Kerry vs Bush (again)

[Durandal]

No. I will not vote for a 3rd party candidate, most likely ever. If I had my way, the Constitution party would be very prominant in this country. Instead, I can settle for the Republican party. I'm not going to waste my vote where it can't be heard. And I like how you insert "arguably the worst president in American history," so easily. Funny how just a few short years ago the other side was saying the same thing to Clinton because he drug our country through the mud, making us look like sexual addicts

What "rest of the world" were you looking at? The world I saw during that time thought that America was a puritanical, prude nation, so up-tight that it would initiate proceedings to kick its president out because he lied about getting a blow-job. That's why we were the laughing stock of the rest of the first world, not because Clinton made us look like "sex addicts," you fucking idiot. Have you ever been to Europe? Do you know what it would take for us to make us look like sex hounds to those people?:

Hmm.... perhaps we'd like to hold ourselves to a higher standard?

Stop changing the subject. You claimed that Clinton made us look like a bunch of sexual fiends to Europeans, and when it's pointed out to you how ridiculous this notion is, considering how much more sexually liberated most of Europe is than America, you start talking about how America holds itself to "higher standards."

[Colonel Olrik]

Standard set by whom? I much prefer being liberal, its far more fun.

By God. Exposed boobies on TV are evil, and sex is a shameful act to be hidden, unfortunately necessary to reproduce. The talibans, iranians, and other nice guys living in the same area agree with Talon Karrde.

[Iceberg]

Hmm.... perhaps we'd like to hold ourselves to a higher standard?

Stop changing the subject. You claimed that Clinton made us look like a bunch of sexual fiends to Europeans, and when it's pointed out to you how ridiculous this notion is, considering how much more sexually liberated most of Europe is than America, you start talking about how America holds itself to "higher standards."

He just said he's conservative, he never said he was one of the brighter bulbs in the marquee.

[Darth Wong]

Actually, the rest of the western world's opinion about the matter is that an important number of conservatives in the US are sexually repressed religious fanatics, and Clinton's a normal guy who likes sex. That opinion has not changed.

And thats why this country is split 50/50 down the middle. Conservatives were unhappy with the lifestyle of the liberal president, liberals are unhappy with the faith of the current administration.

Hey moron, the personal lifestyle of Clinton had no effect on the way he ran the country. Bush's faith, on the other hand, is (as you admit) part of his administration, not just his personal life. There's a huge difference; one of those problems was nobody's business but that of Clinton and his family, while the other was a legitimate concern to people outside the government (and to anyone who respects the Constitution of your nation).

[Iceberg]

My only complaint about Clinton is that the leader of the fuckin' Free World deserves to set his standards a little higher. I mean, Kennedy was porkin' Marilyn Monroe, fer cryin' out loud.

Unless Monica gave really good head. Then it's completely excusable.

[Crown]

Funny how just a few short years ago the other side was saying the same thing to Clinton because he drug our country through the mud, making us look like sexual addicts

Actually, the rest of the western world's opinion about the matter is that an important number of conservatives in the US are sexually repressed religious fanatics, and Clinton's a normal guy who likes sex. That opinion has not changed.

To echo my dad; At least it (Monica) wasn't 12 year old boy like the Cathlic priests! Good on him! He isn't a fag.


Yes my dad, hellarious one moment, sexually offensive the next. *shrug*

Oh and both me and my dad agreed that we would vote for Clinton over any other politician we know of (if we could).

[Durandal]

My only complaint about Clinton is that the leader of the fuckin' Free World deserves to set his standards a little higher. I mean, Kennedy was porkin' Marilyn Monroe, fer cryin' out loud.

Unless Monica gave really good head. Then it's completely excusable.

But that's what his opponents would have expected him to do. If he was porking a hot piece of ass, he wouldn't have had a prayer of being able to lie about it. Monica presented him with plausible deniability ... right up until the point where he came on her dress.

[Talon Karrde]

Actually, the rest of the western world's opinion about the matter is that an important number of conservatives in the US are sexually repressed religious fanatics, and Clinton's a normal guy who likes sex. That opinion has not changed.

And thats why this country is split 50/50 down the middle. Conservatives were unhappy with the lifestyle of the liberal president, liberals are unhappy with the faith of the current administration.

Hey moron, the personal lifestyle of Clinton had no effect on the way he ran the country. Bush's faith, on the other hand, is (as you admit) part of his administration, not just his personal life. There's a huge difference; one of those problems was nobody's business but that of Clinton and his family, while the other was a legitimate concern to people outside the government (and to anyone who respects the Constitution of your nation).

When did I say it was part of his administration? I said liberals complain that it is, just as Republicans claim the same thing about Clinton's sex life.

[Darth Wong]

When did I say it was part of his administration?

Right here, moron:

the faith of the current administration

Don't be an idiot ... oh wait a minute, it's too late for that warning.

I said liberals complain that it is, just as Republicans claim the same thing about Clinton's sex life.

Bullshit; since when did Republicans even TRY to pretend that Bill Clinton getting blowjobs was part of his administrations' policies? Monkey-Boy, on the other hand, is tearing down the wall of separation between church and state every day. No doubt you will trot out the moronic claim that there is no such wall in the first place

[Elfdart]

Only a big government loving liberal would call the LBJ presidency on of the best, if not the best economically. The "Great Society" was a failure. None of its goals were achieved. It made things worse, not better. And statistical representations of the poverty levels before and after don't tell the whole story. Sure there was a lower "poverty rate", but that was only because more people were on the dole.

The goal of the Great Society was to allow even the most downtrodden in the country a chance at participating in the mainstream of the country. For the most part, it worked. No, poverty wasn't decreased simply by people going on the government teat. People were able to recover from a setback (death in the family, serious illness, job loss) and get on with their lives. Only a tiny percentage of people stay on welfare for more than a year or two. Poverty was decreased as minorities, women and poor whites were finally placed on an equal footing for education and jobs.

Really? Well if it was such a success, why was it overhauled in a bipartisan effort in 1996? With both parties admitting the system was badly in need of fixing?

Because baiting poor people -especially poor blacks and other minorities is a winning formula. We've seen the effects of the "overhaul" already: the poverty rate has gone up.

The program wasn't lifting them out of poverty, it was merely throwing taxpayer money at them, and giving them little incentive to stop taking it.

Bad understanding of cause and effect. Welfare isn't exactly generous, in spite of Von Reagan's racist jibes about food stamp queens in Cadillacs. The incentive to get off is the same as the incentive for not going on the dole in the first place: Everyone wants a higher standard of living.

Yes, but not everyone is willing to put in the work that it takes to get it. Some people are quite content to coast along at a lower standard if they need to put only little or no effort into doing so. Some people are simply lazy.

Very few. The vast majority leave the dole as soon as possible.

The welfare programs instituted under the "Great Society" consumed $3 trillion in 25 years and trapped many in an endless cycle of poverty that does not reward individual initiative - that removed incentive to get off teh dole and made it attractive to stay on it.

That figure is phonier and more grotesque than Pamela Anderson's right tit.

In 1995, the US Government spent @ $77 billion on "welfare": AFDC, Food Stamps, Housing for the poor and aid for the disabled. If we assume for the sake of argument that the government had spent that much every year from 1965-1995 (30 years!), we end up with 2.31 trillion dollars. But DID the government spend $77 billion every year? NO! I call bullshit on this figure of 3 trillion dollars.

