Reason.tv: Get Government out of Welfare Now! An Interview with Star Parker

"I know firsthand about welfare and welfare dependency because of my own life, living seven years in and out," says Star Parker, founder and president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE).

Parker, also a syndicated columnist, explains what she thinks are the actual steps out of poverty and why our government should have no role in welfare in America.

Started as part of the Lyndon Johnson's Great Society in the 1960s, the War on Poverty has been anything but effective, according to Parker. "This whole notion that we should even have a 'war on poverty' dismisses the fact that individuals have a role in their own lives," she says.

Parker sat down with Reason.tv's Tracy Oppenheimer to talk about her own experiences with the welfare system, and how she wants to reform it, even beyond the historic changes to welfare in the 1990s. 

About 8 minutes. Shot by Paul Detrick, Zach Weissmueller, and Sharif Matar; edited by Oppenheimer.

Visit Reason.tv for downloadable versions and subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube channel for automatic notifications when new material goes live.

Comments

[Paul]

OT: but thinking about things like Urban Renewal and what-not, I was listening to NPR on my way in this morning and they had a piece on Chicago's population with the new Census figures, and how they "have" to redistrict based on the new racial makeup.

Without batting an eye, NPR went on to report about how political redistricting now needs to take place to take into consideration the changes to the black and latino populations there.

I was floored. We've gone from a nation trying to beat back the scourge of racism, to urban progressives institutionalizing and sanctifying it.

[Suki]

NPR would not have anything to worry about if Blacks and Hispanics Immigrants stayed in their own neighborhoods, like the NPR types want them to. An inconvenient fact is that people move to nicer places when they can afford it.

[wareagle]

We've gone from a nation trying to beat back the scourge of racism, to urban progressives institutionalizing and sanctifying it.
----------------------------------
this speaks to the activist mindset. If a problem or issue is ever corrected, what would those people do the following day? Since getting real jobs that create wealth is total anathema, they must work to perpetuate the "problem" whether it exists or not.

The left depends on racism, even the idea of it, for its political survival. Liberals use it as a scare tactic and hope blacks won't notice that virtually every policy that was ostensibly designed to help minorities has had the opposite effect.

[Ramones]

You can say that again!

[the wareagle activist mindset]

the activist mindset.

Lawdy! Nobody has an activist mindset like a god-damned calvinist-capitalist.

If a problem or issue is ever corrected

Corrected? What if there is no problem at all?

The life of an Indian is a continual holiday. ~Thomas Paine

But a continual holiday isn't good enough, hell, it's LAZY AND SINFUL!

Since getting real jobs

As Robert Anton Wilson observed:

Suppose, for a moment, we challenge this Calvinistic mind-set. Let us regard wage-work -- as most people do, in fact, regard it -- as a curse, a drag, a nuisance, a barrier that stands between us and what we really want to do. In that case, your job is the disease, and unemployment is the cure.

"But without working for wages we'll all starve to death!?! Won't we?"

Not at all. Many farseeing social thinkers have suggested intelligent and plausible plans for adapting to a society of rising unemployment. Here are some examples...

Read the rest here:
The RICH Economy
by Robert Anton Wilson
http://www.whywork.org/rethink.....ilson.html

Go ahead, wareagle, give me your best aggressive butch-macho conservitard response.

I bet I needed beat more as a kid, right? LOLOLOL

[White Indian counts coup...]

...on "libertarian" activist mindsets.

[Mr. FIFY]

Fuck. Now he's added "Calvinist" to his list of bullshit.

[Dolphin]

I thought Calvinists considered poker and other forms of gamboling immoral...

[Mr. FIFY]

But how do they feel about online gamboling?

[wareagle]

I bet I needed beat more as a kid, right
----------------------
all that reading and, yet, can't even come up with your own name. Aside from all the pseudo-intellectual bullshit, please name the activist organization that has successfully eliminated the program it claims to care so much about.

Then again, you're the guy advocating that folks stop working and try out the bromides offered up in the link.

[wareagle]

We've gone from a nation trying to beat back the scourge of racism, to urban progressives institutionalizing and sanctifying it.
----------------------------------
this speaks to the activist mindset. If a problem or issue is ever corrected, what would those people do the following day? Since getting real jobs that create wealth is total anathema, they must work to perpetuate the "problem" whether it exists or not.

