I read these two articles in close proximity. It makes an interesting juxtaposition: Noam Chomsky, Closet Capitalist and Beware of Forced Kindness A Lethal Destroyer of Your Happiness.
I don't know how I screwed up that Chomsky link, but it's fixed now. By the way, I should say that I agree with Chomsky about as much as I agree with the Hoover Institute - Chomsky's better about American foreign policy than they are.
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Al, the link to Chomsky just does not work for me, which is perhaps just as well.
I read through the Kenner article - with some difficulty.
I am beginning to get a handle on where the American view of the classic "Sarah sharing her examination marks with Dorothy" fairy tale comes from. I have to say, and I would have left comment to this effect if there were the opportunity, that she seems quite unaware of a very vital factor.
This is the importance and impact of parental example. Her children are (to me at least) quite obviously the product of their mother.
What the hell happened to my template? This thing hurts my eyes. And where'd my links go?
Yeah, I screwed up that link somehow.
I'm not sure whether you are agreeing or disagreeing with Kenner.
Errrmmmm. Agree? Disagree? I don't know that I can disagree with her reasoning. I think that my disagreement lies (as is often the case) with some of the prim-isses she uses.
There was a referendum held here about 18 years back. The question was essentially "I agree with the imposition of law and order - Yes/No". Aside - it was the last referendum put with a general election; the promoters succeeded in one of their wishes at least, to discredit the referendum process.
Most of the premises Kenner uses lie in that same area - sharing one's husband, living in poverty because you have given too much to the poor under duress... It is not that kind of argument, even though it does seem to be the foundation of the way Americans generally see the provision of welfare. I must confess that there is a similar debate "raging" here at present under two quite different headings and with two quite different promoters.
The first - and by far the minor - is the subject of "business welfare", the government funding of businesses that adopt government sponsored programmes from R&D to employment; that charge led by those businesses that have not gotten the welfare.
The other is "children living in poverty", a far more emotional subject, one I have seen the edges of myself, and one which is far more difficult to resolve. My position is that the committee promoting the idea is well-meaning, soft-hearted people who would be as upset about my solution to the problem as they are about the problem itself. The do-gooders are promoting greater state support for children in poverty.
My solution is a return to the ways of the past; of state wards, "adopted" by volunteer families and with the government taking a measure of responsibility for their up-bringing; of far greater emphasis on personal parental responsibility for the support of families, providing income, shelter, food in place of the state handing out almost without question.
There are major fish-hooks in there I admit. Not the least of which is the mirror of Kenner and her family.
The truth is that "children living in poverty" in this country is very much a comparative statement. Yes, there are children who are not properly fed, there are children who miss out on education, there are children living in sub-standard housing, there are children who do not see the doctor... There are all of those things. They are also likely to be the children of people who were the children living the same way 25 years back, and again another generation back, and another... It is that kind of problem.
Kenner strikes me as well-meaning. Her solution is too simplistic at every possible level.
It is the same kind of solution as "Why can't everyone live in peace".
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