Can Americans Ever Work Together Again?

This morning I watched Bob Schieffer's Face the Nation, as I often do. Bob's calm and disciplined look at politics and political issues is a refreshing break from the hyperbole found on the highly partisan cable news networks.  People are not yelling at each other but actually talking with each other.

One of Bob's guest commentators this morning was Todd S. Purdum, author of a new book about the passing of the landmark civil rights legislation during another time of great political partisanship, An Idea Whose Time Has Come: Two Presidents, Two Parties, and the Battle for the Civil Rights Act of 1964

After discussing the book, Bob Schieffer wondered if we would ever see this type of cooperation between the political parties again.  Please keep in mind that is was a coalition of a majority of Republicans with only some Democrats who actually passed the Civil Right's Bill.

The answer to Schieffer's plaintive plea is actually in the book.  The answer in 1964 was President Lyndon B. Johnson's incredible style of management of the political process. Johnson never once even imagined, let alone threatened that would "bypass Congress" or usurp the Constitution to accomplish his difficult task.  Instead Johnson masterfully worked across the aisle to win support.

Lyndon B. Johnson picked up the phone, quite literally all day, every day and talked with supporters and opponents of the bill.  He wanted to understand, genuinely understand, the reasons so many in Congress opposed the bill.  He wanted to learn  how he could win the support of those who wavered.  He used the power of persuasion and politics.  He horse-traded. He cajoled. He begged and he promised.  And he enacted what is one of the single most contentions pieces of legislation even enacted in our nation's history.

I genuinely believe President Barack Obama could get immigration reform passed if he could just bring himself to stoop down to the level of one of the greatest politicians in our nations's history, and one of our greatest statesmen, Lyndon B. Johnson.

Truths We Dare Not Discuss

The low light of Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's gaff filled summer European trip was his praise of Israeli culture in its contribution to Israel's success when compared to the relative poor success of the Palestinians.

Instantly Romney was condemned by every Democrat politician for his insensitivity, prejudice and ignorance.  Romney backed down and apologized and clarified his comments so as not to offend anyone's sensibilities.

Romney should never have apologized. The very sad truth is that Romney was right.  The Jewish culture is powerful, strong and productive. It's tightly knit and based on incredibly strong family units and powerful traditions.  Because of this amazing culture Jewish minorities have flourished through some of the more horrific periods in our world's history.

It also has nothing to do with my essay today.

But I must talk about the role of culture in any society's success, especially economic minorities in our society.  We also need to talk, once again, about the fact the government doesn't work.  Almost all government programs are failures filled with huge waste, leaden bureaucracy and inadvertent social engineering that affect our culture, generally for the worse.

Our love of humanity, concern for the poor and desire to protect children have created welfare programs that have enslaved a significant portion of our society.  As our population sinks further and further into poverty our initial urge is to increase our welfare to the poor.  Yet we are not improving the situation precisely because we are not allowed to ever address any cultural issues.

Our entire American culture is based on freedom.  We cannot tell other people how to live.  The evolution of our society now has removed the stigma of divorce and the stigma our unwed parenthood.  At the same time it has encouraged women to seek out careers and fulfillment outside of marriage and motherhood.  All of these things are good for the individual and individual freedom.

Our welfare programs have supported, even encouraged, this evolution toward freedom and independence for women.  This would be a good thing, if it actually worked.  As part of the welfare process, we have partially removed the necessity of marriage and the involvement of men in the family unit.  For example we established the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, popularly known as WIC, SNAP, the old food stamp program, medicaid and other programs step in when the father or mother fails to provide support.

Of course none of these programs are sufficient and women struggle to balance jobs and child-rearing.  In addition drugs ravage families leaving children to be raised by grandparents or by themselves.

In spite of all these programs children are going hungry.  Even though 45,753,078 people receive food stamps, the highest in US history, all too many parents simply fail to care for their children.  Neglect and lack of personal responsibility are the biggest problem and it's the one problem we are never allowed to discuss.  No politician dares to cross that line.

Today's tragic story comes from Chester Township, Pennsylvania.  Here's the story.  Read it and weep:

Mom vows to keep feeding needy kids from her driveway despite city crackdown

A Pennsylvania woman has vowed to continue doling out free lunches to children in her hardscrabble neighborhood, even though officials there have threatened to fine her $600 a day. 

Angela Prattis, 41, was ordered by the Chester Township Council to wind down the makeshift dining room she runs in the driveway of her modest home during the summer for the hungry kids who come to her daily in search of a good meal. Under pressure from the community, the local leaders agreed to let Prattis finish her mission this summer, but told her she would need a zoning variance to resume the operation next summer. 

“I’m going to continue to feed the children,” Prattis told FoxNews.com. “I’m just doing this for the kids. I don’t want a big fight. “I just want to be in right standing with the town,” added Prattis, who feeds 20 or more kids on some days.

The mother of four says she serves up the lunches while the kids are out of school because many are too poor to get good lunches at home. 

Prattis gets the food from the Philadelphia Archdiocese, which makes daily deliveries of pre-packaged lunches, drinks and snacks to her doorstep. She pointed out that the archdiocese required her to take a preparatory class focusing on nutrition — and other essentials — before serving kids. “I’m not working with some fly-by-night operation,” she maintained. 

“This isn’t a working-class neighborhood,” she quipped. “It’s a hardworking-class neighborhood.” 

