Did 'The Great Society' Ruin Society?

[John81]

Did 'The Great Society' Ruin Society?
By Patrick J. Buchanan
Friday - February 24, 2012

"I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs a repair, I'll fix it."

Thus did Mitt Romney supposedly commit the gaffe of the month -- for we are not to speak of the poor without unctuous empathy.

Yet, as Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation reports in "Understanding Poverty in the United States: Surprising Facts About America's Poor," Mitt was more right about America's magnanimity than those who bewail her alleged indifference.

First, who are the poor?

To qualify, a family of four in 2010 needed to earn less than $22,314. Some 46 million Americans, 15 percent of the population, qualified.

And in what squalor were America's poor forced to live?

Well, 99 percent had a refrigerator and stove, two-thirds had a plasma TV, a DVD player and access to cable or satellite, 43 percent were on the Internet, half had a video game system like PlayStation or Xbox.

Three-fourths of the poor had a car or truck, nine in 10 a microwave, 80 percent had air conditioning. In 1970, only 36 percent of the U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.

America's poor enjoy amenities almost no one had in the 1950s, when John K. Galbraith described us as "The Affluent Society."

What about homelessness? Are not millions of America's poor on the street at night, or shivering in shelters or crowded tenements?

Well, actually, no. That is what we might call televised poverty. Of the real poor, fewer than 10 percent live in trailers, 40 percent live in apartments, and half live in townhouses or single-family homes.

Forty-one percent of poor families own their own home.

But are they not packed in like sardines, one on top of another?

Not exactly. The average poor person's home in America has 1,400 square feet -- more living space than do Europeans in 23 of the 25 wealthiest countries on the continent.

Two-thirds of America's poor have two rooms per person, while 94 percent have at least one room per person in the family dwelling.

Only one in 25 poor persons in America uses a homeless shelter, and only briefly, sometime during the year.

What about food? Do not America's poor suffer chronically from malnutrition and hunger?

Not so. The daily consumption of proteins, vitamins and minerals of poor children is roughly the same as that of the middle class, and the poor consume more meat than the upper middle class.

Some 84 percent of America's poor say they always have enough food to eat, while 13 percent say sometimes they do not, and less than 4 percent say they often do not have enough to eat.

Only 2.6 percent of poor children report stunted growth. Poor kids in America are, on average, an inch taller and 10 pounds heavier than the youth of the Greatest Generation that won World War II.

In fiscal year 2011, the U.S. government spent $910 billion on 70 means-tested programs, which comes to an average of $9,000 per year on every lower-income person in the United States.

Among the major programs from which the poor receive benefits are Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, the Earned Income Tax Credit, Supplemental Security Income, food stamps, the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) food program, Medicaid, public housing, low-income energy assistance and the Social Service Block Grant.

Children of the poor are educated free, K-12, and eligible for preschool Head Start, and Perkins Grants, Pell Grants and student loans for college.

Lyndon Johnson told us this was the way to build a Great Society.

Did we? Federal and state spending on social welfare is approaching $1 trillion a year, $17 trillion since the Great Society was launched, not to mention private charity. But we have witnessed a headlong descent into social decomposition.

Half of all children born to women under 30 in America now are illegitimate. Three in 10 white children are born out of wedlock, as are 53 percent of Hispanic babies and 73 percent of black babies.

Rising right along with the illegitimacy rate is the drug-use rate, the dropout rate, the crime rate and the incarceration rate.

The family, cinder block of society, is disintegrating, and along with it, society itself. Writes Rector, "The welfare system is more like a 'safety bog' than a safety net."

Heritage scholars William Beach and Patrick Tyrrell put Rector's numbers in perspective:

"Today ... 67.3 million Americans -- from college students to retirees to welfare beneficiaries -- depend on the federal government for housing, food, income, student aid or other assistance. ... The United States reached another milestone in 2010. For the first time in history, half the population pays no federal income taxes."

The 19th century statesman John C. Calhoun warned against allowing government to divide us into "tax-payers and tax-consumers." This, he said, "would give rise to two parties and to violent conflicts and struggles between them, to obtain the control of the government."

We are there, Mr. Calhoun, we are there.


SOURCE: http://buchanan.org/blog/did-the-great-society-ruin-society-5014

[swathdiver]

Did 'The Great Society' Ruin Society?

The Great Society along with the New Deal contributed greatly to America's decline. The worst IMO was the destruction of the family unit, especially among black folks.

While America's poor are some of the materially richest people on earth, spiritually, like most of the world, they are dead inside having traded God for government.

[JerryNumbers]

The reason we are here is:
1. It a fallen World.
2. Its society is populated & run by lost people.
3. Not far off Jesus will come for His own, & the beginning of the end will start.
4. Finally its going just as God said it would within the pages of the Bible.

