Obama scores points by kicking deadbeat dads

The NY Times headline says that Obama is assailing absentee black fathers. Some people will be snookered into thinking that this sounds vaguely conservative because he’s blaming someone besides whitey. But it takes two people to have a baby. Someone needs to blame black women for the problem. Black women are more responsible than the black men. A black woman who wants to get pregnant will be able to find some man to unwittingly help her.

On Friday, Mr. Obama announced that he would be a co-sponsor of a bill with Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, that his campaign said would address the “national epidemic of absentee fathers.” If passed, the legislation would increase the enforcement of child support payments and strengthen domestic violence prevention services.

The message here is that if a black woman has a baby out of wedlock, someone else (either the government or the unfortunate sperm donor) will pay for it. States have already been rigorously going after fathers for child support, and it has been a disaster. The men who impregnate welfare mothers tend to be too poor to pay any child support. And the lives of innocent men have been ruined. Read this excellent Reason Magazine article. And read these real facts about deadbeat dads from a prosecutor who has prosecuted countless cases against them.

Obama’s solution to our nation’s problems is to federalize a really bad state policy. But feminists who voted for Hillary love to blame men for all of our nation’s problems. And far-right Christians are usually behind going after deadbeat dads because it seems to them like a just punishment for the sin of premarital sex. Talk about an unholy alliance.

Despite the lack of anything new from Obama, the tone of the NY Times article is that Obama, because he is black, will be able to tackle and solve the tough problems that an old white man would not be able to.

Comments

[Independent Accountant]

HS:
I agree with you. One thing which will reduce the problem of deadbeat dads is sterilization. I know, Buck vs. Bell and all that. However, after the collapse this is likely to come. Have a child on welfare get your plumbing yanked. It's more than time.

"However, after the collapse this is likely to come."

The collapse? Please elaborate.

[antifeminist]

All the women in this country raising children without making an even modest effort to provide a worthwhile environment for them (i.e. graduating from high school, finding a father who actually wants to be a father) is one of the biggest problems in this country and noone ever talks about it. A man who makes some kind of genuine commitment and then renegs deserves condemnation, but so do these women.

And the fact that men can't opt out of these legal and financial obligations is just insane.

[Gannon]

That's what I've been saying all along. It's the same unholy alliance that's responsible for high ages of consent. The feminists and the religious nuts are destroying the life of US males. Males are much stronger, it's time to fight back. Sterilization violates human rights by the way and should not be legalized.

[antifeminist]

What about a male birth control pill?

[antifeminist]

So would a male birth control pill or similar product dramatically reduce the out of wedlock birth rate in the black community.

Theres definitely a virulent pro-natal stream in the black community, which is why so many women refuse to utilize the range of options given to them and have children anyway. But I don't know how much that culture extends to men.

Theres a lot of resistance to from men in general because they feel that, even if the effect is only temporary, it would make them somehow less of a man. And black men have such a grotesque ideal of masculinity so I can imagine them being especially reluctant to use it.

[mnjohn]

In the news Miley Cyrus is now dating a 22 year old furthering Gannon's proof that it is entirely natural at her age. I think its funny that when she poses with a bare back its a huge deal but when she goes out with a 22 year old nobody hears a fuss.

[loki on the run]

And the lives of innocent men have been ruined.

Oh come one HS, surely you don't believe that shit.

Women in general, and a specific group in particular have found a more reliable way to receive the support they need to raise their children, and selling your vote to ambitious men is easier than giving head or spreading, you know what I mean?

[SFG]

That's what I've been saying all along. It's the same unholy alliance that's responsible for high ages of consent. The feminists and the religious nuts are destroying the life of US males. Males are much stronger, it's time to fight back. Sterilization violates human rights by the way and should not be legalized.
I'm not in agreement with you over age of consent, Gannon, but I do agree there is an alliance of Christians and feminists against men. I avoid penovaginal sex where possible, and if forced to copulate, always double-bag. A moment of pleasure isn't worth a lifetime of child-support hell.

