Parents far better than prisons
Thinking Right’s weekend free-for-all. Pick a topic:
● Here’s an alternative to prison that will really save Georgia a bundle: Create a culture where the boys and girls come into the world after the adults marry and make a commitment to parent their children. You can’t create this many broken pieces and expect government — either the schools or the criminal justice system — to make them whole. As with the new ways for government to get in debt, there’s no new model for the family that works better for amateurs than the old mom-and-dad structure.
● Ominous news for children: a Centers for Disease Control survey finds that 70 percent of teen girls and 64 percent of teen boys think it’s OK for unmarrieds to have children, up from 65 percent of girls and 50 percent of boys in 2002.
● Al Gore gets on our nerves, too.
● AJC reporter Russell Grantham’s account of local governments, hospitals and universities losing hundreds of millions of dollars in “interest rate swaps” — debt that will show up on your tabs — was worth the price of the Sunday paper. One of America’s most lucrative businesses is processing the paperwork to get government in debt. A rule of thumb: If your granddaddy can’t understand the transaction and wouldn’t do it with his own money, don’t let debt merchants sell it to your elected officials, who tend to think short-term and grab at anything that smacks of “free” money.
● Deceitful use of the word “free,” incidentally, should be legislated out of commerce. Storefront medical clinics around town routinely post signs offering “free” tests. Free, yes, if they can be billed to an insurance company. It’s an invitation to over-use.
● Atlanta city officials propose to hike the fee for ambulance service from Hartsfield to $1,300 per trip, up from the current $50. It’s OK, though. Only $100 will be billed to the patient, explains the head ambulance guy, with the rest billed to insurance companies. And we wonder why premiums increase and health care costs soar.
● This administration, with the consent of the American Left, will throw Israel under the bus. The question is when. Yesterday’s friends, Great Britain and Israel, are no longer special.
● Local laws that enable seniors to stop paying for schools at some point in their ’60s — in Cobb it’s 62 — are said to “cost” the county $50 million per year. Though I’ve not heard the “rumblings” from the masses demanding reconsideration, nor have I met nor heard tell of members of the county’s Democratic Party who are said to lament that they’re not allowed to “voluntarily” pay school taxes, my suspicion is that the whole of the rumblers and volunteers could gather and be seated at a Waffle House counter. This notion that taxes not levied are a cost to government suggests that it’s entitled to a particular sum of your money. It’s not.
● Former State Sen. Steen Miles, a self-described optimist, wrote this in The Champion Free Press: “If things aren’t reversed in DeKalb, in less than a decade this county will be a bankrupt, crime-ridden wasteland with a plethora of poorly performing schools, churning out a bumper crop for the state’s prison system.” If penned by an optimist, DeKalb’s pessimists must be suicidal. (Al Gore asks all DeKalb residents to settle down and please consider that the problems could be caused by global warming.)
The root cause of the oil disaster, like the financial disaster before it, has now been found. It’s George Bush. Ask Obama. Too little regulation.
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118 comments Add your comment
tar and feathers party
June 3rd, 2010
8:35 pm
With friends like Israel, who needs enemies? They have stolen over 1 trillion dollars from us via the pro israel lobby since 1948. They have worked hard to make sure Israel’s enemies are America’s enemies. I say cut them loose, and make lobbying for a foreign government illegal, even when done so by American citizens, using their own money.
Michael H. Smith
June 3rd, 2010
8:40 pm
Ooh you’re really asking for it in this free for all Friday edition week Mr. Wooten!
Come and get it Libs.
Ragnar Danneskjöld
June 3rd, 2010
8:41 pm
Good evening all. I broadly agree with our host’s endorsement of the traditional nuclear family as the best hope for future generations. I do not necessarily believe that marriage-regulated-by-the-state is a necessary element of healthy families – I think marriage is better-regulated by the Church.
I have refrained from disparaging comments about the failed marriage of the global warmist – I will continue to so refrain. Just as single-parent homes are generally unfunny, so too is divorce.
I misread our host’s endorsement of the article by Mr. Grantham – suggesting someone’s handiwork “is worth about $2” initially hit me as a slam. The broad advice – “if you don’t know what you are buying, don’t buy it” – is sound. However, I think interest rate swaps are legitimate products and ought to be totally unregulated, to scare off the people who ought not be in them.