How do right-wingers come up with this bullshit statistic? By including Social Security. But SS isn't welfare. EVERYONE who applies collects, whether a pauper or a billionaire. They also call agricultural subsidies "welfare", when most goes to conglomerates like ADM.

It isn't just right wingers. Here are some more statistics for you:

Between 1965 and 2000, welfare spending cost taxpayers over $8 trillion (in constant 1999 dollars) -- Johnson's estimate of $970 million, not withstanding.

Another bullshit statistic.

From the start of the "Great Society" in 1964 to 1972, families on welfare tripled (approximately 1 million to 3 million). As a showing of appreciation to Johnson for this wonderful job, there was massive and bloody rioting in the ghettos of American cities, peaking in 1967.

100% PURE RACIST BULLSHIT There were ghetto riots because racial tensions had boiled over. Police had a license to kill when it came to blacks. Welfare had nothing to do with it. Especially when you consider that most people on welfare are white.

Out-of-Wedlock births for African-Americans, driven by welfare system rules, has grown from around 20% in the early '60s to nearly 70% in the '90s. [/b]

Out-of-wedlock births make up a higher percentage because MARRIED couples, on average are having fewer than half the number of kids they were having forty years ago. Would you care to explain just how aid to the poor causes married couples to produce fewer children? Sir Bedivere would be proud of you.

From 1960 to 2000, the crime rate has tripled and the incarceration rate has increased by nearly 400 percent (another form of welfare?) -- see Charles Murray's "The Underclass Revisited". (Murray also has a book of the same title, available here.)

You can thank drug hysteria for that one. You might also look at the fact that Baby Boomers were hitting their teenage/ young adult years, which is when most criminal activity takes place. The recent downturn in crime owes to the fact that Baby Boomer are getting too old for street crime. Again, how does food stamps have anything to do with this?

Of course, you might actually come up with some answers if you spent less time reading the white supremacist ravings of Charles Murray, author of The Bell Curve, which is just warmed-over Nazi eugenics.

The approach the "Great Society" took to solving the problem of poverty is best described by a quote from a Johnson administrator, attributed by Marvin Olasky:

"The way to eliminate poverty is to give the poor people enough money so that they won't be poor anymore."

Of course, that's just giving a man a fish, so to speak, not teaching him to fish. You haven't helped him become self supporting.

The problem is that there is not one single type of poor person on the dole. There are basically two kinds. There are the deserving poor, whose situation is not entirely their fault, and who just need a little help getting back on their feet when they've fallen on hard times. But there are also the underserving poor - the lazy opportunists, who are able-bodied and free to work, but disinclined to do so as long as they can freeload. I'm all for a welfare system that will help the former and yet not allow the latter to take a free ride indefinitely. The "Great Society" welfare program was not that system. It did not provide an active incentive for people to get off welfare, either in the form of some sort of positive feedback for getting off, or negative feedback for staying on too long. It simply depended on people having enough pride and self respect not to want to live on charity indefinitely. Well some people did have enough pride and self respect. A lot didn't.

And in fact, the welfare system provided a positive incentive for single mothers to stay single and unemployed:

By that kind of hare-brained logic, we should cut off veterans' benefits because they cause wars and give soldiers an "incentive" to get shot. Cutting off veterans will give them an "incentive" to duck when being shot at.

Apparently it is difficult to design a system of help that rewards the right behavior. For an example of what not to do, I quote Robert Rector from Chapter 7 of his online book, WELFARE: Expanding the Reform,

The welfare system that has existed for the past 30 years may best be conceptualized as a system that offered each single mother with two children a "paycheck" of combined benefits worth an average of between $8,500 and $15,000, depending on the state. 14 The mother had a contract with the government. She would continue to receive her "paycheck" as long as she fulfilled two conditions:

1. She must not work.

2. She must not marry an employed male.

If she's married to an employed male, odds are they make enough money that they don't NEED aid from the treasury. If she tries to work outside the home, who will watch her kids? I'll bet my left nut that the very same PhD-ed shysters who enjoy busting her chops as a lazy welfare queen for staying home with the kids would turn around and call her a sleazy bitch who won't watch he latchkey delinquent kids. Can't win can she?

You seem drawn to crackpots. Marvin Olasky also claimed that the British lost the American Revolution because senior British officers had sex outside of marriage. He is utterly fucking insane. He even poo-pooed the mass murder Pinochet inflicted in Chile in 1973, by saying Chileans should forgive and forget because American fast-food joints are now open down there. By that logic, we Americans should just fogive and forget the WTC bombings because there's a Taco Bell nearby!

[Darth Wong]

There's an interesting point of logic to consider here:

Really? Well if it was such a success, why was it overhauled in a bipartisan effort in 1996? With both parties admitting the system was badly in need of fixing?

The logic that bears noting is "if it requires changes after 30 years, then it was a failure". This naturally begs the question: how is Perinquus defining failure? Did the program achieve its stated goals? Yes. So why was it a failure? Apparently because it could not run forever with no changes.

Note: according to Perinquus' logic, the Constitution of the United States is a failure, because it has been repeatedly amended.

[Perinquus]

Really? Well if it was such a success, why was it overhauled in a bipartisan effort in 1996? With both parties admitting the system was badly in need of fixing?

Because baiting poor people -especially poor blacks and other minorities is a winning formula. We've seen the effects of the "overhaul" already: the poverty rate has gone up.

Again, the poverty rate has gone up the way it went down in the first place. It wasn't solved, it was subsidized. Then the subsidy was reduced. The "poverty line" is drawn at a certain level of income. Welfare checks count as part of that income. Just because the government gives you money that puts you above the line does not mean the problem has been solved. You're not earning that money. If your neighbor can't pay all his bills, and you lend him money, you haven't made him more prosperous; he's not earning more; he's not one whit more self-supporting. He's just getting outside assistance.

Bad understanding of cause and effect. Welfare isn't exactly generous, in spite of Von Reagan's racist jibes about food stamp queens in Cadillacs. The incentive to get off is the same as the incentive for not going on the dole in the first place: Everyone wants a higher standard of living.

Yes, but not everyone is willing to put in the work that it takes to get it. Some people are quite content to coast along at a lower standard if they need to put only little or no effort into doing so. Some people are simply lazy.

Very few. The vast majority leave the dole as soon as possible.

Sure would be nice to see you do more than just assert this.

The figure I have come across most often is 70% who leave the welfare rolls within two years. I would not consider 30 "very few". 1/3 is a not inconsiderable segment of the poor on welfare. This means that almost 1/3 are staying on longer, and may just be that "undeserving poor" category I mentioned earlier.

Between 1965 and 2000, welfare spending cost taxpayers over $8 trillion (in constant 1999 dollars) -- Johnson's estimate of $970 million, not withstanding.

Another bullshit statistic.

Wow. So that's all it takes to refute something? Calling it bullshit? No refuting evidence needed? Okay then. Everything Elfdart says is busllshit. There. Your argument has been refuted. I win.

From the start of the "Great Society" in 1964 to 1972, families on welfare tripled (approximately 1 million to 3 million). As a showing of appreciation to Johnson for this wonderful job, there was massive and bloody rioting in the ghettos of American cities, peaking in 1967.

100% PURE RACIST BULLSHIT There were ghetto riots because racial tensions had boiled over. Police had a license to kill when it came to blacks. Welfare had nothing to do with it. Especially when you consider that most people on welfare are white.

This statement, I will admit, was grossly oversimplified. I had to include it because it was part of the quote, and I linked to it, therefore it would come up anyway. However, shaky though the spin the author puts on it may be, the statement that the number of families on welfare tripled from 1964 to 1972 is mere fact. It's nice how you overlooked the simple fact to rail thunderously against the spin.