The left depends on racism, even the idea of it, for its political survival. Liberals use it as a scare tactic and hope blacks won't notice that virtually every policy that was ostensibly designed to help minorities has had the opposite effect.

[DoubleU]

"the War on Poverty has been anything but effective,"

What "War On..." has been effective? The war on crime, the war on poverty, the war on drugs, the war on terror. It is time to bring an end to all the "warrons", DON'T BE A WARRON!

[Spencer]

War on brown people and tha gays- while officially undeclared- were very successful for a long time are still amazingly successful.

[WWNGD]

The war on brown people hasn't been labeled as such. It is effective because the biggest supporters are the very same people they are at war with. The government found a way for people to keep themselves down and struggling while fighting for more ways to keep them down.

[WWNGD]

...and I just watched the video, I agree with what she says.

[Suki]

They have been very effective in capturing certain voting blocks long enough to ignore the needs of the voters.

[Uncle Milty]

The War on Freedom?

[Spencer]

Racism is racist.

[J Cuttance]

LO.bloody.L
I want to put that on a T-shirt.
Meaninglessness is deep, sometimes.

[yonemoto]

More Star, less tracy.

[Colin]

This woman ran in my congressional district, in a Republican year, against a woman who could only best be described as a criminal, and still only got 20% of the vote.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Is your district's active voters primarily on the dole?

[Kristen]

My Congresscritter is at best shady, but most likely has had some criminal goings-on, and he is elected by 80+% every two years, even "Republican years". It just speaks to the ignorant tribalism of the voting public.

[Matrix]

He could probably rape and murder a college co-ed and still get elected.

[cw]

It's not just the politicians/bureaucrats who are corrupt, but whole populations segments. Patronage is a mighty powerful weapon.

[Spencer]

Don't you patronage me! Wait...

[There is no "we"]

Twenty percent are of a stupid you can't fix.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

My wife and I voted for Star Parker. Too bad she lost. Laura Richardson is a terrible human being.

[cw]

So why don't we ever hear from women like Star in more mainstream publications?

[Paul]

She's a race traitor. Straight up.

[Spencer]

Aunty Thomasina?

[wareagle]

So why don't we ever hear from women like Star in more mainstream publications?
-----------------------------
there are a few of them - Deborah Saunders in San Fran, Michelle Malkin, and some others but since they are not in league with the sisterhood, they get the Hermain Cain treatment. Of course, the more direct answer is there is no such thing as a "mainstream publication"..seems mainstream is kind of like progressive, another way of saying left-leaning.

[NAL]

I don't know, but I would very much like to meet Star Parker and shake her hand. She is a truly someone to admire.

[Alan]

Yes, quite admirable. Best of luck to her.

[F Hart]

THE KIDS!!111!! THINK ABOUT THE KIDS!!!11!

[Libertarian]

Poor kids should starve to death! It was their choice to have shitty parents!

[WTF]

STFU, Toni.

[Left Winger]

Starving kids will starve to death if we don't force other people to do what I think they should, but refuse to do on my own without being forced to.

[There is no "we"]

Yes, true, exactly.

If there are kids that do not have enough food apart from a government guarantee, and if private parties choose not to feed the kids then, Q.E.D., the kids will, in fact, go hungry without a government guarantee (unless they steal food).

This is very nearly a tautology. I hope you weren't trying to be sarcastic, because if you were, it was a cosmic fail.

[Old Mexican]

Re: There is no brain,

If there are kids that do not have enough food apart from a government guarantee, and if private parties choose not to feed the kids then, Q.E.D., the kids will, in fact, go hungry without a government guarantee

Begging the question much, eh brainless?

[There is no "we"]

Okay. Here we go. Attention K-Mart shoppers. Blue Light Special in the sententious know-it-all aisle.

Fine: What's the "question" that's being "begged" OM?

[It's the libertarian fallacy..]

...than any argument they don't like is a fallacy that they pick off a list.

[There is no "we"]

Archtypical Reason dot com thread:

Libertarian - "The poor don't pay any taxes."

