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Feature
The Coming Cultural Disintegration
With his new book, Coming Apart, Charles Murray has once again changed the terms of debate in America.
On Sunday, February 19, the New York Times ran a page-one lead story headlined “For Women Under 30, Most Births Occur Outside Marriage,” telling of the social cataclysm that is taking place right under our noses today:
Once largely limited to poor women and minorities, motherhood without marriage has settled deeply into middle America. The fastest growth in the last two decades has occurred among white women in their 20s who have some college education but no four-year degree, according to Child Trends, a Washington research group that analyzed government data.
Written by Jason DeParle and Sylvia Tavernise, the story noted that the change appears to be occurring from the bottom up, with the white working class now adopting the cultural norms—or lack thereof—long associated with the African-American population. Despite all the brouhaha about Murphy Brown, the fictional TV newscaster who elected for single motherhood, in reality upper-income, college-educated women remain largely immune to the contagion:
One group still largely resists the trend: college graduates, who overwhelmingly marry before having children. That is turning family structure into a new class divide, with the economic and social rewards of marriage increasingly reserved for people with the most education.
The story noted that there are two alternative explanations to the phenomenon, liberal and conservative. Then it did something truly extraordinary for the Times. It suggested that conservatives might be at least partially right:
Liberal analysts argue that shrinking paychecks have thinned the ranks of marriageable men, while conservatives often say that the sexual revolution reduced the incentive to wed and that safety net programs discourage marriage.
Here in Lorain, a blue-collar town west of Cleveland where the decline of the married two-parent family has been especially steep, dozens of interviews with young parents suggest that both sides have a point.
Finally, down in the 17th paragraph, the reporters did something even more extraordinary for the Times. They admitted in one cursory sentence that American Enterprise Institute scholar Charles Murray, identified only as “a longtime critic of non-marital births,” has recently written a book bringing this subject to public attention. (In fact, Murray’s book is the only reason the story was written.) They didn’t bother to interview Murray or elaborate on his research, but at least they acknowledged his existence. I don’t know about you, but to me this represents extraordinary progress.
The reason I say this is that 15 years ago, at the height of the 1996 welfare reform debate, I experienced one of the most bizarre conversations of my life with another Times reporter, named Josh Barbanel. Ever since the 1986 publication of Murray’s previous landmark, Losing Ground, conservatives had been arguing that the 60-year-old federal program called Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC), originally envisioned as a small supplementary stipend for “widows and orphans” in the 1936 Social Security Act, had become a vast, culture-shifting subsidy for illegitimate births among African-Americans. Liberals, on the other hand, would have chewed on nails rather than admit that some well-meaning government program was having an adverse impact.
I had written several pieces for The American Spectator making the case against AFDC when one evening my phone rang and the person at the other end identified himself as Josh Barbanel. He said he had heard that I had written about welfare and that I probably thought differently than most people on the subject. He told me that I probably knew about the work of University of Chicago scholar William Julius Wilson, whose book, The Truly Disadvantaged, said that it was actually the disappearance of manufacturing jobs that had led to unwed motherhood. He said I probably disagreed but there were other studies supporting Wilson’s theory. And so it went, on and on, until after about five minutes he finally thanked me and said goodbye. He never once asked me a question. Nor did he offer me the opportunity to express an opinion. Had I been less polite, I probably would have said, “Are you going to interview me or are you just going to keep listening to yourself talk?” In any case, I’m sure he told both himself and his editors that he had “solicited opinion from all sides of the issue” in preparing his story.
The Times still hasn’t reached the point of doing anything as daring as interviewing Charles Murray. But at least they now mention him in their story.
THE CULTURAL EARTHQUAKE that Murray has brought to national attention in Coming Apart goes as follows: Whatever the causes, the social disintegration that once seemed to apply only to African Americans has now engulfed blue-collar, white working-class communities as well. Men are dropping out of the workforce, single motherhood has risen to nearly 50 percent, crime has skyrocketed, religious faith is declining, and the chances for upward mobility are rapidly diminishing. As Murray concludes: “The absolute level [of social cohesion] is so low that it calls into question the viability of white working-class communities as a place for socializing the next generation.”
Murray identifies what he calls the “founding virtues”—marriage, industriousness, honesty, and religiosity—that were once shared by all Americans and held us together in a common culture. That culture was still intact on November 21, 1963, the day before the Kennedy assassination that Murray chooses as his benchmark. In graph after graph drawn from the sociological literature, he shows how these four qualities have deteriorated—not among the college educated, who spend most of their time disparaging those virtues, but in blue—collar communities where people are rarely educated beyond high school. By way of illustration, he applies this data to two real places, Belmont, an upscale suburb of Boston dominated by college graduates, and Fishtown, a working-class neighborhood on the fringe of Philadelphia where the once strong ethic of marriage and family is now falling apart.
The disintegration of Fishtown over the last thirty years is a grim and depressing story. In one remarkable passage, Murray quotes social workers from the 1970s as they expressed their frustration about how Fishtown residents wouldn’t accept government programs:
“Kensingtonians [i.e., Fishtown residents] are psychologically unable to face up to their cultural and economic deprivation,” said one Philadelphia social services administrator. “Pride prevents them from taking advantage of social services. For them to accept these services would be to admit they’re not what they claim to be.” The director of Temple University’s Student Community Action Center lamented that “nobody knows how to work in the white community. Kensington doesn’t want us there. It refuses to admit it’s a poverty area.”
Letter to the Editor View all comments (137) | Leave a comment
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T.L.P.| 4.12.12 @ 8:45AM
Let's cut to the chase, shall we?
What Mr. Murray, and Mr. Moynihan, and anyone with a brain, is trying to say is: Black America is a VIRUS.
I wonder what the Statisticians would tell us, if they ran the numbers on these Behavioral Changes/Cultural Changes, since School Busing was implemented?
In the 70's? Daniel Patrick Moynihan had a succinct observation to what was occurring all around us. He called it: "Defining Deviancy Down". Because of the Liberal's Pet/Owner Relationship with Black America (Feeding them, Clothing them, EXCUSING THEM of any responsibility for their own actions) the fabric of our Culture was being torn asunder.
It wasn't always this way. Not until WELFARE (and the Strings that come along with it) came along. Black Americans were just like everybody else. They fell in love. They got married, they had children, and got work, and raised families. Those days would soon come to an end.
One of the restrictions of "Getting a Check, for sitting on your ass, was that there be NO MAN in the house. No FATHER. If you were a Single Black Female, with kids, you could get Money. AND, because Liberals are SO SMART when it comes to "Unintended Consequences", the More out of wedlock births? The more Money you get. Because, everybody knows that when you PAY someone to do something, they do LESS of it.
What?
As part of the whole Owner/Pet Relationship, "Responsibility for one's actions" was another new Taboo. I mean, one doesn't expect their DOG or their CAT, to understand all of the Societal Nuances associated with being a Responsible Human Being in a Civilized Society. Does one?
"So, they Rob people. So, they like to Rape, a lot. Wouldn't you, if your ancestors had been slaves?"
"So, they do a lot of Drugs, and they tend to commit most of all of the Violent Crimes, in the Country, year after year? Who could blame them after growing up without a Father?" Never, EVER, gleaning the Irony of their statements, for in their immersion with their Pets, they have started to mimic their actions. They have begun to resemble one another. People, for some reason, on an unconscious level, tend to get Dogs that look like them. Right?
Look around. Detroit used to be one of those Shining Cities on a hill. Now, they're BULLDOZING it down. Baltimore. Philadelphia. Milwaukee. Oakland. Cleveland. Gary. And on, and on, and on, and on. Wherever they go, they bring the Virus with them. Since being "Injected" by the Liberals in the 60's, they have been Carriers of Societal Rot, ever since.
They have Single Handedly DESTROYED the Public School System. They have Single handedly DESTROYED Public Discourse, Manners, and Civility. If you don't believe me? Go ax one them BITCHES. Go gets one them Hoes.
Their Music. Their Dress. The way they wear their Pants and Hats. It's like watching your Computer Hard Drive disintegrate, slowly, right before your eyes.
Every other GROUP has succeeded. Only ONE has been a consistent DRAIN ON SOCIETY.
Only one.