But I will admit that I should have made it more clear that I do not subscribe to the view that Johnson's welfare programs were the main cause of the Watts riots. That is my fault.

Out-of-Wedlock births for African-Americans, driven by welfare system rules, has grown from around 20% in the early '60s to nearly 70% in the '90s. [/b]

Out-of-wedlock births make up a higher percentage because MARRIED couples, on average are having fewer than half the number of kids they were having forty years ago. Would you care to explain just how aid to the poor causes married couples to produce fewer children? Sir Bedivere would be proud of you.

It doesn't. Nice strawman. But at the same that married people are having fewer children (and incidentally, that is at least partly because people can't support as many children, and fewer families can get by on a single income these days, because their income doesn't go as far thanks to the considerably higher tax burden we have today - a tax burden which is used to fund welfare and other social programs), single mothers are remaining single mothers longer because there were disincentives to get married built into the welfare system.

From 1960 to 2000, the crime rate has tripled and the incarceration rate has increased by nearly 400 percent (another form of welfare?) -- see Charles Murray's "The Underclass Revisited". (Murray also has a book of the same title, available here.)

You can thank drug hysteria for that one. You might also look at the fact that Baby Boomers were hitting their teenage/ young adult years, which is when most criminal activity takes place. The recent downturn in crime owes to the fact that Baby Boomer are getting too old for street crime. Again, how does food stamps have anything to do with this?

So what made the baby boomers intrinsically more criminal than the generations before and after them? It can't just be drugs, because drugs are still around, and they should logically affect succeeding generations the same way they did the baby boomers.

Of course, you might actually come up with some answers if you spent less time reading the white supremacist ravings of Charles Murray, author of The Bell Curve, which is just warmed-over Nazi eugenics.

Have you read it? I haven't either. So I will not comment on it, other than to say that I am highly skeptical of the idea that differences in intelligence are racial. I am also not sure if that is exactly what the author is claiming, since I haven't read the book.

The approach the "Great Society" took to solving the problem of poverty is best described by a quote from a Johnson administrator, attributed by Marvin Olasky:

"The way to eliminate poverty is to give the poor people enough money so that they won't be poor anymore."

Of course, that's just giving a man a fish, so to speak, not teaching him to fish. You haven't helped him become self supporting.

The problem is that there is not one single type of poor person on the dole. There are basically two kinds. There are the deserving poor, whose situation is not entirely their fault, and who just need a little help getting back on their feet when they've fallen on hard times. But there are also the underserving poor - the lazy opportunists, who are able-bodied and free to work, but disinclined to do so as long as they can freeload. I'm all for a welfare system that will help the former and yet not allow the latter to take a free ride indefinitely. The "Great Society" welfare program was not that system. It did not provide an active incentive for people to get off welfare, either in the form of some sort of positive feedback for getting off, or negative feedback for staying on too long. It simply depended on people having enough pride and self respect not to want to live on charity indefinitely. Well some people did have enough pride and self respect. A lot didn't.

And in fact, the welfare system provided a positive incentive for single mothers to stay single and unemployed:

By that kind of hare-brained logic, we should cut off veterans' benefits because they cause wars and give soldiers an "incentive" to get shot. Cutting off veterans will give them an "incentive" to duck when being shot at.

False analogy. Proves nothing.

Apparently it is difficult to design a system of help that rewards the right behavior. For an example of what not to do, I quote Robert Rector from Chapter 7 of his online book, WELFARE: Expanding the Reform,

The welfare system that has existed for the past 30 years may best be conceptualized as a system that offered each single mother with two children a "paycheck" of combined benefits worth an average of between $8,500 and $15,000, depending on the state. 14 The mother had a contract with the government. She would continue to receive her "paycheck" as long as she fulfilled two conditions:

1. She must not work.

2. She must not marry an employed male.

If she's married to an employed male, odds are they make enough money that they don't NEED aid from the treasury.

Oh how simple. And how silly of me to have overlooked that. Of course, if he also has few job skills, and has difficulty in getting anything other than low paying menial or entry level jobs, and they then have to support two people on that meager income, or else she has to go get a low-paying job as well, then they end up not living any better than she would on Uncle Sam's check. She can get all the same benefits by shacking up with him, but remaining unmarried and unemployed, and still be eligible for her check. Again, taking the check is the easier choice. And as I said: duh. People are just like water in that they will take the path of least resistance.

If she tries to work outside the home, who will watch her kids? I'll bet my left nut that the very same PhD-ed shysters who enjoy busting her chops as a lazy welfare queen for staying home with the kids would turn around and call her a sleazy bitch who won't watch he latchkey delinquent kids. Can't win can she?

See above. And not to sound callous, but if she can't support her kids, she shouldn't have so goddamn many. Before you distort my argument, let me state again that I am fully aware that not every woman on welfare falls into that category. But I am a police officer. I come into contact with people in this economic bracket every single day. I know over a dozen women who do not work steadily and who have six or more kids. I know one woman with eleven kids by god knows how many different fathers. These people are out there. You don't find middle or upper class people who do this. They tend not to have more kids than they can afford to support. A lot of people out there are simply short sighted, selfish people who make bad decisions, have little to no self discipline, and live by their impulses. It's why they stay poor. I do not want to subsidize them.

[His Divine Shadow]

Hmm.... perhaps we'd like to hold ourselves to a higher standard?

Lower standards more like and yeah we did laugh at the americans who got so worked up over something as dumb as that.

[Dahak]

Hmm.... perhaps we'd like to hold ourselves to a higher standard?

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that sex and assorted issues have no meaning in politics around here?
Our Chancellor is currently in his 5th marriage, our Foreign Minister is through with his 4th IIRC, and currently has a new girlfriend. We have two gay governors, and if the conservatives win the next election, our foreign minister will be gay, too (Just think of the apoplexy the Bush administration would get if he visited...)

Simply put, the populace isn't interested in the private life of our politicians, and the press doesn't report on it, too.

As Durandal and others pointed out, we laughed at you because of the bigotry and utter prude you showed with the Clinton affair. And Janet Jackson.

[Spyder]

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that sex and assorted issues have no meaning in politics around here?
Our Chancellor is currently in his 5th marriage, our Foreign Minister is through with his 4th IIRC, and currently has a new girlfriend. We have two gay governors, and if the conservatives win the next election, our foreign minister will be gay, too (Just think of the apoplexy the Bush administration would get if he visited...)

Simply put, the populace isn't interested in the private life of our politicians, and the press doesn't report on it, too.

As Durandal and others pointed out, we laughed at you because of the bigotry and utter prude you showed with the Clinton affair. And Janet Jackson.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend of mine once while watching brotherhood of the wolf.
"As far as I can tell, America exports violence, Europe exports sex, both hate each other for it."

[Elfdart]

The figure I have come across most often is 70% who leave the welfare rolls within two years. I would not consider 30 "very few". 1/3 is a not inconsiderable segment of the poor on welfare. This means that almost 1/3 are staying on longer, and may just be that "undeserving poor" category I mentioned earlier.

Or it could be a parent of very young children who need supervision for more than two years. A woman I worked with was abandoned by her scumbag husband TWO WEEKS after she gave birth to her daughter. I believe more of that 30% fit into this category than your welfare chiseler category.

Another bullshit statistic.

