{"id":809,"date":"2010-08-21T15:03:49","date_gmt":"2010-08-21T21:03:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.orderofephors.com\/?p=809"},"modified":"2010-08-23T08:07:03","modified_gmt":"2010-08-23T14:07:03","slug":"back-to-uncle-sams-plantation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orderofephors.com\/?p=809","title":{"rendered":"Back to Uncle Sam&#8217;s Plantation .."},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<div>Wayne, always vigilant, offers this insight written by Star Parker that contrasts socialism with capitalism in an interesting way&#8230; from America&#8217;s great experiment in Communism, the government&#8217;s treatment of our black citizens.<\/div>\n<div>*<\/div>\n<div>Ms. Parker is a syndicated columnist who&#8217;s blog can be reached at:<\/div>\n<div>en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Star_Parker<\/div>\n<div>*<\/div>\n<div><em><strong>I would call this article; following the road of good intentions\u00a0on the  way\u00a0to\u00a0hell.<\/strong><\/em> &#8212; Wayne<\/div>\n<div>*<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>Six years ago I wrote a book called &#8220;Uncle Sam&#8217;s  Plantation.&#8221; 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.<\/div>\n<div>I said in that book that indeed there are two Americas. A poor America on socialism and a wealthy America on capitalism.<\/div>\n<div>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.<\/div>\n<div>A vast sea of perhaps  well intentioned government programs, all initially set into motion in  the 1960&#8217;s, that were going to lift the nation&#8217;s poor out of poverty.<\/div>\n<div>A  benevolent Uncle Sam welcomed mostly poor black Americans onto the  government plantation. Those who accepted the invitation switched  mindsets from &#8220;How do I take care of myself?&#8221; to &#8220;What do I have to do  to stay on the plantation?&#8221;<\/div>\n<div>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.<\/div>\n<div>The legacy of American socialism is our blighted inner cities, dysfunctional inner city schools, and broken black families.<\/div>\n<div>Through God&#8217;s grace, I found my way out. It was then that I understood what freedom meant and how great this country is.<\/div>\n<div>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.<\/div>\n<div>I  thought we were on the road to moving socialism out of our poor black  communities and replacing it with wealth producing American capitalism.<\/div>\n<div>But, incredibly, we are going in the opposite direction.<\/div>\n<div>Instead  of poor America on socialism becoming more like rich American on  capitalism, rich America on capitalism is becoming like poor America on  socialism.<\/div>\n<div>Uncle Sam has welcomed our banks onto the plantation and they have said, &#8220;Thank you, Suh.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div>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.<\/div>\n<div>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.<\/div>\n<div>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.<\/div>\n<div>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.<\/div>\n<div>&#8220;This plan is more than a  prescription for short-term spending-it&#8217;s a strategy for America&#8217;s  long-term growth and opportunity in areas such as renewable energy,  health care, and education.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div>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 &#8220;with  unprecedented transparency and accountability.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div>Yes,  sir, we heard it from Jimmy Carter when he created the Department of  Energy, the Synfuels Corporation, and the Department of Education.<\/div>\n<div>Or  how about the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 &#8212; The War on Poverty &#8212;  which President Johnson said &#8220;&#8230;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.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div>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.<\/div>\n<div>It&#8217;s not complicated. Americans can  accept Barack Obama&#8217;s invitation to move onto the plantation. Or they  can choose personal responsibility and freedom.<\/div>\n<div>Does anyone really need to think about what the choice should be?<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wayne, always vigilant, offers this insight written by Star Parker that contrasts socialism with capitalism in an interesting way&#8230; from America&#8217;s great experiment in Communism, the government&#8217;s treatment of our black citizens. * Ms. Parker is a syndicated columnist who&#8217;s &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.orderofephors.com\/?p=809\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[30],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orderofephors.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orderofephors.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orderofephors.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orderofephors.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orderofephors.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=809"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.orderofephors.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":822,"href":"https:\/\/www.orderofephors.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809\/revisions\/822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orderofephors.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orderofephors.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orderofephors.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}