\doc\web\97\05\cove.txt Date sent: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 07:03:15 -0400 (EDT) From: "Patrick S. Poole" Organization: http://alabamafamily.org/ To: c-news@world.std.com Subject: C-NEWS: Covenant Syndicate 1:21 Send reply to: "Patrick S. Poole" The Covenant Syndicate June 12, 1997, vol. 1, no. 21 (Back Issues posted at: http://capo.org/opeds/opeds.html) In this Issue: Beyond Politics: An Empirical Ode to Father's Day David W. Hall (dhall@capo.org) The Immoral Effect of Rent Controls on Social Policy Michael Bauman (michael.bauman@ac.hillsdale.edu) Affirmative Action and Misuse of Statistics Francis J. Beckwith (fbeckwith@whittier.edu) ********************* Beyond Politics: An Empirical Ode to Father's Day David W. Hall (dhall@capo.org) Shortly before Father's day and with the completion of a Promise-Keepers rally nearby, a consideration of a transcultural and quite significant nonpolitical activity may reveal that an institution as old as fatherhood has policy value superior to billions of dollars of government aid. Fathers, present and active, in the lives of their children may do more to benefit society than many policy makers imagine. Absentee fatherhood has had crippling effects on our cities. David Blankenhorn has provided a compelling empirical indictment of the retreat of fathers and its corresponding national impact. Reporting that AFDC was not even with us until 1935 and that most of the aid prior to 1960 was to widows, Blankenhorn builds his case: "The explosion of father absence in the 1960s and 1970s was essentially voluntary . . . Between 1960 and 1980, the proportion of children in the US living in fatherless homes nearly doubled, from 17.5% to 32.2%. During this same period, the proportion of these children whose mothers were widows dropped sharply, while the proportion whose mothers were divorced or never married rose dramatically." Large federal mechanisms were created to supposedly ameliorate this. With over 38,000 federal or state employees tracking "deadbeat dads" to the tune of $1.6 B in 1990, a short eleven year period (from 1978 to 1989) saw dramatic increases in fatherlessness." "In 1990," he continued, "fathers were absent from 27.5% of all homes inhabited by mothers and children, up from 21.6% in 1979. Approximately 10 million families in 1990 consisted of mothers living with children whose fathers were absent." While divorce, remarriage, and separation declined slightly in this period, "fatherlessness due to nonmarriage skyrocketed." Unwed parenthood rose from 19% to 30% in a little over a decade. Blankenhorn accounted for this by pointing to the absence of fatherly expectations. More important than the monetary expense, is the mortgage on our country owed to paternal irresponsibility following gratuitous sex. Blankenhorn stated: "Many of these men do not consider themselves to be deadbeat dads at all. Their reasoning may be sad, but at least it is consistent. They do not think of themselves as deadbeats precisely because they do not think of themselves as dads. They never signed on to anything. They never agreed to play by any fatherhood code. They have never had any explicit obligations either to their children or to the mothers of their children. By what reasonable principle," they selfishly reason, "do they owe anybody anything?" Moral responsibility rather than monthly child care payments is the beginning point of recapturing solutions to these problems. If Promise Keepers or any other movement can stanch the hemorrhage caused by nonpaternalism, then it should be lauded. This is no call for a revival of Ozzie and Harriet families, although theirs wasn't bad compared to recent peaks of dysfunctionality. Rather, these statistical notes above refer to a social and empirical reality. As we consider fathers this month, it is safe to say that there are few things more necessary to life - even in an age that clones, logs in, and computes against Russian champions. The truth is, as Promise Keepers and others are rediscovering, fathers are essential. I happen to be one who finds that argument ineluctable, and my argument has nothing whatsoever to do with my own family status. Indeed, a woman, a child, or a computer could marshal the same empirical evidence and avoid a similar conclusion only by hiding behind an irrevocably biased dogmatism. To this father, that means that along with essentiality comes responsibility. Dads must rediscover perseverance, if for no other reason than for the good of their children. Sociologist Wade Horn, chairman of the National Fatherhood Initiative, reviewed the research and compiled some telling statistics. He asserts, "The one factor that most determines the well-being and future success of children is whether or not they grew up with a father in the home. Seventy percent of long-term prison inmates grew up fatherless." Dispute that if you will, emote your disfavor at that