Wow. So that's all it takes to refute something? Calling it bullshit? No refuting evidence needed? Okay then. Everything Elfdart says is busllshit. There. Your argument has been refuted. I win.

Very funny. I point out why the $3 trillion for welfare number is bogus, you produce someone who claims it was $8 trillion for the same period. The second figure is two and two-thirds times more bullshit than the first.

100% PURE RACIST BULLSHIT There were ghetto riots because racial tensions had boiled over. Police had a license to kill when it came to blacks. Welfare had nothing to do with it. Especially when you consider that most people on welfare are white.

This statement, I will admit, was grossly oversimplified. I had to include it because it was part of the quote, and I linked to it, therefore it would come up anyway. However, shaky though the spin the author puts on it may be, the statement that the number of families on welfare tripled from 1964 to 1972 is mere fact. It's nice how you overlooked the simple fact to rail thunderously against the spin.

But I will admit that I should have made it more clear that I do not subscribe to the view that Johnson's welfare programs were the main cause of the Watts riots. That is my fault.

The statement tried to draw a cause and effect conclusion based on two "facts" -one of which was skinhead pigswill. Half-truth is a whole lie, as Zoroaster said.

Out-of-wedlock births make up a higher percentage because MARRIED couples, on average are having fewer than half the number of kids they were having forty years ago. Would you care to explain just how aid to the poor causes married couples to produce fewer children? Sir Bedivere would be proud of you.

It doesn't. Nice strawman. But at the same that married people are having fewer children (and incidentally, that is at least partly because people can't support as many children, and fewer families can get by on a single income these days, because their income doesn't go as far thanks to the considerably higher tax burden we have today - a tax burden which is used to fund welfare and other social programs), single mothers are remaining single mothers longer because there were disincentives to get married built into the welfare system.

And if she weighs the same as a duck, she's made of wood and therefore... A WITCH!

People have fewer children as their standard of living goes up. Since very few people live on farms anymore, there is no need to churn out 5-7 kids to do farm chores. If high taxes could reduce family size, people would have been having fewer children back in the 50s and 60s, when income taxes were MUCH higher. Instead it's the opposite.

From 1960 to 2000, the crime rate has tripled and the incarceration rate has increased by nearly 400 percent (another form of welfare?) -- see Charles Murray's "The Underclass Revisited". (Murray also has a book of the same title, available here.)

You can thank drug hysteria for that one. You might also look at the fact that Baby Boomers were hitting their teenage/ young adult years, which is when most criminal activity takes place. The recent downturn in crime owes to the fact that Baby Boomer are getting too old for street crime. Again, how does food stamps have anything to do with this?

So what made the baby boomers intrinsically more criminal than the generations before and after them? It can't just be drugs, because drugs are still around, and they should logically affect succeeding generations the same way they did the baby boomers.

Baby Boomers committed more crime because there were so many of them. It was the largest glut of births in history, with the exception of India after independence. When you have such a huge number of people of prime criminal age, you can expect more crime. As bad as Boomers were, they were actually LESS lawless than their elders who were of age during the 1920s-1930s. Proportionally, the crime rate was worse between the two World Wars than any time since. And there was no welfare. HMMMMMMMMM.

Of course, you might actually come up with some answers if you spent less time reading the white supremacist ravings of Charles Murray, author of The Bell Curve, which is just warmed-over Nazi eugenics.

Have you read it? I haven't either. So I will not comment on it, other than to say that I am highly skeptical of the idea that differences in intelligence are racial. I am also not sure if that is exactly what the author is claiming, since I haven't read the book.

Sure did. It's based on the crank pseudoscience of a Canadian nutcase named Philip Rushton. Rushton has a theory that (a) blacks are not as smart as whites (b) black men have larger penises than whites and therefore (c) blacks are less intelligent because they have larger penises. Well all three are not only laughably and pervertedly racist, they are demonstrably false, as was shown in Stephen J. Gould's The Mismeasure of Man. Well, Gould doesn't touch the penis issue, but the wives' tale that blacks are better hung has been debunked so many times you have to wonder about the sanity of people who still think it's true. The other "scholarship" of The Bell Curve comes from assorted white supremacists and neo-Nazis like the Pioneer Fund, which supported racist eugenics before Hitler, whom they they admired greatly -and who greatly admired them.

The approach the "Great Society" took to solving the problem of poverty is best described by a quote from a Johnson administrator, attributed by Marvin Olasky:

"The way to eliminate poverty is to give the poor people enough money so that they won't be poor anymore."

Of course, that's just giving a man a fish, so to speak, not teaching him to fish. You haven't helped him become self supporting.




1. She must not work.

2. She must not marry an employed male.

If she's married to an employed male, odds are they make enough money that they don't NEED aid from the treasury.

Oh how simple. And how silly of me to have overlooked that. Of course, if he also has few job skills, and has difficulty in getting anything other than low paying menial or entry level jobs, and they then have to support two people on that meager income, or else she has to go get a low-paying job as well, then they end up not living any better than she would on Uncle Sam's check. She can get all the same benefits by shacking up with him, but remaining unmarried and unemployed, and still be eligible for her check. Again, taking the check is the easier choice. And as I said: duh. People are just like water in that they will take the path of least resistance.

There are some who cheat the system, but the number of people who are eager to live in public housing because it's free is miniscule and let's be honest: The sort of people who probably aren't even qualified to flip burgers. Yes, it's a pain and not completely fair that we get to pay their way. But it's exponentially MORE unfair to smear the vast majority of people getting aid from the treasury as deadbeats.

If she tries to work outside the home, who will watch her kids? I'll bet my left nut that the very same PhD-ed shysters who enjoy busting her chops as a lazy welfare queen for staying home with the kids would turn around and call her a sleazy bitch who won't watch he latchkey delinquent kids. Can't win can she?

See above. And not to sound callous, but if she can't support her kids, she shouldn't have so goddamn many. Before you distort my argument, let me state again that I am fully aware that not every woman on welfare falls into that category. But I am a police officer. I come into contact with people in this economic bracket every single day. I know over a dozen women who do not work steadily and who have six or more kids. I know one woman with eleven kids by god knows how many different fathers. These people are out there. You don't find middle or upper class people who do this.

Ever heard of Derrick Thomas, the linebacker from the Kansas City Chiefs who was killed in a car wreck? A multimillionaire who had at least half a dozen kids by several women. Others in sports and show business do this, too.

You don't like having to pay for deadbeats. Neither do I. But throwing deserving people off public assistance (which is what welfare "reform" did) just to get at a few chiselers is not only bad public policy, it's incredibly nasty and cruel toward those (most of whom are children) who have done nothing wrong.

[Iceberg]

You don't like having to pay for deadbeats. Neither do I. But throwing deserving people off public assistance (which is what welfare "reform" did) just to get at a few chiselers is not only bad public policy, it's incredibly nasty and cruel toward those (most of whom are children) who have done nothing wrong.

But if we cut welfare, then we can give Bush's buddies another five thousand dollars off their taxes!

Five thousand dollars!

That's another Jetski!

Think of the Jetskis!

[Perinquus]

The figure I have come across most often is 70% who leave the welfare rolls within two years. I would not consider 30 "very few". 1/3 is a not inconsiderable segment of the poor on welfare. This means that almost 1/3 are staying on longer, and may just be that "undeserving poor" category I mentioned earlier.

Or it could be a parent of very young children who need supervision for more than two years. A woman I worked with was abandoned by her scumbag husband TWO WEEKS after she gave birth to her daughter. I believe more of that 30% fit into this category than your welfare chiseler category.