We have one in the White House, and in the Justice Department, and they are having the same effect on this Nation, its Reverence for the Founders and the Documents they gave us to Navigate a FREE Democratic Republic. The White House is being run like a Chicago Crime Syndicate. Dirty deals for henchmen. Money Laundering. Forgery. GUN RUNNING.
They mock our Traditions, and the RULE OF LAW, as they seek to CHANGE us from the Greatest Power for Good, that the World has ever know, to a Third World African Hellhole, where the STRONGMAN controls everything, and the rabble line up for whatever meager rations HE decides to give them.
"A Republic, Madame. If you can keep it.
Now, tell me how wrong I am.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 4.12.12 @ 9:17AM
I'm still laughing.
Controse| 4.12.12 @ 12:58PM
Once you stop laughing please show a little respect and rebut at least one of T.L.P's points with an argument of your own. I am sure it will be thoughtful and well informed with facts we all can easily verify.
Bruce Majors | 4.12.12 @ 3:00PM
The whole point of Murray's book is that the welfare state, having destroyed the black family, is now destroying working class families of other ethnic backgrounds.
I have a cousin in a very red mid south state who has two daughters, one of whom worked and put herself through a state university to get an engineering degree and then through the state law school. Her sister began having kids at 17. Her state government, which is currently very GOP dominated, gave her a free 2 bedroom apartment, medical care, an income, and free career training, as a reward for having a daughter out of wedlock. She had a second child less than a year later. The first had been delivered surgically, requiring her to take antibiotics, which neutralize birth control pills. The second child was a son. The state then awarded her with a 3 bedroom apartment, as a mother, daughter, and son, even when both children are infants or toddlers, should not share a bedroom if they are not the same sex. Her third child was another daughter, so she did not get a 4 bedroom apartment. And she seems for now to have stopped at 3.
I don't know what would have happened if she had had a hermaphrodite.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 4.12.12 @ 3:02PM
Controse: I agree with him. That's why I was laughing. Frankly, you're not very bright.
Jack in Wi.| 4.12.12 @ 7:27PM
All this is true in every welfare state in Western Europe. Swedes have huge illegitimacy rates and they are mostly white. The pill, abortion, easy sex, easy divorce, feminism, neutered men, no good jobs for young men, are all parts of the problem.
la comedia e finito| 4.12.12 @ 10:48AM
Not only are you--WRONG- you are a hate-filled crazy MANIAC..
HAVE YOU NO SHAME, AT LONG LAST...?
..BTW, --Philadelphia...and ..Baltimore.. are thriving urban areas, these days... the other cities you mention are either victims of "rust-belt " industry- closures, or, in the case of Oakland.. the "ironic" situation of having the Military bases closed..ABSOLUTELY NOTHING " race-based" to do with it....
YOUR racism, however... is obscenely BREATH-TAKING...
Harry the Horrible| 4.12.12 @ 11:00AM
Philadelphia and Baltimore are "thriving urban area?"
Tell me another!
la comedia e finito| 4.12.12 @ 11:20AM
They sure are... !
I am in both Cities.. a number of days every week...and each one is very liveable.. and even the more depressed sectors of each City are on the up-bound,,,
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 4.12.12 @ 11:30AM
Baltimore looks like a third world country. Even the mayor of Philadelphia criticized blacks in the city and he's black. Perhaps you are one of those liberals who can't face the fact that 60 years after an atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, it's a thriving city. After 60 years of liberalism Detroit is a wasteland.
la comedia e finito| 4.12.12 @ 11:43AM
I don't know what "third -world Country" you might be refering to... care to let us in, on your in-tolerant state of mind... ??...do you freak out seeing people who don't look like carbon-copies of your ilk, on the street---??--WHAT EXACTLY is YOUR PROBLEM..??
Mentioning Hiroshima, in this context was ---pretty STUPID...NO??
KennesawJack| 4.12.12 @ 11:50AM
Let me know the next time you walk through these cities, alone, after midnight. I really want to hear how that worked out for you.
la comedia e finito| 4.12.12 @ 12:05PM
I DO IT ALL THE TIME...WHAT POINT ARE YOU TRYING TO MAKE??
BTW.. AS IN all places, on the planet.. there are areas that are less safe, at night..and one just needs to keep one's wits.. and safety.. in check.. that has nothing to do with race..nu?
KennesawJack| 4.12.12 @ 12:55PM
To be truthful, I don't believe you do it all the time. That is pure BS.
la comedia e finito| 4.12.12 @ 1:32PM
The expected right wing answer-- because YOU CAN NOT IMAGE someone doing something outside your OWN narrow, closed minded way--- you call them liars...
what a sad sack loser--you are..!
Grzmlyk| 4.12.12 @ 2:37PM
By the way, putz, if you look at your posts on this site, it's pretty obvious who the real hater is. yup. It's none other than Affirmative Action Poster Child La Comedia e Stupido.
Let's see, what's the next epithet to rage from your keyboard? Is it "ya'll are ignorant!"? That's my guess.
Yes, you are so open minded. As in thoughts enter one end of your head and fly out the other without ever landing on your brain.
Y'all are a hater engaging in hate speech and you are contemplating a hate crime right now, aren't you, weasel?
la comedia e finito| 4.12.12 @ 2:43PM
ahh...just say your name, backwards, and disappear, ya lil cretin.....
I'd love to see you hated off the face of the earth
Grzmlyk| 4.12.12 @ 3:11PM
Oooh. Scintillating response. I can see that, in a battle of wits, you enter the fray utterly unarmed.
Yeah. You guys are all about the love. As soon as you're running things, you'll kill everyone who thinks violence solves problems. Then we'll have Utopia, right?
You are dogshit on my shoe. I'm sorry I stepped in you.
ladydi| 4.12.12 @ 4:09PM
Ooooohhh ... just feel the love from the warm, earthy posts duh comedy dork...
KennesawJack| 4.12.12 @ 4:02PM
Grz, let this fool rant. There is no way in hell he walks through downtown Baltimore or south Philly at midnight. He is a liar, pure and simple.
Grzmlyk| 4.12.12 @ 4:59PM
Kennesaw, that he is.
Which makes him a liberal in good standing.
There's only one thing worse than a lying liberal (forgive the redundancey): It's a stupid lying liberal. Which covers El boobo or whatever his name is - along with every single congressman and senater with a D behind their name.
And, of course, our Pathological Liar in Chief.
But what kills me is that, as a culture, we've decided to buy into the lies. That will be the end of us.
:-)
Grzmlyk| 4.12.12 @ 1:29PM
You do it all the time.
Hah.
Just another blustering, lying liberal who's never met a fact he can't twist to fit his bullshit narrative.
For you guys, lying is ok because it serves a larger truth - which is visible, of course, only to you.
Here's the real truth: You get off on racism. It gives you a reason to get up in the morning. It provides you with the reflection of someone who "cares" and is "GOOD" staring back at you when you look in the mirror.
Instead of the selfish, narcisstic, greedy, vain, mendacious piece of crap you are.
BTW, I lived in NYC for 10 years. Some day I'll share with you a couple dozen anecdotes about coming face to face with black-on-white racism and hatred - wherein I was the victim - that you wouldn't even have the guts to listen to, let alone actually endure.
la comedia e finito| 4.12.12 @ 1:34PM
Sounds like you DESERVED EVERY WHOOPING you recieved...FOOL..!!!!
Grzmlyk| 4.12.12 @ 2:27PM
Very compelling response. Your intellect sparkles.
And I deserved these beatings why, exactly ? What exactly is the evidence for your argument that I deserved to be beaten in the streets? I know. Because my mind wasn't right according to people who think (if that's not too strong a word) like YOU do.
Hey, I thought you guys were all about "justice." Yeah. STREET Justice. Until, of course, it's visited on YOU. Then you'll go crying to mommy faster than you can say "I'm a cowardly hypocrite."
I'm guessing you're the guy who's been carrying the noose for the Trayvon Martin mob, eh?
Facts don't matter to sewage like you.
Well, you've done us a favor on this site: Now we get to the truth according to this moron and so many of the left: Some people DESERVE to be victims of racism. Thank you, scumbag, for articulating what you morons really think.
By the way, genius, the word is "whupping," not "whooping," which is a sound. Then again, I'm guessing you don't use your brain for anything but memorizing left-wing propaganda.
