RE: $5,000 Baby Bonus?
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Woman, when you post, you do it right.
I will be oversimlifying here, forgive me. I might also be jumping around!
I was just having a discussion about this with one of my daughters.
Heritage, as a conservative think tank, wants to promote conservative values. Some conservative women have more babies because they value their time in the home, with their children, as mothers. Women nuture and men protect, according to conservative thought, by nature. This lifestyle has been made to seem undesirable to liberals who insist that their female offspring go in for higher education and big paying jobs that require they not stay at home with their children. The conservative lifestyle is now more difficult to achieve of this; two incomes are needed to keep a home afloat.
I'd like to see women who want to stay home with their children, homeschooling and raising in religiosity if that's what they want, to be a viable lifestyle in the US. I'd like to see any lifestyle that does not violate natural laws to be viable here. I do know two families with a great many children. I know orthodox jewish families with children numbering in the teens. These famiies have some community support.
About higher education being desirable, I am not so sure. This daughter of mine went to an expensive liberal college that taught her how to plow a field with a team of oxen, how to shear a sheep and make yarn to knit with, and how to build stuff. She is now a carpenter in NYC, with a stable and well-paying job, whereas those of her friends who went To Duke or Yale cannot find a job that pays as well as my daughter's does.
That said, governments giving citizens money is a fast track to those citizens becomeing dependent on government handouts, and having to abide by a narrow set of rules and regulations. It is never a good idea.
Hello @owasco,
When you comment, you do it right 😇
Great discussion. No good answers. My personal position is that 'handouts' can erode dignity and ambition. However, I believe in safety nets. How to do that without creating a perpetually dependent class? Ah, that's the rub.
I believe in social mobility. Education is one path I know that can take one from a low class status (my economic origins) to a middle or upper class status. Without scholarships, without government grants, would I enjoy the middle class lifestyle I have now? When I was given the opportunity of a free (yes, free!) education, that opened the way for me to lift my family. I owed no money for my education so I was able to help my sister get an education. I was able to help support my mother. Those educational stipends from the government for a few years more than paid for themselves.
I agree that more emphasis should be placed on 'practical' skills. Boy do I wish I had learned carpentry, plumbing, car mechanics. Why the dichotomy? Why must a classic education exclude practical, vocational education? Why must vocational training exclude a classic education?
I think a well-educated mind, in the liberal sense, is essential to a successful representative government. An unschooled people, untrained in critical thinking, is easily led by charlatans. So are we all, but the unschooled more more easily led, I believe. A knowledge of history and basic civics is essential for every citizen in a country where people elect leaders.
I'll stop now... the dog is crying. He has to go out 😄
A democracy is only as good as the information the voters have. If the information is thwarted and directed toward a specific political agenda, there is no democracy. This has been happening in the US for many years now (some think less so with the election of Trump, but I disagree - different topic!) as most public education and most higher education veers toward Democratic Party ideals. It is interesting, to me, that even though both higher ed and MSM lean left, we are still split 50-50 at the polls. I believe this 50-50 split has been managed; elections are split 50-50 all over the world. This suggests that conservatives need less convincing of their ideals than liberals do. They say that is because they are right.
"Unschooled" does not mean uneducated. I haven't seen much thought by the left that seems to be critical thinking of any kind - they swallow absurd things whole. This is not to say that conservatives don't swallow absurd things, just, but to my mind, they've got more common sense.
The unschooled "hillbillies" I live among now are proof of this, at least to me. They know astounding things! They vote, vote both ways, and are not devoted to one party's candidates by any means. I do wish I could say that they can tell a bullshitter from a truth teller, but many of them show a devotion to Trump that has squashed my beliefs there.
Did your family get government assistance prior to your receiving higher education funds? I am assuming you were brought up with the now largely conservative mindset of pulling oneself up by the bootstraps, and aiding others yourself. The Dems are all about victimization now. "Trust us, because we know you've been harmed!" I wonder what the stats are on "conservatives" receiving government handouts vs "liberals."
Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps defines my family's attitude toward life. But sometimes, you don't have any boots. I believe it's in society's interest to see that children have boots so they can pull off that self-help maneuver. In the long term, investment in a pair of boots will pay off. What won't pay off is the creation of a psychology of dependency. How to work that out and also provide for children who need help...that's the hard part.
Is government's function to further society's interests? Or is it ours?
How do you express that interest? Do you think libraries should be funded by government? Roads? Bridges? Airports? Schools? How do we advance the interests of society?
I think government should be minimal if at all. So no, I don't think bridges, airports roads or schools are in the purview of government, especially schools. When we agree to schools being funded by gov, we expose ourselves to probable tyranny some day - government would then, as it does now, compel the teaching of its interests, not ours. It does this already, by not only mandating instruction in vaccines, but also mandating vaccines themselves. When we allow gov to have any means to control us, such as with roads, airports, schools and bridges, we mostly lose.
A locality that needs a road, can build that road, for instance. A business that needs and airport could build the airport and fund it by commercial flights. Or we might not have all this intra or interstate commerce, which should make our climate doomsayers happy.
To live without government requires a vision of a happy and productive life that is completely different from the one we have now, I admit. Grow your own, trade among your neighbors, live with less for sure.
We now have governments everywhere on earth, and look at the mess. I don't see the mess getting better without a major refashioning of society. More government will only exacerbate the current problems.
Thanks for listening. I'm pretty much thinking out loud here. Gotta go plant some potatoes!
I happened on this one today. Rose says belief in government solutions is superstition. He's a hoot.
😇Never heard of him before, but the point of view is not unfamiliar to me.☀️