Posted on 11/11/2014 12:41:21 PM PST by Kaslin
NEW YORK -- At a dinner sponsored by the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation last Thursday (I am an unpaid national advisory board member), there was a debate about wealth redistribution. A team of Canadian students who think government should "spread the wealth around" faced off against a team of American students who think government has no business doing any such thing.
The theme continued when former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) debated Chrystia Freeland, a member of Canadian Parliament. While all of this was informative, civil, interesting and at times entertaining, the final speaker, CNBC commentator Larry Kudlow, may have uttered the most profound thought of the evening.
While Kudlow takes the traditional conservative position when it comes to economics, he said what would help individuals as well as the nation the most is for people to "get married." He said it loudly, and the super-sophisticated New Yorkers in the room fell momentarily silent. When the shock wore off, many heads began to nod.
Kudlow's point was that marriage gives people a reason to work, a home one hopes is stable, and children for whom two parents feel responsible.
Sociologists have reached the same conclusion over many years. In her book, "One Marriage Under God: The Campaign To Promote Marriage in America," sociologist Melanie Heath writes, "Married people" -- for whatever reason -- "are happier, healthier and better off financially."
The point I took from the speakers at the Coolidge dinner was that the real power to influence a life does not lie in or emanate from Washington, D.C., whichever party is in power. Instead, it comes from the millions of personal decisions each person makes for his or her own life.
How many politicians today would dare to admonish people who are living together to get married? And yet for not just economic reasons, doesn't it seem the wisest course for most to take when one considers the benefits? Cohabiters may look at their divorced parents as an excuse not to marry, but that is an excuse, not a sufficient reason. One might better consider successful marriages, instead of failed ones, and emulate what made the good ones work.
At the Coolidge dinner, the organization's chairwoman, Amity Shlaes, passed out buttons that said "Coolidge in '16." Although the 30th president died in 1933, his ideas and philosophy of life are being given new life by events like these. If his ideas worked -- and Coolidge's did because they were born from a Puritan ethic that founded and sustained America well into the 20th century, making the 1920s roar economically -- why not reconsider those ideas, updating them as necessary and applying them to solve today's problems, rather than skipping from one failed policy to another?
Back to marriage. The Coolidges had an unusual relationship, but it worked for them. Grace was vivacious and outgoing, her husband quite the opposite. And yet there was genuine love.
Few men have ever uttered more noble words about their wives than what Coolidge said of his: "She has borne with my infirmities and I have rejoiced in her graces."
Larry Kudlow seemed to be suggesting -- and I would agree with him -- that you don't get that kind of affirmation outside of a committed marital relationship, which also makes for stronger families, economies and nations.
The guy behind the guy in the white sweater is my guess.
BUMP
BUMP
Re: “”Married people” — for whatever reason — “are happier, healthier and better off financially.”
Well, two out of three, anyway.
Coolidge died at age 60.
I'll guess mockery of white Conservatives.
Norman Lear (Executive Producer) and Carroll O'Connor (Archie Bunker) were hard line Socialists in real life.
Archie Bunker, the character, was supposed to be a typical middle class Conservative.
Not so much middle class, but a skewering of White blue-collar types (Archie, after all, worked at a loading dock to begin with before moving up to being a bar & grill owner at the end of the series). I did think it odd Archie was supposed to be playing White Protestant of British heritage when it was pretty clear he looked like an ethnic Irish Catholic (which, of course, CO’C was).
My grandfather loved the character, though he was a generation older than Archie (born in 1897 while Archie/O’Connor was born in 1924). He was an ethnic Scot immigrant Protestant who lived both in Brooklyn and Queens, not very far from where the Bunkers were supposed to live.
An eminently praiseworthy attitude, whatever your outlook on GLD!
Well people didn’t live that long at that time.
Excellent. Yes.
Stealing gold...that sounds so...Third Reich.
Never forget, never forgive.
Yup.
CC is waaaaaaaaaay up there....along with RR and GW..... IMHO.
Government cannot re-distribute wealth; it can only redistribute poverty. The point of collectivism is not to eliminate poverty; it is to eliminate wealth — and at that it is quite effective.
Regarding marriage, why do you think that the Left is hell-bent on destroying that institution? Cal Thomas spelled out how marriage benefits the economy. Children born out of wedlock by definition live in unstable homes and as a result are more prone to truancy, early pregnancy, mental illness and crime.
That is why society is invested in marriage; the circumstances under which children are reared affect society as a whole. And that is why if marriage is to be re-defined, the burden is upon those who would change it to make the case that doing so would not be a net loss to society.
The fact that the institution of marriage [in its “traditional” form] developed independently in every culture indicates how vital it is.
I was being a little wry and sarcastic.
However, life expectancy for USA white males was almost 61 in 1933.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005148.html
Coolidge, who is one of my political heroes, by the way, lived to be only 60, so he was clearly not healthier than the average white male.
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