The Crisis of Our Young Men

Add to this households where the father is a progressive, not instilling traditional values into their sons and you have a tremendous depletion of manhhod in the Western World-Jer

The Crisis of Our Young Men

Almost 5 million prime-age working men have disappeared from the work force.

A national crisis in character

Via-Washington Examiner

Star Parker

Here's an excerpt from a letter I received the other day from a college professor: "[T]hroughout this election I discussed with students the differences between ideologies. The majority of them are on federal financial aid. They are fine with more taxes as long as they will be taken care of. It is disturbing to hear that they are willing to spend their own money on tattoos and cell phones but cannot buy the book for class until the financial aid comes in."

For those who see social conservatism as an annoyance and argue that Republicans must purge this agenda from their party in order to survive, I say, "Think again."

Notable Quotes

"We have indeed become a government dependent nation. And we have indeed become a nation in which the sanctity of family and the sanctity of life are widely disregarded."

Star Parker

No More Debt Until Spending Is Cut

Via-Townhall

By Star Parker

The Republican take away from President Obama’s State of the Union address should be unwavering opposition to an unconditional increase in the U.S. debt limit.

The statutory debt ceiling of $14.3 trillion dollars will soon be reached. Republicans should oppose increasing it to permit more borrowing without meaningful spending cuts as part of the deal.

The vision that the president presented to the nation in his speech, that we need more government, a lot more, to address the challenges before us, shows he sees the world no differently than he did when he entered office two years ago.

He’s added a trillion dollars, almost a 40% increase, to federal government spending over this time. The federal government’s take from our economy has increased from one dollar out of every five to one dollar out of every four.

Aside from the point of principle that with every incremental increase in the scope of government there is a corresponding decrease in the freedom of every citizen, there is also no practical argument to justify this vast government takeover.

Unemployment has hardly budged and the economy, although recovering, remains sluggish.

This economic machine clearly needs an oil change and a different kind of fuel. The president clearly doesn’t see things this way. Republicans need to offer a clear alternative and let the American people choose.

If Republicans offer a bold alternative to seize control from politicians and bureaucrats and return power and freedom to citizens, they can bet on public support.

Only 31% of Americans in a recent Gallup poll say they are “satisfied” with the “size and power of the federal government.” That’s down ten points from just two years ago and down twenty points from ten years ago.

Certainly it’s true that when we get down to the details of what to cut, even many who know that government has gotten out of hand push back when programs they are used to are put on the block.

This is where leadership comes into the picture.

Just consider our last one term Democrat president Jimmy Carter. He became president at a time of economic crisis in the 1970’s and his presidency was defined by the vision that we needed more government to solve our problems.

Carter created two new departments – the Department of Energy in 1977 and the Department of Education in 1979.

The Energy Department was created in response to the so-called “energy crisis”. Its annual budget has consumed over $600 billion since it was created and none of this can be associated with production of one new barrel of oil, one new ton of coal, or one new cubic foot of natural gas.

Yet, a good portion of President Obama’s State of the Union focused on proposed new government energy programs. The Energy Department will spend about $40 billion in 2010, up 70% from 2009.

Since 1970, federal government education spending per student has tripled with hardly any impact on test scores.

Since inception, the Department of Education has spent almost a trillion dollars with negligible impact on improving our children’s education. It spent $100 billion in 2010, up 67% from 2009.

Yet, central to the President’s education message is more federal dollars.

Republicans must stand firm on their proposed minimum of $100 billion in spending cuts – a paltry 3% of the federal budget - before agreeing to raise the debt ceiling. This could be easily pulled from the Energy and Education Departments alone.

We’ve got to decide if the center of gravity of our nation has shifted to government and bureaucrats or if we can get it back to individuals and families.

This is the choice Republicans need to make clear.

Class warfare ignores facts about families

Via-Washington Examiner

Star Parker

Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., is making a name for himself.
He wants taxes raised on wealthy Americans and is one of the more vocal opponents to the deal that would retain current tax rates for everyone.

