By Star Parker, founder and president
of CURE
Six years ago I wrote a book called,
"Uncle Sam's Plantation." I wrote the book to tell my own story of
what I saw living inside the welfare state and my own transformation out of it.
I said in that book that indeed there are two Americas. A poor America on
socialism and a wealthy America on capitalism.
I talked about government programs like
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Job Opportunities and Basic
Skills Training (JOBS), Emergency Assistance to Needy Families with Children
(EANF), Section 8 Housing and Food Stamps.
A vast sea of perhaps well intentioned
government programs, all initially set into motion in the 1960's, that were
going to lift the nation's poor out of poverty.
A benevolent Uncle Sam welcomed mostly
poor black Americans onto the government plantation. Those who accepted the
invitation switched mindsets from, "How do I take care of myself?" to
"What do I have to do to stay on the plantation?"
Instead of solving economic problems,
government welfare socialism created monstrous moral and spiritual problems.
The kind of problems that are inevitable when individuals turn responsibility
for their lives over to others.
The legacy of American socialism is our
blighted inner cities, dysfunctional inner city schools and broken black
families.
Through God's grace, I found my way
out. It was then that I understood what freedom meant and how great this
country is.
I had the privilege of working on
welfare reform in 1996, passed by a Republican congress and signed into law by
a Democrat president. A few years after enactment, welfare roles were down
fifty percent.
I thought we were on the road to moving
socialism out of our poor black communities and replacing it with wealth
producing American capitalism. But, incredibly, we are going in the opposite
direction.
Instead of poor America on socialism
becoming more like rich American on capitalism, rich America on capitalism is
becoming like poor America on socialism.
Uncle Sam has welcomed our banks onto
the plantation and they have said, "Thank you, Suh."
Now, instead of thinking about what
creative things need to be done to serve customers, they are thinking about
what they have to tell Massah in order to get their cash.
There is some kind of irony that this
is all happening under our first black president on the 200th anniversary of
the birthday of Abraham Lincoln.
Worse, socialism seems to be the element
of our new young president. And maybe even more troubling, our corporate
executives seem happy to move onto the plantation..
In an op-ed on the opinion page of the
Washington Post, Mr. Obama is clear that the goal of his trillion dollar
spending plan is much more than short term economic stimulus. "This plan
is more than a prescription for short-term spending-it's a strategy for
America's long-term growth and opportunity in areas such as renewable energy,
health care, and education."
Perhaps more incredibly, Obama seems to
think that government taking over an economy is a new idea. Or that massive
growth in government can take place "with unprecedented transparency and
accountability."
Yes sir, we heard it from Jimmy Carter
when he created the Department of Energy, the Synfuels Corporation and the
Department of Education..
Or, how about the Economic Opportunity
Act of 1964 -- The War on Poverty -- which President Johnson said "...does
not merely expand old programs or improve what is already being done? It charts
a new course. It strikes at the causes, not just the consequences of
poverty."
Trillions of dollars later, black
poverty is the same. But black families are not, with triple the incidence of
single parent homes and out of wedlock births.
It's not complicated. Americans can
accept Barack Obama's invitation to move onto the plantation. Or they can
choose personal responsibility and freedom.
Does anyone really need to think about
what the choice should be?
---Star Parker
Star Parker, is an American syndicated columnist, Republican politician, social critic, author, and conservative political activist. In 1995, she founded the Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education. In 2010, she was the Republican nominee for the United States House of Representatives in California's 37th District, which encompasses much of Los Angeles County.
Parker is a syndicated columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service.[2] Her column is carried weekly by newspapers across the country and opinion sites such as Townhall.[3][4]
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