Elite Opinion

Radley Balko notes an interesting difference between the reactions of cultural conservatives to the Bennett and Santorum controversies. (via The Agitator)

Comments

[James]

I'm amused that you hat tip Balko for linking to his own piece. 🙂

[Perry]

Hell - Bennett really didn't do anything wrong. I can't get pissed off at a rich guy gambling away a few million dollars. Who cares? The only reason that it's barely newsworthy is cause this guy makes a living judging the morality of actions of others.

I'd love to think that somehow, the hypocracy of his own actions will cause him to stop being so judgemental about the morality of other people's actions, but really all i expect is that he will further ratchet down on those whose behaviour he deems wrong by his own standards. (and yes, he has legality to defend what he thinks is moral and immoral but if law was the only self litmus test of right and wrong, we'd all be in a really crappy place..)

[Parker]

Something no one seems to be picking up on is the fact that you can't truly identify a unified conservative reaction to Mr. Bennett's troubles.

What you do see, among conservatives, is reasoned discussion and debate about the situation and the issues that it raises - and largely in a very civil tone and manner, despite many clear disagreements among the conservative commentators.

What you see among liberals discussing this includes, in my view, a lot more ad hominem attacks on Bennett and other conservatives, and frequently a strong feeling of 'gotcha' vindictiveness.

The underlying questions are hard, in the final analysis cutting to the heart of what the responsibilities of governments and individuals ought to be.

Serious debate in this arena can be useful and informative - but a single answer to the underlying questions still eludes us.

The happiest result of this would be a more thoughtful and more moral public, who have taken the occasion to reflect on how they might improve themselves and the world, rather than how they can score debating points.

[JDM]

"If wealthy heirs don't get jobs, spend a lot on their appearance, and drink in the early afternoon, but get along just fine because of the wealth they didn't earn, the "guard rails" theory says that they are setting a bad example for those inclined to do the same thing"

This is a different argument than your original.

The truth is that the vast majority of wealthy people work extremely hard, whether they inherited their wealth or not, so that it's not really a problem. Whereas, with few exceptions, the poor do not. As a class, wealthy people set a good example, to a conservative especially.

"Guard rail" arguments were made because leftists are idealogically opposed to things like the stigma attached to single motherhood, and trying to destroy it. They vociferously advocate the destruction of conservative values.

No one is championing slothfulness in a similar way, I would assume that conservatives would include wealthy famous playboy heirs who flaunt their slothfulness in their criticisms.

For the record, I don't think guard rail theory is worth a whole lot either.

[fyodor]

Rich Amone,

When people talk about what's "good for the health of society," I reach for my gun!! (Well, at least I would if I had one!!)

All seriousness aside, I think it's ironically appropriate when social conservatives (which Rich appears to be, on this issue anyway) use the same vague cliches that have driven me away screaming from so much leftist writing.

[JDM]

Also, yesterday's news that Bennett says he will give up gambling is entirely consistent with the idea that it's wrong precisely because it sets a bad example.

[trainwreck]

JDM makes my earlier point perfectly, just like a lot of the talking or writing head gasbags who make assertions based on ideology, not data.

>

Really, that is the truth? So wealth can be inherited, but not poverty?

[fyodor]

JDM,

I can see what you're saying, but I think it's a bit of a stretch that the "guardrail" theory would only apply to you if you're reported on in the press.

[traiwreck]

Oops I missed the truth, as dispensed by JDM, in my earlier post: "The truth is that the vast majority of wealthy people work extremely hard, whether they inherited their wealth or not, so that it's not really a problem. Whereas, with few exceptions, the poor do not."

again for good measure: Really, that is the truth? So wealth can be inherited, but not poverty? What is that vast majority anyway, 51%, or 73% or what? And how exceptional is it to find hard working poor people? You said "with few" exceptions, implying a number. Any data to back up these assertions?

[JDM]

train,

Are you saying I said it couldn't? Maybe your post got screwed up.

fyodor,

I'm not sure what "gaurd rail theory" means, I don't think its any kind of cohesive construct. I would call it the "guard rail argument."

I don't think Bill Bennett went around saying that poor people can afford to gamble, and that gambling to excess wasn't a vice. The Murphy Brown liberals joe was talking about clearly believe that, for example, a stigma on single motherhood does no good for anyone, and that it was just the result of bigots prostelytizing for no reason.

