Moral Bankruptcy
Uncle Sam's Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America's Poor and What You Can Do About It
Moral Bankruptcy
"As a society, in our attempt to blame poverty on prejudice, we taught the poor to be prejudiced against the basic values necessary to sustain a free and civil society, and that it is okay to become dependent pawns of Uncle Sam." P.84
"If the social landscape is so complex, and so many issues that used to be black and white now seem gray, what's a poor youngster with limited education and limited access supposed to do with the new standards and rules? Spend twenty years in school so that he too can acquire things? What possible argument could we offer that would stop them from killing for power, stealing for prestige, or having a baby to get paid?" p. 86
Overview
"The welfare system had some of its teeth taken out in 1996 under the welfare reform put forward by the Republicans in Congress, but the monster is far from dead. Time limits and work requirements are a step in the right direction, but the culture of Uncle Sam's Plantation is fed by the misguided policies of the left. As long as there are liberal ideologues in the halls of power, there is likely to be a long hard battle ahead for those of us committed to seeing poor people emancipated from a paternalistic system that robs them of their initiative, their freedom, and ultimately their hope for the future." P.97