It's not much of a link post--just three articles. But all three are very good.
(edit: 5 articles)
(2nd edit: 6 articles)
- First up, "Why $70 Million Wasn't Enough." This was maybe the most entertaining article we read last year. It's tangible proof of something we've discussed with the guys at Pendulum Politics--specifically, that CEO pay has to compete with the guys in hedge funds and private equity.
- Next, an enlightening article about Bill Cosby and black conservatism. It's good and informative, but reader beware w/regards to the author's interpretation of African American history.
James Q. Wilson has shown that slavery caused by far the greatest damage to the black family. And Thomas Sowell's research has proven that African American families were gaining ground economically on white families prior to Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" and some of the other bad policy to come out of that era.
- Finally, from Commentary magazine, an in depth look at "the anatomy of The Surge."
*UPDATE 11 May 11:58pm MST: (hat tip: S. Lybbert) A friendly reminder for those who still think we should/could exit Iraq and everything would be hunky-dory. Popular historian Arthur Herman wrote in the Wall Street Journal about the lives lost after the US withdrew its support in Cambodia and Vietnam. Democrats can close their eyes and plug their ears but it wasn't pretty.
In other news, we still fail to understand the logic of those who argue for intervention in Darfur, but want the US to immediately withdraw from Iraq. Uh, ok.
**UPDATE 11 May 11:59pm MST: (hat tip: Matt Lybbert) We're not experts, but we are economically literate. Check out this article by David Leonhardt in the New York Times on the future potential of economics to solve social problems. (yes, that New York Times)
***UPDATE 12 May 1:03pm MST (h/t: Matt Lybbert): Which of the three remaining candidates is least populist? We think that award should go to John McCain. You see, McCain remains in favor of Nafta and is one of the few and definitely the most visible politician arguing for the virtues of free trade. Check out this article, another from the NYT.
If you have tips, questions, comments, suggestions, or requests for subscription only articles, email us at lybberty@gmail.com.
Showing posts with label James Q. Wilson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label James Q. Wilson. Show all posts
09 May 2008
02 April 2008
Family Follow-Up
Yesterday's post prompted some very thoughtful discussion. We appreciate your comments whether you agree with our point or not.
We hope that you will not get distracted, as in times past, by our examples. Of course gay marriage is an issue that affects the family, but it is by no means the only or even the biggest issue--it's part of a larger cultural problem afflicting marriage. The larger cultural problem surrounding marriage is that marriage and family is no longer a big deal. And we don't mean this in the Anchorman sense.
Marriage and families are started on a whim. We keep referring to Wilson because he's awesome, and his point about the diminution of the family bears repeating--especially for those of you who haven't done your homework. Speaking of marriage, Wilson wrote
We can think of few more selfish acts.
Then, they either get married or put the child up for adoption or abort the baby, etc., etc.--nearly all of these, certainly the most common, are complete abrogations of their filial responsibilities.
As "rights" have increased in this country, so too have the methods for escaping what should be the responsibilities that automatically accompany them. It's easy to point to women and the right to choose, but where are the prospective fathers? Don't they care at all for their children? Historically, men have always been able to avoid their paternal responsibility because they can just up and leave. Rarely could a woman could do the same with her pregnancy. Abortion, in some women's minds, has leveled the playing field--as though sex and children were some sort of tit-for-tat game.
Spikers is right in the sense that it would probably take a Constitutional Amendment to legally protect marriage in this country. As difficult as that may be, it doesn't mean that it's not a battle worth fighting.
An equally difficult battle, but one which we can fight every day, is the larger cultural battle that buruboi referred to in their comments:
For this reason, we oppose abortion and pop cultural attacks on the family and gay marriage and all that stuff because it all affects the family. And for us, the family isn't just this nebulous thing that needs saving just because of political-religious mores. For us, it makes good policy sense. As we mentioned in yesterday's post, strengthen the family and you strengthen America. Want to combat crime or illiteracy or, pretty much anything? Do whatever you can to encourage the necessary policy and legal and cultural changes to help America's families.