The core of conservative philosophy is that we've made it this far, and should be careful of changing the values and institutions that brought us here. I would say that the guard rail stuff was simply saying that the people championing the destruction of those values didn't get the point of them because they were not in a position to understand the good the values did. If Bennett already gets the value of conservatism and conservative values, in spite of his wealth, there is no point in a conservative commentator trotting out the guard rail argument, other than to twist it out of its initial context and call gotcha on someone.

By the same token, if the leisure class is not out there actively saying that the poor should be slothful, it is consistent to not apply the argument to them.

[omnibus bill]

Okay Mark, so color me a disgusting, backward bigot. I guess you must have noticed the white sheets. After all, I happen to think it's just fine if Texas wants to outlaw homosexual sodomy.

In case you cared... I'd never vote for such a law, and think such laws are stupid. I just happen to think that turning sodomny into a federal constitutional right on very broad privacy grounds is the recipe for disastrous social and legal policy. But then I suppose that's a backward looking way of thinking about it; after all, when has the Supreme Court ever been wrong about a social issue?

Supreme Court ordered social change doesn't occur in a vacuum, and it doesn't stop regularly at predetermined places. You can't suddenly find some broad right, and then hope to put the brakes on it when it suits you. That's how we expanded a fairly modest right to abortion into a legal right to the partial birth abortion procedure, which in late term cases is essentially infanticide.

Federalizing and constitutionalizing a broad right to absolute privacy in the bedroom, as The Human Rights Campaign's brief in Lawrence v. Texas asks, is an open invitation to unintended consequences. Conceding your point that Santorum is wayyyy dumber and more evil, unenlightened and bigoted than you are, I still don't think he's wrong about the slippery slope.

An absolute privacy right sounds well and good in the abstract. It even functions well, as long as the questions are narrow -- "ought the state to keep out of the sex lives of homosexuals and married couples and consenting adults?" Within that narrow question, a broad, inviolable privacy right gives you a pretty good answer: no anti-sodomy laws. The general principle provides a good answer to this specific question.

But what about all the other stuff Santorum cited - incest restrictions, bestiality, pederasty and so forth - that would be protected if there really is an inviolable privacy right? In those cases, the general principle that HRC insists on leads to awful, awful answers.

For example: dogs are just chattel. If there is this expansive privacy right, shouldn't you be able do whatever the hell you want with your dog, as long as it isn't horribly cruel? Is it possible to draw any lines about this that aren't mere moralizing? And don't respond to this with some moral line drawing quip, like "well, I'd outlaw it as animal cruelty". That's a non-starter, because no local law governing chattel can stand in the way of a constitutional right to privacy. Seriously, if state government can't outlaw sodomy based on some broad, inviolable privacy right, what compelling government interest exists that could allow a restriction on bestiality? That it's gross? Or icky?

Moving right along, there are various drinking ages and ages of consent for entering into contract and for having sexual relations. This of course is arbitary moral line drawing by states, yet again. So, if there is a really broad privacy right that the state can't infringe, how can you possibly justify statutory rape laws? I have heard some on your side of the issue say it's different, such laws are justified because kids aren't capable of consenting. But that's a load of crap. Most states evaluate childrens' capacity to consent in tort and criminal cases on a case-by-case basis. A very young child can be treated as an adult in court, if he or she has adequate mental capacity. Assuming the bedroom privacy right is inviolable, what possible justification could you have for a blanket prohibition on adult/child sexual relations? At a minimum, any such laws would require a case-by-case determination of the child's ability to consent.

And yes, homosexuality is much different from the parade of horribles I just mentioned. But not when Human Rights Campaign asked the Supreme Court to rule on the broadest possible grounds. In essence, HRC set up a venn diagram of sorts. The very broad bedroom privacy right contains a number of subsets, one of which is the right to practice homosexual sodomy. Fair enough - but HRC is either looking to launch a full-out attack on all the laws that regulate "morality", or they trust courts and judges to engage in a bunch of arbitrary line drawing in order to protect the rights of homosexuals, while denying the right to privacy to lots of truly deviant people who will assert it.

Now at this point, I know you are screaming "hatecrime, hatecrime" and wondering where I planted my burning cross long enough to type. Fair enough. But I'd like to think although I'm an evil bigot, that I'm not terribly hypocritical.

Human Rights Campaign's effort paralells Mr. Ashcroft's effort to federalize and constitutionalize the issue of assisted suicide.

