Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Sunday, March 15. 2015

When the Government Becomes Your Family


The case that U.S. individualism is destroying the family and replacing it with the state.


The discussions in the comments are quite good. Conservatives often idealize the independent, self-sufficient family, but there is a debate, and not all families can measure up to that. We're not in pioneer days. Government charity and freebies can be life-saving, but they can also be "enablers" for dysfunction and immature attitudes towards life.

Posted by The Barrister in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 13:12 | Comments (5) | Trackbacks (0)

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Sorry, B. Off topic I guess.

From the column

Twelve great reasons why women do not deserve the right to vote — according to a prominent 1914 anti-suffragist:

2) “Because the suffrage is not a question of right or of justice, but of policy and expediency; and if there is no question of right or of justice, there is no case of woman suffrage.”

Goodwin echoes the feelings of many Americans back then that the right to vote and to elect leaders was not a fundamental right of Americans. Keep in mind that just 125 years before her, many believed that only land-holding white educated men should have the right to vote.

4) “Because it means simply doubling the vote, and especially the undesirable and corrupt vote, of our large cities.”

Voting procedures in America were already so distorted by corrupt political machines, adding voices to this mix would only make it worse. Keep in mind that political machines were still greatly in control in most places in the United States, locally and nationally. Swelling the numbers of voters would only give machines like Tammany Hall further opportunities to corrode the process.

http://www.boweryboyshistory.com/2014/11/twelve-great-reasons-why-women-do-not.html
#1 feeblemind on 2015-03-15 14:27 (Reply)
You can cut off a lot of the payoffs by slowly reducing the amount.

Go back to work when you feel it's not enough.
#2 rhhardin (Link) on 2015-03-16 07:58 (Reply)
No mention in the linked discussion of the decades long, calculated attack on the family and the civic and religious institutions that support it by the left, precisely because it would lead to the expansion of the state as social chaos spread.
#3 LHFRY on 2015-03-16 09:42 (Reply)
The worst part is those 47 million layabout, worthless, no-good, sponging brothers- & sisters-in law.
#4 Sam L. on 2015-03-16 12:49 (Reply)
The arguement often used to justify taking money from me to give to others is that they are in need or they are "poor" or they didn't have the same privilages/rights as I did. But our federal government doesn't have the constitutional ability to do this. States arguably do but not the federal government. But in my humble opinion even if this is done at the state level it is harmful to human development and freedom. While your typical pot smoking baby producing welfare recipient may like their lifestyle certainly no one (well no one with an IQ above 85) would want a child of theirs to aspire to this lifestyle. One of the greatest joys in life is succeeding in life. Welfare isn't success it is total failure and giving up. The very existence of welfare encourages total failure and giving up (not to mention thousands of fatherless teen thugs roamng the streets at night committing crimes and working on a life in prison). It is the struggle and the achievment in life that keeps us out of trouble, out of bad relationships, away from drugs and out of section 8 housing. The federal government is complicit in the failure of 50,000,000 or so welfare bums. They will never know the joys of succeeding or feel the need to work hard. What a shame.
#5 GoneWithTheWind on 2015-03-16 14:15 (Reply)

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