Posted on 08/14/2007 10:03:39 AM PDT by FreeManDC
"Enough is enough," thundered Newark mayor Cory Booker at Saturday's funeral of Dashon Harvey. The weekend before Dashon, age 20, and two of his friends had been forced to kneel against a wall at a nearby school playground and shot in the head, execution-style.
Dashon had been a student at Delaware State University, eventually hoping to become a social worker.
City Journal commentator Steven Malanga reveals the social pathology that lies behind those murders: "An astonishing 60 percent of the city's kids are growing up without fathers ... Studies have also found that about 70 percent of the long-term prisoners in our jails, those who have committed the most violent crimes, grew up without fathers." [www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-08-09sm2.html]
Just hours before Mayor Booker was venting his outrage, Robert Pedersen, divorced father of two, was preparing to depart on a 700-mile bicycle trek from Lansing, Michigan to Washington, DC. His objective: to share his story at an August 18 rally in honor of Family Preservation Day. [www.dcrally2007.com]
As Pedersen was set to leave on his journey, he lamented, "I was not able to say goodnight to my children last night because the phone was never picked up despite a total of 4 calls. All I wanted to do was to hear their voice before having to leave on such a long and intense journey."
Kids yearn for the love and discipline of their fathers, and dads long to be with their children. So where on the road to a kinder, gentler society did things begin to go a-kilter?
The wellspring of the problem can be traced to the advent of no-fault divorce, relaxed sexual mores that gave rise to out-of-wedlock births, and the legacy of Great Society programs that diminished father's roles.
And a recent report by political scientist Stephen Baskerville reveals powerful incentives have now become rooted in the system. [www.ipi.org/ipi/ipihome.nsf?OpenDatabase] These inducements stymie reform and place families at risk.
The problem starts at the top with the Office for Child Support Enforcement, the federal bureaucracy that awards grants to states that propel the gears of their child support enforcement machinery.
Remember we're talking about a squeezing-blood-out-of-a-turnip problem — few low-income dads have the skills or job opportunities to make their child support payments. So revoking their fishing licenses and throwing them in jail becomes an exercise in social do-gooding that is more symbol than substance.
If our child support collection effort was working, the revenues collected from obligated parents should exceed the program's expenses. But they don't. According to a 2003 report from the House Ways and Means Committee, taxpayers actually lost $2.7 billion in 2002.
The OCSE sweetens the deal by dangling juicy incentives that are tied to the level of child support dollars collected. For example in 2002, child support programs brought $640 million to California and $228 million to Ohio.
It's those incentives that have made the system so destructive to families.
If fathers are awarded 50% custody of their children, they owe little or nothing in child support. If no child support dollars are channeling through the system, then the federal money dries up. This creates an inducement for states to keep children away from their fathers as much as possible.
The system has become so corrupted that bureaucrats brazenly speak out in its defense. Last year North Dakota citizens were debating a bill to promote shared parenting.
Then Department of Human Services head Carol Olson did her Chicken Little routine, claiming — falsely — that the state would lose $71 million in federal payments. Olson was saying in so many words that a father's love counts for less than being able to suckle on the federal teat.
The end result is a dissolution of the family and an unraveling of the social order. Of course that creates the demand for more welfare programs. As former Administration for Children and Families head Secretary Wade Horn explained, "My agency spends $46 billon per year operating 65 different social programs. The need for each is either created or exacerbated by the breakup of families and marriages."
So we're talking about a federal program that costs billions of dollars a year, fails to recover its own expenses, elbows dads out of the picture, subjects single moms to the vagaries of state-enforced neo-paternalism, harms children, and eventually rends the social fabric of our nation.
So as Robert Pedersen peddles into Washington and does a triumphant loop around the DC mall, the question remains, Will federal lawmakers take heed of the senseless tragedy of Dashon Harvey and his grieving parents?
Personally, I think it's a Second Amendment issue.
Of course they did.
The question here is whether or not we want to continue to pursue social policies that incentivize this kind of behavior.
The high achievers you mention are exceptions to the rule - the rule exists in large part because there is a disincentive to lawful behavior.