"An estate tax cut for millionaires adds exactly zero jobs. A tax cut for billionaires -- virtually none," says the congressman.

But what does Weiner know about job creation, about work, about being an entrepreneur?

Looking over his resume, you see he's never held a private-sector job.

Right out of college, he went to work on the staff of then-Rep. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., followed by six years serving on New York's city council, and then ran for Congress in 1999, capturing the seat he currently holds.

Weiner is a politically ambitious young man who has built power and career by confiscating and redistributing other people's money.

Consider who the wealthy are that Weiner wants to punish.

Thomas Stanley and William Danko wrote a book called "The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy".

They produced a portrait of who America's millionaires are and show that by and large these are quiet, understated, self-reliant Americans who are committed to hard work, education and family.

Their portrait shows that 80 percent of our millionaires are first-generation affluent, that less than half received a cent in inheritance funds, and only 19 percent get any income from a trust fund or estate.

Most Americans -- 80 percent -- are not self employed. But of those that are, two-thirds are our millionaires.

Seventy-five percent of these self-employed millionaires are entrepreneurs and the remaining quarter are self-employed professionals like doctors and accountants.

These are overwhelmingly self-made individuals, founders and proprietors of prosaic businesses like "welding contractors, auctioneers, rice farmers, owners of mobile-home parks, pest controllers, coin and stamp dealers and paving contractors."

Sure, we have high-profile billionaires in America. But most of America's millionaires, those whose income is in the $250,000 and above category whose taxes Weiner wants to raise, are our nation's bread-and-butter entrepreneurs and small-business owners.

Regarding the estate tax, or what has come to be known as the death tax, it is probably, of all the ways in which our government takes revenue, the most immoral.

As noted, 80 percent of millionaires are first-generation and two thirds are entrepreneurs. The death tax punishes the very behavior that defines the economic heart and soul of American prosperity.

But perhaps worse, it attacks our most important social institution -- the American family.

A recent Pew Research Center/Time magazine report shows the collapse over the last half century of the traditional American family.

Today 52 percent of adult Americans are married compared with 72 percent in 1960. Forty-one percent of our babies today are born to unwed mothers compared with 5 percent in 1960.

It was once a given in our nation that there were inviolable truths that precede government. Once most believed that one of those truths was the integrity of the American family.

The death tax tells us that government now supersedes family. That politicians like Weiner can go inside of a family and confiscate the wealth that a breadwinner has accumulated over a lifetime of hard work and prevent parents from freely passing the fruits of their labor on to their children.

Three of four Americans say that the country today is on the wrong track.

The key question today is where we want to go and what it takes to get there.

If we want to get back to prosperity, then it should be axiomatic that protecting freedom, entrepreneurship and family is the answer. Not the politics of power and envy.

Who Are the Realists and Who Are the Ideologues?

Via-Townhall

Star Parker

The banter continues about the Republican Party being pushed to the right by “ideologues.”

Working Americans interest in politics is motivated by how to make our lives better. They don’t care about how one set of intellectuals or pundits think the world should be against some other set of ideas of ideology. They care about the facts. How the world really is and acting accordingly.

Two principles often labeled as “right wing ideology” are that as a society we are better off with limited government and individual freedom and that as individuals we are better off being married. Is this wishful thinking of ideologues or is this reality?

Two publications just out provide factual substantiation backing up both these principles.

Economic Freedom of the World, now in its 16th edition, is an annual index published co-operatively by 70 think tanks from around the world. This team has developed measures of economic freedom and then correlates these measures with economic performance in every country in the world.

What, according to this publication, is economic freedom? The core principles are “personal choice, voluntary exchange, freedom to compete, and security of privately owned property.”

They look at five areas to measure if these conditions exist. Size of government (expenditures, taxes, and government enterprises), legal structure and security of property rights, access to sound money, freedom to trade, and regulation of credit, labor, and business.