[antifeminist]

that should be "not just with someone who is capable of consenting" instead of "not just other people incapable of consenting."

And I also should have mentioned the way that those stupid laws are starting to be applied to drunk sex in anti male ways.

[fuggy]

I worked at a women's clinic in New Orleans with a black woman who was pregnant with her second child with a black man who had two other women with children.
When I asked her why she put up with such behaviour she replied:
"Oh, Fuggy, men are so doggy".

[Markku]

I avoid penovaginal sex where possible, and if forced to copulate [...]

Heh, is it hard for you to avoid penovaginal sex? Whenever forced to copulate, notify the police. It is a criminal offense to force another person to copulate. Hope this helps. ;)

[Kirk]

I still think the best thing to do, would be to just deny child-support to women who became impregnated outside of wedlock. Currently, the law is diminishing the importance of marriage, and promoting irresponsible sex.

The current laws also require those who are religiously opposed to extramarital sex, to help finance it, by using a part of their taxes to keep this machine going. One would think that the evangelicals could be prompted to get involved here.

[David Alexander]

Black women are more responsible than the black men.

One of the problems is that your have a group of de facto feral men who impregnate at will as a form entertainment and competition with their peers. The lack of proper sexual education and decision to avoid using condoms not only causes the problem of single motherhood, but it also exacerbates the STI rates as well which in turn creates a communal health problem.

It also doesn't help that for many black women, the pool of available men is composed of criminals and other unemployable men which makes marriage difficult. In addition, you have women who have children for other dubious reasons in order to combat depression or manipulate the social welfare system. Regardless of the silly reasons both listed and unlisted, thanks to nearly three generations of single parenthood, even amongst employed working and middle class blacks, it's simply an accepted fact that mothers and fathers do not live together. Marriage is something that's desired, but only attainable with "perfect men" and overpriced, expensive weddings* which with current economic and demographic realities is less likely to occur in the black community. In turn, you have an increasing number of men who have no idea of what fathering entails, and mothers who have no idea of how to live long-term with men.** Sadly, in the long-run this hurts everybody since it depresses our economic well-being in the US.

**Yes, the same is true for men living with women.

[Abhs]

Kirk: I still think the best thing to do, would be to just deny child-support to women who became impregnated outside of wedlock. Currently, the law is diminishing the importance of marriage, and promoting irresponsible sex.

I wholeheartedly agree that a detterent to prevent low-quality people from having babies they cannot hope to raise. Maybe you should consider a solution that does not indirectly hurt the well-being of the children. Otherwise, your deterrent seems to diminish the importance of childhood, or the innocence of the kids that did not ask to born. ;)

[David Alexander]

I still think the best thing to do, would be to just deny child-support to women who became impregnated outside of wedlock. Currently, the law is diminishing the importance of marriage, and promoting irresponsible sex.

In the community that serves as the central focus of the current topic, I suspect that eliminating child support will have a limited effect upon the number of children born out of wedlock. It may diminish the effect of women preying upon rich men to extract payments, but I suspect that rich men will be more likely to impregnate women because they are no longer at risk of losing their fortunes. Beyond that, most of the women who are getting pregnant are viewing the child support as an additional bonus, and in some cases, they receive it in lieu of welfare payments.

I wonder if marriage and divorce rates will increase as the new tool of extracting payment?

[Steve Johnson]

Darwin speculated that part of the cause of racial differences was sexual selection.

In Europe and Asia, women do not have the ability to support offspring without men. In Africa, it's easier for someone physically weaker to get food, so women can support themselves and their offspring. Steve Sailer has written many times about how in Africa one of the largest causes of the lack of economic development is that men do almost no work. European and Asian women are the descendants of women who had to find a man to support their offspring; African women are the descendants of women who did not and were free to pick the men they most preferred.

Africans and African Americans are perfect examples of how sexual selection can shape a race.

