Paul Ryan recently made the mistake of speaking truth to power and was subsequently forced to grovel and apologize to power because power played the race card.
Ryan, in a conversation with Bill Bennett, linked the problem of welfare dependency to the “tailspin of culture in our inner cities, in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work.”
This simple and obvious truth made all of the usual racist dogs (i.e. the Congressional Black Caucus whose members are largely elected from inner cities blighted by generations of welfare dependency) claimed they heard dog whistles.
This technique of squealing “racism” whenever legitimate criticism is made of Democrat welfare policies has been highly effective at shutting down debate, but it does nothing to change the reality of trans-generational welfare dependency.
Consider this case from the even more welfare-blighted UK, where a man hasn’t worked in over twenty years, has fathered somewhere between 18-27 illegitimate children by multiple mothers, his children and grandchildren are also on welfare and living with him, and the local welfare office is trying to figure out how to get him a larger house to accommodate them all.
None of the children who are of working age have jobs and Mr Rolfe says he relies instead on state handouts like housing benefit and child tax credit to get by.
‘Getting a larger house would mean the world to us. It would mean we could get some peace and space.’He said: ‘I hate to see the children have no space, no privacy. They have nowhere to do their homework so they are doing badly at school.’
Incredibly, Mr Rolfe successfully complained to the Local Government Ombudsman that the property, which he moved into in September 2011, was too small.
In the past, this man would have been called a bum, and no self-respecting woman would have given him the time of day. But thanks to progressive welfare programs, not only is his irresponsibility and promsicuity subsidized by taxes confiscated from those who made better choices; but he has also fathered and grandfathered two generations of children devoid of any work ethic, raised to think collecting welfare is normal.
If the state continues to subsidize bad decisions and punish good decisions, it should come as no surprise that people will make more bad decisions and fewer good decsions. This is truth; Or, as the progressive left calls it, ‘racism.’ Paul Ryan owed an apology to no one for saying it. And the fact that he backed down demonstrates how impossible it has become to turn the ship of state away from the unsustainable and disastrous course it is on.