What’s Next for the Poor and the Rich as Well?

            What’s Next for the Poor and the Rich as Well?

             Published in Marietta Daily Journal May 14, 2016

            The good editor of the Marietta Daily Journal would call me in if I submitted a column that contained only 6 words.  If I could persuade him to accept one such, however, I would title it “The MDJ Melvin Fein Column of May 8, 2017.”  My column would only read, “Amen, and Thank You, Professor Fein.”

 Apparently the professor and I both believe that the perpetuation of a culture’s values always hinges on the next generation’s acceptance and transmission of those values.  Perhaps, having spent decades amongst youth, we both know that even older teenagers and younger 20-somethings are still malleable and still shaped by influences of all stripes, influences that often undermine the very values that hold us together.

            Whatever the reason, Professor Fein’s column, “The War on Poverty Revisited,” rang every bell and lit every fire in my social consciousness.  It highlighted the failure of government programs, particularly the War on Poverty, to alleviate poverty.  It asserted that certain dynamics in American culture today such as divorce, dependency, and a diminished respect for marriage are weakening the nation.

              A divorce here and there might not affect the nation as a whole, but a divorce rate that hovers at 50 to 52 % certainly will and has.  A divorce is a broken home, no matter how “amicable” may have been the break.  In great numbers, broken homes rupture the nation, leading to sad children, angry teenagers, and aimless young adults.

            Think about it.  If half of us are divorced, half of our homes (with children) could well be fatherless, motherless, or in a setting of blended families.  We may think that children who have known nothing else get used to it.  I say they do not.  They bear scars.  They know there has been a rupture.  Apparently there is planted in their hearts an inherent understanding of family, the need for family, and even family structure.  I could not count the number of teens who, having been raised by divorced parents, have said to me, “I will never divorce.”  Some have proclaimed, “I will never marry.”

            Dr. Fein addressed unwed parenthood, rightly stating it is rife.  He dubs the War on Poverty as “misguided compassion” that has “provided the financial resources for people to have children without cooperating with a spouse.”

            It was President Lyndon Baines Johnson who initiated the War on Poverty.  Johnson did not die poor, but neither did he at all grow up rich.  His FDR-like programs were aimed at the poor.  If Georgia’s esteemed U.S. Senator Richard Russell could defend Johnson’s sincerity of purpose and genuine interest in the poor, I will grant Johnson the same.  On Russell’s word, I will accept that Johnson wasn’t just seeking votes.

            The problem with his War on Poverty, however, was that in addressing material poverty, it increased spiritual poverty.  Poverty of spirit is far more serious than lack of material goods.  When “benefits” from the government make even one citizen lazy or make that citizen feel entitled, government has done its people a disservice.

            None other than Dolly Parton (now reportedly worth $500 million) and Loretta Lynn have testified that in their childhood poverty there was no lack of love and family cohesion.  They were neither spiritually poor nor bereft of faith, nor of – as Professor Fein puts it – “the personal confidence to compete for success or to make independent decisions.”

            Ah!  Competition.  Independence.  This too is something government programs do not foster.  Neither does government ever concern itself with fostering self-restraint or discovering one’s gifts and putting them to use.  “Equality” is more important to government.

            Like the two country icons, Parton and Lynn, and millions of other Americans, I can testify that material and spiritual poverty are two different things.  Holes in one’s shoes, lack of indoor plumbing, and shortage of money cannot kill one’s spirit when one is also taught to do your best, to never steal, to esteem others higher than yourself, and to obey the magistrates.

            What’s next for the poor is continued poverty unless they are taught that there are different kinds of poverty.  What’s next for the rich and for the political class is societal chaos – peasants marching toward the palace with pitchforks – unless the rich and our government also learn something, namely that “misguided compassion” and government largess only creates more peasants.

            The American family stands at a precipice.  I fear its future far more than any nation’s bombs.  And I pray for a renaissance and a revival, as well as for more academicians like the good professor.

Roger Hines

5/10/17