Occam's Tool| 4.12.12 @ 8:46PM
Mr. G, cannot but agree. Black families have been the biggest victims of misguided US policy since the US Army gave smallpox infected blankets to the Native Americans.
The problem is that their leaders stay in power by enforcing a culture of dependence. Sharpton and Jackson are scum.
KennesawJack| 4.12.12 @ 11:03PM
Occam, There's a special place in Hell for those two "Reverends" for what they've done to their own people.
Occam's Tool| 4.12.12 @ 2:22PM
Sublimating male aggression in the interest of protecting mate and children is an important, perhaps THE most important, factor in societal survival.
A program that interferes with this is just asking for trouble to be caused. Skin color is irrelevant to this.
Bigfoot| 4.13.12 @ 2:23AM
I am a white man who grew up in the segregated South of the 1950's, in a house right beside my town's largest black neighborhood, blocks and blocks of unpainted shacks without lawns. It didn't look good. As little children my brother and I walked through that neighborhood and back every day to get to our white elementary school, and walked across it to visit white friends who lived on the other side. We were never threatened and never had any reason to be afraid. There was sometimes rowdiness at a black bar in that neighborhood on Saturday nights and sometimes it was known there had been a knife fight - but no shootings. The black children grew up in families and their fathers or both parents worked. The churches were full on Sundays. It was a recognizably American working class neighborhood, poor but livable. It all began to change in the sixties. I don't have to tell you what it is like now - you know.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 4.12.12 @ 12:03PM
No it wasn't stupid to mention the atom bomb. It shows conclusively that liberalism in America has more dangerous effects than dropping an atom bomb on a city. As far as Baltimore here's one little nugget and it's only a portion of the massive problems caused by liberalism:
http://blogs.citypaper.com/ind.....emolition/
The Baltimore Sun’s Jamie Smith Hopkins, citing this GAO report (pdf download), says Baltimore would need to spend about $180 million to demolish all its dangerous vacant buildings and clear the lots:
Officials in Baltimore, Detroit, and Chicago, in particular, stated that the resources required to demolish the large number of long-term vacant properties in those cities exceeds local budgets,” the GAO wrote, adding: “Baltimore officials estimated that the city would need approximately $180 million to demolish the inventory of unsafe, unattended properties in the city.”
By Hopkins’ count, about 16,000 buildings need to come down.
That means each demolition would cost an average of $11,250. That is an interesting figure; In 2006 Jerome Dorich, the city’s demolition master, estimated that taking down the 2,000 or so buildings then on the city’s demolition list would cost about $15 million—or $7,500 per building.
Dorich’s estimate appears to have been low—and so is the $180 million figure. In the GAO report itself, city officials estimate each building would cost between $13,000 and $40,000 to take down.
Between 2006 and 2009, the city spent an average of more than $24,000 for each of the 89 “emergency” demolitions undertaken. That price included a $2,500-per-job surcharge, so figure $21,500 for a typical non-emergency take-down of a whole house. Since 2005, the emergency jobs have been handled by P&J Contracting.
sotto voce| 4.12.12 @ 6:48PM
Bill, I think everyone except la comedia e finito understood your analogy between Hiroshima and Detroit. You obviously know what you're talking about and la comedia doesn't have a clue.
Robert| 4.13.12 @ 5:28AM
Okay, over at Neighborhood Scout they have a list of 100 most dangerous cities in the US. Philly is #52 and Balti is #25. In Philly, there are 12.15 instances of violent crime per 1000 citizens. The average for the entire state of Penn is just over 5 instances per 1000. Philly also has a 9 index score out of 100 for crime.
Now Balti. Baltimore has 15.08 instances of violent crime per 1000 residents while the state average for Maryland is, again, just over 5 instances. Baltimore's criminal index is a 4 out of 100. And crimes--violent and otherwise--per square mile measure in at 426 instances. That's per square mile!
There is no way that your claims about both these cities being up and coming in terms of becoming civilized are true. You are either out right lying or you are only exposed to the areas where the crime rates are relatively low compared to the overall city. I am going to give you benefit of the doubt and say that you just aren't exposed to where the crime is.
I am linking to the list for you too so you can go and look at all of the info. There are some pretty good maps that detail where the high crime rates for each city are and where the safer areas are. Take a look and see if where you are venturing to is the safe area or the danger zone (shout out to Archer fans).
http://www.neighborhoodscout.c.....dangerous/
Oh and also troubling are some of the cities that did make the list. You will be surprised. I was.
c matt| 4.13.12 @ 1:08PM
I don't know about this Scout site - I have to be a little skeptical of a sight that does not list NY, NY in the 100 most dangerous cities.
Seek| 4.12.12 @ 2:19PM
"Liberalism" isn't what brought Detroit down. Blacks are.
sotto voce| 4.12.12 @ 7:28PM
Seek, you need to "seek" out the truth. Take any group of people (no matter their color), turn them into dependents of the state, destroy the family unit, drive out the industries that provide the jobs that foster self-sufficiency and the result is Detroit. Blacks have the added burden of being pawns of liberal racial politics and politicians.
It wasn't Blacks who ruined Detroit; it was liberal politicians, civic corruption and the auto unions. Blacks in Detroit have been left to deal with the aftermath of failed government policies that have created moral hazard and prevented the development of prudent habits. Because of this, those who are left don't have the economic means to either flee or rebuild a decayed city.
Seek| 4.12.12 @ 8:41PM
Baloney. The cities of Portland, Seattle and Minneapolis, among others, have been in liberal hands for decades and they're among the nation's most beautiful and livable. The key factor is that their percentage of blacks is low. And blacks tend to be a public health, safety and education disaster.
The problem with Red State mainstream conservatives is this: Like Blue State mainstream liberals, they are terrified of being called "racist." So they wind up doing the Left's dirty work, witness National Review's firing of John Derbyshire. The notion that "liberal racism" is a problem maintains the illusion that blacks aren't the real issue, only "liberals." Yeah, try saying that the next time a black flash mob knocks you to the ground.
Stormy| 4.12.12 @ 11:52AM
And, what is attributable for this miracle? I've been to Baltimore, and once you stray a little from stadium area, you are in dangerous territory. The tourist who recently was beaten and robbed speaks to that. Provide some facts for your assertion that Baltimore is thriving.
I do not subscribe to everything written by TIP. but some of what he writes speaks the truth. I do not think that you can attribute all of our country's ills to blacks, but you certainly can to liberals.
la comedia e finito| 4.12.12 @ 12:10PM
"And, what is attributable for this miracle?"
Well..in Baltimore..Washington, D.C..Philly..and NYC.. a large part of it has been due to Black working and middle-class families, renovating and restoring formally "bad" neighborhoods, and making them very liveable....
Ryan| 4.12.12 @ 12:31PM
Ah, families, then?
la comedia e finito| 4.12.12 @ 12:34PM
"families" --IN EVERY SENSE/configuration/ sexual-orientation/ meaning of the word, indeed...!
free spirit| 4.12.12 @ 1:57PM
...hope your "name" doesn't reveal any ideological "superficiality" -- It's: la commedia e' finita (comedy being "female", in Italian). the "e" is a verb, therefore it's "e'"........
la comedia e finito| 4.12.12 @ 12:15PM
Baltimore's distinct neighborhoods are lively.. with fewer signs of empty/boadered up store-fronts, then many other cities of its size
Culturally ,the City has stuff going on, 24/7.. and the city is cleaner then it has been , in the past...businesses and employers are steadily returning... what else do you need to know?
All American American| 4.12.12 @ 1:03PM
Sure, if you're a White guy and want to get beaten, stripped naked, robbed, all the while being filmed by a pack of howling, cackling black animals, you can do that in Baltimore 24/7.
Robert| 4.13.12 @ 5:44AM
That just is not true. The areas that are thriving are the harbor area/stadium area and the Northern areas on the other side of the beltway. The inner parts of the city are crime infested war zones. Now, I can't really speak to Philly on such a personal level--but I know it isn't much different--but Baltimore is not the thriving, cosmopolitan metropolis you claim it to be. It is a crime infested, government dependent toilet bowl.
CrackerHound| 4.12.12 @ 2:43PM
Bingo Stormy...progressivism (a.k.a. communism thinly disguised, racial marxism, etc.) is the REAL enemy of our culture and society. They have destroyed the African American culture and this article correctly points out that their condition is becoming mainstream.