It's another issue that is an absolutely moral decision that I think is fine for the states to decide rightly or wrongly; but which should never wend its way into federal court. You want to be the one to tell the local doctors at St. Joes that they are in violation of federal constitutional law for refusing to kill people?

You can laugh now and say it's reductio ad absurdum, but it's not. The right thinking tolerant liberal folks on the city council where I live, D.C., are working on cutting off payments to hospitals (like the ones at Catholic U and Georgetown) that refuse to perform abortions.

I suppose that it's fair to argue that Catholic U. and Georgetown have no right to impose their moral standards on people -- but then what right do people have to impose their lack of moral standards on Catholic U. and Georgetown? Don't people have a right to go to Sibley Memorial, or PG County Hospital?

Oh, wait, it's becoming to me how we solve this problem. Let's send it to the Supreme Court and find out what the Constitution says about it...

[JDM]

trainwreck,

I never said poverty couldn't be inherited. But I will say that people can and do get out of it with a maoderate amount of work. How much of the disparity between work ethic is a result of the poor not knowing how to direct their efforts and what to do about it is another matter.

As for the rest, I'm not interested in getting into that argument here. It's far too complicated. Feel free to disagree, but there's lots of data supporting my assertion.

[trainwreck]

Well, JDM, I appreciate you patience with my crummy posting methods.

Of course you didn't say that poverty can't be inherited, but you implied it's a condition that one can avoid through simple hard work. And that's true, as you pointed out, but is it "THE TRUTH" as you assert?

I think poverty is far too complicated a phenomenon to be described by such a simple assertion. From the last US census: 33 million people lived in poverty in the US in 2001, but nearly 13 million of those were found in the south, disproportionate to the population. Are southerners less inclined to work hard? 3.5 million families living in poverty were headed by a female with no husband, whereas only 583,000 housholds in poverty were headed by a male with no wife. Are women just lazier than men, or what?

You haven't provided the truth, only an opinion based on an ideology. Facts and data provide the foundation for discovering the truth, but I find very little of that (and what I do find is often skewed by idealogues to support the position of their camp, like this:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31109

or here: http://www.itvs.org/outriders/poverty.html (they ignore the single mother contribution to poverty)

[JDM]

"Are southerners less inclined to work hard?"

Your evidence seems to suggest it. At any rate, it is not the rhetorical question you seem to think it is. It is certainly possible.

"Are women just lazier than men, or what?"

No, but they still do less paying labor. Perhaps getting a job rather than relying on some unreliable dead beat to provide for them would make more sense than starting a family they couldn't support. (Perhaps if the men had better gaurd rails things would be different.)

As I said, there is the issue of knowing how to direct one's labor in a useful way, and making sure people without this knowledge have a chanve to get it.

"Facts and data provide the foundation for discovering the truth"

Oh.

"You haven't provided the truth, only an opinion based on an ideology."

You have no idea how I've formed my opinion, and, in fact, I am probalbly the least idealogical libertarian in the entire world. I'm not pretending that by asserting it that I've proven anything.

I don't like to play Googling for Stats, but fine. Here's a piece from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas on income mobility:

http://www.dallasfed.org/htm/pubs/pdfs/anreport/arpt95.pdf

In it, you'll find this fact

In a University of Michigan study, only 5 percent of the people in the bottom fifth of incomes were still in the bottom fifth 17 years later.

Perhaps the laziest 95% were the ones who made it out, but I find that notion hard to square with a meaningful definition of "lazy." Similarly, those 95% had to be replaced by someone. I doubt strongly that it was the hardest working 95% of the second fifth.

There are lots of other studies and statistics which I've read, read about, heard about, etc. that point out the same thing. It also squares with my personal experience of how the world works.

It is an overwhelming preponderance of evidence that causes me to form my opinion, not ideology.

[Eric]

Hypocrisy? Among righteous conservatives? Impossible!

[Rich Arnone]

There is a difference. Bill Bennett's failure to be perfect was a strictly personal failure with no direct effect on society's guardrails. The other example of Santorum remarks and the subsequent Left and Libertarian outrage is part of a campaign to normalize honosexuality and change society's values. If Bennetts losses were anywhere near as large as 8 million over a 10 year period then he is unwise in this matter and clearly addicted. Who revealed this large loss and how do we know it is accurate? Is this anything like the 175,000 antiquities stolen from the Iraqi museum that the media accepted as the gospel truth?

