Please post the quote where I said a majority of Walmart Women were ‘drug addicted crazies’ I am not sure why you keep beating this dead horse. At any rate the term ad hominem refers to your attempt to degrade the quality of my argument (that there is no justification for confiscating from the successful) by claiming I think all Walmart Women are lunatics.
I am beating the horse because you are not owning up to what you have said. You seem to be very into poor people taking personal responsibility, perhaps you should do so yourself? Take responsibility for the things you say. I have quoted your statements, and we have analyzed their purpose in your argument. Unless you have some critique of the substance of my previous point, you need to recognize the point. Did I try to degrade your general argument? Haven’t we just discussed decision-making fairly thoroughly despite your characterization? Yes, we have.
Now you say that there are no justification for taxing what you call the “successful” (I don’t think I would call rich people successful without qualification. Sounds like money-worshiping to me), which would imply that you are against taxes. But you said you are for progressive taxation. I don’t understand how that is consistent.
Very few people are on government assistance without contributing to their own fate.
What does that even mean? And can you justify it? Sounds like speculation to me.
I have no idea why you’ve turned delayed gratification to conscientiousness since the two are not the same.
Oh, I assumed you were familiar with the research. The more generalized issue is conscientiousness (being one of the Big Five personality traits), and the studies revolve around different measures related to that trait.
Given that we have generations of children who have grown up with parents who are apparently not doing this, the task may fall to school teachers but unfortunately teachers cannot undo poor parenting.
Well, teachers and other role-models can step in where parents fail, but it seems to me that correlations are present from a young age, indicating that intervention needs to happen early. In any case, better parents would be preferable, and we get better parents by doing what?
As to what WE can do to motivate men to stay with the mothers of their children…again shifting individual responsibility to someone else or some organization or government program. Really?
What did I suggest? I thought I suggested higher wages, not government programs. How is it that you continue to misrepresent my position?
Good old fashioned shame might come in handy as these men think nothing of having mulitple children and dancing away after the oats are sowed.
So your hypothesis is that if we simply shamed those men (how do you think we can do this, by the way?), they would improve behavior? Is that the same logic they use in prison to rehabilitate people? Treat them like animals and shame them and they will improve (hint: it doesn’t work very well)? We improve behavior by positive reinforcement, not negative.
THe rise in out of wedlock births and use of social services has increased steadily through booms and busts. It’s not simply a matter of not having a job, it’s also a matter of knowing Uncle Sam will pay so why should you?
No, it hasn’t. There has been a significant increase in usage of social services in conjunction with the recession, which is generally the case when it comes to recessions (higher unemployment and so on). Now, I didn’t say that the historical increase(recent decades) in single parenting has been caused by a lack of jobs per se. Other issues are obviously historically linked, like I have already mentioned (gender equality, economic productivity forcing both parents to work, urbanization etc.). But I don’t think much can, or should, be done about gender equality (perhaps something can be done about decreasing the need for economic productivity, although I doubt you’re getting any of your tea-party pals to agree).
Nevertheless, when it comes to minorities, which is what we have focused on in this context, decreased mobility seems relevant . Minority men can’t see real opportunities, so they give up on trying (you’ll see that the numbers are worse the more economically depressed the area is).
So that’s your answer to all of society’s ills…take more from the successful and give to those you (or your agents) think are more deserving.
That is not what I think. I think (and it’s also a fact about income inequality) that the economy has grown in a manner that has benefited the rich enormously. So, if government needs to raise revenue, that revenue will come from the people who have benefited from the economic system being as it is (it’s not a given that it should be like this). I would be just as happy to raise more money from the lower brackets if the income growth had been more evenly distributed. But it hasn’t been, so we work with what we have. And I have never said that government transfer are the solution to all ill’s. I have made some suggestions (raise wages, empower unions, improve education, invest in R&D etc.), only some of which might need an increase in government revenue.