The result of the analysis – using the measures of economic freedom and looking at 141 nations around the world to examine the correlation between economic freedom and prosperity - leads to a clear conclusion. More economic freedom correlates with more prosperity and higher quality of life.

Breaking down 141 nations into four quartiles, running from the least free quarter to the most free, shows the following: The highest quartile – the most free - has an average per capita income two and half times higher that than the average of the second quartile, four and half times higher than the third quartile, and nine and a half times higher than the least free quartile.

Average life expectancy in the most economically free nations is seven years higher than the second quartile, eleven years higher than the third, and twenty years higher than in the poorest.

The Index also shows that nations that are more economically free are more likely to be politically free – they have more political rights and civil liberties – than those not economically free. And individuals in the most economically free nations report the highest levels of “life satisfaction.”

How about marriage?

A new paper published by Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation examines data in our own country and shows with clarity that the more likely a household is headed by a married couple the less likely that household will be poor.

Thirty six percent of children living in households headed by a single mother are poor. Six percent of children living in households headed by married parents are poor.

Among black families, 38% of single parent households are poor compared to 13% of households with married parents. Among white households, 22% of single parent household are poor compared to 3% of households with married parents.

As Rector notes, when President Johnson announced the War on Poverty in 1964, 93% of babies born in our country were born to married parents. Today 59% of babies born in the United States have married mothers.

If you accept my definition of ideologue, that it’s someone wedded to a set of ideas, independent of facts, who are the ideologues?

We have overwhelming factual evidence that the more economic freedom individuals have in a country, the more likely that nation will be prosperous, with a high quality of life. We also have overwhelming evidence showing that the more likely a family is headed by a single parent, the more likely that household will be poor.

Looking from the other side, we have overwhelming evidence that government spending does not reduce poverty nor does big government create prosperity.

So who are the ideologues and who are the realists?

Why are we discussing racism?

Via-Townhall

Star Parker

Can anyone tell me why suddenly race is the hot topic of national discourse?

According to Gallup polling of last week, the issues most on the minds of Americans are the economy and jobs followed by dissatisfaction with all aspects of government.

I didn’t notice racism on the list anywhere.

The NAACP says it was “snookered” by Fox News on the Shirley Sherrod story.

I say we’ve all been snookered by the NAACP.

The NAACP has shown that those who have written this organization off as irrelevant are wrong. It demonstrated this past week that if it so chooses it can dominate the national discussion with its racial agenda, regardless of what the real pressing issues of national concern may be.

The accusation about Tea Party racism is ridiculous. But even if you don’t think it’s ridiculous, is this the discussion we need to be having when national unemployment hovers at ten percent, and when black unemployment is closer to 15%, double that of whites?

Now, of course, we should be talking about racism if this is what is driving black unemployment. But is it?

I don’t think so. Nor do most blacks.

In January of this year, well into our recession, and well into the emergence of the Tea Party movement, the Pew Research Center surveyed black attitudes.

In answer to the question, “When blacks don’t make progress, who or what is to blame?”, 52% of blacks responded that “blacks” themselves are “mostly responsible”, and 34% said “racism.” This is the reverse of how blacks responded to this question just 15 years ago, when 56% said that racism was the impediment to black progress.

In the same survey, blacks responded almost identically as whites to the question of whether success in life is “determined by forces beyond one’s control” or whether “everyone has the power to succeed.”

Seventy seven percent of blacks and 82% of whites said that “everyone has the power to succeed” and 16% of blacks and 12% whites said success is “determined by forces beyond one’s control.”

And when blacks were asked in this same survey about the main problems facing black families, the response was overwhelmingly exactly the same as the general result of the Gallup poll of last week. Jobs.

So, Americans of all colors today generally feel responsible for their own lives and the main concern of most is the sick state of our economy.

So let’s have that discussion.