The neighborhood kids enjoy the lunches and benefit from the nutrition, she said. “We have tons of children, here,” Prattis said. “There’s a lady who baby-sits a bunch of kids and she brings them around because the parents can’t afford to have them in day care and feed them at the same time. 

“We had a nasty storm last Wednesday, and I only set up one table because I didn’t think the kids would come in the pouring rain,” she said, before adding, “They all came. I served 20 children in the pouring rain.” 

Poverty certainly exists in Jewish communities, Arab communities, Irish communities and every community. These problems can happen in any culture.  But in many cultures within our melting pot society, the outcomes described in the article above are extremely rare.  

The divorce rate and the rate of unwed mothers also vary wildly between cultures.  So do high school graduation rates, college attendance and average incomes.  

My current home state of Mississippi is the most obese state in the nation, Colorado, the state of my birth, is the most fit.   Mississippi's tradition of rich, fattening fried food and soul food greatly contributes to this outcome.  There is a mighty difference between cultures in Mississippi and Colorado.

Mississippi also ranks near the bottom in health care, birth to unwed mothers and education.  Our cultural background also prevents sex education in most public schools.

Culture makes a huge difference.  It must be a topic for open discussion and debate.  As Liberals we are quick to condemn Mississippi's religious leaders from their failure to provide sex education.  But we are never allowed to discuss or even mention the crisis of single parent households.  That would be judgmental.

We want our children educated about sex, homosexuality, alternative lifestyles.  But we cannot discuss parenting, parental responsibility, child rearing or any type of personal responsibility.

It would be funny if it weren't so tragic.

I do not have the answers to these problems. But we are not helping our children be failing to even allow discussion of the underlying issues.

The Growing Layers of Failure

The irony is so thick here it could be used as mortar to cement bricks.


STORY ONE (via National Public Radio): Kansas City's Failed Schools Leave Students Behind


STORY TWO (via The Blaze): North Carolina Food Police Replaces Nutritious Homemade Lunches with Deep Fried Processed Chicken Nuggets

PHOTO BY TOM BULLOCK OF NPR

The tragedy in Kansas City schools in story ONE above is simply heartbreaking.  The Kansas City failure is a story of a revolving door of administrators, an incompetent school board, middle class flight to private schools and suburban districts, and a teachers union deeply invested in a system that assures failure.  Scott Simon of NPR will continue this series next Saturday and I hope you will all tune in or visit the NPR Website.


I've written often here that Government does absolutely nothing well.  There are some things that only Government can do, the military is the most often mentioned example.  But even then the waste, incompetence, the inefficiencies and corruption is staggering.  


I'm guessing next week, Scott Simon will at least mention the state is considering Charter Schools or even privatizing the entire failed Kansas City School System.  This is exactly what should happen.


Meanwhile, via story TWO above, we have our government taking on another task that it will mismanage completely.  The well meaning North Carolina Legislature wanted to make sure children in the pre-kindergarten program had the proper nutrition to help them prepare for school.  Unfortunately, they only created a bureaucracy of food police following bureaucratic guidelines without even a modicum of logic or intelligence.  


So we have nameless inspectors not allowing children to eat a homemade meat and cheese sandwich on a whole wheat bun with fruit and fruit juice and instead forcing the child to eat in the school cafeteria.  Because the inspector is only "doing his job" he has no idea what the school cafeteria lunch actually is.  His job is to simply inspect the homemade lunch to be certain it has two fruits and vegetables. He doesn't care his actions forced the child to eat deep fried processed chicken nuggets with white bread and milk and ABSOLUTELY NO VEGETABLES!!!.


Somewhere along the line the mission of schools to teach got lost and their new mission is monitor homemade lunches.


As Liberals we should not ever be invested in the process, but only in the results. By definition Liberals should think outside the box, love alternatives and innovation.  We should not be invested in methodology of the past.  We should always strive for new, groundbreaking solutions.  It's time we realized that government is virtually never the solution.


Our goals and dreams must never change, but we must be willing to follow new paths toward achieving those goals.

Inexcusible

I've often discussed the primary difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans distrust the Government and Democrats distrust Corporations.  Obviously this has little to do with Liberal versus Conservative philosophies, although there is a small overlap.  Liberals often need the Government to achieve their goals.


So here I am stuck with strong Liberals values, but with a deep understanding of that Government bureaucracy almost always fails and fails miserably at absolutely everything it does.  There are some tasks only government can fulfill like the military, but even then expect waste, corruption and incompetence.


I HATE Democrats (even though I am one) because they often apologize or even deny these failures in an effort to defend their selfish use of government for almost everything.  It's all about power, power for the party in power, instead about doing what's best for the people.


We have a situation on California that clearly illustrates government's continuous and absolute failure to do any job right.  And when government fouls up people are hurt or die.  In this case we simply threw thousands of children to the wolves.

In spites of warnings, instructions, cries for help and pleading, the Child Welfare Services never took the time to check if registered sex offenders were caring for Foster Children!   They gave vulnerable children to over 1,000 Sex Offenders!! That's right, Child Services, charged with the responsibility of  removing children from potentially dangerous home situations, were turning around and placing them in even more danger!!


No government employee checked. Not once, not ever! And it would have been simple because California has a computerized list of sex offenders.


Of course excuses will now flow like water. Not enough money will be the leading excuse.  The legislature never passed a law making it illegal for sex offenders to care for foster children will be another.  But, in reality, it's not enough accountability.  If a few hundred people instantly lost their jobs (and that should, but will not, happen) this situation could and would change.  But mostly we'll get hand wringing and excuses.