I don't know if I fit the true definition of racist (not the catch-all concocted by liberals) or not and it really doesn't matter to me. But I do tread with caution when entering a majority black neighborhood....and so do other black people. I accidentally ventured into one late at night after moving to Florida many years ago. A brick was thrown through my driver's window striking me in the face and causing me to run into a palm tree. I was subsequently "relieved" of my watch and wallet and had to get 18-stitches in my face. The black officers who responded later on asked me what I was doing in that neighborhood and I defensively said that I didn't see any "no whites"sign and that I took a wrong turn trying to get back home (new to the area). They promtly told me flat out....STAY OUT OF THAT AREA and being white, you are lucky to be alive. I took the black cop's advice from then on. Yet I would be called racist today for taking that same advice.
Bruce Majors | 4.12.12 @ 3:08PM
Baltimore seems pretty run down except in a few spots along the harbor or with historic architecture yuppies and gays have gentrified. It's schools are a disaster.
You'd be on surer ground if you had asserted that DC is being all fixed up nice. And it is. All the fat crats hired as the government expanded under Clinton and Bush brought their often 6 figure salaries into DC, especially the childless ones, and bought up run down, working class, almost always African American neighborhoods from 16th Street NW to far NE, and gentrified. The only problem is the poor people who used to live their are either forced to move to Anacostia and Prince George's county, and commute to minimum wage jobs in DC, or, if they were lucky, they sold a house they had owned for decades and retired to the Carolinas. But either way it is an artificial bubble predicated on injection of fiat currency and tax loot from all the other cities and counties not doing as well.
Bruce Majors | 4.12.12 @ 3:09PM
Baltimore seems pretty run down except in a few spots along the harbor or with historic architecture yuppies and gays have gentrified. It's schools are a disaster.
You'd be on surer ground if you had asserted that DC is being all fixed up nice. And it is. All the fat crats hired as the government expanded under Clinton and Bush brought their often 6 figure salaries into DC, especially the childless ones, and bought up run down, working class, almost always African American neighborhoods from 16th Street NW to far NE, and gentrified. The only problem is the poor people who used to live their are either forced to move to Anacostia and Prince George's county, and commute to minimum wage jobs in DC, or, if they were lucky, they sold a house they had owned for decades and retired to the Carolinas. But either way it is an artificial bubble predicated on injection of fiat currency and tax loot from all the other cities and counties not doing as well.
The Bruce| 4.12.12 @ 12:56PM
"Philadelphia...and ..Baltimore.. are thriving urban areas, these days."
These days? These days I wouldn't drive through either city unless I had a firearm in the glove compartment.
All American American| 4.12.12 @ 1:05PM
I still have family in Philadelphia. This is how bad it is. After my bro-in-law got mugged but was able to fend off the attackers IN BROAD DAYLIGHT in the park where I used to play baseball as a child, two White Philadelphia policemen TOLD him to get a gun. When cops, one of the most notoriously anti-gun ownership groups out there are advising you to get a gun, it is bad.
All American American| 4.12.12 @ 1:00PM
Philadelphia and Baltimore are thriving urban areas??? Guess it depends what your definition of "thriving" is. If thriving means Democratic Black-run, crime-infested, corrupt hellholes, then I'd have to wholeheartedly agree.
For God's sake in mid-February Philadelphia had more murders than calender days had passed in the new year! Thriving my a$$.
la comedia e finito| 4.12.12 @ 1:38PM
THE MEMBERS OF THE KLAN on this site must be pretty bored,,fukking each others mothers and sisters all day long....
JT| 4.12.12 @ 2:21PM
There you go, thats what you get from a typical leftist when forced to depart their little self created mind worlds of utopionism and enter reality. Pull your pecker out from between the pages of the Communist manifesto and have a look around. Most, not all but most big US cities are to a lessor or greater part are sh!tholes, I was born in Detroit, I know what they look like.
SUBVET| 4.12.12 @ 8:14PM
JT and the rest.........notice when this LIB started posting at 9:48 am how nice "it" was and now at 12:38 pm this POS is talking about mothers.
I say don't feed "it".............maybe "it" will leave to eat it's own.
Barbara M| 4.14.12 @ 3:47PM
Try Cincinnati, Oh, for an example. We lived in an old a lidttle frayed neighborhood there from 1974 to 1978 because it was halfway from our places of work. Around 1980, some renovators started buying up the old houses, some in very ill repair, and fixing them up. My brother was one of them. I lent him $5,000 to buy a condemned house plus more money to pass code. He refinanced after a year. Similar stories in the neighborhood. A success, right?
Around 2000, the city decided to tear down some old projects in a HUD deal which gave them thousands of Section 8 vouchers. You guessed it. Seaction 8 families moved into my brother's neighborhood. Old people got beat up on the sidewalk, thefts of parked cars, home invasions, gunshot crimes, all these happened AFTER the SEction 8 families moved in.
Get ready America. If thepresidesnt gets re-elected he could change middle class suburbs forever by quadrupling the Section 8 vouchers which now go up to rentals of $1400 (thanks to BO).
richard ryan| 4.12.12 @ 1:03PM
A racist will look at a person and make judgements based upon their ethnicity. TLP is suggesting that the elite white left has caused this problem through defining an entire group of people as victims, and encouraging dependency. Can't speak for him, but sounds like blackness is not the core problem. The core problem is a society that has defined blackness as a state of victimhood. The paternalistic left, if anyone, is racist as can be. They celebrate DIVERSITY, which IMO is a racist notion. "lets have some hispanics, blacks, asians, and pacific islanders join the complany. They will enhance our environment because they are different, you see."
Human beings, when divided into groups (particularly religious or ethnic) will inevitably find conflict. We are hyphenated Americans, not just Americans. Thats the problem.
vtwin| 4.12.12 @ 2:01PM
DIVERSITY in America is the result of a desire for free (Black) labor, cheap (Hispanic) labor, and several (Asian) military failures.
Seek| 4.12.12 @ 2:21PM
I prefer the company of paternalistic Leftists, insufferable as they are, to the company of ANY type of blacks.
Calvin| 4.12.12 @ 8:36PM
The Democratic Party is the home of race obsession. It has always been that way. Whether it was the KKK or that hustler Al Sharpton, they feel right at home.
Seek| 4.12.12 @ 8:42PM
The KKK, which is anything but "liberal," is the opposite of Sharpton. Not that I like either.
Calvin| 4.12.12 @ 11:18PM
They are the same. They are race obsessed like you. Your slip is showing.
Seek = Stupid Liberal| 4.13.12 @ 11:16AM
What is that PhD in that you told us all about?
vtwin| 4.12.12 @ 1:49PM
I remember in 1979 when Reagan promised all those blue collar workers in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania… how much better their lives would be under conservative economics. Anyone been to Detroit lately?
W| 4.12.12 @ 3:52PM
The blue collar workers live in the suburbs of Detroit, and have since 1967.
skip| 4.13.12 @ 9:38AM
vtwin vtwin vtwin
Detroit's suburbs are consistently rated among the nation's very best year after year.
The city of Detroit is a disaster, with rampant crime and rampant illiteracy and rampant poverty and rampant unemployment, because of decades of the liberal progressive democrat socialist government you support and defend.
Thanks for pointing out this example for the benefit of readers.
Keep it up, you're being useful.
Tex Expatriate| 4.12.12 @ 10:35PM
With no intention to pun, la comedia, it is not racism to call a spade a spade. What is unique about America's decline as TLP has described is that, unlike the other socialist countries, America's Negroes were targeted by Lyndon Johnson. Don't be such a ninny as to ignore what Johnson purposefully caused.
skip| 4.13.12 @ 9:50AM
"Not only are you-- WRONG- you are a hate-filled crazy MANIAC.."
"what a sad sack loser--you are..!"
"ahh...just say your name, backwards, and disappear, ya lil cretin....."
"I'd love to see you hated off the face of the earth"
"Sounds like you DESERVED EVERY WHOOPING you recieved...FOOL..!!!!"
This idiot is reminiscent of the worst aspects of junior high school, for the obvious reason. Internet access in the hands of a 15 year old is like a loaded gun in the hand of a 5 year old.
Merlin| 4.14.12 @ 9:43AM
Have any of you read Charles Murray's earlier book "Loosing Ground"? It documents how liberalism, progressivism, socialism, by whatever name, destroyed families, especially black families.