*UPDATE 3 April 12:20am MST: Obama's Abortion Extremism, by Michael Gerson
If you have tips, questions, comments, suggestions, or requests for subscription only articles, email us at lybberty@gmail.com.
We hope that you will not get distracted, as in times past, by our examples. Of course gay marriage is an issue that affects the family, but it is by no means the only or even the biggest issue--it's part of a larger cultural problem afflicting marriage. The larger cultural problem surrounding marriage is that marriage and family is no longer a big deal. And we don't mean this in the Anchorman sense.
Marriage and families are started on a whim. We keep referring to Wilson because he's awesome, and his point about the diminution of the family bears repeating--especially for those of you who haven't done your homework. Speaking of marriage, Wilson wrote
we have learned how it (marriage) can be undercut by people who think that their lives will be fuller, their opportunities greater, and their burdens fewer if they are allowed to treat sex as recreation, children as toys, and income as an obligation of government rather than a result of work.We probably should have had said that "relationships and children" are had on a whim. Meaning, people get together, live together, whatever and have unwanted children with little or no thought to the consequences.
We can think of few more selfish acts.
Then, they either get married or put the child up for adoption or abort the baby, etc., etc.--nearly all of these, certainly the most common, are complete abrogations of their filial responsibilities.
As "rights" have increased in this country, so too have the methods for escaping what should be the responsibilities that automatically accompany them. It's easy to point to women and the right to choose, but where are the prospective fathers? Don't they care at all for their children? Historically, men have always been able to avoid their paternal responsibility because they can just up and leave. Rarely could a woman could do the same with her pregnancy. Abortion, in some women's minds, has leveled the playing field--as though sex and children were some sort of tit-for-tat game.
Spikers is right in the sense that it would probably take a Constitutional Amendment to legally protect marriage in this country. As difficult as that may be, it doesn't mean that it's not a battle worth fighting.
An equally difficult battle, but one which we can fight every day, is the larger cultural battle that buruboi referred to in their comments:
we, those who believe that functioning families are integral to society, should pursue cultural standards that protect the traditional and intrinsic values of marriage. That means cultivating sensible cultural norms that motivate people to realize the right, responsibility, privilege, commitment, and even sanctity of marriage and family (i.e. the Mormon community). This can be effectively accomplished, I think, without instituting legal parameters defining what constitutes marriage.We would expand the thrust of their comments to include not just marriage, but also the family. Regrettably, there are cultural assaults on more than just marriage and motherhood and fatherhood. In Wilson's articles, the impact of culture on the family is a constant theme. We agree with him and buruboi in believing that there needs to be a cultural sea change with respect to marriage and the family.
For this reason, we oppose abortion and pop cultural attacks on the family and gay marriage and all that stuff because it all affects the family. And for us, the family isn't just this nebulous thing that needs saving just because of political-religious mores. For us, it makes good policy sense. As we mentioned in yesterday's post, strengthen the family and you strengthen America. Want to combat crime or illiteracy or, pretty much anything? Do whatever you can to encourage the necessary policy and legal and cultural changes to help America's families.
*UPDATE 3 April 12:20am MST: Obama's Abortion Extremism, by Michael Gerson
If you have tips, questions, comments, suggestions, or requests for subscription only articles, email us at lybberty@gmail.com.
01 April 2008
Conservatism & The Family
We've been thinking about the American family for quite a while now. First came the Peggy Noonan quote (see below) and then we had a conversation with one of our former professors. This isn't our first word on the family, nor will it be our last. We can't even make this a coherent essay on the topic like we might normally prefer. Please excuse the disjointed nature of this post.
The moral traditionalist wing of conservatism and the Republican party has long waged political battle with so-called progressives over issues related to the family. They understood, and we with them, that families are the very building blocks of a successful society. Every measurable statistic related to an individual's potential success and happy life improves significantly when they come from a home with a mother and a father.
We mention this with caution, as we have a number of friends who come from homes without either a mother or a father. This does not, of course, make it any less of a family. In many instances they, and others across this country, have overcome the odds to be successful, productive members of society. But those who have done so without the support of a traditional family are the exception.
