The scourge of America right now is children growing up in single parent homes; they are six times more likely to wind up in poverty and several times more likely to wind up in jail.
We can begin to change things by stopping welfare subsidies for illegitimate children.
116 comments
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I'm sorry, let me get this guy's thought process on the line.
"Duuuhhhh....Facts no mesh with big leader's fancy words. Me going to not pay attention to them."
Yes, plunging them further into poverty would definitely help things. But really, how can you call yourself a Christian if you don't believe in helping the poor?
@shykid: I love your comment, so much.
...not a fundie?
First part is correct, kids who grow up in single parent households are statistically more likely to grow up to be shitty adults.
Second part is right wing nonsense, but not fundie.
Bryan Fischer, ladies and gentlemen, Bryan Fischer.
@ TakoTaco, Rev. Jeremiah, and others:
It frightens me that I think I understand what he's driving at. Stop subsidies and the parents won't be able to afford to raise the children. Then, the extreme right-wingnut industrialists can set up Victorian-style workhouses again. No longer will we have to look to third-world countries for slave labor to make our sneakers! What a beautiful new day will dawn! /sarcasm
@breakerslion
It frightens me that I think I understand what he's driving at. Stop subsidies and the parents won't be able to afford to raise the children. Then, the extreme right-wingnut industrialists can set up Victorian-style workhouses again. No longer will we have to look to third-world countries for slave labor to make our sneakers! What a beautiful new day will dawn! /sarcasm
"The scourge of America right now is children growing up in single parent homes; they are six times more likely to wind up in poverty and several times more likely to wind up in jail."
That's odd. My made up statistics don't seem to back up your made up statistics at all.
"We can begin to change things by stopping welfare subsidies for illegitimate children."
So, stopping any sort of income for illegitimate children is supposed to keep them from winding up in poverty? Is that what you're getting at?
Perhaps a more Modest Proposal would be a better solution.
I grew up in a single parent home, you fuck face. My mom had to work three different jobs because no one did a damn to make my father pay child support. You want to know what makes people remain in poverty? The rich stashing an entire countries worth of money in their coffers, at the expense of their workers.
Or allowing abortions and Sex Eds.
In Sweden, all children are legitimate, as they are obviously existing.
My sister is a single mother because her husband turned out to be an abusive jackass. But I guess it was his "Christain right" to "discipline" her "defiant, disobedient behavior," and her "duty" to "submit to his will".
GO FUCK YOURSELF
So wait. Poverty is the end problem, and jail is a consequence... so you want to make them suffer more poverty?
The fuck is wrong with you?
We can begin to change things by stopping welfare subsidies for illegitimate children.
Because that'll fix poverty! I'm not even going to TRY to understand your reasoning because I value my brain and I'd rather not let innocent brain cells die.
How much do you want to bet that this wankstain is also opposed to abortion, and in favor of forcing these single women to become mothers even if they don't want to be?
@Saint Germain:
It's fundamentalist libertarianism. Fundies do not have to be necessarily religious.
Also, nobody says "illegitimate children" nowadays except the "purity police" who think women should be punished for having sex.
@Saccharissa: Though this particular statement isn't explicitly religious, Fischer is a huge right-wing "Christian" fundie - not really libertardian, just plain ol' mean-spirited callousness and greed.
So let's solve the problem by making the children's parent even poorer? I've heard this argument before: all we have to do is take away the safety net and all of a sudden people will think twice and stop having sex. But guess what? No woman who has sex with a guy thinks "gee, maybe I shouldn't do this, because he's going to dump me and stick me with a baby". If you make that argument to them, they turn around and admit "OK, it won't solve the problem, but they get what they deserve for being stupid".
But what does the baby get for being stupid? One more example for people who whine about abortion but show absolutely no regard for children after they're born: proof that they don't give a damn about babies; all they care about is stopping people from having sex.
@Saccharissa:
"It's fundamentalist libertarianism."
Well, if we're going to start inducting fundamentalist political leanings there are more than enough in comments section of this very website to spawn its own category. Lunatic fringe is the new norm in this country, on the left and the right.
And to all children of single parents getting bent out of shape: single parent households headed by women are 5.15 times more likely live in poverty than two parent households. (Source:http://www.npc.umich.edu/poverty/ )
The reality of the issue is that the more parents a child has, no matter the race/gender/religion/political leanings, the better off they are statistically. Cutting off welfare for single mothers isn't the answer by a long shot, but fiscal incentives for parents to be a present, viable and nurturing parent should be encouraged by our society for no other reason than to make our communities safer for everyone.