[Eric Hannneken]

"Bill Bennett's failure to be perfect was a strictly personal failure with no direct effect on society's guardrails."

I thought the whole point of guardrails theory was to worry about the externalities of private choices.

[joe]

Why don't we ever hear conservatives make "guardrail" arguments about wealthy heirs, who live by having money they didn't earn handed to them? Aren't they setting a poor example for the "underclass?"

[omnibus bill]

Since perfect consistency is obviously a requirement to meet the standards of libertarian purity, we clearly need to get rid of the "guard rails". Piss on Bennett, Santorum, Ashcroft and all the other people who tell us how we should live. If they can't be perfect themselves, then their arguments must be worthless.

Progress being what it is, getting rid of taboos on divorce, homosexual relations and marriage, drug use, cloning are not a terminal destination; they are just the start. I'm sure we'll have plenty of other irrational societal taboos and restraints to tear down after that.

Just out of curiosity, where do you draw the line? I can think of no reason, for instance, to respect your property rights, or your right to be secure in your person. After all, these are just more rules and restraints laid down by self righteous moralizers.

[Julian]

Typically, you make the conservative mistake of assuming that someone who resists the set of moral rules is arguing against "morality." We're not. We're arguing against the imposition of your erroneous morality.

As for consistency, the point isn't that people sometimes fail their own principles. It'd be one thing if the culturecons were saying (as some are): "Yes, it is a shame that Bill has this gambling problem, it's bad and we hope he stops." Instead, they're suddenly libertarians on precisely one issue... and maybe for precisely one person. But I know it's dogmatic and purist of me to ask for a little consistency on this point, or to ask that the line between permissible and pernicious behavior be drawn in some non-arbitrary way... I must have been misled by the example of other libertarians.

[Eric Hanneken]

omnibus bill,

I can think of reasons why I want to live in a place where people respect life and property rights. Aside from my obvious interest in preserving my own life and property, rules like that enable people to try their own ideas, and make long-range plans, which in turn allows people to build the sort of high-tech, wealthy society that you and I enjoy.

Now, let me turn the question around and ask you, why do you care if I use drugs, don't marry my sexual partners, or clone myself? What's it to you?

[Rich Arnone]

to Eric, We don't worry about individual choices knowing people often make the wrong one. The purpose of the guard-rail is to keep societal restraints strong so that we will sometimes be deterred from those wrong choices. What is acceptable in a society becomes commonly practiced and I find it hard to believe that something like homosexuality is good for the health of our society.

[Eric Hanneken]

Rich,

Maybe I'm confused, since I haven't read the original "No Guardrails" editorial by Daniel Henninger. But from Radley Balko's summary of it, it sounds like the argument is that the hoi polloi look to the elite to show them how to live. Therefore, the elite have a responsibility to restrain themselves from living lives that, if imitated by poorer or inferior men, would lead to disaster. Is that not the argument?

[Sir Real]

Omnibus-

Bennet, Santorum, and Ashcroft could well be perfect, but that wouldn't make their arguments any less worthless, much like your strawman.

And it IS a strawman, because you make the leap of claiming giving people more rights (to form relationships with who they choose, to control what they put in their bodies in the privacy of their homes) is somehow taking away rights people already have (gay rights leading to abolishing property rights? is there some finite abount of "rights" to go around?). The idea that we have property rights and the right to self defense because of people like Bennet (!) is laughably absurd. If you can think of no reason to respect other people's Person or Property other than moralizers telling you to, you are on the wrong board my friend.

Rich-

You seem unclear on the idea of "guardrails"- if sodomy by a famous individual threatens society, then so does complusive gambling. All or nothing- no changing the rules because you like the celebrity in question.

That said, changing societal values is how progress occurs. Your argument against normalizing homosexuality could just as easily have been applied to racial intergration, womens liberation, or a host of other changes we now recognize as positives. Forgive me for rejecting the idea that your "beliefs" are compelling enough to deny American citizens equal protection under the law.

[Brad S]

In my experience, there are two types of Conservatives: the South Park Conservative, and the Televangelist Conservative.

The South Park Conservative is usually in his/her 20's or 30's, makes a decent living, and believes in some set of morals, but also does not believe that the world is going to hell in a handbasket just because they made fun of Jesus on South Park, or just because you can see Shania Twain's midriff on the cover of her album. Primarily, South Park Conservatives just want to be left alone by government so they can enjoy the finer things inherent in American life, one of which is the ability to gawk at a sometimes ridiculous and sometimes irreverent pop culture.