Strange thing, most of my neighbors thinks that I'm rich, yet actually by Linda's & my income we would be considered poor. Through the years we lived within our means & while others were moving from new house to new house keeping on making payments for new larger & fancier new houses, buying new cars nearly every year, going on expensive vacations, having all the latest new gadgets, we were getting everything paid off living a quite simple life. Now I'm just over 65 & we do not have no debts, yet the majority that's my age around here are still working for they cannot afford to retire, if they did they could not make car, house, credit card payments, nor keep on going on expensive vacations while keeping up with the world.

I could not run with the big dogs, so I stayed on the porch.

[HappyChristian]

I could not run with the big dogs, so I stayed on the porch.

Yes, the Great Society certainly contributed to our ruined society. But just as Jerry said, it's a fallen world. And our society is more and more turning away from the only Hope for lifting us up - not necessarily financially, although He does take care of His own. Like His own used to take care of others, but don't need to now because the government does it...

[John81]

This raises another question, and since I started the thread I suppose I can rabbit trail

I hear conflciting views with regards to how the time prior to the end-times is to be. One groups says things will get worse and worse, times will be horrible (a time which Christians will live through) and then there will be a Rapture of Christians...

The other groups says times will be good prior to a Rapture of Christians, that everything will be about peace, folks will be busy marrying and eating and drinking as they do in good times, with no expectation that the end is near. This, they say, is why Chirst coming for His own will catch most by surprise.

Along with this, regardless of view, are we to believe the whole world will be like view One or Two, or are we only to think that part of the world will be like that?

For example, America is in a terrible economic condition, but China is excelling in this area. Folks are going hungry in South Sudan while in America even the poor tend to be overfed.

Americans will not elect a true Christian or a true constitutionalist and unless there is some major change, Americans won't follow Christ either. All that bodes ill for America but not necessarily for many other countries.

[JerryNumbers]

Yes, the Great Society certainly contributed to our ruined society. But just as Jerry said, it's a fallen world. And our society is more and more turning away from the only Hope for lifting us up - not necessarily financially, although He does take care of His own. Like His own used to take care of others, but don't need to now because the government does it...

With each new generation of Christians, Christians are more & more accepting & taking up the ways of our Lord, & of course that leaves fewer Christians that are among the peculiar people that God intends us to be when He makes us into that new man.

I find it quite amazing at the number of Christian young people, ages 18 to 30, or so, that thinks there's nothing given in the Bible that prevents them from moving in together, shacking up without the benefit of marriage. Not to rehash this topic on home schooling but there is one thing I have noticed, those that do this, the large majority attended public schools, & very few that were home schooled tend do this. And generally the one the Christian shacks up with was not raised up in church.

[Invicta]

In the 1911 census, my grandparents were living in one room in London, (no of rooms in the census includes kitchen). Also with them was my Aunt, aged 3 and my mother aged about 22 months. Also with them was my grandmother's mother. 5 people in one room. This was in St Stephen's square in Southwark, South East London. There is a book on line, although I cannot find it at present, called 12 years in Kent Street, by the vicar of St Stephen;s Church in the square, which details the living conditions in the area about 30 years before the census. They were really poor in those days.

[1Timothy115]

In the 1911 census, my grandparents were living in one room in London, (no of rooms in the census includes kitchen). Also with them was my Aunt, aged 3 and my mother aged about 22 months. Also with them was my grandmother's mother. 5 people in one room. This was in St Stephen's square in Southwark, South East London. There is a book on line, although I cannot find it at present, called 12 years in Kent Street, by the vicar of St Stephen;s Church in the square, which details the living conditions in the area about 30 years before the census. They were really poor in those days.

Yes and here during the depression years.

I was poor growing up but happy. We rented a house but we had to have help paying our gas bill. Relatives helped with the shortfalls. We had hand made clothes, no car, and the Lions&Legion charity brought a basket of fruit and nuts to our door at Christmas. Yet, we were happy and probably thought little of our being poor or needy. I knew other children who were in the same if not a worse condition financially. This was in the 1950s-1960s.

[JerryNumbers]

In 1950, father, mother, grandmother, sister, & I lived in a 2 bedroom house, about 55 father added on 2 bedrooms, plus added a bathroom with hot water heater, at that time we put the # 3 wash tub away, but we still had the wash pot which we built a fire under to heat water to wash clothes. Also on chicken killing day we would heat water in the wash pot to scald the feathers making them easier to pluck out.

I recall some of me shirts, & many of my sister dresses were made out of flour sacks. Seems I also remember us having drying towels, & dish cloths that came with forur sacks or something like that. And I drank my tea & milk out of snuff glasses.

Grandma's fried chicken, & gravy was the best.