Human nature does not bend to the rules of your little fantasy world. Or if it does, well, that only lasts so long and then the universe hits you in the face with a mallet.
Short version: I don't see how your idea is supposed to help anyone avoid poverty.
Well if that isn't just like a fundie. Tell women they better not abort that pregnancy. Kid has a right to live, s/he didn't choose to come into existence, and all that. But as soon as the baby's born- well, what a wicked person she is for being single and not ready for a kid, and they'll reward her behavior by letting her and her child starve.
I see where he's going with this. Making something illegal or socially/economically catastrophic *always* makes it go away. Look how well it worked for alcohol consumption, teenage pregnancy, and pornography.
Besides, we could use that money for more worthy purposes, like subsidizing large corporations.
@Saint Germain: If you honestly think that "Lunatic fringe is the new norm in this country, on the left and the right."
Then you have never been to another country in your life. Come to Australia and I will take you down to Newtown in Sydney and you can talk to some real left wing radicals from the Socialist Alliance, an actual lunatic fringe left wing party that runs in elections and promises to destroy the system if elected.
What passes for the lunatic left fringe in the United States is laughable and at best confined to university and college campus. The new norm in the United States is a lunatic right fringe and then the normal people. America is currently poisoned by the belief that there is a real lunatic fringe on both sides and both sides have to tone it back.
Matter of fact I believe America could benefit from a loony left fringe so that folk could look at them and say "hey maybe that fellow proposing universal healthcare ain't so crazy compared to the fellow calling for the nationalization of all business"
^^^
Er, yes he did question the needy, and abuse them. See Matthew 15 where a Greek woman seeks his help:
15:24 But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Granted, he does go on to cure her daughter, but only after initially refusing and calling her and her people dogs (unclean animals in Biblical tradition).
Aside from the idiocy of throwing kids to the wolves simply because their parents weren't married when they were born, what about the kids who had a parent die, or their parents divorced, and so on?
Didn't Jesus say something like 'Give what you have to the poor and follow Me'?
Don't you think you should do what Jesus says, Bryan? Isn't it time you became a Christian?
As for illigitimacy, it is not a legal concept in Ireland. Children born out of wedlock are just as legitimate as anyone else, with the same rights and duties. They are entitled to inherit under the country's inheritance laws, just the same as their brothers and sisters, and both their parents' names appear on their birth certificate. Granted such a child may be brought up by one or the other parent, although often both are living together without bothering about a legal bond.
But then there are single parents as the result of abandonment by their partner, widows, widowers, rape victims - and probably other categories of single parents that do not occur to me right now.
Bryan F. Ireland still remembers its holocaust when a population of 8m people was reduded to 4m because of the Great Hunger. The government of the time did nothing much to help. What you are proposing is along those lines. In the name of all of those who died directly as a result of starvation, and of the diseases associated with starvation, and of the 2m who emigrated (many to America) to try to save themselves and their hungry children - I call on you as a religious fraud and damn you for it, just as my forebears damned those in power who let them die of unnecessary starvation and disease.
"Kids with no daddies are more likely to be poor--so let's exacerbate the problem by cutting off welfare for them so they have fewer places to turn to for help!"
Brilliant! Why, your evil scheme would be a grand success if it weren't so damnably transparent.
So I guess the reason they're six times more likely to wind up in poverty is because people like you want to stop welfare subsidies for them?
Oh right, you think they should all go get jobs as soon as they're born.
Ok, good luck preventing them landing in jail because, without welfare, they will be DEFINITELY poor.
First sentence: True, though I would say "A scourge" rather than "The scourge."
Second sentance: Totally devoid of thought, compassion or supposed "family values."
On the upside, you DO win the A**hole of the Week Award.
You know what REALLY stops poverty and crime?
Abortions.
You know what stops abortions? Mothers.
(and fundies if they get their way.)
Yes, Saint Germain and 1266335 have it right. It is a political argument, not a fundie argument. And the points made do have merit. There are a number of studies that show welfare causes more out of wedlock births, crime, etc. This link sites a number of such studies. http://www.cato.org/testimony/ct-wc67.html
Sure, Bryan, let's go ahead and do that. After all, all children raised in single-parent homes are illegitimate. No kid in America has ever had a parent die on them. No kid in America has ever had parents who have gone through a divorce.
While that IS a problem, especially in low-income areas, the answer is totally backwards. By paying MORE in welfare, you could ensure that these children have a quality upbringing, with access to the same educational opportunities as... oh. Wait. That's right. They're just horrible sinners who deserve to live in poverty with no opportunities for higher education or self-improvement.
regressive reasoning:
*Abortion is wrong because a fetus is a human being and life is sacred.
