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bounty44 -> RE: Raise the Mininal Wage to $15/hour (7/25/2015 4:13:56 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: MrRodgers
quote:
ORIGINAL: dcnovice
quote:
Hillary Clinton once quipped, "It takes a village [aka government] to raise a kid."[1] In a normal society, however, it takes only a mother and a father.
It was hardly a quip. It Takes a Village was the title of a 1996 book by the then First Lady and a 1994 kids' book by Jane Cowen-Fletcher. Each author identified the title as an African proverb.
Mrs. Clinton's book spent 18 weeks on the NYT best-seller list, including three in the top spot. By 2000, readers had purchased 650,000 copies. That suggests that her perspective rang true for at least some fellow Americans.
I don't know if 1970s Long Island counts as a "normal society," but my own upbringing certainly involved many folks beyond my loving parents:
-- grandparents,
-- aunts and uncles,
-- teachers,
-- school volunteers,
-- neighbors who kept an eye out for all the kids on the block, not just their own,
-- volunteer coaches and Scout leaders,
-- folks who supported my activities by buying raffle tickets, yearbook ads, and heaven knows what else,
-- businessfolk who contributed to countless local charities and causes,
-- taxpayers whose dollars paid for my school buses and textbooks,
-- the good people who supported and staffed an excellent public library,
-- carpool drivers who ferried us to swim practice, troop meetings, Little Leagues games, and so forth,
-- nuns who devoted their lives to educating generation after generation,
-- life guards who taught us to swim safely and, later, competitively,
-- church leaders who discreetly saw that struggling families got some help,
-- and . . . .
I'm sure I left out all sorts of other contributors, but you get the idea.
But the whole idea is that I [they] get to change the meanings of words to suit [their] argument. So if I need village to really mean govt....so be it.
Look if people really need to understand the essence of today's right, it all started when Reagan continually asked when campaigning against Carter..."Are YOU better off today then you were...4 years ago ?
NOT, is the country better off, but are YOU...better off ? Translation, it's all about you and yours...not about the country at all. That's become now, all about party and power which produces the partisanship, all of the filibusters and shut downs.
it means exactly that. what, do you suppose Hillary Clinton is simply admonishing neighbors to look after each other? or encouraging people of good will to participate in society?
if you look closely at dc's list, most of us would agree with most of it, and itd be very much like the childhood we had, but that's not what Hillary's talking about.
I posted this in another thread but it bears repeating here:
i recently picked up Jonah Goldberg's book "liberal fascism" and there is an entire chapter devoted to the "brave new village" in which of course, much is discussed about Hillary and her "it takes a village" position.
here are some relevant passages (long, but maybe worth reading):
"Clinton invokes this premodern images as a source of authority in order to reorganize modern society. it may not be as powerful as all that teutonic imagery the national socialists threw around. but is it any more rational?...
"in [her] telling, villages are wonderful, supportive, nurturing places where everyone is looking out for one another; from 'everything in the state, nothing outside the state' to 'everything in the village, nothing outside the village.' the village, she writes 'can no longer be defined as a place on a map, or a list of people or organizations, but its essence remains the same; it is the network of values and relationships that affect our lives.' in Hillary's village, the concept of civil society is grotesquely deformed. traditionally, civil society is that free and open space occupied by what burke called 'little platoons'--independent associations of citizens who pursue their own interests and ambitions free from state interference or coercion.
"that is not Hillary's civil society. in a book festooned with encomiums to every imaginable social work interest group in America, Clinton mentions 'civil society' just once... [the author goes on to describe at length how her view of it is not in keeping with the commonly accepted view social scientists hold.] (or for that matter, from what most non-comrades would hold too)
"in Clinton's village however, there is no public square where free men and women and their voluntary associations deal with each other on their own terms free from the mommying of the state. there are no private transactions, just a single 'spiritual community that links us to a higher purpose' managed by the state. this is the volksgemeinschaft reborn as a social gospel day-care center...
"Clinton describes an enormous network of activist, advocates, organizations, associations, busybodies, bureaucrats, and meddlers who make up the army of 'qualified citizens' whose task it is to protect the village's interests in our children. 'I cannot say enough in support of home visit's' she gushes. '[the] village needs a town crier--and a town prodder.'...imagine if, say, the former attorney general john Ashcroft said, 'I cannot say enough in support of home visits.' the shrieks of fascism would be deafening...
'for Clinton, the most important front in the 'war' to protect children is the first three years of life. these precious moments are so critical that we cannot leave parents to cope with them on their own. hence a vast array of programs are necessary to plug parents in a into a social network that alleviates their responsibilities...Clinton "'puts her faith in programs.' the proliferation of children's programs--head start, day care, prenatal care, maternal care, baby clinics, programs for assessing standards in public schools, immunization programs, child-development programs--serves her as an infallible index of progress.''
(pp 338-9, 349)
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