Non-Libertarian - "Not really true."

Libertarian - "Citation needed!"

Non-Libertarian - "Here's a link to the charts: xxx."

Libertarian - "Troll! Troll!"

Libertarian's Buddy: "Don't feed the troll!!!"

Libertarian's Other Buddy: "STFU Retard! Your Mom! Derp! Derp! Derp!"

[Fundamentalist True Believers]

Ever debate a young earth creationist?

Same shit, different day.

Libertarianism is a secular version of Calvinism, whitewashed with the secularized Golden Rule, the non-aggression principle.

And they're about as good at following it as Calvinists are the Golden Rule.

Mostly, they want to see people burn in hell and talk about how much better they are as the chosen ones.

[Mr. FIFY]

I thought we were Christ-fags who smoke pot.

[shrike]

That's MY schtick!

Wherever I am, that is. Hopefully, I'm dead.

[Aristotle]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question

[DEM]

At this point, is starving to death a worse fate than the instituinal poverty to which your wlefare programs have condemned them?

[There is no "we"]

Newsflash for DEM: it is possible to learn to swim in water that does not go above your chin.

[Old Mexican]

Re: There is no brain,

it is possible to learn to swim in water that does not go above your chin.

Depends on where you have your chin...

[There is no "we"]

I'm thoroughly grossed out already.

[soonerliberty]

Add a new one: The War on Nature and Scarcity

[There is no "we"]

Start with the corporate welfare.

When you have that completely taken care of, then get back to me about the welfare that poor people get.

See you in about, fifty-years-to-never.

[califronian]

I couldn't agree more, unless your definition of corporate welfare is non-taxation. End all corporate subsidies, handouts, bailouts, protectionism, and taxation.

Also end welfare as we know it. At best, increase the EIC.

[There is no "we"]

Oh, sweet! So as long as it's framed as "non-taxation" it isn't a handout?

Great. The new law will be: anything spent on my favorite food/clothing/entertainment/transportation will be subsidi-- I mean, "fully deductable" from my income taxes. Any loss of revenue will be made up with a general rate increase.

Sounds "fair" to me. Sounds ideal, actually!

[Old Mexican]

Re: There is no brain,

Oh, sweet! So as long as it's framed as "non-taxation" it isn't a handout?

The money I make is not the government's, turd.

[There is no "we"]

Exactly! So get yourself a special tax carve-out for your particular expenditures, and stick everybody else with the increased general rate. It all makes sense!

Why won't everybody just wise and and see it your way? It must be everybody else. It couldn't be you. You've got it all figured out perfectly. You're too good for the world, my friend.

[Brother Grimm]

So... not taking something in the first place SHOULD be considered a handout? Huh, never would have thought of that.

Turns out, I still don't.

[There is no "we"]

Supra. Applies to you, too. You're just too good for this world, man. Everybody should see it the same way you do.

[califronian]

"Oh, sweet! So as long as it's framed as "non-taxation" it isn't a handout?"

You know the definition of handout right?

[There is no "we"]

Yes. And apparently, I'm the only one who does around here.

[There is no "we"]

Ah, what's better than the EIC? Let the taxpayer give the lowest-paid workers more money so that the employers can offset by paying them even less.

Taxpayer-funded employees for the benefit of fast-food corporate America!
So worthy!
So righteous!
So not-distorting!
So remote from the "pathological culture of depedency!"

Please.
Go.
Get.
Bent.

[Old Mexican]

Re: There is no brain,

Start with the corporate welfare.

When you have that completely taken care of, then get back to me about the welfare that poor people get.

Let's simply shrink government, and both will be taken care of simutaneously. m'kay??

[There is no "we"]

Uh, no. Corporate welfare first, then we go gunning for the poor, second.

Otherwise, get stuffed.

[Let's simply shrink government]

Eliminate regulations on the land that draw artificial borders and restrict and prevent the free movement of people to live in a Non-State sociopolitical typology.

Oh, I bet you don't want to shrink government's biggest enTitlement program of all time, do you?

[There is no "we"]

Exclusionary zoning was covered in Reason dot com exactly once, and the topic faded away like an 80's one-hit-wonder.