Shane| 4.14.12 @ 2:10PM
Dear la comedia e finito,
I was born and raised in Maryland and have lived here for 32 of my 37 years. I have lived mostly 30 - 45 minutes north of Baltimore. However, my father worked in the city of 25 years and I would often spend my summer days off of school working in his office. I was roughly age 10 - 14. Each day I would walk to Lexington Market 12 or so blocks from his office by myself to get lunch. Vast parts of Baltimore City are completely uninhabitable now...at least if you don't want to be a victim of violent crime. In college, a friend was robbed at knifepoint outside her apartment building. Just last week a drunk tourist was stripped naked, robbed, and beaten on the step of City Hall in broad daylight. Your comments only serve to display your utter ignorance of the real situation. Virtually all U.S. cities have the same issues, and virtually all U.S. cities are run by Socialist Democrats only concerned with their own power, money, and re-election. If these Statist power hungry idiot politicians are really so good for the Black Community then why does that community continue to toil in crime, poverty, drugs, and despair? Could it be that the Democrats are simply their new Plantation Owners?
scotchieguy| 4.12.12 @ 12:01PM
Yes sir. You are exactly spot on. The problem is White Guilt has blinded us to honest discussions of what is really happening. The problem is twofold.
It is a govt. problem. Govt in its infinite wisdom to make things better only screwed things up by making the male no longer important in the family structure.
It is a cultural problem. Manners, civility, thrift, hard work, respect for elders, respect for property, respect for life--all disintegrated. You literally could not have a shittier culture if you tried than what passes for culture in the ghetto.
You might want to google "Black Rednecks and White Liberals" by Thomas Sowell. He spends quite alot of time discussing black culture.
Yves Paulsonn | 4.16.12 @ 10:50PM
@T.L.B. Your post just represents how millions of frustrated but impotent and powerless white men feel. If you really want to know who is at fault look at your brothers. Blacks did not move the factories to China to save a few bucks. All these guys are white. Apparently they don’t give a darn about white men either. Don’t overestimate your worth. You tend to do that. If the factory owners could train monkeys to turn a wrench for bananas they would do it.
I guess it is okay for blacks to have social problems, but if whites have them civilization is in jeopardy. All of the problems are a result of fewer quality jobs to go around. All blacks that can be fired have been fired. The rest are competent enough to keep their jobs. Whites have always believed that they are above the fray and immune to various social pressures. They are having a tough time accepting that they are just like everyone else.
Whites have never followed blacks lead on anything. Whites generally do not imitate black culture. Blaming blacks for white America’s decline is foolish. Nobody forces whites to do anything except at gunpoint. Whatever is happening to whites is their own fault. Unemployment and drugs will do for the white man what unemployment and drugs did for the black man. Except that whites generally will not go to prison by the busload for drug charges.
I have another concern regarding this article. One glaring omission is the institution of slavery. The way this piece is written was as if slavery never occurred. We are also led to believe that Africans immigrated to America and kept all sorts of odd behaviors like “children of fortune” This is nonsense simply because slaves were culled from hundreds if not thousands of various tribes. They did not share the same customs, cultures, or values. What was fine in one area would not be tolerated in another. Also, African slaves were stripped of whatever culture they had. This invalidates the “children of fortune” nonsense. No black American that I have ever spoken to knows of this “custom”. The author probably read that a few tribes in Africa do it and reasoned that African Americans probably do it too. He was wrong. He seems to have forgotten that the slave masters were often rapists.
The writer of this article does not specifically blame blacks for these problems. All he says is that typically black problems are becoming white problems. He also points out that AFDC interference is usually counterproductive to any race. However, the article is written in a way that a race baiter would find a way to link the two (white cultural decline and blacks). T.L.P. fell for it hook, line, and sinker.
On a personal note, OK we get it you don't like blacks. Guys like you probably don’t even have the guts to even look a black man in the eyes. However, you get to play the tough guy on the internet. Well done.
PattyMor| 4.12.12 @ 9:35AM
Sorry, but Black America is NOT a virus. The virus is government and it affects everything it touches--negatively. It doesn't matter if its families, housing, education, health care, or banking. The solution is get government back into its consitutional limits.
Let's cut to the chase. As long as men do not have to be "marriageable" to get sex, they will not have to grow up ,be productive, and form families. As such, they benefit the most from the "free sex".
Quartermaster| 4.12.12 @ 9:52AM
Yeah, so called "free love" still has a price. I'm sure someone out there is shocked, if their meth addled brains are functioning. The culturally aware are anything but shocked. We nod and say it was all predictable.
The one constant in people is human nature. It hasn't changed since Adam fell and God kicked he and his wife out of Eden.
Government is indeed a plague on us all. White guilt, combined with progressivism destroyed the US. All we're waiting on is for the corpse to be prepared by the undertaker so we can all sit around and reminisce about the Republic we knew and talk about the Republic Lincoln destroyed.
It's over people. We are well and truly screwed.
Alan| 4.12.12 @ 11:51AM
Agree QM, its over, the tipping point was the 1980's and its tipped the wrong way. What we have become will give birth to the consequences and they are HERE now. Societies historically don't pull themselves out of this kind of death spiral without some kind of natural or social(war, revolution, etc.) rebooting process that drives people back to basic values and common sense.
CrackerHound| 4.12.12 @ 2:48PM
agreed... the only thing left is to wait for the wirlwind and hope you make it through.
Von Mises Jr.| 4.12.12 @ 10:18AM
Exactly, Patty. Government has replaced the family bond.
Your example of young men and women is true: women get security from the state, and men get liberty by avoiding commitments.
But government largess has also "infected" older white families. A government job gets someone a "fat" defined benefit pension and health care for life at 55 years of age. At 62-65 years of age, it is supplemented by Social Security.
In my liberal Northeastern state; I can give many examples such as:
- A couple retiring at 55 receiving combined six-figures plus "Cadillac" health care that will be supplemented with Social Security of another $30K in a decade.
- A neighbor spiked his pension and receives $80K annual pension plus $25K in health care, and his wife will retire soon. He was a Wood Shop teacher.
- Cops and teachers in our town earn six-figures before retiring, and their package is $75K minimum for going to the beach or fishing starting at 55.
- One cop I know has a pension over $100K per year and is not retired at 60 since he earns much more currently for his comfortable desk job.
The OWS crowd is whining for small handouts, and their teachers are living the “Utopia” that they are dreaming of. At least until it collapses, since we cannot pay people millions of dollars with zero contribution to GDP for much longer.
Alan| 4.12.12 @ 11:24AM
Agree, this has already reached the point of no return across the board. Look at your pop-culture, a total disaster area. When a society puts somebody such as a Paris Hilton on some kind of warped pedestal, whose total talents are drugging up with opiates and putting somebodies penis in her mouth or a Kim Kardasian whose sole talent is the application of excessive makeup or shows that glorify marital infidelity, your beyond rebounding.
This country is a wasteland as a culture and it will collapse into a steaming pile. Black Families before the late 60's were strong family units with strong father figures who worked and were employed. My Grandparents lived in a predominately black neighborhood until they passed in the late 80's and what the socialists accomplished since then is breathtaking. Government only destroys and the creature who was elected as POTUS is the pinnacle of that moment, not because he's black or white, but because he's what we have become as a collective group. We get the Government we deserve, and we now have it. I always smile at those who play the left verses right game as some kind of sporting event and their side, the left, is winning. They don't seem to understand that they themslves are going for the same ride to oblivion that we all are on. Greed, Corruption, Power, and get it anyway, anyhow, by any means attitudes are the order of the day. Anykind of values or self-control and self-restraint are impuned and laughed at by the very leader this sorry society elected. America, train wreck in the making.
Von Mises Jr.| 4.12.12 @ 12:23PM
Someone recently commented that it is one thing when you have a train wreck. It is another to watch it happen in slow motion.
There is hope for those who escape the liberal bastions. I am trying like hell, if somebody would just by my house in liberal la-la land.
Alan| 4.12.12 @ 2:43PM
The title of this article is a bit of an oxymoron. The Cultural Disintegration was "coming" 30 years ago, its arrival was officially sanctioned by Clinton when he inserted his member into Lewinsky's mouth in the oval office. Mr. Walker, its here and been here for quite a while my friend.