We first wrote about family-related issues when a former BYU professor wrote an open letter in the Salt Lake Tribune encouraging the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to be more allowing of homosexual unions. (here and here)
Then, a couple of weeks ago, in a column about Obama and Clinton, Peggy Noonan mentioned by the by that the great divide in America was not between the haves and the have nots or even between black and white or brown and white, but between those who have functioning families and those who do not. Or, as she put it, "the great divide in modern America, whether or not you had a functioning family." We think she's right.
What's fascinating is that the Left, (for whom it is now chic to refer to oneself as "progressive") which loves to solve societal problems with the latest, greatest gimmicky idea--it takes a village!--ignores the very simplest solution: strengthen the family. This, despite the fact that empirical evidence shows that everything they'd like to improve with their village!, from test scores to jail rates to literacy (really, the list could go on indefinitely) improves when an individual comes from a functioning family. There is nothing more or less complicated to it than that.
It would seem prudent, therefore, that we do what we can to shore up the American family. What the heck is a no-fault divorce, anyway? Marriage for life has ceased to be the norm. Heck, two marriages are quickly ceasing to be the norm. We conservatives almost nominated a man on his third marriage. And much of the multiple marriages and single parent families can be traced back to the easing of divorce laws in the '60's. As James Q. Wilson pointed out, it's easier to get out of a marriage than it is to get out of a mortgage.
(though it would seem many now might wish it were the other way around)
As anyone who has taken intro to economics will tell you: lower the cost of something and demand will rise. As marriage has devolved from lifelong union to a union of convenience, fewer and fewer people get married and fewer and fewer children come from 2-parent homes.
To come at this from another angle, if you want to invest in America's human capital, do what you can to strengthen marriages. Our friends in the teaching profession often talk to us about how they are unable to "reach" certain students or have the impact they'd like because the students' parents are not involved. We still think that vouchers and more school choice could help alleviate that problem, but they do nothing to address the core issue--the breakdown of the family.
And this isn't something we can go about haphazardly. When we first debated gay marriage on this blog, those in favor said, 'where is the empirical evidence that gay marriage doesn't equal successful home?' We pointed to a number of studies coming out of the United Kingdom and the nordic countries, but, unfortunately, we can't prove it conclusively one way or the other.
But we can't prove it now the same way those who were against the loosening of divorce laws in the '60's couldn't prove the disastrous effect that would have on families either. That is to say, progressives are convinced that whatever the latest idea to come down is better than whatever we have now. The case for and from moral traditionalists and conservatism, broadly speaking, is that things are the way they are now because over the centuries of human experience, it has proven to work.
We know that families with a mother and a father have a far greater chance of creating successful happy offspring than any other organization developed. Why experiment with something so essential, something so integral to civilization as the family? The burden of proof in favor of something new, of change for change's sake or because it is being trumped up as a right(!), lies not with conservatives to defend what is, but with progressives to convince that what they have, whether gay marriage or polygamy or some sort of arrangement with them and their vacuum cleaner or a communal village pitch-in effort, can match the success of the family.
Because marriage in this country is not a right, it's a privilege and a responsibility. Furthermore, it's one which should be closely guarded and fortified and strengthened and whatever other verb we've used in this post. We will continue to argue in favor of the family on principle and because it makes good policy sense.
Wherever you may be reading this, we invite you to take up the cause of defending marriage. There are many ways you can do this: vote for and helping to elect people for whom family is important; vote in favor of initiatives that define marriage as between a man and a woman; write letters to the editor of your local newspaper... the list goes on.
For further reading on this topic, see the following from James Q. Wilson:
Why We Don't Marry
The Ties That Do Not Bind: The Decline Of Marriage And Loyalty
The Family Way
Welfare Reform And Character Development
No Easy Answers
James Q. Wilson Interview
If you have tips, questions, comments, suggestions, or requests for subscription only articles, email us at lybberty@gmail.com.
The moral traditionalist wing of conservatism and the Republican party has long waged political battle with so-called progressives over issues related to the family. They understood, and we with them, that families are the very building blocks of a successful society. Every measurable statistic related to an individual's potential success and happy life improves significantly when they come from a home with a mother and a father.