[I want to be a cowboy]

and you can be my cowgirl

[Mr. FIFY]

White Indian just keeps making up the bullshit gag titles, doesn't he?

As well as just bullshit.

[califronian]

Shit! This was White Indian? Damn i've tried to ignore him entirely.

[Can't stop the signal, Mal]

[What's the frequency, Kenneth?]

[califronian]

You realize that people like Star, and other libertarians are not "gunning for the poor" right? As long as you operate on the ad-hominem level of understanding you will never get anywhere with this.

Almost all libertarian arguments against government happen to also be something they believe will be a benefit to the poor.

[There is no "we"]

Yeah, well, maybe I "believe" that yanking a life jacket off of somebody flopping around in the water will somehow instantly teach them to swim on their own. That would make me either a lying prick or a total retard. Calling people what they are might be "ad hominem" but if it's the truth, so what?

[Raston Bot]

Smells like socon to me.

http://townhall.com/columnists.....ne_freedom

Yet these same libertarians, who accept the gravity of changing the meaning of words in a document several hundred years old, in a blink of an eye use money and political power to change the meaning of a word thousands of years old.

Not just any word. A word ? marriage ? central to human social reality.

[NAL]

You don't have to be a socon to oppose gay marriage. I oppose gay marriage because it's just another way for people (gays, in this case) to qualify for more SS/Medicare benefits (i.e. via spousal benefits). In fact, years from now, I can see it being abused by heterosexual same-sex friends ("Since you're about to die, let's pretend we're gay and get married so I can get your higher benefits payout.")

[Joshua Conring]

just another way for people (gays, in this case) to qualify for more SS/Medicare benefits

Idiotic reasoning.

"Lets withhold a small group of people's liberty become this other fucked up thing."

Fix the original thing that is broke don't limit others freedoms to "fix" it.

[NAL]

Okay. You get the original thing fixed and get back to me. Till then, my stance stays.

[Joshua Conring]

I can see it being abused by heterosexual same-sex friends ("Since you're about to die, let's pretend we're gay and get married so I can get your higher benefits payout.")

And why again is this more wrong then if a man and a woman "fake" a marriage to get benefits?

Again idiotic reasoning.

[Mr. FIFY]

Where's Tony? He usually sniffs out the gay-marriage topics immediately.

[NAL]

It's not, but it just multiplies the fraud opportunity.

[Kevin]

I'm not sure how many people are making the mistake of classifying Star Parker as a libertarian. However, the libertarian community should be able to support her in the effort to curb the welfare state.

[There is no "we"]

How pragmatic of you. After all, you have to have big tent and pump up your alliances in order to take on the powerful, predatory special interest groups, like single mothers on food stamps.

[Kevin]

MS. Parker provides some perfectly good examples of how welfare policy has harmed those it was intended to help, and you just ignore it. Go ahead, keep handing out those government blankets laced with smallpox. You and White Idiot can snuggle together. Don't worry, when you start to get sick from those blankets, Uncle Sam will offer you medical coverage. Of course, then you'll find out that "coverage" and "care" are not the same thing at all.

BTW, I really do give a shit about the poor.

[There is no "we"]

Yes, you reallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreally do.

You say so all the time.

[jimbo]

In other news:
http://www.theonion.com/articl.....cle,26484/

[Joshua Conring]

Started as part of the Lyndon Johnson's Great Society in the 1960s, the War on Poverty has been anything but effective, according to Parker. "This whole notion that we should even have a 'war on poverty' dismisses the fact that individuals have a role in their own lives," she says.

"she says", "according to Parker"

Scare quotes!!!

You are dismissing her!!

Racist!!!

*yes I am being sarcastic because of the stupid shit people are saying on the Cain thread.

[illini]

That's great. Actually, the Occupy Wall Street protesters agree. They want government out of Welfare, too...corporate welfare.

[L Ron Cupboard]

Though I agree with just about everything Star says here, I'm really bothered by her views on other topics, like homosexuality, sex education and abortion. She's vehemently against all of these, and takes the typical narrow-minded stance of so many other religious conservatives. She claims to value independence and free choice, but apparently not when it involves your bedroom activities.

[truth]

hey star... you are a fool. buffalo soldier.