*Abortion is also immoral because it punishes the child for the parents' actions.
*Despite the fact that human life is sacred and it is immoral to punish children for their parents' actions, it totally makes sense to ensure that children born out of wedlock go without food, shelter, and clothing because....fuck 'em?
There is a vital part of this that I am missing.
These are the very same people who are pathologically opposed to abortion, of course. Realistically, people are going to fuck. They always have and they always will. So, what happens to the illegitimate babies, which, of course, cannot be aborted? Um... they wind up in poverty, since no welfare is available for single mothers. Great plan.
Children growing in single parent homes are more likely to be poor or end up in jail.
This is bad.
Solution? Do our damned best to make sure they do end up poor or in jail.
Bizarro logic wins again!
"We can begin to change things by stopping welfare subsidies for illegitimate children."
So all those potential criminals will starve to death and us decent taxpayers won't have to pay for prisons. But we can't allow abortions because that would be murder and unchristian.
I think everyone else has said what needed to be said.
Yes, as with most other things, people abuse the welfare system, but the people doing it are the adults and not the children, hence government money and resorces are geared towards helping children and their mothers in the form of WIC and so on.
Secondly, curbing or eliminating social programs isn't going to stop people from having sex and unwanted pregnancies. Unfortunately, the unwanted pregnancies are going to occur regardless of the situation they are in.
You are aware that not all children who are raised by single parents were born into this situation, aren't you?
I mean, some of them were born to married couples (with a christian fathers, no less), their mothers subjected to verbal, sexual and other forms of abuse (by the aforementioned christian fathers), until their mothers finally scraped together the courage to leave the abusive fathers and file for divorce(s). Sometimes children are better off with a single parent.
Just so you know.
Oh, and by the way...FUCK YOU.
An amazing example of non-sequitur.
"The scourge of America right now is children growing up in single parent homes; they are six times more likely to wind up in poverty and several times more likely to wind up in jail."
True. Broken homes are a major risk factor for poverty and crime.
"We can begin to change things by stopping welfare subsidies for illegitimate children."
Absurd and illogical. We cannot make things better for poor kids by making them even poorer.
Instead, we need to educate our teenagers about marriage, what to expect, how to deal with children, etc. We should provide marriage counseling services to keep families together. There are many similar REASONABLE things that we can do to HELP single parent families. Cutting off their benefits isn't one of them.
@moose
I hope you do not think that I have a problem with libertarianism, per se . When I used the phrase "libertarian fundamentalist," I was referring to someone who takes its ideals to the purest extreme. For example:any sort of social safety net because the poor are just lazy. Or greedy. caveat emptor . And if a drug is unsafe, people just won't buy it.
I think that extreme, dogmatic adherence to any political view is dangerous (FWIW, extreme socialism doesn't work either).
"It wasnt political ideas that burned witches."
@moose, others: The problem with this quote isn't the first sentence, where he basically says "single-parent homes correlate with crime And That's Terrible". The problem is with the second sentence, where he suggests a "solution" that in no conceivable way helps the problem (indeed, it would probably exacerbate it), and decides to slander children of single homes while he's at it.
We can begin to change things by stopping welfare subsidies for illegitimate children.
We can begin to change things by better sex ed and allowing easier access to birth control. By de-mystifying sex for teens, they'll be more informed when they finally decide to have sex. This will lead to fewer teen or single moms, thus to fewer abortions and fewer children born in single parent households.
In creasing, not de creasing financial assistance for impoverished families will result in a higher quality of life, and better access to education, overall reducing poverty in general.
Bryan Fischer, as the son of a loving, hard working single mother, you'd better pray I never met you in the street, because if I do, you will be in a coma and I will likely be in jail, but it won't be because my mother didn't raise me right; it'll be because you're a hateful prick who decided to indirectly insult a woman who I love and who has done more good for society than you could ever do.
...so that the children of single parents starve to death?
Illegitimate children? Are you writing from 1958 or what?
If you really want to minimize the number of single parent homes, fund abortion clinics and promote sex-ed in schools.
@ saint Germaine: which causes which? Single parents aren't inherently unstable, but poor parents are. I say this as a child of a single mom who knows other single parents. The ones who had the time and resources to raise their kids properly ended up raising decent people- those who didn't raised thugs, addicts and felons. Most single parents are in unstable situations, though. I, and apparently a few other posters, were fortunate enough to have stable single-parent homes.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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