Von Mises Jr.| 4.12.12 @ 3:10PM
I am in agreement with the author and you about the cultural dilenma, but I was referring to the financial markets imploding.
We not only have excessive unemployment, but we pay able bodied people to go the beach starting at age 55 who are not considered unemployed. What's up with that?
I am worried about financial security more than saving the nation, at least until Obumer is gone.
Alan| 4.12.12 @ 3:31PM
Yep.
SUBVET| 4.12.12 @ 8:23PM
Patty........and just where does that "free sex" come from. I see in every instance It's the guys fault. SHE droped the quarter between her knees, Oh I forgot it's the government's fault too.
I all comes from your morals......you make the choices....and you live by them like it or not.
Robert Nowall | 4.12.12 @ 10:04AM
Reading this review caused me to go out and buy this book---and it was well worth it. Thanks.
Derek Leaberry| 4.12.12 @ 10:10AM
How strange that this is even brought up. I supposed that Libertarians who publish on this site thought culture doesn't count and social-conservatives who think cultural decline is important are "too preachy" and not "with it" in this modernizing world.
Old Soldier| 4.12.12 @ 12:42PM
I am somewhat libertarian. What counts is incentives - our government has created incentives for all of this decline. No amount of preaching will overcome these incentives.
Libertarians and Social Conservatives should be united in tearing down the welfare state.
Controse| 4.12.12 @ 1:10PM
Agree, agree. The key is to slowly remove the incentives. The old slowly boiled, unaware frog analogy can work just as well the other way. Turn down the heat in small little steps over sixty years. We will after all be saving the soul of the nation. If man does not have to contribute to society for his very survival why is he needed at all he might ask himself.
Renaissance Nerd | 4.13.12 @ 12:20PM
Very wise! It will necessarily take decades to undo the work of decades, unless you want to kill all the victims of liberal 'largesse.' Personally I'd rather die defending them than murdering them, which is one reason I hope for a reasonable and reasoned plan for fixing these problems and rescuing the children of those ruined by the government.
mildred r bean | 4.12.12 @ 10:43AM
We need a businessman's vision to fix this.
Governor Romney will take care of things.
What a howl, huh?
WalkingHorse | 4.12.12 @ 10:54AM
There is no political solution to this disintegration. Those who sought to Balkanize the USA have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. The advocates of authoritarian rule knew they had to corrupt a culture, eat away at its underpinnings, so that people would come to regard government as their savior.
KennesawJack| 4.12.12 @ 11:54AM
Walking, you are absolutely correct on this. This is a cultural issue and with the new meme of "cultural equivalency" the left has succeeded in proving Pat Moynihan prophetic. We have "dumbed down" the culture of this country and Orwell and Huxley (wherever they are) are all smiles.
JT| 4.12.12 @ 2:23PM
You do have a state religion, its now called hedonism.
Derek Leaberry| 4.12.12 @ 4:22PM
I agree as well. We are in the midst of the implosion of Western Civilization. The aftermath won't be pretty.
Louis Jenkins| 4.12.12 @ 10:45AM
"the young woman now had the option of marrying the state."
The marriage vows are now defunct. When a woman marries the state she has no limits on how many children, or sires for the children, she can have. Twelve children-no problem as Uncle Sam will pick up the costs. For richer, poorer, in sickness and in health. The government is now the husband in all things. Uncle Sam pays for the rent, car repair, the cell phone, heating energy, education, etc., what a deal! Why even have a couch sitting potatoe around anyway. And the sires? They go from female to female, lust to lust, plant their seed, and move on. True liberty! Nothing is weighed against the old adage "can we afford it?" And those of us who still use that old term, well, we're the ones paying. And we ask, as the next tax levy arrives, can we afford it?
Harry the Horrible| 4.12.12 @ 11:03AM
We need to grow strong and become cruel.
When somebody cries "Do it for the children!" We need to respond "They not my kids."
Only by making the parasites pay a price, only by ending our subsidy of bastardy, can we fight our way out of this pit of "compassion" into which we have fallen.
Old Soldier| 4.12.12 @ 12:43PM
Correct. The water-hearted will not be able to fix this.
Bruce Majors | 4.12.12 @ 3:18PM
It's slightly worse than that. My cousin's daughter, discussed above, who has 3 kids out of wedlock and is awarded larger apartments as she has more, cannot take in the father of two of her three kids, who she seems to have some ongoing relationship with, as she will lose her benefits if she does. Only if he were much more "marriageable" and could replicate her state provided in kind income would he have a chance.
Peppermint Tea| 4.12.12 @ 10:52AM
Walt Williams gave a 4 step program to avoid poverty that works for all races and locales in America: GRADUATE high school, get a JOB, stay out of jail, and get MARRIED before having children. The one-parent family fails the children and the nation. The national debt and the looming Soc. Sec. crisis are a RESULT of family disintegration and disinterest in marriage. Married intact families make more income and pay more taxes. Subtracting 1 child per family has put the strain on Soc. Sec.
But worse than that is the effect on the individual's morality, willingness to work, and resilience. Throughout the Great Depression the family was mostly still intact. That is why THIS TIME WORSE.
You can read more about this in the Great Depression Checklist on amazon.
vtwin| 4.12.12 @ 11:30AM
“No one has built an oil refinery in this country for thirty years.”
Are we as a nation experiencing shortages of refined oil products? Are we now importing gasoline, diesel, heating oil, or kerosene because of a lack of oil refining capacity in our country? If not, why would we want to build another oil refinery?
Stormy| 4.12.12 @ 12:01PM
Maybe because the day will come when the existing ones are no longer functional? Of course, if a miracle occurs, and we are able to have a functioning society driven by affordable green energy, then we won't need another refinery. When do you think that is going to happen?
junkyard infidel| 4.12.12 @ 12:38PM
vtwink doesn't need any petroleum products, his moped runs on algae !
vtwin| 4.12.12 @ 12:50PM
The answer is we haven’t built any new oil refineries in this country in the last thirty years because of increases in the capacity of our existing refineries and thanks to governmentally imposed fuel-standard regulations we have increased the fuel efficiency of our vehicles, homes, and businesses.
TexasMom2012| 4.14.12 @ 12:07PM
This is NOT true. I know that Marathon built a new refinery outside of New Orleans. How do I know? My husband literally moved there for a year (2009-2010) while supervising the final stages of completing the refinery. So yes we have built new capacity but not nearly enough because most of our current refineries are running at full capacity.
vtwin| 4.12.12 @ 1:32PM
In 1971 because of our dependency on fossil fuels we as a nation incurred our first trade deficit and since 1976 this has became a permanent situation. And our response was a-man-on-the-moon-by-the-end-of the-decade energy revolution, green or otherwise? No, we instead choose to mortgage our nation’s future, as individuals we maxed out our credit cards and borrowed against our homes, as corporations we hired foreigners to do what we as Americans use to do, further adding to the deficits, and as a nation our annual federal deficits averaging $50 billion under Carter skyrocketed to over $200 billion annually under Reagan. And now we are having to borrow from foreigners to pay for the fossil fuels. Green Energy who needs that?
Gary| 4.12.12 @ 2:25PM
VT, you really think green has no big down side? It will take millions of acres to build enough wind and solar farms plus a huge expansion of transmission lines to convert. Oil and gas don't require this and can be stored for peak use. As to oil refineries, you really think that the existing ones will be sufficient in the long term? What if God forbid we have a real war? Oil refineries provide well paying direct jobs, and a myriad of jobs for service companies and contractors that service oil companies. My wife, her father, and her grandfather all worked for Shell as many residents of south La, where I lived most of my life. Guys I went to high school with with trades had good jobs, retirement, medical, and were never wards of the government. Will green jobs pay as well? Can green make it with out government subsidies? And don't talk about oil subsidies, tax write offs are not subsidies but deductions off of income earned in the private sector which is not the government's money as liberals think. It is OUR money which the government taxes.
vtwin| 4.12.12 @ 3:38PM
The middle class economic decline and its incumbent moral decline we witnessed in our 60+ years is primarily the result of our increasing trade deficits caused first in the seventies from importing oil, followed in the nineties by hiring foreigners to make things we can make ourselves, and since 2001 we have been borrowing money at interest from foreign entities to finance tax subsidies for oil companies and tax-cuts for the wealthy. We invested billions going to the moon but the payoff was not having gone there. The payoff was economic; microelectronics, computerization, a communication, etc. And, the trade deficit is not concerned with how many refineries we build or the number of people we employ at theses refineries, it is how much more oil we import.
ncatty| 4.12.12 @ 12:55PM
"..why would we want to build another oil refinery?" I don't have an opinion either way because I am not in the business of selling petroleum products. If those who are in the business want to build one, why would we want to prevent them?
vtwin| 4.12.12 @ 2:20PM
“If those who are in the business want to build one, why would we want to prevent them?”
