One Good Thing about Obama’s Candidacy

Opinion. Like most white, middle-class Americans, I was astounded, shocked and disgusted by the comments and beliefs of Reverend Wright, and, given the applause and cheers, he mirrored the beliefs of most in his congregation. I thought, “well, maybe the people in this church hate America this much, but this has to be a tiny sample of what black people think”. Then, for weeks afterward, I watched black talking head after black talking head appear on various cable news channels – some disagreeing with the Obamas and Wright, but many agreeing with them – that America is a terrible country, for blacks at least.

Then I thought some more about Katrina and the terrible problem it exposed of a large group of people in this country whom welfare programs have robbed of the significance of their lives – and turned them, both blacks and whites, into helpless wards of the state, unable in the face of a disaster to do more than sit around waiting for others to help them.

While I was pondering this, the news, first discovered in Memphis, Tennessee, that the huge increases in crime in many of America’s mid-sized cities could be traced almost exactly to the locations in the cities where recipients of Section 8 housing vouchers lived.

What we are witnessing is a terrible disaster unfolding before our eyes, and Obama's campaign has opened my eyes to it as never before. Over the years we have let all our inner-city manufacturing jobs where unskilled and semi-skilled workers could earn a decent wage on which to raise a family, disappear; and we have replaced those jobs with a group of welfare programs that have failed miserably – and destroyed families and society in the process. Aside from traditional marriage, the glue that keeps a civilized society civil is the same thing that breeds self-respect and self-reliance – a good job.

I believe we need to begin to reverse this process in a massive way, and put the money we now spend on various anti-poverty programs into subsidizing manufacturing plants that provide jobs in our cities, jobs that were lost to foreign competition, union overreach and technological obsolescence. I know that this will be a very difficult program to sell and to carry out; it means ending AFDC for new recipients and coming up with a way to get an honest administration of a program that will require business knowledge and the subsidizing of entrepreneurs who otherwise could not compete in head-on competition to provide these jobs.

Since President Johnson launched the “Great Society” anti-poverty welfare programs, white births of fatherless children has about doubled to 50%, while black births of fatherless children have tripled. Before the Great Society, both black and white unwed births were about the same, about 25%. A fatherless boy is a destructive missile launched on society, often ending up with a gun in his hand before he is caught and goes to prison. Let’s give him an opportunity for a good job close to where he lives so he can start a family, and his children WILL have a father.