Even Prof. Hayek agreed – explicitly, in his magnum opus “Road to Serfdom” – that it was a proper function of government to prevent business fraud and its first cousin, collusion/restraint of trade. Prof. Friedman introduced a logical corollary in his discussion of lunch. Live it, learn it.
I think I’ll open an ambulance service that runs to Hartsfield. I’ll charge $1,200.
A few years ago I upset some leftist-readers on Mr. Wooten’s blog by arguing that if Israel ever found itself having to choose between two groups of friends – (a) New York City Jews, or (b) white Alabama Southern Baptists – that they would be wise to choose the latter, as more reliable and more faithful to the cause of Israel. By now everyone can see that I was right.
As to Great Britain, it is no longer governed by a Thatcherite; it is no longer “special.” Just another broke European socialist state. Suggest replacing those ties with Poland or the Czech Republic or Slovakia or maybe Estonia (or maybe even Ireland, as weak as it is now) – countries that understand capitalism, countries with a future.
I believe in broad based taxes, with no exemptions. I would abolish all taxes except consumption taxes. Everyone consumes, everyone pays according to his level of consumption. Our friend Mid South appropriately decries that “corporatism” that leads those with influence to try to manipulate laws for their own benefit.
Maybe Steen Miles is optimistic because he is leaving town.
That’s why the Obama-ites are going to rename the geological flaw that led to the Haiti earthquake – Bush’s Fault.
Michael H. Smith
June 3rd, 2010
8:47 pm
I say cut them loose, and make lobbying for a foreign government illegal, even when done so by American citizens, using their own money.
How much time will Obama get for his lobbying efforts on Mexico’s behalf, Tar?
I mean this could be dangerous.
President Biden?
That’s what I’m talking about.
Ragnar Danneskjöld
June 3rd, 2010
8:55 pm
Dear Michael @ 8:47, I’m to the point where I think even Joe would be an upgrade. From Taranto today:
Politico, meanwhile, reports that Vice President Biden has weighed in on the Monday incident in which several violent peace activists were killed:
“I think Israel has an absolute right to deal with its security interest. I put all this back on two things: one, Hamas, and, two, Israel’s need to be more generous relative to the Palestinian people who are in trouble in Gaza,” Biden said, according to a transcript of the interview, in which he went on to discuss Hamas’s control of Gaza:
“[The Israelis have] said, ‘Here you go. You’re in the Mediterranean. This ship–if you divert slightly north you can unload it and we’ll get the stuff into Gaza.’ So what’s the big deal here? What’s the big deal of insisting it go straight to Gaza? Well, it’s legitimate for Israel to say, ‘I don’t know what’s on that ship. These guys are dropping eight–3,000 rockets on my people,’ ” Biden said.
We don’t say this often, but Joe Biden makes a lot of sense.
Michael H. Smith
June 3rd, 2010
8:57 pm
I do not necessarily believe that marriage-regulated-by-the-state is a necessary element of healthy families – I think marriage is better-regulated by the Church.
WOW!
Ragnar, the church officially regulate marriage?
C’mon, I know Libertarians are anti-government regulating anything if you got right down to it but regulations carry the weight of law.
Church law?
I think around 230 years or so ago when America was but a few wee colonies Church made law was one of the things that brought the colonies to open rebellion against the King, hence the fight for independence.
Michael H. Smith
June 3rd, 2010
9:03 pm
Oh my gosh Ragner, does this mean the lower down the totem-pole we go the better it gets?
Now wait a minute Ragner, I draw the line with comrade Pelosi. She actually does fit the homeland security description of a man-made-disaster in my humble opinion.
Bob Loblaw
June 3rd, 2010
9:11 pm
“Al Gore gets on our nerves, too.”
Owl Gore is a hypocrite and I hope his wife takes everything he has. His 20 SUV’s, 10 private jets, 30 bedroom mansion and the millions he’s made scamming people into believing the lie that is global warming.
“This administration, with the consent of the American Left, will throw Israel under the bus. The question is when. Yesterday’s friends, Great Britain and Israel, are no longer special.”
That’s because Obamao is a muslim himself. Good thing he’s a one term president. Cant wait until this November when we neuter his agenda.
Bob Loblaw
June 3rd, 2010
9:18 pm
Ragnar Danneskjöld
It’s no secret that liberals hate Israel. See the first comment from another resident AJC troll at the top.
sevgen
June 3rd, 2010
9:18 pm
“Create a culture where the boys and girls come into the world after the adults marry and make a commitment to parent their children.”