Meant as assumptions or innuendos?
Occam's Tool| 4.12.12 @ 8:39PM
vtwin: yes, we do have problems with shortages of refined oil that spikes our prices occasionally, sir. Check out what happens every time Texas City gets threatened by a hurricane or has to recover from one. I lived for 4 years next to Texas City.
Sometimes, the bottleneck on production isn't the amount of crude oil, but the refinery capacity to turn it into gasoline. Refer to Ken.
Bigfoot| 4.13.12 @ 2:57AM
We would want to build refineries to process all the crude that will soon be - already has started - coming out of the Bakken field, the Eagle Ford, the tar sands and and others so we can get rich selling those value added products to Europe and China. We will need refineries and pipelines because we are sitting on a sea of valuable oil and gas that cannot be used without the infrastructure - which cannot be built under the existing liberal mindframe stranglehold.
cicero| 4.12.12 @ 1:02PM
When you realize that 72 cents of every welfare related subsidy dollar stays in t he beuarocracy, you understand why the problem is so hard to solve. The only answer is to shut down all of the funding agencies, and bite the bullet on welfare. Just stop it! There will be a short period of weeping and wailing from the left and the subsidized. However, I have developed Cicero's "dead cat in the tree" theory. It goes something like this: There is a kitten in the higher branches of a tree. The whole town responds. They call out the police, who call out the fire and rescue trucks. They all risk life and limb to save the poor kitty, and raise the ladders so that someone can go up there and rescue the poor thing. Have you ever seen a dead cat in a tree? If the folks had done absolutely nothing, the kitty would have gotten hungry, and climbed down from the tree. Maybe we have to just let the "poor kitties" just get hungry and climb down from the tree. But then, maybe the recipeints of the other 72 cents will have to find something useful to do.
Controse| 4.12.12 @ 1:14PM
This is why it is so important in a democracy to turn this around before the voting takers exceed the voting payers. If you're a payer you have got to vote this time around. There can be no excuses for staying home.
Gary| 4.12.12 @ 2:11PM
At age 66, a widower, after 41 years of marriage, I have watched this decline over my lifetime. When I was a kid divorce was rare, unwed mothers rare and a stigma. None in my family divorced. The next generation didn't fare as well. Divorce, adultery, abortion, illegitimacy, are rampant and bear no social stigma. In fact, those who attempt to leave personal moral lives are mocked and disdained. Can a society flourish or survive when its' young are reared in chaos? Personal morality has been replaced by easy to live by environmental ethos which has no bearing on the difficult task of leading a moral personal life. It is sickening. I grieve for the little ones reared in chaotic homes with no father, and a parade of males there only for sexual gratification. I cherish my stable childhood with a Mom and Dad there for me and my brother. We were blue collar, living payday to payday, but we had a good life. The government has made immorality easy, guilt free, and acceptable. "Single mothers" are heroes who are sure votes for expansive government to subsidize their mistakes using children to extort program after program to make up for the fact they had kids out of wedlock, sure votes for O and pandering host of "caring" liberals. It is a sexual paradise for hormone driven males without females to make them toe the line. I am afraid this book may be on target.
Drek| 4.12.12 @ 7:28PM
Zimmerman supposedly aspired to be a cop, and he's been cruelly mocked for it, as if desiring to be a cop was something shameful?
When violence happens in neighborhoods, politicos, local news and the local police show up for some townhall, some hand holding, some rally or parade in the street urging the locals to take back the streets and urging as well increased civic participation.
Well Zimmerman took them all up on the call for sacrifice and civic participation, and now they're cruelly targeting him as if there was something unique about him.
Meanwhile Martin's more recent photos are spiked, while the one that last showed him appearing somewhat not-anti-social is the only one the public is allowed to see.
This is nuts!
Seek| 4.12.12 @ 2:25PM
Charles Murray decries the lack of social cohesion. Has it occurred to him that the main reason for this fraying of ties has been mass immigration from the Third World -- the very immigration his fellow cultural conservatives, for the most part, have been unwilling to oppose?
Personally, I don't care whether a Somalian immigrant is a "conservative" or a "liberal"; if he's Somalian, he shouldn't be here. Ask any race realist in the (Somali-inundated) Twin Cities area, if you don't believe me.
Bruce Majors | 4.12.12 @ 2:42PM
It's interesting. The college educated write and support and favorably review movies and novels and television shows and plays that attack monogamy and child rearing, even though they do get married eventually and do have or adopt a few children eventually. The poorer and less educated proles who want to be middle class and credentialed see what their wealthier and better educated neighbors consider cool and admirable and act accordingly.
If they were two different species it would almost be about competing reproductive strategies, with perhaps each side trying to displace the other.
free spirit| 4.12.12 @ 3:23PM
I cry for thee my friends.... America will soon be Somalia2... you have no Society left...just the left and the cliff
Sue| 4.12.12 @ 3:30PM
She didn't marry the State. She's a prostitute for the State, enjoying some security and income, while the politician enjoys the security of her vote and loots the Treasury - lining his own pockets by pretending to care.
Frank Natoli| 4.12.12 @ 4:09PM
The politically correct explanation for illegitimacy among blacks is that it is a consequence of slavery's destruction of the black family.
But Thomas Sowell in his "Vision of the Anointed" notes that post-Civil War literature is full of heart rending accounts of freed slaves attempting to reunite their families torn apart by the war. And the 1890 census, the first that asked whether the individual was or had been married, found a slightly higher rate among blacks than whites.
It was only the 1940 census, when the first malignant effects of FDR's welfare state began to poison the poor, did the rates of marriage fall and illegitimacy rise for blacks versus whites.
The Democrat/Liberal/Socialist/Communist welfare state is the ultimate proof that the road to hell is paved with the best intentions.
Magic Underwear| 4.12.12 @ 4:46PM
BELIEVE IN IT!
Minuteman78| 4.12.12 @ 4:56PM
But it was not "the best intentions". It was deliberate vote buying. FDR kept that unspoken, but don't you recall LBJ's classic tell as they say in poker with regards to the Civil Rights Act? "I'll have them ni**ers votin' Democrat for 100 years." And now that 49% of people pay no Income Tax, tack on a few more % courtesy of Democrat Voter Fraud, and you can kiss this country goodbye. "The Hunger Games" is an excellent preview of what we'll be like come the last part of this Century. Thank god I'll be dead and gone, I just feel bad for my Son, who'll inherit this mess.
Trish| 4.12.12 @ 6:05PM
What's the problem, Mario Cuomo? The problem is the catrastrophy that you and your leftist thugs have imposed on this society with your neo-marxist agenda. Of course, the elitist libs never have to mix in the sewers they produce. They just move on to the next fertile ground to destroy.
Jack London| 4.12.12 @ 6:27PM
This is a really stupid article that seems to have been written just to have a pop at the author's pet subject, environmentalism. For what it's worth, Murray's book is ludicrous as it ignores the root cause - soaring inequality and a dearth of good jobs with good benefits.
Occam's Tool| 4.12.12 @ 8:42PM
Jack: you don't work with any poor folk, do you?
I've worked with Apache in New Mexico, poor whites in Kentucky, Maori in New Zealand, Ojibwe in New Zealand, Hispanics in Los Angeles and Las Cruces.
The problem is that men are not attached to families thanks to the Welfare state allowing men to abandon families without repurcussions. I noted that in Alabama under Republican governors and Rotorua, New Zealand under Labour government.
Unlike the real Jack, you don't have much experience, do you?
Occam's Tool| 4.12.12 @ 8:44PM
Sorry: the Ojibwe are in Minnesota.
And before you start bouncing the "racist" crap at me, both my kids are adopted Mayan Indians, and both have good work ethics. "All men are the same, the best man trained in the severest school."
