When someone speaks out against Welfare, some listeners
become indignant and suspect an appalling lack of caring, a
lack of charity and humanity. But shallow sentimentality is
no substitute for intelligent policies and genuine
compassion, and the fact is that our current welfare system
treats its recipients - who are mostly black -- as if they
were children, as if they were unable to understand the
basic facts of a market economy, and as if they were unable
to rise above a system of fantastic expectations,
indulgences, and entitlements. This is the worst kind of
racism in America -- the kind that demeans black women and
unmans black men, the kind that belittles them with pity
and charity.
Problems inevitably arise when the value of welfare
payments is more than the value of earnings. When that
happens, regardless of reforms and regulations, welfare
becomes a government instrument that promotes failure,
poverty, broken homes, illegitimacy, and violence. In our
system, mothers are particularly eligible for these
generous benefits, which means that the need for husbands
is more than simply eliminated: having a working husband,
who could not possibly earn as much as the government
provides, becomes an outright liability. Thus the family
structure is dismantled, more and more fatherless children
are encouraged, men are emasculated, boys grow up without
strong male role models to teach them how to become worthy
men, little girls are motivated to have babies as soon as
possible (the relentless vulgarity of television, movies,
and music videos, increases this motivation a
thousand-fold), and the spiral of urban problems becomes
more and more unsolvable.
Today, we have reaped the harvest of all this ignorance and
condescension. Black teenage boys, wishing to be
acknowledged as men, but completely unneeded in the
traditional male roles of husband, father, and provider,
find other ways to be acknowledged -- they act out
violently, join together in predatory gangs, rape and
degrade their women. The prisons fill to overflowing and
the inner city moves toward a police state. Babies are
neglected by mothers who are still children themselves.
Only a few manage to escape this vortex.
All of this is blamed superficially on racism and poverty,
and the government pours money into educational programs to
promote tolerance as well as more benefits for the poor.
But this will never work. Welfare will never make sense so
long as it actively discourages people from working and
taking care of their families.
----------------------------------------------------
Dr. Andrew Cort, D.C., J.D., is a Teacher, an Attorney, and
a Doctor of Chiropractic. His books, including "Return to
Meaning: The American Psyche in Search of its Soul", "From
Joshua to Jesus", and "The Song of Songs: A Lover's Poetic
Dialogue", can be browsed and ordered at
http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A2XMNRI4GIYFES . Dr.
Cort lives in the Berkshire Mountains in western
Massachusetts.
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