[John81]

I was the first one in our family to be born in hospital and I was a toddler when Dad installed our indoor bathroom. That was the first time either my Mom or Dad had ever lived in a house with an indoor bathroom.

[JerryNumbers]

I was born at home, but a doctor was present.

[Oldtimer]

Born of depression era parents, grew up on a small share-cropper farm, without modern conveniences. When I married at age 21, my parents still didn't have running water or an indoor toilet. Remember well when electricity came to our farm. Prior to that Mama cooked on a wood cookstove and we ate supper by oil lamp light. That was back in the early 50's. Remember that specifically because to hear the news, we'd go outside and listen to the radio in Dad's 1950 model car.

Since I've been old enough to be "aware", I've watched the change in society with the implementation of "social programs". IMHO, the "Great Society" did its part to ruin society. Plus, looking back into history, the New Deal and "a chicken in every pot" has brought us to ruin. Yes, ruin. We (society) just aren't admitting it, yet. The stats posted earlier are just some of the indicators of what our "entitled" and "me" society has brought us to this point.

Often, when reading the Bible, I see parallels between what's happening today and what brought down God's wrath on the Hebrews. Often, too, wonder if we're in the end times. Naturally, there's no way of knowing if this is indeed the end times or we're simply going to experience a fall similar to those in the past suffered by others who turned from our Creator.

The other day I was thinking about how few people around me can truely count their blessings. If they've never lived without air conditioning or a flushing toilet, those aren't blessings to them. If they've never had to split firewood for a kitchen stove, a microwave isn't a blessing. One more... If they've never had to grow, dig, and peel their own potatoes, it isn't a blessing to pick up French fries at a drive through window. Today, instead of being thankful for the conveniences of this age, so many demand them as a right. Society must ensure that no one has to go without _________ that didn't exist 50-100 years ago.

In closing, when society provides, the recepients must conform to what society dictates, not what God expects from each one. Anyone want a bite from an apple?

[John81]

Born of depression era parents, grew up on a small share-cropper farm, without modern conveniences. When I married at age 21, my parents still didn't have running water or an indoor toilet. Remember well when electricity came to our farm. Prior to that Mama cooked on a wood cookstove and we ate supper by oil lamp light. That was back in the early 50's. Remember that specifically because to hear the news, we'd go outside and listen to the radio in Dad's 1950 model car.

Since I've been old enough to be "aware", I've watched the change in society with the implementation of "social programs". IMHO, the "Great Society" did its part to ruin society. Plus, looking back into history, the New Deal and "a chicken in every pot" has brought us to ruin. Yes, ruin. We (society) just aren't admitting it, yet. The stats posted earlier are just some of the indicators of what our "entitled" and "me" society has brought us to this point.

Often, when reading the Bible, I see parallels between what's happening today and what brought down God's wrath on the Hebrews. Often, too, wonder if we're in the end times. Naturally, there's no way of knowing if this is indeed the end times or we're simply going to experience a fall similar to those in the past suffered by others who turned from our Creator.

The other day I was thinking about how few people around me can truely count their blessings. If they've never lived without air conditioning or a flushing toilet, those aren't blessings to them. If they've never had to split firewood for a kitchen stove, a microwave isn't a blessing. One more... If they've never had to grow, dig, and peel their own potatoes, it isn't a blessing to pick up French fries at a drive through window. Today, instead of being thankful for the conveniences of this age, so many demand them as a right. Society must ensure that no one has to go without _________ that didn't exist 50-100 years ago.

In closing, when society provides, the recepients must conform to what society dictates, not what God expects from each one. Anyone want a bite from an apple?

Excellent post!

I'm the last one in my family to remember some of the "harder living" times. My sister is seven years younger than me so by the time she was old enough to start noticing things our family had and the times had moved out of that.

I was about 3 when we got indoor plumbing. I still remember the electricity being unreliable during bad weather, not really even that bad, and usuing the kerosene lamps we still had from before electricity. We had a huge garden that was actually used to feed us, not just a hobby. We had chickens and raised a few rabbits too. We also had our hunting dogs and put a lot of wild game on the table for meat. When my bluejeans got a whole in them or started to wear out in the knees we put patches on them and kept wearing them. We had no air conditioning, microwaves or any of that which most take for granted today. We didn't get a washer and dryer until about 1970 or 1971.

It's amazing what so many younger folks seem to think they are "owed". If they don't have things just their way they whine and complain to their parents, most of which give in to them, or they go looking for others to provide for them.

Most youth today seem to think that everything their parents spent a lifetime working for is something they should automatically have handed to them as soon as they decide to move out.

Yes, I've thanked God for the simple blessing of having indoor plumbing and hot water! Meanwhile, most in America have no idea how many millions around the world would literally give a limb to trade places with the most "deprived" of them.