You may believe it, but that doesn't make it so. I doubt very much that all of that 30% are welfare chiselers, but I see enough of these people every day to know they are out there. And if they make even half of that 30%, that's a lot of money out of the budget.

Another bullshit statistic.

Wow. So that's all it takes to refute something? Calling it bullshit? No refuting evidence needed? Okay then. Everything Elfdart says is busllshit. There. Your argument has been refuted. I win.

Very funny. I point out why the $3 trillion for welfare number is bogus, you produce someone who claims it was $8 trillion for the same period. The second figure is two and two-thirds times more bullshit than the first.

The second figure is given in constant 1999 dollars, which are easily 2 and 2/3rds or more higher after inflation. My dad made $310 per month in 1964 as a Norfolk policeman. Forty years later, I am working the same job, in the same city, and making $2584 per month. You could by a nice car in 1964 for $2500. Today, it will cost you ten times that. The three trillion figure could well have been taking amounts at face value for each year, and just totalling up the sum. The 8 trillion is in constant 1999 dollars. If you adjust for inflation and use each years figures, the 8 trillion figure will probably be a lot less than the other figure of three.

This statement, I will admit, was grossly oversimplified. I had to include it because it was part of the quote, and I linked to it, therefore it would come up anyway. However, shaky though the spin the author puts on it may be, the statement that the number of families on welfare tripled from 1964 to 1972 is mere fact. It's nice how you overlooked the simple fact to rail thunderously against the spin.

But I will admit that I should have made it more clear that I do not subscribe to the view that Johnson's welfare programs were the main cause of the Watts riots. That is my fault.

The statement tried to draw a cause and effect conclusion based on two "facts" -one of which was skinhead pigswill. Half-truth is a whole lie, as Zoroaster said.

Nice bumper sticker slogan, but it doesn't constitute a substantive argument. The fact remains that someone can take solid, factual data, and draw invalid conclusions from it. It doesn't make the raw data wrong.

It doesn't. Nice strawman. But at the same that married people are having fewer children (and incidentally, that is at least partly because people can't support as many children, and fewer families can get by on a single income these days, because their income doesn't go as far thanks to the considerably higher tax burden we have today - a tax burden which is used to fund welfare and other social programs), single mothers are remaining single mothers longer because there were disincentives to get married built into the welfare system.

And if she weighs the same as a duck, she's made of wood and therefore... A WITCH!

People have fewer children as their standard of living goes up. Since very few people live on farms anymore, there is no need to churn out 5-7 kids to do farm chores. If high taxes could reduce family size, people would have been having fewer children back in the 50s and 60s, when income taxes were MUCH higher. Instead it's the opposite.

In the first place, I never claimed that the increased tax burden was the entire reason families are smaller, so knock off with the strawmen.

In the second place, again, you are not telling the whole story. The income tax bit may be smaller (actually, the source I have found indicates it has remained fairly constant since the 50s), but the government is making up for it elsewhere:

Taxes are taking a bigger bite out of Americans' incomes than a generation ago. But the growing tax burden isn't due the federal income tax, argues tax writer Howard Gleckman. It's other taxes that have increased as a share of the nation's gross domestic product.

*Combined federal, state and local taxes have risen from 25 percent of total economic output in 1965 to 31 percent today.

*Yet the overall federal income tax take has remained at roughly 8 percent of the nation's output every year since the 1950s, despite wide fluctuations in the top tax rate.

*One area that has increased is state and local taxes, which now total nearly 11 percent of gross domestic product, up from about 8.5 percent in 1965.

*But the greatest proportionate increase has been in payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, which have more than doubled as a share of GDP from less than 4 percent in 1965 to more than 8 percent today.

Washington now collects about as much from payroll taxes as from the income tax; whereas 30 years ago payroll tax revenues were just half that of income taxes. Today, for two-thirds of all workers, payroll taxes exceed federal income taxes. And the dollar amount of payroll taxes paid by employees and employers has increased much more than its share of output -- growing from $25 billion in 1966 to more than $500 billion this year.

Payroll Taxes Have Risen The Most

Sure, income taxes haven't increased much. Nevertheless, Americans' take home pay is substantially smaller, because government has increased other taxes. American's today are working a longer portion of their working year to pay the tax bill than they were a generation ago.

Now even with increased taxes, parents would still not likely be having dozen kid families like early American farm families. But the fact remains that people simply can't afford to support as large a family anymore. My father and grandfather were both Norfolk cops. Both supported wives and two children on their salaries alone. Neither my mother nor my grandmother worked after having children (until my mother went back to work after her divorce from my father). I'm not married yet myself, but I don't personally know a single officer on the department who is married and has kids, whose wife doesn't work. They cannot afford to support a wife and kids on their own salaries alone anymore. And adjusted for inflation, Norfolk cops are making salaries comparable to what they did a generation or two generations ago. If anything, we're probably a bit more generously paid now.

So what made the baby boomers intrinsically more criminal than the generations before and after them? It can't just be drugs, because drugs are still around, and they should logically affect succeeding generations the same way they did the baby boomers.

Baby Boomers committed more crime because there were so many of them. It was the largest glut of births in history, with the exception of India after independence. When you have such a huge number of people of prime criminal age, you can expect more crime. As bad as Boomers were, they were actually LESS lawless than their elders who were of age during the 1920s-1930s. Proportionally, the crime rate was worse between the two World Wars than any time since. And there was no welfare. HMMMMMMMMM.

If only there were an icon for a contemptuous sneer. Sure the crime rate was worse between the two world wars than at any time since. But it also just so happens that there was this little thing called Prohibition during that exact same period. Maybe you've heard of it? It happens to have been responsible for the creation of a massive traffic in illicit booze, and built organized crime up to absolutely unprecendented levels. Gee. I wonder if that might have had anything to do with the increased crime rate between the world wars?

If she's married to an employed male, odds are they make enough money that they don't NEED aid from the treasury.

Oh how simple. And how silly of me to have overlooked that. Of course, if he also has few job skills, and has difficulty in getting anything other than low paying menial or entry level jobs, and they then have to support two people on that meager income, or else she has to go get a low-paying job as well, then they end up not living any better than she would on Uncle Sam's check. She can get all the same benefits by shacking up with him, but remaining unmarried and unemployed, and still be eligible for her check. Again, taking the check is the easier choice. And as I said: duh. People are just like water in that they will take the path of least resistance.

There are some who cheat the system, but the number of people who are eager to live in public housing because it's free is miniscule and let's be honest: The sort of people who probably aren't even qualified to flip burgers. Yes, it's a pain and not completely fair that we get to pay their way. But it's exponentially MORE unfair to smear the vast majority of people getting aid from the treasury as deadbeats.

Which, if you have been paying any attention to my argument, you will note I have not done. I have said all along that I support a welfare system that acts as a safety net for people who just need a little help getting back on their feet. And I have even admitted that the number of people who get off welfare within two years is 70% - a majority of welfare recipients. How you can read statements where I admit that well over half the people on welfare do not appear to be spongers, and construe from that that I am smearing "the vast majority of people getting aid from the treasury as deadbeats" I simply cannot understand. How do you do that? Is it that you are so inimical to the conservative viewpoint that when a conservative makes a statement you will read into it whatever fits your ideolgical preconceptions?

What I have said all along is that the "Great Society" was not a success. It cost too much money and produced too few positive results. We need a well designed welfare system that helps those who are both deserving and in need, but at the same time, does not easily provide a free ride for deadbeats. Johnson's program did not accomplish that very well. When nearly two thirds of the recipients cannot get off the system in two years, it seems fairly obvious that the system could use some improvement.

