And that takes us to concern number three—the kids. Children were the unreformed’s most lethal weapon: the image of kids starving in the streets, sleeping on grates, begging from strangers, and neglected and abused by desperate mothers, was enough to make the most robust reformer queasy. But the predicted Dickensian purgatory also turned out to be wrong. There may have been an increase in the number of children in foster care, but child abuse and neglect numbers are, depending on what measures you use, either unchanged or down.

More striking was what happened to rates of child poverty. They not only went down; by 2001, they hit all-time lows for black children. And though the numbers drifted up again during the recession, they were still lower than they had been pre-reform. On other measures, the young kids of ex–welfare moms are no worse off than under the old regime. Though some studies find lower achievement and more problem behavior among adolescents, the big picture doesn’t show teen children in more trouble post-reform. After 1996, juvenile violence and teen pregnancy continued to go down, as they had since the early nineties.

I highly recommend reading the entire article, which can be found here. It is worth it for conservatives simply to gloat and say “I told you so” as the article documents how spectacularly wrong the left was about welfare reform.

Antony Flew, one of the world’s leading philosophers, has changed his mind about God. And he has agnostics worried.

Some are mystified and others are angry. Typical of many responses is this one skeptical blogger: “Sounds to me like an old man, confronted by the end of life, making one final desperate attempt at salvation.” Richard Carrier of The Secular Web even accuses him of “willfully sloppy scholarship.”

But Flew is clear that this is not about an afterlife - he became a deist, not a Christian:

However, Flew is not worried about impending death or post-mortem salvation. “I don’t want a future life. I have never wanted a future life,” he told me. He assured the reporter for The Times: “I want to be dead when I’m dead and that’s an end to it.” He even ended an interview with the Humanist Network News by stating: “Goodbye. We shall never meet again.”

Flew’s U-turn on God lies in a far more significant reality. It is about evidence. “Since the beginning of my philosophical life I have followed the policy of Plato’s Socrates: We must follow the argument wherever it leads.” I asked him if it was tough to change his mind. “No. It was not hard. I’ve always engaged in inquiry. If I am shown to have been wrong, well, okay, so I was wrong.”

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/004/29.80.html

When Americans began their family revolution four decades ago, they didn’t tend to talk very much about its effect on children. That oversight now haunts the country, as it becomes increasingly clear that the Marriage Gap results in a yawning social divide. If you want to discuss why childhood poverty numbers have remained stubbornly high through the years that the nation was aggressively trying to lower them, begin with the Marriage Gap. Thirty-six percent of female-headed families are below the poverty line. Compare that with the 6 percent of married-couple families in poverty—a good portion of whom are recent, low-skilled immigrants, whose poverty, if history is any guide, is temporary. The same goes if you want to analyze the inequality problem—start with the Marriage Gap. Virtually all—92 percent—of children whose families make over $75,000 are living with both parents. On the other end of the income scale, the situation is reversed: only about 20 percent of kids in families earning under $15,000 live with both parents.

Marriage and Caste

Some related articles on marriage and poverty:

• The Moynihan Scissors. Democrat Patrick Moynihan noticed that the breakdown of the family caused poverty over 40 years ago - and was savagely attacked by his own party.
• Five Easy Questions About Black Poverty. Uses the Great Depression and the success of immigrants (including African immigrants) to refute standard theories of black poverty such as racism, bad schools or unemployable men.
• Marriage and Poverty. A good article by economist Walter Williams about Marriage and Poverty.

The real problem with ethics is we are all biased. The biggest source of bias is deciding who we let our ethics protect. If we protect all humans then abortion is wrong and killing animals is ok. This is great for meat eaters that don’t approve of sex outside of marriage. If we protect all persons (those who have rudimentary self-awareness) then abortion is ok and killing animals is wrong (animals are more self-aware than a fetus). This is great for socially liberal vegetarians.

So let’s break this deadlock and protect everyone – non-humans and non-persons. Heck, let’s even protect plants and inanimate objects. This will create a lot more conflicts than systems that allow one group (humans or persons) to have free reign over the other group (non-humans or non-persons). So we need a robust set of rules for how to handle these conflicts.
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Europe has problems. The birth rates are so low that it is rapidly depopulating itself. The Social Security crisis in the United States is a cakewalk by comparison. The European economy is in the doldrums. The Lisbon Agenda, which was designed to make Europe the world’s leading knowledge-based economy, has failed to meet its goals. Europe falls further and further behind the United States in both GDP and productivity growth. Since Europe can not rely on an expanding economy to fund their welfare state, they have turned to immigrants to bolster the work force. The problem is that Europe’s progressive labor laws have become a case study in how liberal policies really do reduce opportunity. Unemployment among Muslim immigrants to Europe is running up to 40% in some areas. Furthermore, European Muslims would rather turn Europe into an Islamic state than assimilate and adopt European values. Historian Bernard Lewis has predicted that Europe will be Islamic by the end of the century.

A Double Wammy: Low Birthrates and Welfare States

In 50 years there will be almost 100 million fewer people living in Europe, according to a United Nations report.

The UN’s latest study on international migration released yesterday predicts that even if Europe gains an average of 600,000 immigrants a year, its population will fall by 96 million by 2050. Without the new arrivals, the decline would be even more spectacular: 139 million.

Read the rest of the article here.

Europe is suffering from a one-two punch. Health care and social security act as generational transfers of wealth from workers to the retirees. But Europe has extremely low birth rates, averaging about 1.5 children per woman. This results in an aging population with fewer and fewer workers subsidizing more and more retirees. By contrast, the United States has a birthrate 2.08 children per woman. With immigration the population of the United States will continue to grow steadily, whereas Europe’s will drop by 100 million.

Welfare state policies are partially responsible for low birthrates. Economists have determined that 80% of the differences in birthrates between nations are correlated to the size of these intergenerational wealth transfers. Read the story here.
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