1. Interlude is another word for stalling. My only daughter is past the due date on his first kid, plus there’s lots of other breaking news in Mount Berry, GA. So a combination of transient ADD and lack of time is delaying indefinitely the next big installment.
2. I’ve been visited by a very smart local TEA PARTY guy. His people really do think the welfare state is unconstitutional. Even Medicare and Social Security, I respond?! He says there weren’t any health care “issues” until we had them. Families should step in as government recedes. You have to admire his integrity, which is more manly and principled that either Randian or your typical economist’s libertarianism. But it remains the case that you can’t build a majority coalition around such manliness.
3. Neither families nor family values are what they once were. For one thing, we have a lot more old people, and a lot a fewer young ones. And the single fastest growing demographic group is men over 65 with neither spouse or children close to him. According to John Locke, the only reliable tie of obedience the old folks will have on his kids in a free society is money–especially the uncertain prospect of inheritance. It may be case, now more than ever, that if you’re going to get old you’d better be rich, and we are entering an era when it’s going to be harder than ever to figure out how to make your money last as long as you do.
4. Paul Rahe (drawing on the pioneering work of Allan Carlson) reminded us at BYU that a social scientist who actually knew stuff–Gunnar Myrdal–predicted that the welfare state would lead to a birth dearth. If government’s going to take care of you in your old age, why do you need kids (or even, for that matter, savings)? The Truman Administration (a vigorous promoter of the welfare state) saw some merit in this prediction, which is why the tax code came to include a high deduction per kid. It was high enough, Paul told us, that his relatively prosperous father of three kids paid no income tax in 1950. He was doing his duty to the state, the thought was, by producing those who’ll produce what’s required to sustain the welfare state. Others–the non-breeders–have to do their duty by paying money. That high deduction never increased, was eroded by inflation, and became by, say, the 1970s relatively insignificant. The mismanagement of the welfare state caused the two great (economic) incentives to reproduce to wither away.
5. It my view it’s really reaching to claim that the welfare state is the main cause of our demographic crisis. For one thing, nobody really thinks that Social Security and Medicare really, by themselves, make the lives of our old folks secure. Their lives stink without savings and loved ones, and the truth is the need for kids to live well in old age hasn’t dropped off that much in our far-less-than-cradle-to-grave welfare state. Plus: More and more people are planning with great success to get very old, and high-tech “capitalism” far more than “social democracy” is the cause of their unprecedented success. Remember: Our demographic crisis is less not enough kids than too many very old people.
There’s more, but I gotta go…
December 1st, 2010 | 8:08 pm
Congratulations on the soon-to-be new addition to the family!
December 1st, 2010 | 11:12 pm
It is a shame when someone as brilliant as Mr. Lawler can’t persuade otherwise. Perhaps a reading of Plato’s Gorgias and the impossibility of education is relevant. I like Peter’s exasperation, in that I share it.
Regarding the old folk, I am there too. I wish to make their life present in my life. Me, the typical Gen Xer supposedly dismisses the stories from the elders. In my case, this is not true. I do not mean to make myself some version of what adheres to that ridiculous word “altruism,” but I understand the speechless awe that you feel when you are confronted with an elderly family member who has moved into the point of not giving a shit but who is nonetheless gracious and willing to uphold the bare minimum of social convention. I myself look to that adherence to convention in my 101 year old aunt and see it as something that must be true–at least on a prudential level. At 101 years old you must have prudence!
So the welfare state. I will die. It is a shame that this country that I love wishes to make make my death sanctioned by some managed health care to the bitter end. This is what is considered to be compassion, but I have read my Foucault and I have taken it to heart. This state wants to make my concern for my 101 yr old aunt insignificant. Death is death in the bureaucratic mindset. You may think that I am some typical radical who doesn’t care regarding the truth of my own life. I disagree, I simply what to submit that the vision of death that makes it fit into a series of a Nieman Marcus catalogue is bullshit.
That’s all.
December 1st, 2010 | 11:15 pm
It is a shame when someone as brilliant as Mr. Lawler can’t persuade otherwise. Perhaps a reading of Plato’s Gorgias and the impossibility of education is relevant. I like Peter’s exasperation, in that I share it.
Regarding the old folk, I am there too. I wish to make their life present in my life. Me, the typical Gen Xer supposedly dismisses the stories from the elders. In my case, this is not true. I do not mean to make myself some version of what adheres to that ridiculous word “altruism,” but I understand the speechless awe that you feel when you are confronted with an elderly family member who has moved into the point of not giving a shit but who is nonetheless gracious and willing to uphold the bare minimum of social convention. I myself look to that adherence to convention in my 101 year old aunt and see it as something that must be true–at least on a prudential level. At 101 years old you must have prudence!
So the welfare state. I will die. It is a shame that this country that I love wishes to make make my death sanctioned by some managed health care to the bitter end. This is what is considered to be compassion, but I have read my Foucault and I have taken it to heart. This state wants to make my concern for my 101 yr old aunt insignificant. Death is death in the bureaucratic mindset. You may think that I am some typical radical who doesn’t care regarding the truth of my own life. I disagree, I simply want what to submit that which the vision of death that makes it fit into a series of a Nieman Marcus catalogue is bullshit.
That’s all.
December 2nd, 2010 | 1:58 am
These old people. Why give a damn? These old people must have something important to say. What if I don’t listen. I’m obstinate and impertinent. I can’t give a sh*t! So it shows my lack of breeding to not know what has been handed down to us all. It demonstrates a lack of education and culture to speak in such a way.
So one must show oneself in excess. As if one were a gangster, one must show intent as if one were willing to risk life and death even in silly demonstrations of manliness. Even if I admit a scarcity of manliness. It is all silliness in defense of manliness and the serious lack of it.
So let me say that in your cushy, but second rate, publishing world you lack a sack. Talking to your friends leads to insight, but if not solipsism, it resembles cowardice.
Stick yourself out there. You may have nothing to say, but at least
December 3rd, 2010 | 4:22 pm
[...] followed by action. Help educate people on the need for a virtuous constitutional government here. Read Lawler’s article here. [...]
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