National Review has an actually interesting report by Kevin Williamson on the state of Appalachia, providing a valuable portrait of the region’s woes — plus an account of how people turn food stamps fungible by converting them into soda. But the piece also has a moral: the big problem, it argues, is the way government aid creates dependency. It’s the Paul Ryan notion of the safety net as a “hammock” that makes life too easy for the poor.
But do the facts about Appalachia actually support this view? No, they don’t. Indeed, even the facts presented in the article don’t support it.
Williamson dismisses suggestions that economic factors might be driving social collapse:
If you go looking for the catastrophe that laid this area low, you’ll eventually discover a terrifying story: Nothing happened.
But he almost immediately contradicts himself, noting that employment in eastern Kentucky has fallen with the decline of coal and what little manufacturing the area once had. True, there was no sudden moment when the town’s main employer closed up shop; it was a gradual process. But so what? The underlying story of Appalachia is in fact one of declining opportunity. Here’s the unemployment rate for Owsley county:
Is it any surprise that people have turned to food stamps?
Reminder: the vast majority of Americans who recieve SNAP benefits and unemployment benefits, like nearly all forms of social assistance, are white. It's folks in places like Owsley County who are poor, not just "inner city Detroit" and whatnot.
But hey, FOX News convinces folks to vote against this stuff, then blame "those people" when things keep getting worse.
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2 comments:
That's beautiful. I love clever people and clever solutions, but Zandar knows that because I keep coming back for more.
About this India squabble, it's all pretty stupid with the tit for tat and the nastiness towards innocent career diplomats; yet it does serve to point out that it is a game and their are rules and we can draw inferences from various actions.
To whit, after the tapping of Frau Fritz's cell phone was leaked there was a bit tongue lashing in some speeches but - to my knowledge - no actual retaliation. Not even the honorary consulate in Padburg was shut down to express official displeasure. Putting on my kremlinologist hat I infer that German officialdom is neither shocked nor especially annoyed that the NSA has been doing what everyone knows that it does. By extension, Merkel's remarks about the Stassi were pablum for the pacification of the rubes; when she and Obama meet to discuss security matters they will most likely have a good laugh at the expense of the hysterical ninnies at dailykos.com who are terrified that NSA operatives will activate their laptop cameras and watch them masturbate.
And it also casts light on the matter of Jonathan Pollard, who all of a sudden is cropping up on web pages across the ideological spectrum. The problem with Pollard is not just that he stole classified documents and handed them over to a foreign power but that he did so with the deliberate intention of defeating American policy in the Middle East. We were very specifically denying Israel access to certain intelligence, for the purpose of bringing about a specific desirable result, and Pollard took it upon himself to defeat that goal at a dangerous period in world history. That comes pretty close to giving aid and comfort to our nation's enemies. To be succinct, Pollard broke the rules of the diplomatic process in a very dangerous way: for that reason, and as an example to the others, he deserves to stay in jail.
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