And how would that be enforced, Jim? We gonna put unfit, unwed moms in jail, fine them, what? Are you willing to commit to the draconian measures that this sort of sea change would require? Would you be willing to remove children from their unfit, deadbeat, in many cases drug addicted, welfare mommas, dads, aunts, uncles and siblings, in order to instill your ideas of the good life into them?
Big Brother, here we come.
Mid-South Philosopher
June 3rd, 2010
9:25 pm
Enter your comments here
Mid-South Philosopher
June 3rd, 2010
9:26 pm
For some reason my comments won’t come up.
H*ll, maybe what I have to say doesn’t matter any way.
Ragnar Danneskjöld
June 3rd, 2010
9:28 pm
Dear Michael @ 8:57, many states, after the Revolution, retained the distinction between Courts of Equity (sometimes called “Chancery Courts”) and Courts of Law. The blessing of government, bestowed on every marriage, is seemingly ephemeral; my fondest hope is that a blessing bestowed by worldly representatives of God might prove more durable. (Sharia, you ask? Maybe for that limited area of family law.)
@ 9:03, ha, actually I think the leftist totem is inverted, and climbing from Chauncey to Joe is “up.” However, your note on the Speaker is well-founded. Hell has many levels.
Ragnar Danneskjöld
June 3rd, 2010
9:30 pm
I fear our friend MidSouth has found ePurgatory.
Bob Loblaw
June 3rd, 2010
9:30 pm
Anyone else notice that Kagan looks like a fatter, uglier Rachel Maddow? Yuck!
Liberal women are nasty looking.
Ragnar Danneskjöld
June 3rd, 2010
9:34 pm
Dear Bob @ 9:30, I think it was our friend “Scout” on another AJC blog who first referred to her as “Lady Kaga.” It works.
Bob Loblaw
June 3rd, 2010
9:36 pm
Ragnar
She is one ugly man/woman. Seriously, I wonder if she gets confused when she goes to the bathroom?
“Do I sit, stand, sit, stand…………”
D-Boe
June 3rd, 2010
9:41 pm
Jim has been indoctrinated by teabaggers. Nothing to see here.
Ragnar Danneskjöld
June 3rd, 2010
9:46 pm
Dear D-Boe @ 9:41, you will appreciate that we tea-partiers defend the right of all leftists to teabag each other. Go wild, man.
Michael H. Smith
June 3rd, 2010
9:47 pm
There is some hope I do suppose in Big Science fulfilling Jim demands of only real responsible parents producing wanted children. Perhaps Kyle Wingfield will elaborate further on the future of what many shall surely call weird science?
Of course, when Big Brother sees what Big Science is up to, Big Brother will tell Big Momma Nanny State and she is bound to obfuscate everything – if not abscond the entire scene – in the interest of serving national security before we all can get back to the future.
Frightening thought if the libs ever get hold of this.
Just saying…
Bob Loblaw
June 3rd, 2010
9:50 pm
“Jim has been indoctrinated by teabaggers.”
Interesting comment since gays invented teabagging……….
Michael H. Smith
June 3rd, 2010
9:54 pm
Dear D-Boe @ 9:41, you will appreciate that we tea-partiers defend the right of all leftists to teabag each other. Go wild, man.
Thanks Ragnar, nothing better than a valid point made with a good hard slap of humor.
The Cynical White Boy
June 3rd, 2010
10:28 pm
The 3 finalists for ATL police chief are all black males. And if the finalists were all WHITE males? Oh the AJC would scream and howl racism.
I. Ronic
June 3rd, 2010
10:38 pm
It would be nice to create a culture or society rooted in the traditional two parent family, but a lot of things would be nice. That aside, what I find interesting about the recent Gore v. Gore announcement is the very carefully crafted and politically correct statement. The language is very interesting, using words like “loving” and “mutually supportive” and thought to myself; “yeah, those are the exact same words my parents used to celebrate their 50th anniversary.” Family doesn’t matter because in Americans, why parent when you have a village (idiot) to raise children.
fayncbmconserve
June 3rd, 2010
11:43 pm
The Gore spokesperson who said there were no affairs involved is lying! Al has has an ongoing affair since 2000 with Ms. Warming (first name global)! Not to mention the brief affair in 2007 with Mr. Nobel! I guess Tipper comes in the way of his pursuit of speaking on global warming and winning Nobel Prizes!
BitterEXdemocrackkk
June 4th, 2010
6:17 am
Again, WHY do Jews support Obamao?