See how good "gun control" works? Only criminals have guns, but what are gun grabbing liberals crying for there? to ban all guns, even hunting rifles, even though long guns are never used in those shootings.
Plus the laws are so liberal in Canada, these immigrant "youth" aren't even charged and imprisoned, and not even put in a juvenile detention facillity. They are given 'counciling, and released into their 'parents" custody.
They are out the next night doing the same thing, or stealing cars and running people down, or wrecking them by putting a brick on the gas pedal, putting it in gear and launching it down the street, or over a river bank to see how far it will go, etc etc.
This is where this country is heading if we don't smarten up politicians and make them look at Canada to see our future should liberal gun grabbers succeed.
Since this horrible crime was perpetrated on blacks, their leadership needs to acknowledge the threat is to the entire nation and join battle with the rest of us to shut down the border and removing illegals back to where they came from, so these kind of crimes do not occur.
Thats what should happen, dont be holding your breath. Sharpton and Jessie etc would rather be giving dog-fighter Vick an award and dissoff Imus than do right.
It is very difficult to get a father justice in front of a judge who personally considers fatherhood unnecessary and disposable.
Fatherhood to a judge is a checkbook. Anything else is a burden on her/his docket.
I do agree that government social policies/welfare programs promote the growth of fatherless families. But blaming those programs or even fatherless families for bad behavior also contributes to the problem. I know that you and other FReepers would hold the criminals responsible for their bad behavior, and you're not trying to make excuses for them. But the article itself just about crosses the line by blaming social programs.
My thought as well; I guess we were wrong. The MSM knows so much more than we do. /sarc
Because that’s usually the case in the area I live and work.
I did say I wasn’t sure in this case, but no doubt their behavior is part of the “culture” they brought from their place of origin.
I would say we need to enforce the existing immigration laws so illegals will stay home and kill people in their country. Has nothing to do with fathers. This guy is doing the dem side step and skirting the real issue. I don’t think he is impressing anyone who has a brain though.
Newark politicians made their city a "sanctuary city" for the illegals, now they don't like the illegal activities they attracted.
Never saw that one coming!
What? What the hell does one have to do with the other? The whole thing is a non-sequiter. The lessons learned from this incident: Lock up violent criminals; Build a wall on the border; Deport illegal aliens; Allow citizens the basic human right of self-preservation through firearms. That’s all.
so why aren't these men sticking around to help with the kids?....this writer can't possibly believe that these evil killers had dads that wanted to be "Leave it to Beaver" types....
fact is, children born into and raised in a nuclear family...father and mother....have the best chance of not only surviving, but thriving in society...and they in turn, will be able to care for their children.....
so marriage..
..so no sex before marriage..
..so SHAME placed on people that produce children without marriage, that live together, that divorce so easily.....
so marriage between a man and a woman.....
but all of these are so moralistic, and so right-wing...and so Christian...
and it would be just too much to ask people to not engage in sexual promiscuity.....and it would be too much to lower the violent and obscene nature of our "pop" music and our movies and our tv......
we wouldn't want people to actually have responsibility ....
The worst thing a lefty can scream when he is (inevitably) losing his argument (well, besides “BIGOT”!;) is, “You filthy right-wingers just want to return this country to the 1950’s”!
I wonder why? (you’ve just briefly described 1950’s American social norms). Perhaps the past WAS better!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16240579/site/newsweek/
Money quote:
"Campaigning on the size of government in 2008, while opponents talk about health care, education and poverty, will seem, and be, procedural, small-minded, cold and uninspired. The moral stakes are even higher. What does antigovernment conservatism offer to inner-city neighborhoods where violence is common and families are rare? Nothing. What achievement would it contribute to racial healing and the unity of our country? No achievement at all. Anti-government conservatism turns out to be a strange kind of idealism—an idealism that strangles mercy."
And folks wonder why the size of the Federal govt didn't shrink under complete GOP control! And to equate govt spending with "mercy?" What kind of crack are they smoking!?
Demand a border fence! Build it NOW!! Beef up the border patrol and close our borders! Stop the DREAM Act!!
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It would take a revolution to change things back to where they should be and there are too many people who make money off of broken families and too many people who love their free, no-strings-attached sex for that to happen.
B T T T
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