See above. And not to sound callous, but if she can't support her kids, she shouldn't have so goddamn many. Before you distort my argument, let me state again that I am fully aware that not every woman on welfare falls into that category. But I am a police officer. I come into contact with people in this economic bracket every single day. I know over a dozen women who do not work steadily and who have six or more kids. I know one woman with eleven kids by god knows how many different fathers. These people are out there. You don't find middle or upper class people who do this.

Ever heard of Derrick Thomas, the linebacker from the Kansas City Chiefs who was killed in a car wreck? A multimillionaire who had at least half a dozen kids by several women. Others in sports and show business do this, too.

What the hell does that have to do with anything? I said middle and upper class people tend not to have more kids than they can support. You try to disprove this by providing an example of a guy who could support an army of kids and fathered six? And even if you find a few examples of middle class people who had too many children, and were reduced to poverty thereby, what does that prove? It's stil highly unusual behavior for people in that economic bracket. But you see lower income people doing it far, far more often.

You don't like having to pay for deadbeats. Neither do I. But throwing deserving people off public assistance (which is what welfare "reform" did) just to get at a few chiselers is not only bad public policy, it's incredibly nasty and cruel toward those (most of whom are children) who have done nothing wrong.

I'm not convinced the effect is as bad as all that. Not to sound like a broken record, but the poor people I see everyday are almost invariably stuck in their poverty because of bad decisions and choices they themselves made. It's not universally true, because there's no perfect system, and some people are indeed victims of circumstance, but most poor people stay poor because they lack the skills, the talent, the ambition, or other qualities to lift themselves out of poverty.

[Perinquus]

When nearly two thirds of the recipients cannot get off the system in two years, it seems fairly obvious that the system could use some improvement.

Damn this lack of an edit feature. I meant to say: "When nearly ONE third of the recipients cannot get off the system in two years...", not TWO thirds.

[Elfdart]

Very funny. I point out why the $3 trillion for welfare number is bogus, you produce someone who claims it was $8 trillion for the same period. The second figure is two and two-thirds times more bullshit than the first.

The second figure is given in constant 1999 dollars, which are easily 2 and 2/3rds or more higher after inflation. My dad made $310 per month in 1964 as a Norfolk policeman. Forty years later, I am working the same job, in the same city, and making $2584 per month. You could by a nice car in 1964 for $2500. Today, it will cost you ten times that. The three trillion figure could well have been taking amounts at face value for each year, and just totalling up the sum. The 8 trillion is in constant 1999 dollars. If you adjust for inflation and use each years figures, the 8 trillion figure will probably be a lot less than the other figure of three.

[/quote]

But both the three and eight trillion dollar figures are bunk. I was overly generous and assumed for the sake of argument that the government spent the exact same amount every year for thirty years. The numbers don't add up. Either they are including things like Social Security, Medicare and such (which aren't welfare) to make welfare appear bigger than it is or they are pulling numbers out of their asses.

In the second place, again, you are not telling the whole story. The income tax bit may be smaller (actually, the source I have found indicates it has remained fairly constant since the 50s), but the government is making up for it elsewhere:

Taxes are taking a bigger bite out of Americans' incomes than a generation ago. But the growing tax burden isn't due the federal income tax, argues tax writer Howard Gleckman. It's other taxes that have increased as a share of the nation's gross domestic product.

*Combined federal, state and local taxes have risen from 25 percent of total economic output in 1965 to 31 percent today.

*Yet the overall federal income tax take has remained at roughly 8 percent of the nation's output every year since the 1950s, despite wide fluctuations in the top tax rate.

*One area that has increased is state and local taxes, which now total nearly 11 percent of gross domestic product, up from about 8.5 percent in 1965.

*But the greatest proportionate increase has been in payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, which have more than doubled as a share of GDP from less than 4 percent in 1965 to more than 8 percent today.

Washington now collects about as much from payroll taxes as from the income tax; whereas 30 years ago payroll tax revenues were just half that of income taxes. Today, for two-thirds of all workers, payroll taxes exceed federal income taxes. And the dollar amount of payroll taxes paid by employees and employers has increased much more than its share of output -- growing from $25 billion in 1966 to more than $500 billion this year.

Payroll Taxes Have Risen The Most

Sure, income taxes haven't increased much. Nevertheless, Americans' take home pay is substantially smaller, because government has increased other taxes. American's today are working a longer portion of their working year to pay the tax bill than they were a generation ago.

Now even with increased taxes, parents would still not likely be having dozen kid families like early American farm families. But the fact remains that people simply can't afford to support as large a family anymore. My father and grandfather were both Norfolk cops. Both supported wives and two children on their salaries alone. Neither my mother nor my grandmother worked after having children (until my mother went back to work after her divorce from my father). I'm not married yet myself, but I don't personally know a single officer on the department who is married and has kids, whose wife doesn't work. They cannot afford to support a wife and kids on their own salaries alone anymore. And adjusted for inflation, Norfolk cops are making salaries comparable to what they did a generation or two generations ago. If anything, we're probably a bit more generously paid now.

I accept your concession, though I'd like to thank you for handing me this smoking gun. The increase in taxes is mainly payroll deductions for Social Security and Medicare, WHICH ARE NOT WELFARE! Not only that, but SS and Medicare taxes are extremely regressive, unlike income taxes. If you make more than $87,000 (whether it's $87,001 or $87 million), you r SS and Medicare taxes hit you for the same amount. While state taxes where you live might go to those in poverty, here in Texas the state government doesn't do jack shit for the poor and it shows: Texas has one of the highest poverty rates in the country. Which leads me to another question. If aid to the poor "subsidizes" poverty, why is it that states like Texas and Mississippi have so much poverty, while Minnesota has so little. If welfare really does reward and encourage people for being lazy, it should be the other way around. Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi would have low poverty and unemployment rates, while Minnesota was a flophouse.

If only there were an icon for a contemptuous sneer. Sure the crime rate was worse between the two world wars than at any time since. But it also just so happens that there was this little thing called Prohibition during that exact same period. Maybe you've heard of it? It happens to have been responsible for the creation of a massive traffic in illicit booze, and built organized crime up to absolutely unprecendented levels. Gee. I wonder if that might have had anything to do with the increased crime rate between the world wars?

I doubt it. Out of all the people murdered in the US between the wars, how many do you honestly think were killed by gangsters and such? Then and now, most murders are simple one-one affairs (guy kills girlfriend who dumped him, punk shoots clerk during robbery). More important than Prohibition was the Depression, which left @25% unemployed. People stole just to eat, or took up illegal means to make money simply because the alternative was destitution. Prohibition's main contribution was breeding a lot of contempt for the law.

There are some who cheat the system, but the number of people who are eager to live in public housing because it's free is miniscule and let's be honest: The sort of people who probably aren't even qualified to flip burgers. Yes, it's a pain and not completely fair that we get to pay their way. But it's exponentially MORE unfair to smear the vast majority of people getting aid from the treasury as deadbeats.[/quote][/quote]

Ever heard of Derrick Thomas, the linebacker from the Kansas City Chiefs who was killed in a car wreck? A multimillionaire who had at least half a dozen kids by several women. Others in sports and show business do this, too.

