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Uncle Sam's Plantation

Black poverty is overwhelmingly a phenomenon of single-mother homes

by La Shawn on March 11, 2009

in BC Wisdom

Pimps, Whores, and Welfare BratsFour chapters into my novel (!), which I’ll blog more about once I’m finished the 75,000-word draft, I thought I’d take a break and point you to a column by the fabulous Star Parker (love her!).

All Star Parker’s op-eds are worth reading, especially the latest, alternatively titled, “We’re All Inner-City Blacks Now.”

Blacks are not given enough credit for being trendsetters in America.

Blacks started playing the blues, jazz, and R&B, then the rest of America started playing them.

Blacks discovered the politics of victimhood, then the rest of America started catching on.

Black women got into having babies without marriage. Then white women started getting into it (the incidence of white out-of-wedlock births today — almost 30 percent — is higher than the black rate in the 1960s).

Blacks bought into dependency and the welfare state. Now the rest of America has bought in.

Blacks for years elected politicians championing public policy that destroyed their own communities. Now the rest of America has installed a new political leadership with the perfect formula — run roughshod over private ownership, disdain traditional values, substitute political power for personal responsibility — for destroying our country.
…
As the black family collapsed, predictable social pathologies escalated. Crime, drugs, promiscuity, sexually transmitted diseases, fatherless children, abortion and disdain for education.

Couldn’t have said it better myself. Her point is that Big Government makes things worse. Visit Star Parker’s web site, CURE.

By the way, if you haven’t read her personal story, Pimps, Whores and Welfare Brats: From Welfare Cheat to Conservative Messenger, and the wonderful Uncle Sam’s Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America’s Poor and What We Can Do About It, you’re missing out.

Support conservative authors!

I must return to my fictional world. The characters assure me their story is worth telling, so I must listen. Ciao!

More Writings

by La Shawn on January 21, 2008

in General

Articles, Columns, and Reviews

2003-2004 Townhall Book Reviews

Slavery And Social Security

by La Shawn on February 15, 2005

in BC Wisdom, Social Security

Whenever citizens are prevented from doing something (like keeping the money they earn), the government is exerting its control. In the case of prohibiting murder or injury to another, it’s a good thing. Removing criminals from society and protecting citizens is how the state’s power is most effectively flexed. This is for the benefit not just of the state but citizens as well.

Where the state’s power is most effective for itself but least effective for us is in exerting control over our ownership rights in the form of excessive regulation (land use, for example), burdensome taxes and gun control.

An argument can be made that the social security system is burdensome and broken and infringes on our freedom and ownership rights. Slavery was burdensome (to the slave) and broken and infringed on people’s freedom and “self-ownership” rights. Just as slavery was abolished, social security should be abolished. Is that line of reasoning a stretch?

Abolishing social security would be radical, wouldn’t it? The idea of outlawing slavery was once radical, too. Imagine that. Free Negroes walking around. There are so many ways we can go with this, but I’ll let you do that in the comments. Read Star Parker’s take on the issue:

Am I pushing the envelope too far to suggest that there is common ground between the politics of slavery and the politics of Social Security?

When moral problems are transformed into politics, we can find surprising similarities in issues that otherwise might seem worlds apart….

Listening to the case for transforming Social Security to a regime of personal ownership is simple and compelling. The numbers no longer add up in our current system. Personal accounts would allow ownership and wealth creation. If we had to start from scratch, no one would want the system we now have. If the case is so clear, why isn’t it simple to change?

Good question. Anybody know the answer?

Star’s book, Uncle Sam’s Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America’s Poor and What We Can Do About It, is a good read. I’ve blogged it (and Star) several times here and here.

Update (1:52 p.m.): I just got off the phone with Kevin McCullough, and we talked about this post (That’s what I like about radio interviews. The discussion at hand always leads to other topics. We talked briefly about Easongate and mostly about social security.) I was writing this post while I was on hold.

As we talked about social security, I realized that many people don’t want the system overhauled because it’s scary. With private accounts, we’ll assume control over our own retirement. I’m sure President Bush’s plan includes an option to keep the money safe in government bonds and such, as well as an option to invest in risky ventures, like the stock market.

If you have a 401(k) account, you already have an idea of what it takes to keep your nest egg relatively safe, so reforming social security shouldn’t be viewed as radical.

Unrelated Update II (3:23 p.m.): Visit the new CPAC Bloggers site.

Update III (5:25 p.m.): Kevin McCullough is interviewed on a show called ReachOUT.org. He talks about his faith, his radio show, blog, etc. It’s very good.

Professor Bainbridge on social security.

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Star Parker’s Book Forum

by La Shawn on March 23, 2004

in BC Wisdom

SPIf you happen to be in D.C. this Thursday, March 25, swing by the Cato Institute to hear Star Parker, John McWhorter and Debra Dickerson discuss Parker’s new book, Uncle Sam’s Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America’s Poor and What We Can Do About It?

You can also watch the event live with RealVideo or listen with RealAudio.

This is one of the few great things about living in the nation’s capital. See you there!

Pastors Step Forward

I pray for boldness in standing up for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and I pray that more pastors stand boldly against those who hate God’s word.

In Black Pastors Rally Against Gay Marriage, the point of the story seems to be that “gay marriage” is not a civil right. I just hope the real message isn’t watered down, which has to do with morality, not “civil rights.”

Latest Column: Review of Uncle Sam’s Plantation by Star Parker

by La Shawn on March 11, 2004

in Book Reviews, Columns

SP“It [slavery] exists wherever men are bought and sold, wherever a man allows himself to be made a mere thing or a tool, and surrenders his inalienable rights of reason and conscience.” — Henry David Thoreau

Few people will admit how analogous government dependence is to living on a plantation. Star Parker, once enslaved by “Big Government,” is now unshackled and ready to expose her former master in a new book, Uncle Sam’s Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America’s Poor and What We Can Do About It. She openly takes on “Uncle Sam” for keeping millions trapped in poverty.

A former “welfare queen” and current president and founder of the Coalition for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE), Parker courageously analyzes Big Government’s system of dependency. She encourages those living on handouts to break the chains of poverty and find purpose and meaning in their lives.

In a follow-up to her first book, Pimps, Whores and Welfare Brats, where she handed down a stinging indictment against liberal politicians and the black leaders they exploit, Parker hits the mark once again in Uncle Sam’s Plantation. “Uncle Sam has developed a sophisticated poverty plantation, operated by a federal government, overseen by bureaucrats, protected by the media elite, and financed by taxpayers.”

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Random Thursday

by La Shawn on March 4, 2004

in General

It’s early! Browsing through yesterday’s headlines (I’m a day behind because I was swamped with work yesterday and today won’t be much better), I found quite a few interesting things. For example:

Random Tapings: Teacher resigns after allegedly taping student to desk: This poor woman snapped! A 21-year veteran of the government-run school system bound a student with duct tape and taped him to a desk. Apparently the kid has “attention deficit disorder.” Samantha over at Uncle Sam’s Cabin blogged about this the other week.

Random Indignation: Secretary of Education Rod Paige apologized for calling teachers’ unions terrorists. I was hoping he wouldn’t but knew he would. At least Paige stands behind his words even after the apology. He says, accurately, that teachers’ unions use “obstructionist scare tactics” in the fight over the nation’s education law.”

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