That, or they're just lousy little sh*ts.
Posted on 10/16/2007 7:45:19 AM PDT by shrinkermd
They are a longtime odd couple, Bill Cosby and Harvard’s Dr. Alvin Poussaint, and their latest campaign is nothing less than an effort to save the soul of black America...
...There is a sense of deep sadness and loss — grief — evident in both men over the tragedy that has befallen so many blacks in America. They were on “Meet the Press” for the entire hour Sunday, talking about their new book, a cri de coeur against the forces of self-sabotage titled, “Come On, People: On the Path From Victims to Victors.”
There weren’t many laughs over the course of the hour. Speaking about the epidemic of fatherlessness in black families, Mr. Cosby imagined a young fatherless child thinking: “Somewhere in my life a person called my father has not shown up, and I feel very sad about this because I don’t know if I’m ugly — I don’t know what the reason is.”
Dr. Poussaint, referring to boys who get into trouble, added: “I think a lot of these males kind of have a father hunger and actually grieve that they don’t have a father. And I think later a lot of that turns into anger. ‘Why aren’t you with me? Why don’t you care about me?’ ”
The absence of fathers, and the resultant feelings of abandonment felt by boys and girls, inevitably affect the children’s sense of self-worth, he said.
It’s a tough book. Victimhood is cast as the enemy. Defeat, failure and hopelessness are not to be tolerated.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Can government do the work of God (Charity)?
What I have read and understood from the Bible is that God and Jesus wants us to help each other by using our own time, treasure and talent and to give from our hearts (”Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” - 2 Corinthians 9:7). Nowhere have I found anything along the lines of “Go out and institute huge bureaucracies that will take money from some people at the point of a sword and give that money to other people as a politician sees fit.”
Our Founding Fathers were Christian and very pious men. They founded this country under strong Judeo-Christian tenets and reflected on their religious beliefs on all their decisions. They wrote nothing into the Constitution of any type of government “aid” to help the poor, children or anyone else on purpose. They wanted a very limited government for good reason. Limited government is the best way to ensure that freedom will be preserved. The Scottish philosopher Alexander Tytler, who lived during the time of the American Revolution and writing of the US Constitution, summed these views:
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure.
From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been two hundred years.
These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage.”
There are many interesting questions if citizens rely on government to do “God’s Work.”
If a government takes a portion of a man’s wages and does good with it, has the man also done good? If a government takes away a portion of a woman’s property and does evil with it, has the woman also done evil? When a rich man pays more in taxes than a poor person, is he more Godly? If the government then does evil, is he more to blame? A woman works for the government and uses other people’s tax money and does “God Work” with it, is this government woman now a good/Godly woman? If I legally try to avoid paying taxes, does that not make me an “Ungodly” man?
Today, the US government (federal, state and local) takes nearly 50% of a middle-class person’s paycheck after all taxes are factored in (income taxes, Social Security, sales tax, real estate taxes, gas tax, death taxes, phone taxes, highway tolls, sad etc.). Uncle Sam will spend more money in just this year (2004) than it spent combined between 1787 and 1900 - even after adjusting for inflation. I cringe at those numbers. The Founding Fathers wanted nothing like the tax-consuming monster that we have as a government today. I also think of all the good work that could have be done if people were allowed to keep more of their own money and give it to organizations/people that they believe in their heart are doing God’s work. Maybe it comes down to trust. Will people do the right thing with their own money or must a government take a huge chunk of it to do the “right things?”
Except government rarely does anything right except for those tasks that were explicitly outlined in the Constitution as the Founding Father intended. I could cite many examples (such as where would you rather put $10,000 in retirement money - in Social Security or in your own 401k plan?) but the plight of black America illustrates this failure beyond comparison.
In 1965, the US government was going to wipe out poverty by the “Great Society” programs, in which to date over 3.5 trillion dollars has been spent. These federal programs were designed to “help families and children” or “buy votes” depending on your political viewpoint.
At the beginning of the 1960’s, the black out of wedlock birth rate was 22%. In the late 1975 it reached 49% and shot up to 65% in 1989. In some of the largest urban centers of the nation the rate of illegitimacy among blacks today exceeds 80% and averages 69% nationwide. As late as the 1970’s there was still a social stigma attached to a woman who was pregnant outside marriage. Now, government programs have substituted for the father and for black moral leadership. The black family and culture has collapsed (and white families are not that far behind).