reality, or even call Horn and others nasty names like "traditionalist," "old-fashioned," or "illiberal," but such tantrums will not divert these empirical realities; nor are they blunted by the tired and worn plea for alternative lifestyles that should win an Abysmal Failure of the Century Award. "Girls without a father in the home are one and a half times more likely to get pregnant before marriage," continues Horn. Moreover, he reports, "Children in families without fathers are five times more likely to grow up in poverty, are two to three times more likely to abuse drugs, and are three to four times more likely to commit suicide. Significantly, the negative effects disappear when the reason for the father's absence is that he has died. Single mothers who are widows somehow manage to keep their children emotionally healthy. The problems come when the father never marries the mother of his child, and when the parents are divorced." One last time, if not clear. According to the Web site of the National Fatherhood Initiative (http://www.register.com/father/index.html; try also the National Center for Fathering at: http://www.fathers.com/), here's some consequences of absentee dadism: Almost 75 percent of American children will experience poverty before they turn 11 years old, compared to only 20 percent for families where there are two parents; Violent criminals are overwhelmingly males who grew up without fathers: 60 percent of America's rapists, 72 percent of adolescent murderers and 70 percent of long-term prison inmates [come from fatherless homes]; Children living in father absent homes are also more likely to be suspended from school, or to drop out; be treated for an emotional or behavioral problem; commit suicide as adolescents; and be victims of child abuse or neglect. Dads, keep those promises. But if you can't keep your promises, at least keep your children and rediscover an old harness that would benefit a large sphere of influence: duty. Fathers are essentials. The facts are there, and this is way beyond or more requisite than political programs. Here's to you child-keeping dads, little praised, sometimes scoffed, but greatly rewarded. ********************* The Immoral Effect of Rent Controls on Social Policy Michael Bauman (michael.bauman@ac.hillsdale.edu) Perhaps the point about misguided welfare incentives can be made more graphically at the corporate level. Imagine that in an effort to aid portions of our lagging auto industry we decided to prop up the profits of our weakest car maker by passing a law that put a minimum price of $25,000 on each vehicle it sold, thus dramatically increasing the profits it enjoyed from every sale. But, despite our good intention, indeed because of it, that auto maker soon goes out of business because, no matter how much they want to "buy American," very few consumers willingly pay that much money for cars comparable to those available elsewhere for half the price. The same principle holds when that which is being sold is not a car but an unskilled employee's overpriced labor. To such harmful, but well intentioned, legislative conniving, no thinking Christian ought to consent. Instead, as economist Charles Van Eaton has carefully argued, we ought to encourage more entrepreneurship like that of marketplace giants Ray Kroc or Dave Thomas, who, far more than any government program ever has or could, aided the cause of the poor, both as consumers and as workers. Kroc and Thomas aided the poor as consumers by providing low income workers with inexpensive ways to treat their hard working spouses and their underprivileged children to enjoyable meals outside the home, a privilege reserved largely for the prosperous before the advent of fast food restaurants. Even now, decades after the inception of McDonald's, children twitter with excitement at the prospect of a cheeseburger, fries and a Coke, much like their mothers, who are spared the drudgery of cooking yet another meal and cleaning yet another load of dirty dishes. Kroc and Thomas aided impoverished workers by providing the all-important entry level jobs by which unskilled or inexperienced workers could learn critical marketplace lessons concerning the importance of appearance, punctuality, deference, teamwork, and dependability; jobs by which they could acquire management and public relations skills; jobs by which they could acquire the personal references and endorsements necessary to obtain better jobs with other employers in the future, and jobs by which they could earn a modest wage to boot. Kroc and Thomas did more to aid the poor than does the state because Kroc and Thomas understood that you cannot climb the ladder of success without first getting on the ladder. Kroc and Thomas invited the poor to step onto the first rung, and made it possible for them to do so. Untold thousands of people prospered in precisely this way, all without spending even one tax