W| 4.12.12 @ 10:15PM
I suppose some men abandon their families because of the welfare state pays to raise their children, but don't these men have any pride to take care of their families? To say the welfare system forces these men to abandon their families is to excuse bad behavior. We assume these so called men just respond to the nanny state and have no free will or pride. This is the soft enlightened bigotry of low expectation that "they" can't help themselves and merely respond to the nanny state.
Pat| 4.12.12 @ 6:53PM
Taken from Tomorrow’s Headlines:
New York Times, November 27, 2052 Where Have All the Straight Men Gone?
Since Congress imposed the Heterosexual Father Tax on all adult heterosexual males in support of our government’s recent attempt to fully fund the offspring of single mothers, the number of American males classifying themselves as “heterosexual male” - as mandated by the Citizen’s Registration Act of 2049 - has dropped to an alarming 11%. Males classifying themselves as “homosexual males” has risen to a new high of 78%, while the percentage of males classifying themselves as “not certain” has remained unchanged.
Washington Post, May 15, 2061 - Natural Childbirth Incident Reported in Rock Creek Park, Scientists Are Amazed
A suspected natural childbirth occurring within Rock Creek Park has scientists from various universities and the Smithsonian Institute scurrying to learn details of how this could happen. Government officials at the National Center for Test Tube Babies refused to speculate on the cause and consider it an isolated incident; possibly attributable to one of the Conservative fundamentalist cults found within the Greater Washington D. C. metroplex.
Toledo Blade, January 10, 2024 City of Detroit Federal Prison Reports Shortage of Vacant Homes
The City of Detroit federal prison has reported a shortage of vacant homes for new inmates and is requiring present inmates to double up in existing housing. Since the City of Detroit was completely enclosed within a 160 mile electrified fence in 2020, the inmate population within our largest federal prison has soared and vacant homes available to house these prisoners has dropped from a high of 85% in 2021 to barely 3% today. Officials of the American National Police Department attribute this unexpected increase in convicts to the Tax Evasion Enforcement Act signed by president Chelsea Clinton last year.
Los Angeles Times, August 23, 2033 “Men Make Terrible Soldiers” says Army general
Joint Chiefs of Staff members General Mary Kasinsky of the Army and General Hillary Beck of the Marine Corps admitted today their new initiative to bring more males into the armed forces has fallen short of expectations. General Kasinsky indicated: “Men make terrible soldiers but the public believes men have a Constitutional right to pursue a career in today’s military”. General Beck agreed with the following caveat: “Men do make terrible soldiers except in combat situations. Fortunately, within today’s Marine Corps, combat is not our primary mission”.
Felix Gorney| 4.12.12 @ 6:54PM
To the extent that America has lost it's faith, we Americans have lost our rights and our prosperity.
charles794| 4.12.12 @ 7:05PM
One cannot stop thinking of gypsies of Eastern Europe...
Marc Jeric| 4.12.12 @ 8:04PM
"Panem et circenses"! Give us bread and games - cry the 48% of people who pay no income taxes but vote Democrat. And then 48 million on food stamps (not really- they get credit cards so as to avoid any shame when paying at the exit counter). When asked what he did, the yound criminal proudly responded that he worked - he had SSI! That's payments by the Social Security system for about 100 different "disabilities" preventing them to work for a living.
vatvince37| 4.12.12 @ 11:17PM
Please inform la comedia that before appearing to be literate and write in a foreign language, he/she should know that, in Italian, the adjective and the noun must agree; hence, la comedia e finito should be - need it write it? - la comedia e finita.
Drek| 4.13.12 @ 12:21AM
Seems the "joke" is on him.....
Dale| 4.13.12 @ 1:05AM
This article fails to mention that working class jobs have been sent away overseas. After the manufacturing jobs left than people were told to go into customer service and IT. Than Call centers went over seas and the IT field went bust as well 10 years ago. They dont have the money or time for retraining while working two menial level jobs and taking care of kids...half are divorced so they are doing it all alone part time. I know because I am one of them.
Gary Levey | 4.13.12 @ 1:40AM
There is a change and possibly there's something causing the decision for those mid 20's girls with some college. They know they are risking so much because they NEED a child at a time when the paternal instincts and skills of young men have been turned off by the generations preceding them and knowing that having a child adversely affects their short and long term career paths. But they NEED a child because our society isn't generally very nurturing to them. That they make that choice, more and more, what does it say about the economic, political, and religious environment they live in that so perverts our society that making that decision seems desirable?
oldfart| 4.13.12 @ 6:47AM
"Coming apart" implies current and/or future action. It is 'more better' to say 'came apart' because we have already fallen off the cliff and are, like Wile E. Coyote, hanging on the tree growing out of the cliff waiting for it to break.
aware| 4.13.12 @ 7:10AM
It is the State that is destroying society. Society cannot destroy itself. All who do not understand this are aiding in the act of destruction.
cali| 4.13.12 @ 9:48AM
This phenomenon has nothing to do with race. When "God" and Prayers were banned, the disintegration began and, sliding to the bottom of the barrell.
The cancer within the culture - social enginerring by Hollywood, liberals, gay-and lesbian acceptance as normal is the result of the moral decay and, it will get a lot worse.
As God says "In the last days...he will give them over to their own perverted mind" - among other things!
Renaissance Nerd | 4.13.12 @ 12:45PM
Since we have a Mormon as the presumptive nominee, perhaps the Book of Mormon take on this issue would be relevant.
In the Book of Mormon the Nephites run through a cycle many times. They're poor and have suffered some kind of destruction, so they repent and humble themselves and so bring back prosperity. So as the prosper they start setting their hearts on the 'vain things of the world' and persecute the religious and poor and bring down God's wrath, usually in the form of an enemy, either King-men or Lamanites or the Gadianton Robbers, or some combination of them all. So after a terrible war and horrible suffering they repent again, etc. And this whole cycle happens sometimes within a decade.
The Gadianton Robbers eventually broke the Nephite nation into tribes; trust in the polity was completely broken. Incidentally Gadianton Robbers were a secret combination, a brotherhood of bandits not unlike the Mafia.
The same cycle can be seen all through history in every part of the world. Parents work hard and sacrifice for their children, and those children usually remember the hard times after they become prosperous, but the grandchildren haven't a clue, thinking it's all just a birthright and the natural order of things. So they destroy what their grandparents built, and their children discover the hard parts of life again. It can happen within a generation, and even more frequently. We're in the suffering part right now, but not too long ago many were crowing about the end of civilization and Nasdaq 6,000/Dow 20,000 and wealth wealth wealth forever more. Same thing happened before the Tech Bubble burst, and again in the 80s, and again in the mid-60s, etc, and each had a recession right after the unsinkable boom. The problem is that Americans don't suffer evenly; we're just too big for that. We have multiple generations of people who don't know what suffering is, unless they inflict it on themselves via drugs or crime etc. That's also what happened in Rome; many generations of patricians lived in idle luxury, never troubling themselves with the military etc, and many generation of plebeians lived sated on bread and circuses and only needed to riot once in a while, kill a few patricians rape a few of their women, to get more. America is dividing in the same way; we've never been a real empire, but that doesn't mean we can't learn from the mistakes of the Romans. Idleness is the problem, whether it's the idleness of vast wealth or the idleness of a ratty apartment with a TV and free food: bread and circuses. People who do nothing valuable to other people win no self-respect. It's nice to pretend we don't care what other people think, but all our lives are predicated on the fact that we do care. That's why those who live mean lives are so defensive and quick to cry racism or bigotry or preemptively hate rich people; they know perfectly well they do nothing worthwhile.
In America, at least, the idle rich and poor have never been respected, until now. The American Dream was once to build your own life, whether that meant a farm or a factory. Now it means having enough money to never work again.
What a horrible thought.
proreason| 4.13.12 @ 11:27PM
for the marxists to win, they have to destroy every organization that can resist them.
The two most important ones are the nuclear family and religion.
So far, they are pretty successful.
Ted R.| 4.16.12 @ 1:55AM
The nuclear family and religion have gone into decline because personal freedom is more important than those things. Anway, Liberals haven't won until we have a clean environment, universal health care, and public higher education. We are never going to quit, until our country lives up to the true meaning of its creed: that there be TRUE equal opportunity for ALL.