Saul Good
June 4th, 2010
6:47 am
Bitter…why did “HUMANS” support Bush and Cheney? How many did their actions kill?
Saul Good
June 4th, 2010
6:51 am
I think Jim here should have posted the “missing” part about teens who now think it’s okay for unmarrieds to have children… it all took place under the last administration. The teens were polled first in 2002….and then over a period from 2006-2008. What does it show? That “Abstinence Only” education does not teach kids to protect themselves and WAIT to have sex… all it did was teach them to have the baby when they ended up getting pregnant. Great Results once again from the “Family Values” crowd who base their “logic” off of 2000 old fables written by humans who thought the world was flat. Nice job once again Talibangelicals!
Van Jones
June 4th, 2010
7:41 am
Ragnar, D-Boe has his mouth full right now. Maybe he’ll comment later…
Van Jones
June 4th, 2010
7:43 am
The Cynical White Boy @ 10:28, I am patiently waiting for Ms. Tucker to address the lack of diversity for Police Chief in her column today. Wonder how long I’ll have to wait..
Reality
June 4th, 2010
7:45 am
At least Jim was right about one thing – “The root cause of the oil disaster, like the financial disaster before it, has now been found. It’s George Bush.”
The only truth Jim has written in years.
The Udder Side!!!!
June 4th, 2010
7:58 am
Soooooo, let me get this strait…… Anyone that does not bend over and take the high hard one from Isrial is an anti Semetic, Isreali hater???? Maybe my friends on the right should apply the same standard to Isrial that we apply to all of our other “Frienamies”. It about time we stopped trying to be everyones big brother and started focusing on taking care of all of the sh– thats wrong here at home!!!
jconservative
June 4th, 2010
8:17 am
“… save Georgia a bundle: Create a culture where the boys and girls come into the world after the adults marry…”
Ok I buy this. Now the question, how are you going to do this? Government regulation? Require every couple before marriage to attend a “government” marriage school?
To be honest Jim, this sounds like typical liberal hogwash.
Dr. Stan (The Black One)
June 4th, 2010
8:22 am
Here is an alternative to prison that will really save Georgia and the nation a bundle: Members of every culture should be taught the essentiality of building institutions and its far-reaching significance to a people and state. The height of insanity is a culture consisting of 30 million people having the institutional capacity to gainfully employ 1 percent of its members. From top to bottom, 99% of those fortunate to be employed work for, on behalf of, another culture at the exclusion of their own.
There is no problem with members of a group working for or on behalf of another at the exclusion of their own per se. But there are limits. And surpassing the limits produces Mentacide, a mental retardation or death of respective persons and culture. Although integrationist leaders envision surpassing the limits as ‘strides gained in society.’
When time permits, I turn on the radio or television. And the voices of insanity are often heard whining about the impropriety of other cultures — and them not employing all children etc. I’m talking about parents, grandparents, and great grandparents, 20, 40, 60 years old. You can’t create this many broken pieces and expect government—either the universities, schools, or the criminal justice system—to make them whole. As with the new ways for government to get in debt, there’s no new model for the family that works better for amateurs than old fashion institution building.
Bob Loblaw
June 4th, 2010
8:23 am
“Again, WHY do Jews support Obamao?”
Because they’re Jew in name only. Israel can not stand Obama and if you look at their poll numbers on Obama you’ll see that he has an approval rating of about 5%. The American Jews could care less about their history or the existence of Israel.
Bob Loblaw
June 4th, 2010
8:25 am
“Anyone that does not bend over and take the high hard one from Isrial is an anti Semetic, Isreali hater???? ”
No one ever said that. Libs love to use that line while CONSTANTLY railing on Israel. It’s really interesting that left wingers never go after Iran, Syria etc when they start wars, commit violent acts and openly say that they want to wipe Israel off the map.
Liberal mind: Israel bad. Iran good.
Logic fail.
jconservative
June 4th, 2010
8:33 am
Bob Loblaw “…the millions he’s made scamming people into believing the lie that is global warming.”
Actually he made his millions, $165 million to be exact, when he worked as a consultant for Google.
Remember when Gore said he invented the Internet and we all laughed?
Well, Google did not laugh. After he left the VP, Google persisted in hiring him and he finally signed on as a consultant. His assignment, where can Google take their business in the 21st century? His pay, shares of Google stock. Google stock was $101 share when he signed on, it was over $695 a share when he left Google & sold his shares.