Clearly, there are differences of opinion about how to light a fire under this economy and the role of government.

Some think government is the answer. Some think it’s the problem.
But this is a difference of opinion about how the world works. Why are we talking about racism?

Racism is about people being persecuted and endangered because of their color. It’s about not be treated equally under the law or denied access to public facilities or work because of one’s color.

Fortunately, those ugly days are behind us. And aside from the political and legal truths that verify this, black attitudes themselves, as the Pew data bears out, support it. And, if we need further verification, sitting in the White House is a black man who is there with the help of 43% of the votes of white Americans.

Talk about racism may help employment for those in the race business. But it has little relevance to getting the American economy working again, which is what we should be single mindedly focused on.

And allowing race to become the focus of public discourse shuts out the very message that blacks need to hear. That they are disproportionately hurt by a recession being prolonged by excessive government growth and interference.

Today's Political Mandate - Become America Again

Via-Townhall

Star Parker

With the first round of primaries behind us, pundits are trying to nail down the national mood. Anti-Democrat? Anti-liberal? Anti-incumbent?

Abraham Lincoln summed up American politics over 150 years ago that is as accurate and relevant today as it was then: “In this age, and in this country, public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail; against it, nothing can succeed. Whoever molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes, or pronounces judicial decisions.”

Our current political leadership is out of touch with public sentiment.

The “anti-this” or “anti-that” hypotheses just capture part of the picture.

A political leader needs to know who we are as well as who we are not. Americans are not getting leadership today that is delivering a vision that captures their sense of what this country is about.

Recent polling by Rasmussen shows the percentage saying they “strongly disapprove” of President Obama’s performance 22 points higher than those who “strongly approve”. The worst showing yet of his presidency. Shortly after he was elected, those recording “strongly approve” was thirty points higher than strongly disapprove.

Polling on the health care bill that Democrats pushed through against public sentiment remains negative. And latest polling shows voters expressing more confidence in Republicans than Democrats in dealing with terrorism, immigration, the deficit, and the economy.

But what about overall vision?

Roger Ailes, president of Fox News, knows something about the American people. Tapping into his sense of who Americans are and what they want, he built Fox into the nation’s top cable network.

In the most recent tracking poll on health reform done by the Kaiser Family Foundation, more said they’ve gotten their information on health reform from cable TV than any other news medium, and among the cable TV sources, Fox finished first.

In an interview done with Peter Robinson of the Hoover Institution several months ago, Ailes offered observations about what is going on in the country.

Regarding our president, Ailes noted that he is “underexposed” and “overexposed”.

He’s “underexposed” in that when he ran he said his administration would be transparent, and it’s not.

At the same time, he’s overexposed. He’s on TV all the time. Yet, he’s not succeeded, in the words of Lincoln, in “molding public sentiment.”

Obama “must lead”, said Ailes, but that doesn’t mean telling the American people what to do and it doesn’t mean doing it in a back room.

According to Ailes, we are now in the most difficult “tipping point – decade – of our history.”

We have to get back, he says, “to understanding that we are Americans.” That the world looks to us to be financially strong and militarily strong.

Americans, according to Ailes, are simple – but not simpletons. We love our families, our flag, and don’t want our incomes taxed away.

Voters delivered the presidency and the congress to Democrats when Republicans lost public sentiment. But they have misinterpreted their mandate. They thought Americans were looking for a new country. No, we are looking to restore who we are.

“Multiculturalism, diversity – they are good,” says Ailes. “But they don’t trump the one word that should be taught in schools – unity……People came to this country from disparate countries and backgrounds to become Americans.”

When will he retire? “I can’t walk away until people understand how valuable and important being an American is.”

Americans are looking today for political leaders that understand, with the conviction and clarity of Roger Ailes, that this is not just another country.

Americans are looking for leaders whose understanding about American exceptionalism is not, in the words of our president, the same way “the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”

Americans want to become American again.


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