Tag Archives: Welfare State

News

Twelve policies that undermine civil society

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I noticed this “web memo” on the Heritage Foundation web site. Basically, they just list the twelve policies and then write a couple of short paragraphs on how each policy negatively impacts civil society. This is a good introduction to Christians who want to think through whether some government policies that sound good really do good by reducing the amount of destructive and costly behavior, and promoting the public good.

The twelve policies are described in detail in the full post. (PDF)

  1. Massive Expansion of the Welfare State
  2. A Big Step toward National Same-Sex Marriage
  3. Abstinence-Based Education at Risk
  4. Expanding the Federal Government’s Role in Education
  5. Hate Crimes Expansion
  6. Legalization of Marijuana for Medical Purposes
  7. Taxpayer-Funded Abortion
  8. Needle Exchange for Drug Addicts
  9. Ending Parental School Choice for Low-Income Children
  10. Federal Funding for Abortions in the Health Care Overhaul
  11. Limiting Parental Rights and Expanding Family Planning
  12. New Government Parenting Program

Here are the details for #2.

The House of Representatives is on a trajectory to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2009 (ENDA), just as it did in 2007. This legislation would disallow discrimination in hiring decisions based on “actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.” ENDA would give special protected class status to sexual orientation and gender identity–just as is given to race, color, sex and religion.

Legislation like ENDA is a major precursor to legalizing same-sex marriage, as the history of the issue in several states shows. According to a recent Heritage Foundation paper, no state that has approved same-sex marriage has done so without first adopting ENDA-like legislation. In Vermont, Massachusetts, and five other states, courts have used the non-discrimination law as part of their reasoning to strike down traditional marriage.

Here, you can read more about the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and how it paves the way for same-sex marriage. I wrote a post about why people oppose same-sex marriage a while back.

Commentary

How socialism undermines the traditional family in Sweden

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Take a look at this guest post by LN at Gates of Vienna. He describes how socialism in Sweden has undermined traditional marriage and traditional parenting and caused health problems for children. For example, he discusses the effects of day care and schooling of children from the ages of 1-12 years.

Excerpt:

In large parts of the world it is natural — or at least it was — that young mothers work less than men or not at all. Career women and mothers with small children gave notice and abandoned their top skilled jobs to become “stay at home” mothers. In countries where motherliness and motherhood is a large and accepted part of life, women could leave work to become full-time mothers without losing prestige or merit.

But not in Sweden. Taxes are now so high that today it is generally required that both parents work and pay taxes to the yawning chasm that the state has become.

And this has profound effects on the children.

Excerpt:

Professor Jay Belsky is an internationally recognized expert in the field of child development and family studies. His areas of special expertise include the effects of day care, parent-child relations during the infancy and early childhood years, the transition to parenthood, the etiology of child maltreatment, and the evolutionary basis of parent and child functioning.

[…]Many hours in pre-school, regardless of quality, results in increased behavioral problems. Nor can pre-school compensate for the weak mothering of young children. A one-or two-year-old child with a less responsive mother develops better in the mother’s care than in many hours (10 hours/week) at pre-school. Children with a less responsive parent (mother) seem to need more time with the mother, said Belsky. Nor is there any evidence that preschool would improve the child’s social development.

And here’s another excerpt:

Dr. Gordon Neufeld is a clinical psychologist from Canada with a reputation for penetrating to the heart of complex parenting issues, and the author of the internationally recognized book Hold On to Your Kids — why parents need to matter more than peers. Dr. Neufeld’s message was that the younger generation’s lack of adult contacts in the Western world is one of the most disturbing and misunderstood trends of our time — peers replacing parents in the lives of our children. Dr. Neufeld has dubbed this phenomenon peer orientation [jämnårigorientering], which refers to the tendency of children and youth to look to their peers for direction: for a sense of right and wrong, for values, identity and codes of behaviour.

But peer orientation undermines family cohesion, poisons the school atmosphere, and fosters an aggressively hostile and sexualized youth culture. It provides a powerful explanation for conformism, aggression, schoolyard bullying, and youth violence; its effects are painfully evident in the context of teenage gangs and criminal activity.

Gates of Vienna also had a recent post about the epidemic of gang rape that is currently going on in Britain. (Click here to watch a British documentary which features interviews of women and men talking about this gang rape problem). This is especially sad because young unmarried women who are the victims of the breakdown of the family actually voted 77 percent for Obama, who favors the same socialist policies that cause mothers to leave the home and put the children into the hands of strangers.

Videos

What are the effects of Nancy Pelosi’s proposed national sales tax?

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Watch this video by libertarian Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute. (H/T Power Line via ECM)

I normally don’t like these Dan Mitchell videos, but this one is better than the others I’ve seen at giving you a great introduction to so many useful topics.

The national sales tax would be a GREAT idea, if we went on to remove an equivalent amount of revenue from the income tax. It’s much better to tax consumption than productive work. But that’s not what the Democrats want to do with this value-added tax. They want both income and consumption taxes, so they get a new revenue stream and more money to buy votes from their favorite special interest groups.

Here is a Wall Street Journal article about the Democrats’ proposed VAT.

Excerpt:

The allure of a VAT for politicians is that it applies to every level of production or service, rakes in piles of money, and is largely hidden from those who ultimately pay it—namely, consumers. With a $9 trillion 10-year budget deficit, $4 trillion in spending in fiscal 2010 alone, and a $1 trillion (at a minimum) health-care entitlement in the wings, Mrs. Pelosi knows that not even the revenue from the expiration of the lower Bush tax rates in 2011 will cover the bills. Nearly every European country that has passed national health care has also eventually imposed a VAT, and it’s foolish to think the U.S. will be different.

Tax and spend.