Walter E. Williams on welfare: As gov’t plays ‘father,’ ‘black males have become dispensable’

It’s perhaps not the most politically correct take on welfare in America’s black community, but an interesting one nonetheless.

Walter E. Williams, a George Mason economist and author of “Race and Economics: How Much Can Be Blamed on Discrimination?” is not a fan of the welfare state that exists in the country. In an appearance on Thursday night’s “Stossel” on the Fox Business Network, Williams argued that welfare has done more damage to black society than slavery or Jim Crow.

“[T]he welfare state has done to black Americans what slavery could not have done, the harshest Jim Crow laws and racism could not have done, namely break up the black family,” Williams said. “That is, today, just slightly over 30 percent of black kids live in two parent families. Historically, from 1870s on up to about 1940s, and depending on the city, 75 to 90 percent of black kids lived in two parent families. Illegitimacy rate is 70 percent among blacks where that is unprecedented in our history.”

But this isn’t just relegated to the American welfare state, but is seen in European welfare states as well.

“Now, it’s not just a matter of a racial thing. Sweden is the mother of the welfare state and illegitimacy in Sweden is 54 percent,” he said.

Williams explained to host John Stossel that this is a natural effect of welfare policies.

“Well, because, look, if you subsidize anything, you’re going to get surpluses of it, and if you tax something you’re going to get less of it,” he said. “If you did not get welfare, then people would decide, I’m going to go out and get a job, I’m going to live more responsibly.”

And with these policies, they have taken a toll on the black family, specifically the black father.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/06/04/walter-e-williams-on-welfare-as-govt-plays-father-black-males-have-become-dispensable/#ixzz1OMWttIi1

“I also have heard others say that black families were just starting to move into the middle class status when this grave injustice was done to them by LBJ and his ilk.”
///
excellent excellent point!!!
and one that Thomas Sowell researched extensively!

“In every census between 1890 and 1940, blacks posted higher marriage rates than whites.[37] “

here is the BEST summary i know of of LBJ’s evil.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s Department of Labor report was DEVASTATING in it’s un-PC honestly, and it’s prophetic accuracy. (but it was suppressed and ignored.)

The Black Family: 40 Years of Lies by Kay S. Hymowitz, City ...Rejecting the Moynihan report caused untold, needless ... Between the 1954 Brown decision and the Civil Rights Act of ... not due to a lack of jobs but rather to a destructive ...
http://city-journal.org/html/15_3_black_family.html

...and yes, you are correct, Thomas Sowell VERY clearly shows that blacks were doing much better, BEFORE the Civil Rights Act.
the CRA, and liberal policies, were deliberately destructive to blacks.

blacks certainly are not inferior in any way, or inherently more “promiscuous” as #10 above implies.

again, black marriage rates
were actually HIGHER than marriage rates for whites !!!

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/elder041299.asp
http://www.enotes.com/topic/Thomas_Sowell

“In Affirmative Action Around the World (2004)[35] and Civil Rights[36] Sowell demonstrates that on several measures, black progress was actually better before the era of the expanding welfare state and affirmative action era of the 1970s, and even the Civil Rights Act of 1964, than in the contemporary era. In the decades immediately after the Civil War for example, blacks posted higher employment rates and lower divorce rates than whites.

As regards family stability and out-of-wedlock births, black rates prior to WWII were hardly perfect, (19% in 1940 and 22% in 1960) but were still far lower than the 70% out-of-wedlock births afflicting the black community at the beginning of the 21st century.

In every census between 1890 and 1940, blacks posted higher marriage rates than whites.[37] “

LBJ’s Chaotic Society at work.

Whenever a "liberal" uses the term "society," he almost always actually means government. So a promise of a "great society" was actually a boast that he would produce a great government.
Republicans should talk about a great society; in fact Ronald Reagan did - but he called it "a shining city on a hill." It is appropriate to talk aspirationally about greatness of society - but it is arrogant to presume to suggest that you would be capable of administering a greater government than, say, George Washington was. By that I do not mean statically, that Washington's actual administration cannot be bettered, but dynamically - in the sense that Washington was creating the precedents and rules by which his successors have learned to operate.

The presumptuous "liberal" assumes that what he does not understand cannot be important. An attitude which manifests itself in "objective" journalists who think of Rumsfeld's "unknown unknowns" as being an oxymoron . . .

There should be a special derogative for what LBJ’s nefarious “Great Society” did to America.

It’s like “the holocaust” only he didn’t overtly kill blacks, although some would say Roe vs. Wade very successfully accomplished that.

What he did was round them up, tempt them with promises, destroy their existing businesses, homes and family structures, and deliver their votes to the democrat party.

As previously mentioned, making government “the daddy” yanked the rug out from under the societal function of black men as a monogamous good providers, and proud fathers.

Had urban renewal, affirmative action, abortion and a host of socialist welfare dependence programs (including the community reinvestment act) never happened, we would currently be a stronger nation, with a larger, peaceful work force, and cohesive society.

Instead, we have a propaganda-infused anti-American subculture of angry, confused, single-mother welfare professionals, and a large numbers of violent terrorists who actually kill enough people each year to skew US life expectancy statistics.

Great job LBJ!

(then there’s a whole other discussion on his “separation of church and state” in the tax code)

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