thomas Jefferson bragged that you could travel the entire eastern seaboard and never encounter an American begging. Private charity was readily available and distributed responsibly so as to not create additional social burdens.

Relief was never meant for people who could help themselves, but don’t. Instead of easy handouts, people who neglect their duties could be taught responsibility and the dignity of work. Sensible charity offers a minimal safety net to prevent starvation or exposure, not provide idle comfort.

Poverty once suggested that someone lacked food, clothing or shelter. As the Heritage Foundation observed,

According to the government’s own surveys, the typical “poor” American has cable or satellite TV, two color TV’s, a DVD player or VCR. He has air conditioning, a car, a microwave, a refrigerator, a stove, and a clothes washer and dryer. He is able to obtain medical care when needed. His home is in good repair and is not overcrowded. By his own report, his family is not hungry, and he had sufficient funds in the past year to meet his family’s essential needs.

Not exactly dire circumstances. The average menial laborer today enjoys more material abundance than a prince or tribal chieftain of recent past.

Please click through and read the rest of this article. There is a lot more I’m not quoting.

I think conservatives need to start thinking about this question. We are always being accused of being stingy, because we want to keep our own money, and maybe give it away in charity, while holding the recipients accountable to pull their own weight. Is that so wrong? I give a lot more money in charity than Joe Biden, and I make a lot less. Maybe leftists think that everyone is as greedy as they are. Maybe they think that people shouldn’t be held accountable for making the kinds of simple decisions that cause poverty.

News

Woman who falsely accused lacrosse players of rape faces murder charge

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From Fox News. (H/T Dad)

Excerpt:

The woman who falsely accused three Duke lacrosse players of raping her was charged Monday with murder in the death of her boyfriend.

Crystal Mangum was indicted on a charge of first-degree murder and two counts of larceny. She has been in jail since April 3, when police charged her with assault in the stabbing 46-year-old Reginald Daye. He died after nearly two weeks at a hospital.

An attorney for Mangum and officials in the district attorney’s office did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

Mangum falsely accused the lacrosse players of raping her at a 2006 party at which she was hired to perform as a stripper. The case heightened long-standing tensions in Durham about race, class and the privileged status of college athletes.

Prosecutors declined to press charges for the false accusations, but Mangum’s bizarre legal troubles have continued.

Last year, she was convicted on misdemeanor charges after setting a fire that nearly torched her home with her three children inside. In a videotaped police interrogation, she told officers she set got into a confrontation with her boyfriend at the time — not Daye — and burned his clothes, smashed his car windshield and threatened to stab him.

Friends said Mangum has never recovered from the stigma brought by the lacrosse case and has been involved in a string of questionable relationships in an attempt to provide stability for her children.

I know many of you think that I am going to blame the woman for this, but you’re wrong. The man is to blame. This woman was evil before the man met her – because she made false accusations against the Duke lacrosse team. The man knew this. Even if he didn’t know it, it’s his responsibility to interrogate her to unearth all of her craziness before his judgment is overwhelmed by the power of physical contact with her. So I blame the man – he is the one who had the dashed expectations. He believed that she was capable of a relationship, but she clearly was not! Easy sex is no guarantee that the woman is going to treat a man well. You don’t try to pet the alligator at the zoo – you can’t have a relationship with an alligator. It’s an alligator!

If every man on the planet ignored this woman, then who would she have left to be evil with? Surely at that point she would realize that there was something wrong with the way she treats men. I really recommend that men do a better job of reading some of the cases where women make false accusations of rape, harassment and child abuse (against ex-husbands in order to get custody) and get very familiar with what kind of women do this sort of thing and why. Learn the warning signs by reading their stories. Why do these women make false accusations? What do they have in common? What should men ask them to see whether they are dangerous? Men have to be careful because not judging wisely can lead to divorce, or even being murdered.