What the hell does that have to do with anything? I said middle and upper class people tend not to have more kids than they can support. You try to disprove this by providing an example of a guy who could support an army of kids and fathered six? And even if you find a few examples of middle class people who had too many children, and were reduced to poverty thereby, what does that prove? It's stil highly unusual behavior for people in that economic bracket. But you see lower income people doing it far, far more often.

I should have explained more. Thomas did NOT provide for his kids, which left them and their mothers S.O.L. when he died.

Of course poverty-stricken people do stupid things (getting knocked up, crime, drug and alcohol abuse, eating shitty fast food et al.). So do other income groups. The difference is that if a movie star does these things, he or she is probably not going to end up in the gutter. They have a larger margin of error. If a pro athlete wastes this week's paycheck on crack and a blowjob, he isn't going to need food stamps. When the poor fuck up, they get fucked up. Now Officer Perinquus, explain the difference between the losers you run into and say, Courtney Love.

The Great Society was in large part a success. Countless millions who might have been consigned to ghettos or Tobacco Road were given a hand in climbing out of poverty. Most took it.

[Darth Wong]

Perinquus, just so we're crystal clear (and concise), are you saying that the whole concept of the Great Society was wrong? If so, does this mean you want to abolish welfare?

[Perinquus]

Very funny. I point out why the $3 trillion for welfare number is bogus, you produce someone who claims it was $8 trillion for the same period. The second figure is two and two-thirds times more bullshit than the first.

The second figure is given in constant 1999 dollars, which are easily 2 and 2/3rds or more higher after inflation. My dad made $310 per month in 1964 as a Norfolk policeman. Forty years later, I am working the same job, in the same city, and making $2584 per month. You could by a nice car in 1964 for $2500. Today, it will cost you ten times that. The three trillion figure could well have been taking amounts at face value for each year, and just totalling up the sum. The 8 trillion is in constant 1999 dollars. If you adjust for inflation and use each years figures, the 8 trillion figure will probably be a lot less than the other figure of three.

But both the three and eight trillion dollar figures are bunk. I was overly generous and assumed for the sake of argument that the government spent the exact same amount every year for thirty years. The numbers don't add up. Either they are including things like Social Security, Medicare and such (which aren't welfare) to make welfare appear bigger than it is or they are pulling numbers out of their asses.[/quote]
No, the government hasn’t spent the exact same amount every year. The amount spent has gone up, when you adjust for inflation.

Why don’t you show me the source you are getting your figures from? I’d like to see the final sum when you convert each year’s dollars to 2003 dollars. I need to use 2003 dollars because that’s the only one I’ve been able to find a conversion table for:

Conversion factors to convert to 2003 dollars

I accept your concession, though I'd like to thank you for handing me this smoking gun. The increase in taxes is mainly payroll deductions for Social Security and Medicare, WHICH ARE NOT WELFARE!

So what? The point I made is that the overall tax burden is considerably bigger than it was a generation and more ago, and that this is at least part of the reason (not all, but at least part) that people aren’t having as many children these days. Whether the money is spent on welfare or not does not change the fact that the overall tax burden is bigger, or do you think I somehow miss that money out of my paycheck less because it goes to program X instead of program Y?

Not only that, but SS and Medicare taxes are extremely regressive, unlike income taxes. If you make more than $87,000 (whether it's $87,001 or $87 million), you r SS and Medicare taxes hit you for the same amount. While state taxes where you live might go to those in poverty, here in Texas the state government doesn't do jack shit for the poor and it shows: Texas has one of the highest poverty rates in the country. Which leads me to another question. If aid to the poor "subsidizes" poverty, why is it that states like Texas and Mississippi have so much poverty, while Minnesota has so little. If welfare really does reward and encourage people for being lazy, it should be the other way around. Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi would have low poverty and unemployment rates, while Minnesota was a flophouse.

And of course, the higher number of newly arrived immigrants in places like Texas, with poor or no English and fewer job skills couldn’t possibly be a factor. Then, of course, there’s the kind of industries that exist in those states, how healthy they are, how many people they employ, etc. And there are other areas of spending in each state budget, and how each state allocates its resources. No, there couldn’t be any other factors that might make this issue just a little more complicated than that.

If only there were an icon for a contemptuous sneer. Sure the crime rate was worse between the two world wars than at any time since. But it also just so happens that there was this little thing called Prohibition during that exact same period. Maybe you've heard of it? It happens to have been responsible for the creation of a massive traffic in illicit booze, and built organized crime up to absolutely unprecendented levels. Gee. I wonder if that might have had anything to do with the increased crime rate between the world wars?

I doubt it. Out of all the people murdered in the US between the wars, how many do you honestly think were killed by gangsters and such? Then and now, most murders are simple one-one affairs (guy kills girlfriend who dumped him, punk shoots clerk during robbery). More important than Prohibition was the Depression, which left @25% unemployed. People stole just to eat, or took up illegal means to make money simply because the alternative was destitution. Prohibition's main contribution was breeding a lot of contempt for the law.

You really should research this better. Crime went down during the Depression, not up. If poverty was the monolithic root cause of crime that liberals like you like to think it is, the Depression era should have been one of the most lawless in our history. It wasn’t. However, the economically prosperous decade immediately before it was – the decade of prohibition, as it turns out. John Dillinger, Bonnie & Clyde, and a few other famous outlaws grabbed lots of headlines during the 1930s, but they were they exception, not the rule. You were far less likely to be mugged on the streets of New York or Chicago during the depressed 1930s than you were in the prosperous 1960s.

Consider the following:

Instead of emptying the prisons as its supporters had hoped it would, Prohibition quickly filled the prisons to capacity. Those convicted of additional crimes with victims (burglaries, robberies, and murders), which were due to Prohibition and the black market, were incarcerated largely in city and county jails and state prisons. According to Towne, "The Sing Sing prison deported no less than sixty prisoners to Auburn in May 1922 because of overcrowding." Figure 3 shows the tremendous increase in the prison population at Sing Sing in the early years of Prohibition.(43)

Before Prohibition and the Harrison Narcotics Act (1914), there had been 4,000 federal convicts, fewer than 3,000 of whom were housed in federal prisons. By 1932 the number of federal convicts had increased 561 percent, to 26,589, and the federal prison population had increased 366 percent.(44) Much of the increase was due to violations of the Volstead Act and other Prohibition laws.

Not only did the number of serious crimes increase, but crime became organized. Criminal groups organize around the steady source of income provided by laws against victimless crimes such as consuming alcohol or drugs, gambling, and prostitution. In the process of providing goods and services, those criminal organizations resort to real crimes in defense of sales territories, brand names, and labor con tracts. That is true of extensive crime syndicates (the Mafia) as well as street gangs, a criminal element that first surfaced during Prohibition.(49)
The most telling sign of the relationship between serious crime and Prohibition was the dramatic reversal in the rates for robbery, burglary, murder, and assault when Prohibition was repealed in 1933. That dramatic reversal has Marxist and business-cycle crime theorists puzzled to this day. For example, sociologist John Pandiani noted that "a major wave of crime appears to have begun as early as the mid 1920s [and] increased continually until 1933 . . . when it mysteriously reversed itself."(50) Theodore Ferdinand also found a "mysterious" decline that began in 1933 and lasted throughout the 1930s.(51) How could they miss the significance of the fact that the crime rate dropped in 1933?
It was hoped that Prohibition would eliminate corrupting influences in society; instead, Prohibition itself be came a major source of corruption. Everyone from major politicians to the cop on the beat took bribes from bootleggers, moonshiners, crime bosses, and owners of speakeasies.

Repeal of Prohibition dramatically reduced crime, including organized crime, and corruption.