The Televangelist Conservative is a different story. He/she is probably in his/her 40's or even 50's by now. Came of age in the 1960's, and may have even smoked dope and engaged in "free love". Today, drives a mini-van or SUV to and from work and soccer practice. Probably lives as far out in the suburbs as possible. Believes that the world is going to hell in a handbasket because of (fill-in-the-blank). Primarily, Televangelist Conservatives want MORE government involvement so that everyone else can be saved from what he/she views as vices in our society. Supports such things as the Patriot Act, as well as a wide variety of stupid laws and regulations that "save us from ourselves".

The South Park Conservative has no problem with Bennett. After all, it's his life and he made a mistake. He's dealing with it. End of story. But the South Park Conservative does have a problem with Santorum. He has a problem with homosexual behavior and other types of sexuality. He has a right to think what he wants about these things. The problem is that he wants to exert government control in a place where it does not belong as a result of his own set of moral values.

On the other hand, the Televangelist Conservative stands behind and applauds Santorum. To the Televangelist Conservative, Santorum is standing up for God's morals about sexual behavior. In doing so, he has become the ideal political figure in the eyes of the Televangelist Conservative. But Televangelist Conservative certainly has problems with Bennett. Bennett is a hopeless sinner who is condemned to burn in hell. Just like all homosexuals.

That's the odd split in the Conservative ranks. There are two very distinct types of Conservatives, and while they may share some core values, what they desire from government officials and what they approve and disapprove of differs widely.

[JDM]

"Why don't we ever hear conservatives make "guardrail" arguments about wealthy heirs, who live by having money they didn't earn handed to them? Aren't they setting a poor example for the "underclass?""

Because people want to be rich so they can hand their children a better life. The bad example is to let people work ther entire lives to build something, then destroy it the moment they die.

"if sodomy by a famous individual threatens society, then so does complusive gambling. All or nothing- no changing the rules because you like the celebrity in question."

I don't personally beleive either threatens society, but to claim that they are equivalent, that if one does, then the other does, has no foundation in logic. Just because the arguments for allowing both are the same, doesn't mean that they are the same, or that the arguments against are the same.

"because you make the leap of claiming giving people more rights ... is somehow taking away rights people already have"

Omnibus never made this simple a claim. See joe's post above. But there are plenty of people who think that everyone should have the right to start out on the same financial footing. How does that effect property rights?

"I know it's dogmatic and purist of me to ask for a little consistency on this point, or to ask that the line between permissible and pernicious behavior be drawn in some non-arbitrary way... I must have been misled by the example of other libertarians."

The argument is really over whether the libertarian way is non-arbitrary. It is more consistent, and may lead to the best results, but it must be argued on those grounds. To believe that libertarian philosophy is somehow above the fray and without justification is, as you said, merely dogmatic.

[Eric]

Bill: The point is not that everyone has to be perfect for their arguments to be valid. The point is that Santorum, Ashcroft, Bennett et. al. have to be perfect because they're so damn self-righteous and intolerant that they expect nothing less than perfection in others. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

[trainwreck]

Stanly Kurtz wrote: "The real danger of gay marriage is that it will undermine the taboo on adultery, thereby destroying the final bastion protecting marriage: the ethos of monogamy."

All I can say is, What the f*ck is he talking about? Didn't the divorce rates rise rapidly in America in the 1950's and 1960's, well in advance of the gay rights movement?

I find consistently that these people who are supposed to be intelletual beacons for conservatives/liberals just blow hot air without apparently relying on studies or data to make their points.

But I suppose testing a hypothesis by collecting and analyzing data might uncover some uncomfortable truths.

[joe]

But JDM, the "guard rails" argument is that wealthy, powerful people who can get away with certain behaviors shouldn't do them, because poor people who follow their lead can't get away with them. If wealthy heirs don't get jobs, spend a lot on their appearance, and drink in the early afternoon, but get along just fine because of the wealth they didn't earn, the "guard rails" theory says that they are setting a bad example for those inclined to do the same thing, but who don't have the wealth. Yet the sloth of the leisure class is never questioned, while sloth by the low born is constantly trotted out as the most serious of social pathologies. It is a perfect Murphy Brown argument, yet the Right never makes it. Why?

My current hypothesis: 1)guard rail theory sucks, and 2)conservatives would rather dismember their mothers than irritate the inheritors of vast wealth.