Illegitimacy leads directly to poverty, crime and social problems. Out of wedlock children are four times more likely to be poor. They are much more likely to live in high crime areas with no hope of escape. In turn, they are forced to attend dangerous and poor-performing government schools, which directly leads to another generation of poverty.
Traditional black areas of Harlem, Englewood and West Philadelphia in the 1950s were safe working class neighborhoods (even though “poor” by material measures). Women were unafraid to walk at night and children played unmolested in the streets and parks. Today, these are some of the worst crime plagued areas of our nation. Work that was once dignified is now shunned. Welfare does not require recipients to do anything in exchange for their benefits. Many rules actually discourage work or provide benefits that reduce the incentive to find work.
The black abortion rate today is nearly 40%. Pregnancies among black women are twice as likely to end in abortion as pregnancies among white and Hispanic women.
The “Great Society” programs all had good intentions. Unfortunately, their real world results are that they have replaced the traditional/Christian models of family/work with that of what a government bureaucrat thinks it should be.
I could make an excellent argument that if the US government had hired former grand wizards of the KKK to run the “Great Society” programs, and if they had worked every day from 1965 to today without rest, they could have hardly have done better in destroying black America than the “Works of God” that the government has done or is trying to do.
I have visited many countries in which the government “guarantees” that everyone has a job, a place to live, education, health care and cradle to grave “government help” for all children and families. It all sounds great except that the people in these countries are/were miserable. They wanted to escape but were forced by their governments, at the end of a gun, to stay. The “worker’s paradises” of socialist and communist counties are chilling reminders of letting governments do “God’s Work.”
The Bible clearly states that we are to help those in need. The question is “Who should help those in need?” I firmly believe that scripture and the historical evidence strongly support that individuals, private organizations and churches should be the ones doing the heavy lifting. Government help should be the last resort. “Charity,” enforced by the government, is not charity, it is extortion. “Charity,” delivered by the government, is not charity, it is a bribe which corrupts both the giver and the receiver.
Very Sincerely,
2banana
Jessie and Al: (Crickets)
That, or they're just lousy little sh*ts.
bump
They are a longtime odd couple, Dr. Bill Cosby and Harvard’s Dr. Alvin Poussaint,
A local radio guy here calls them “Feral Youth”.
It's all the fault of The Man," reports Nancy Pelocsi.
Dr. Bill Cosby and Harvard’s Dr. Alvin Poussaint sound like every Republican on this subject, whether or not they realize it.
This is anathema to Revun Jessuh and Al Sharptongue. Without victimhood and a culture of failure (and its concomitant entitlement), they are out of business.
Of course, as they fail, black culture succeeds.
Sadly, that's exactly what they are.
Uncivilized, unsocialized, and operating on pure instinct.
Mr. Cosby and his sidekick have their work cut out for them.
Children having children. If you want to see the result of this culture take a trip to Jamaica, no one knows their father there. It is something of standing joke among the Jmen.
The race hucksters, limo liberal academics and permanent government bureaucrats won the battle, and black kids are still paying the price.
The race hucksters, limo liberal academics and permanent government bureaucrats won the battle, and black kids are still paying the price.
Carolyn
I applaud these two gentlmen for their efforts to reverse the whole “victim” mentality and lifestyle. I know its an uphill battle.
Once had a young lady in my lab who was very, very angry with the company we both worked for. She spent most of her time looking for another job. The job hunt was not going well, adding to her anger. Why was she angry? Well, she had a college degree and she didn’t feel she was being treated properly. I could never decide who carried the lion’s share of the blame in her case - the college because her education was so inadequate - or the culture that made it okay for her to be a victim. In anycase, the real problem was that she could not, despite her degree, speak or write “standard” English. She was born and raised in Tennessee and spoke some kind of street gibberish that no one could follow. She had been counseled about the language issue, but didn’t see any need to change as she considered it her right, her “black heritage”. She was angry, non-productive, disruptive and had an enormous sense of entitlement. Her career did not thrive and she was eventually terminated.
ping
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