ALCOHOL PROHIBITION WAS A FAILURE

And:

The chart at the right illustrates the homicide rate in the United States from 1900 to 1998. It is important to note that each of the most violent episodes in this century coincide with the prohibition on alcohol and the escalation of the modern-day war on drugs. In 1933 the homicide rate peaked at 9.7 per 100,000 people, which was the year that alcohol prohibition was finally repealed. In 1980, the homicide rate peaked again at 10 per 100,000.

Drug War Facts

Prohibition led to an increase in crime. In a study of 30 major cities, the crime rate jumped by 24% between 1920 and 1921. Homicide increased 78% over the pre-Prohibition period. I think you are the only person I have ever seen who has tried to deny that Prohibition led directly to the massively increased crime rate of the 1920s.

Ever heard of Derrick Thomas, the linebacker from the Kansas City Chiefs who was killed in a car wreck? A multimillionaire who had at least half a dozen kids by several women. Others in sports and show business do this, too.

What the hell does that have to do with anything? I said middle and upper class people tend not to have more kids than they can support. You try to disprove this by providing an example of a guy who could support an army of kids and fathered six? And even if you find a few examples of middle class people who had too many children, and were reduced to poverty thereby, what does that prove? It's stil highly unusual behavior for people in that economic bracket. But you see lower income people doing it far, far more often.

I should have explained more. Thomas did NOT provide for his kids, which left them and their mothers S.O.L. when he died.

That’s what probate court is for. The mother’s of those kids could contest his will (if there is one) in probate court, and whether there is or is not a will, if they can prove patrimony, I’m sure they could get support money from such a large estate. I still don’t see what this has to do with welfare, or how it disproves the assertion that middle and upper class people do not tend to have more kids than they can support. This is hardly an example of typical middle or upper class behavior, so I’m not sure what you think it proves.

Of course poverty-stricken people do stupid things (getting knocked up, crime, drug and alcohol abuse, eating shitty fast food et al.). So do other income groups. The difference is that if a movie star does these things, he or she is probably not going to end up in the gutter. They have a larger margin of error. If a pro athlete wastes this week's paycheck on crack and a blowjob, he isn't going to need food stamps. When the poor fuck up, they get fucked up. Now Officer Perinquus, explain the difference between the losers you run into and say, Courtney Love.

There may not be all that much. The only difference may be that Courtney Love has some sort of talent she can trade on in an industry that pays very well - and the entertainment industry does, if you can make it big there. A lot of people come up from poor beginnings in sports and entertainment, and bring all their bad habits with them: poor long term planning, impulsiveness and lack of self discipline, antisocial behavior, inability to foresee the consequences of their actions, self destructive habits, etc. It's why someone like Mike Tyson can make $400 million over the course of his career, and wind up flat broke and in debt.

So what? How does any of this make a case for my tax money going to support people in such behavior

The Great Society was in large part a success. Countless millions who might have been consigned to ghettos or Tobacco Road were given a hand in climbing out of poverty. Most took it.

See the next post.

[Perinquus]

Perinquus, just so we're crystal clear (and concise), are you saying that the whole concept of the Great Society was wrong? If so, does this mean you want to abolish welfare?

I don’t think the Great Society was entirely a bad idea. The problem was it was overly ambitious, and overestimated what the government was capable of doing to solve certain problems. The Great Society programs were, for the most part, rapidly improvised & implemented, and as a result of this, many programs were not well thought out or well crafted. Furthermore, Johnson, in the face of his preoccupation with the escalating war in Vietnam, neglected to modify programs that failed to work as intended. Contrast this with the earlier New Deal, in which Roosevelt abandoned initial programs that clearly did not work, and modified others in light of experience.

Almost all of the Great Society programs are still with us today. Despite Reagan’s stated aim of reducing the size of the federal government, the only Great Society program he did away with was the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, which was regarded by liberals and conservatives alike as a failure.

One of the most severely criticized welfare programs, though, was not actually a part of the Great Society legislation. The Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) started under FDR's New Deal in the 1930s, which authorized the program to make payment to widows with children. However in the 60s, AFDC has been expanded to cover all unmarried parents with children. Elfdart’s assertions notwithstanding, such payments do discourage single women who are pregnant or who already have children from getting married. This has been noted by numerous critics, and not just those on the right. Mickey Kaus, a leftist, editor of New Republic magazine, and author of The End Of Equality, notes: "Without AFDC," said Kaus, "the culture of single motherhood could not sustain itself." Kaus, along with other critics, also blames the food stamp program for encouraging welfare dependency. That program was not a holdover or modification from the New Deal, and was part of Johnson's Great Society, beginning in 1965. During Johnson's term alone, it ballooned from 424,000 participants to 2.2 million, according to the Department of Agriculture. But it really took off during the Nixon years, quintupling by the end of Nixon’s first term.

Elfdart has consistently derided the idea that there is such a thing as welfare dependency, or at least, argued that it occurs in such a small percentage of cases that it’s just not a problem. Well, it does occur, and it is a problem, and there is ample evidence to support this:

In 1980, there were 6.2 million families headed by single women, making up 19.4% of all families with children. By1990, that number had risen to 8.4 million families, or 24.2% of the total.
Blacks have been especially hard hit.
The percentage of black households headed by women grew from 28% to 40% between 1970 and 1980.
At the beginning of World War II, the illegitimate birth rate among black Americans was slightly less than 19%. Between 1955 and 1965 – the year of the Watts riots and also the start of the War on Poverty – it rose slowly, from 22% to 28%.
But beginning in the late 1960s the slow trend rapidly accelerated, reaching 49% in 1975 and 65% in 1989.
Empirical studies have borne out the theory that welfare is behind much of this disintegration.
For example, a study at the University of Washington showed that an increase of roughly $200 a month in welfare benefits per family correlated with a 150% increase in the illegitimate birth rate among teens.
According to the House Ways and Means Committee "Green Book" for 1990, about 40% of parents collecting AFDC were black, 38% white and 17% Hispanic. Blacks make up about 12% of the population, while Hispanics make up about 9% of the population.
The Green Book took its data from the Congressional Budget Office and the Office of Family Assistance of the Family Support Administration.
The concept of welfare dependency was also bolstered recently by a study by David Elwood of Harvard University. He found that of the 3.8 million families currently on AFDC, well over half will remain dependent for more than 10 years, many others for 15 years or longer.
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But is it fair to blame the breakup of the black family entirely on welfare, Great Society or other?
Long before the Johnson administration, blacks had high rates of illegitimate birth and single-parent families. But illegitimacy began rising sharply in the 1960s.
Indeed, it was this steadily rising rate, along with a comparable rise in black single-parent households, that led to the publication of Daniel Patrick Moynihan's controversial 1965 report on the travails of the black family in America.

Is the Great Society to Blame?
If Not, Why Have Problems Worsened Since '60s?

As I have said over and over, I recognize the need for some means of government assistance for those in need. Private charities are not likely to deal with this problem well enough. But it should be a temporary assistance, and it should have definite incentives built into it to encourage people to get off public assistance ASAP. The problem with the welfare programs of the Great Society is that not only did they have no such incentives, they actually had disincentives built in, which encouraged people to stay on welfare, particularly single parents. The biggest problem with the Great Society legislation is that so much of it was poorly thought out.

[JME2]

I keep having this little fantasy that should Bush get re-elected, our so-called environmental president will go to the re-inauguration in a limo with a bumpter sticker that says "Sierra Club, take a hike to hell".