[Mark S.]

While reading these posts I find that the libertarians here are trying to couch their responses to the likes of Omnibus Bill and Rich with polite language. While thinking they are engaging in "civil" debate, I fear they are avoiding calling these individuals what they are: Disgusting, backward, bigots.

Being a libertarian who does not subscribe to the facade we call "civility" I'm not afraid to call a spade a spade.

Can any conservative give me a reason why homosexuality should be considered "immoral" that doesn't rely on the edicts of any of the mythological deities they mindlessly worship each Sunday morning? Can they give one shred or scrape of emperical evidence to suggest that gays, lesbians, and bisexuals should be at best treated a pariahs or at worst punished for enagaging in there lifestyle? Anything? Anything at all?

It's high time that we "normalized" homosexuality. This is the year 2003, not 1003. We don't burn "heretics" and "witches" at the stake anymore. We don't believe that Earth is the center of the universe. We know that vermin are not spontaneously generated from rotting meat and that diseases are caused by "bad humors." The medieval--indeed primitive--belief that people of the same gender who want to engage in consensual sexual relationship will somehow destroy civilization must also pass away.

Libertarians aren't opposed to guard rails, stops signs, or any other safety measure we just A) wish them to be privately owned, B) To be used in a logical way. The same could be said for morality, we want it to make sense. We want it to be based on preventing real, actual threats to life and limb while allowing people to make decisions on how best to live.

We want our morality to be rational, not based upon superstition and religious dogma... whoops, sorry for being redundant. Those who would circumvent freedom for what they ludicrously call "morality" should be regarded by civilization as I do: As disgusting, backward, bigots.

[JDM]

joe,

My point is that the gaurd rails argument is used against people who set a bad example, and claim they are setting a good one, not just people who set a bad example. It is consistent not to apply it to the leisure class.

Even if that weren't true, I'd think you are wrong to imply that conservatives are hypocrits for not writing editorials about the influence of obscure wealthy heirs, while they write about the influence of Hollywood liberals given the enormous difference in visiblity between the two.

If Leisure Class the reality series came out next fall, do you think it wouldn't be excoriated in the conservative press?

Also, it's never been my impression that conservative pundits approve of jobless millionaire playboys.

"BTW, two thirds of AFDC recepients held jobs even before welfare reform. Your prejudiced stereotyping of low income people as lazy demonstrates only that you don't know what you're talking about."

Your statistic demonstrates that out of the gate, AFDC recipients work 1/3 less than the average American. As for the rest, the statistics - that a huge majority of the poor get out of the poor bracket, and that the standard of living of the poor continues to rise - demonstrate that there is very little downward mobility in this country, and that income is determined more by an individual's decisions than your prejudices will allow you to believe.

[joe]

JDM,

"The truth is that the vast majority of wealthy people work extremely hard, whether they inherited their wealth or not, so that it's not really a problem. Whereas, with few exceptions, the poor do not. As a class, wealthy people set a good example, to a conservative especially." The issue is not wealthy people as a whole (most of whom do work hard, and earned most of their money). The issue is a subset of wealthy people, those who inherited enough wealth to never have to work. And while the jobless millionaire playboy demographic may not be taking out advocacy ads, they are certainly not invisible in the media.

[trainwreck]

JDM: Excellent study! And it makes my point exactly, so hopefully we can finally be on the same page here: the Dallas study shows that 95% of poor people work hard, and eventually they get out of poverty.

But there is still that small percentage of people who don't, who are the chronic poor. And I submit there are a lot of circumstances involved for the chronic poor: substance abuse, physical or mental illness, many are immigrants who don't speak english, elderly on Soc Sec, etc.

You can't pull yourself up by the bootstraps if you don't have boots on, and that is reality for some, but not most.

[joe]

JDM,

The rarety of nonworking wealthy people is no excuse, either, for conservative's refusal to criticize them for failing to set guardrails. Most wealthy single women don't have children, but that doesn't mute the criticism of those who do.

BTW, two thirds of AFDC recepients held jobs even before welfare reform. Your prejudiced stereotyping of low income people as lazy demonstrates only that you don't know what you're talking about.

[Brian]

Question: Has Bill Bennett ever been divorced?
I know he gambled all of his wife's shopping money away, but is his first wife his only wife?

He sure is stupid for a Dr.

[Eisenberg Jenny]

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