dollar. Quite the opposite, in fact, for these novice workers themselves, as they rose from poverty, actually paid into public coffers. Because of people like Kroc and Thomas, great numbers of minority poor became wealthy franchisees, many even owning entire chains of franchises. Thousands more gained access to management jobs that otherwise would have remained perpetually unattainable. However, in the welfare theaters, we thought that if we passed laws holding down the costs of urban housing, we could aid the poor by making many more thousands of inexpensive apartments available to them than before, and perhaps diminish homelessness in the process. We forgot that a purchase price for renter is a selling price for a landlord. The more attractive a price is for the one, the less attractive it is for the other. When landlords are forced to reduce their rents in the face of burgeoning tax and maintenance costs, they wisely decide to allocate their very substantial investments in other ways. For example, when rent-control ceilings make it unprofitable for landlords to rent their apartments, they often sell those apartments as condominiums, and thus escape real estate taxes and the high cost of urban upkeep, not to mention make enough money to send junior and his sister to a better college than they otherwise could attend. Because the supply of condominiums then increases, their selling price tends to go down, thereby aiding wealthy urban dwellers, the only ones who can afford to purchase them. Meanwhile, the price of the apartments still on the market now rises because their supply has shrunk. By trying to control rent in order to aid the poor, we aid the wealthy by driving down the price of their housing, and we injure those in poverty by decreasing the number of apartments available for them to rent at any price, driving more of them into the street. In order to prevent this dire consequence, we sometimes pass laws prohibiting landlords from taking recourse to condominium conversion (and also unintentionally preventing junior and his sister from getting the best college education they can, and consequently precluding them from becoming as productive as possible in the future). This legislation predictably proves counter-productive because it often means (a) that landlords seek additional payments under the table from their renters, thus making life more difficult for the poor, who can scarcely afford the extra cost; (b) that landlords defer needed maintenance on their decaying buildings, again making life more difficult for the poor; and (c) that landlords get out of the housing business altogether, tear down their apartments, and build a parking lot -- a low maintenance, high yield investment that serves only those wealthy enough to afford the high cost of owning, operating, and insuring an automobile in an urban setting. We must remember that, human nature being what it is, people respond to incentives. Therefore, rather than passing rent control laws, we ought to give significantly reduced utility rates and impressive tax breaks to those who create, or who maintain, urban rental housing, thus making such housing more plentiful and more affordable. In short, we should do all we can to promote the supply side of the supply and demand equation. The greater the supply, the lower the price. The lower the price, the better it is for the poor. The greater the incentives for property owners, the better it is for landlords. The better it is for landlords, the greater the supply of apartments. Furthermore, the increase in urban rental units not only results in lower rental prices for renters, it also provides more jobs for those who construct apartment buildings, as well as for those who service them and who maintain them. To that sort of plan, a conscientious Christian can consent. ********************* Affirmative Action and the Misuse of Statistics Francis J. Beckwith (fbeckwith@whittier.edu) President Bill Clinton is traveling to California to deliver on Saturday, June 14, the commencement address at the University of California, San Diego. His speech, according to insiders, will generate debate on the subject of gender -and race-based preferential treatment. One of the ways President Clinton may try to justify preferential treatment is to cite statistical disparities in certain professions and institutions as proof of discrimination. A typical example of this approach are the comments made by the Rev. Jesse Jackson while he was speaking in Las Vegas, Nevada in early February, 1996. Delivered from the pulpit of a Southern Nevada Baptist church, Jackson claimed that because only 11 Saturn dealerships out of 350 across the United States are minority owned this is conclusive proof that General Motors Corp., which manufactures Saturn automobiles, is discriminating against minorities. He claimed that since African-Americans purchase 8 percent of all new vehicles sold, and because "we are 13 percent of the nation's population, we deserve a relationship that is fair and reciprocal." But since the Rev. Jackson cited neither a specific instance nor a pattern of actual cases of discrimination in which General Motors accepted or rejected applicants for dealerships solely on the basis of their ethnic or racial origin, he is apparently arguing that the lack of statistical proportionality by itself is sufficient to prove discrimination. But this is a largely worthless criterion by which to prove discrimination. First, statistical proportionality is not proof of the absence of discrimination. For example, if the Rev. Jackson's social panacea were achieved and 13 percent of all Saturn dealerships were owned by African-Americans, surely he would not say that from now on any specific complaint of discrimination by an African-American against General Motors is not to be believed because statistical "equity" is now a reality. Second, the lack of statistical proportionality is not proof of the presence of discrimination. Consider just three examples, though many more can be produced. 1) The fact that fewer than 25 percent of the players in the NBA are white, though whites make up roughly 75 percent of the entire population, does not mean that the league is or has been discriminating against whites. We would think it absurd for a white fan to reason like the Rev. Jackson: "Since whites purchase 90 percent of all NBA game tickets sold, and because we are about 75 percent of the nation's population, we deserve a relationship with the NBA that is fair and reciprocal." Also, there are no Asians who play in the NBA (and there are certainly no up and coming Asian college or minor league stars on the horizon), though it would seem foolish to assume from that fact that their absence is the result of the combined bigotry of whites and African-Americans against Asians. 2) In the United States there are three times as many Hispanic Ph.D.s than Asian Ph.D.s in history but Asian Ph.D.s outnumber Hispanic Ph.D.s in chemistry 10-to-1. It would be absurd to infer from this that in history departments Hispanics are discriminating against Asians but in chemistry departments Hispanics are the victims of Asian bigotry. 3) In the United States the income of Jews is far higher than Hispanics. Some, like the Rev. Jackson, may argue that this is proof that anti-Hispanic bigotry exceeds anti-Semitism. But this would be a conclusion drawn far too hastily, for, as Hoover Institution scholar Thomas Sowell has pointed out, there is "greater prosperity of Jews than Hispanics in Hispanic countries throughout Latin America." Consequently, there are probably other factors besides discrimination, perhaps cultural and demographic ones (such as age), which account for this disparity. The point is that there are all sorts of variables, such as cultural habits and average age, that often account for statistical disparities. This, of course, does not mean that discrimination does not occur. It just means that one cannot cite statistical disparities as proof of discrimination. One must cite specific cases with good evidence that particular victims were harmed by actual perpetrators. In other words, when there is a documented case of unjustified racial or gender discrimination, the perpetrator(s) ought to be punished and forced to compensate the victim(s) for his, her or their loss. However, if an injustice is claimed, but neither perpetrator(s) nor victim(s) can be identified other than in vague generalities (e.g., "Whites have harmed blacks and therefore blacks deserve to be compensated for their loss" or "Women only earn 70% of what men earn and so ought to receive preferential treatment in the job market"), then there is simply no way, short of possessing omniscience and omnipotence, to dispense justice without harming innocent people as well as encouraging mediocrity. For example, if some people of your ethnic group at some point in the past murdered and stole from some people of my ethnic group, it would surely not be just for me to require that the living members of your ethnic group be randomly killed and/or some of their assets confiscated by the state and given randomly to selected members of my group. This is called Bosnia. ********************* The Covenant Syndicate is presently distributed as a free service to media outlets and select electronic distribution lists. If you enjoy this, feel free to recommend these to your local newspaper for inclusion. For permission to reprint, contact David Hall at: dhall@capo.org P. S. Our columnists are also available for radio/TV interviews or comment. Please contact them directly at their email address for your programs; or for more information, contact David Hall at: dhall@capo.org David W. Hall The Kuyper Institute 190 Manhattan Ave. Oak Ridge, TN 37830 ph. no. (423) 483-9888 fax no. 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