We mention this with caution, as we have a number of friends who come from homes without either a mother or a father. This does not, of course, make it any less of a family. In many instances they, and others across this country, have overcome the odds to be successful, productive members of society. But those who have done so without the support of a traditional family are the exception.
We first wrote about family-related issues when a former BYU professor wrote an open letter in the Salt Lake Tribune encouraging the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to be more allowing of homosexual unions. (here and here)
Then, a couple of weeks ago, in a column about Obama and Clinton, Peggy Noonan mentioned by the by that the great divide in America was not between the haves and the have nots or even between black and white or brown and white, but between those who have functioning families and those who do not. Or, as she put it, "the great divide in modern America, whether or not you had a functioning family." We think she's right.
What's fascinating is that the Left, (for whom it is now chic to refer to oneself as "progressive") which loves to solve societal problems with the latest, greatest gimmicky idea--it takes a village!--ignores the very simplest solution: strengthen the family. This, despite the fact that empirical evidence shows that everything they'd like to improve with their village!, from test scores to jail rates to literacy (really, the list could go on indefinitely) improves when an individual comes from a functioning family. There is nothing more or less complicated to it than that.
It would seem prudent, therefore, that we do what we can to shore up the American family. What the heck is a no-fault divorce, anyway? Marriage for life has ceased to be the norm. Heck, two marriages are quickly ceasing to be the norm. We conservatives almost nominated a man on his third marriage. And much of the multiple marriages and single parent families can be traced back to the easing of divorce laws in the '60's. As James Q. Wilson pointed out, it's easier to get out of a marriage than it is to get out of a mortgage.
(though it would seem many now might wish it were the other way around)
As anyone who has taken intro to economics will tell you: lower the cost of something and demand will rise. As marriage has devolved from lifelong union to a union of convenience, fewer and fewer people get married and fewer and fewer children come from 2-parent homes.
To come at this from another angle, if you want to invest in America's human capital, do what you can to strengthen marriages. Our friends in the teaching profession often talk to us about how they are unable to "reach" certain students or have the impact they'd like because the students' parents are not involved. We still think that vouchers and more school choice could help alleviate that problem, but they do nothing to address the core issue--the breakdown of the family.
And this isn't something we can go about haphazardly. When we first debated gay marriage on this blog, those in favor said, 'where is the empirical evidence that gay marriage doesn't equal successful home?' We pointed to a number of studies coming out of the United Kingdom and the nordic countries, but, unfortunately, we can't prove it conclusively one way or the other.
But we can't prove it now the same way those who were against the loosening of divorce laws in the '60's couldn't prove the disastrous effect that would have on families either. That is to say, progressives are convinced that whatever the latest idea to come down is better than whatever we have now. The case for and from moral traditionalists and conservatism, broadly speaking, is that things are the way they are now because over the centuries of human experience, it has proven to work.
We know that families with a mother and a father have a far greater chance of creating successful happy offspring than any other organization developed. Why experiment with something so essential, something so integral to civilization as the family? The burden of proof in favor of something new, of change for change's sake or because it is being trumped up as a right(!), lies not with conservatives to defend what is, but with progressives to convince that what they have, whether gay marriage or polygamy or some sort of arrangement with them and their vacuum cleaner or a communal village pitch-in effort, can match the success of the family.
Because marriage in this country is not a right, it's a privilege and a responsibility. Furthermore, it's one which should be closely guarded and fortified and strengthened and whatever other verb we've used in this post. We will continue to argue in favor of the family on principle and because it makes good policy sense.
Wherever you may be reading this, we invite you to take up the cause of defending marriage. There are many ways you can do this: vote for and helping to elect people for whom family is important; vote in favor of initiatives that define marriage as between a man and a woman; write letters to the editor of your local newspaper... the list goes on.
For further reading on this topic, see the following from James Q. Wilson:
Why We Don't Marry
The Ties That Do Not Bind: The Decline Of Marriage And Loyalty
The Family Way
Welfare Reform And Character Development
No Easy Answers
James Q. Wilson Interview
If you have tips, questions, comments, suggestions, or requests for subscription only articles, email us at lybberty@gmail.com.
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