Last I heard he was on the Board of Apple at personal request of Steve Jobs.
Gore may not have invented the Internet but, financially, he had the last laugh over the issue.
JKL2
June 4th, 2010
8:41 am
Evidently Tipper finds Al annoying too. Which of the 19 houses is she going to get? But of course Al is just trying to save the planet. He’s not interested in making “too much” money.
Churchill's MOM
June 4th, 2010
8:44 am
There is a very simple way to have peace in the middle east, simply stop borrowing $7 Billion per year from China to give Israel, Egypt and Jordan. If Israel wants to have war let them pay for it.
I for 1 am worried that Israel has The Bomb, they can’t stop a simple ferry but they have the tools to start a world war. Here is a list of the war tools that Israel prohibits from Gaza:
http://gisha.org/UserFiles/File/HiddenMessages/ItemsGazaStrip060510.pdf
The Udder Side!!!!
June 4th, 2010
8:45 am
Bob Loblaw
June 4th, 2010
8:25 am
No sir…Your logic fails. My point is that Th U.S. has so completely and blindly supported Isrial that we we cannot call them to the carpet regardless of WHAT they do! And for the record I am not a Lib as your term them…I am an independant, free thinking American that can make up my mind about issues without having to take my ques from the right or the left. We should be beholden to the US first and formost and if we are going to be policemen to the world, then we should treat Isrial the same as we do all of our other allies.
Real American
June 4th, 2010
8:48 am
The flailing of the wingnuts is hilarious.
JKL2
June 4th, 2010
9:00 am
Good thing that boat was full of peaceful terrrorist. Israel should have just sunk it and been done with it. Seems to have worked beautifully for North Korea.
Bob Loblaw
June 4th, 2010
9:01 am
The Udder Side!!!!
Funny, you can’t even spell the word Israel yet you condemn them. They did nothing wrong. The video of the “peace activists” shows clearly that they were there to provoke Israel. The Gaza blockade is totally legal.
Why do you hate them so much?
Bob Loblaw
June 4th, 2010
9:02 am
“The flailing of the wingnuts is hilarious.”
The failing of Obama is even funnier.
The Udder Side!!!!
June 4th, 2010
9:09 am
Bob Loblaw
June 4th, 2010
9:01 am
Again, I have no hatred for ISREAL… A better question is why so you feel the need the blindly support them? it seems clear to me that their primary focus is whats best for Isreal not the US, Why can’t we view things the same? They do whats best for them and if we benefit then ok, but if is against our intrest, then tough… Why won’t folks like you hold them to the same standard??? If they feel the need to fight everyone on everything, them let them…. but we should not be so tied to them that we get punched in the nose because they want to fight…
Bob Loblaw
June 4th, 2010
9:19 am
“A better question is why so you feel the need the blindly support them?”
1: They are not terrorists.
2: They’re not muslim fanatics.
3: The are America’s number one ally.
4: WW2
“Why can’t we view things the same?”
Because we don’t have fanatical dictators in Iran screaming for us to be wiped off the map every single day. Israel is surrounded by muslim fanatics who constantly fire rockets at them.
“Why won’t folks like you hold them to the same standard?”
Because they don’t want us dead.
The Udder Side!!!!
June 4th, 2010
9:29 am
Bob Loblaw
June 4th, 2010
9:19 am
Is South Korea not our ally? Is Mexico not our Ally? These two countries are facing enemies and issues that are every bit as grave, and you are not jumping up and down for The US to go to war on their behalf… And by the way I have business associate whose wife and child were killed in Gaza by an Israli rocket…Tell him. that they are not terrorist.
Bob Loblaw
June 4th, 2010
9:32 am
“Is Mexico not our Ally?”
No and they have not been an ally in a long time. Any country that sends their own citizens to invade another country is not an ally.
“And by the way I have business associate whose wife and child were killed in Gaza by an Israli rocket…Tell him. that they are not terrorist.”
Somehow I don’t believe you.
Churchill's MOM
June 4th, 2010
9:43 am
Good read from right wing Israel paper
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=177309
The Udder Side!!!!
June 4th, 2010
9:50 am
Bob Loblaw
June 4th, 2010
9:32 am
Thats fine that you do not believe me…. His suffering is not and should not be a matter for our fodder.
No and they have not been an ally in a long time. Any country that sends their own citizens to invade another country is not an ally.
Hmmmm…it seems as though that is what Israel is doing everytime they destroy a township in the Westbank and Set up a new settlement.