What do women prefer in a lover (not in a provider)? Dark skin (men of the same ethnicity are darker than women of the same ethnicity, it's a marker of higher testosterone), verbal fluidity, muscularity, height, "athleticism" (which is something like "agility + power"), dancing skills, etc. You can see evidence for all these preferences by observing any night club or bar. Anywhere women and men get together for meeting and possible mating shows all of these patterns.

Do African males exhibit these traits? Yes, on all of them. They're taller, they're more muscular, clearly they're darker skinned, judging by who makes it as a rapper they're more verbally fluid (without being more intelligent), they're better (improvisational) dancers and they have more athleticism than white men or asian men.

Quite simply, the "problem" of illegitimacy will never be solved in the African American community. It goes too strongly against the genes of Africans which were selected for generations for "find the hottest man" / "fuck everything that moves".

Significant cash for sterilization of low IQ women who have never had children is the best solution possible (of course, this isn't in the interest of the elite left who uses the underclass as a weapon against the middle class).

[New Anon]

So when Dumbo ears has been sworn in, what is the left going to do when black illegitimacy rates remain sky high and it is obvious that Hussein is in over his head?

Because you know this guy can't run a lemonade stand let alone the country - just listen to him stumble over his words when he isn't speaking from a script. Obama has "Affirmative Action Hire" written all over him.

But the progressives are creating expectations for Obama that he cannot possibly live up to.

The left, those hot college chicks chearing Obama on, and the country in general are going to be very disappointed when Obama falls on his ass when he actually has to produce good results in the real world. And I will be waiting to pounce on my left wing frinds when Obama F's up the country.

Where the hell do I get my "Don't Blame Me, I Voted for Paul" bumper stickers?

[David Alexander]

In Africa, it's easier for someone physically weaker to get food, so women can support themselves and their offspring.

I wonder if that has played any role on IQ selection. In other words, did European and Asian food scarcity kill off the low IQ cohorts in a way that didn't and still doesn't happen in African culture?

Do African males exhibit these traits? Yes, on all of them.

I'm 5'8, lacking in any muscle tone, not particularly dark skinned, lacking in verbal fluidity, lack rhythm to the point that whites mock me, and suck at most sports. Ooops.

of course, this isn't in the interest of the elite left who uses the underclass as a weapon against the middle class

I'm curious, can one explain why does the elite left hate the middle class?

Significant cash for sterilization of low IQ women who have never had children is the best solution possible

It would have to be a considerably large payment. One must remember that these are women with limited income still have children despite the hit to their income and standard of living.

[Jim Rockford]

Steve Johnson not only are you wrong, but you are wrong in every way.

What Sailer fails to mention is that quite recently, until the mid-late sixties, Black illegitimacy was fairly low. Juan Williams in the WSJ notes that in 1960, only 14% of Black births were illegitimate, compared to about 70% nationwide today and 90% in the inner core.

BTW, White illegitimacy is 25% today, compared to only 4% today.

What happened to drive both BLACKS AND WHITES to much higher illegitimate rates, and for Blacks in particular to have much much higher rates of single motherhood?

At the same time as illegitimacy soared, we had the condom, the pill, both cheap and easily available which along with abortion legal and affordable should have at first glance made illegitimacy rare. It did not.

Instead we seem to have a massive cultural shift, in how women both Black and White, select mates. In Black women it is stronger but certainly present in greatly increased numbers among white women.

Briefly, women post 1965 or so select the most "Alpha" man around, with the highest level of testosterone based on social dominance, displays of violence towards others ("thug life") and high-risk taking behavior. Qualities previously in demand, loyalty, kindness, faithfulness, etc. are now perceived to be the mark of the loser.

You can see this most clearly in the White Underclass in Britain. Theodore Dalrymple has written extensively about his experiences as a Prison Doctor and also a doctor for the NHS in "Life at the Bottom" and "Our Culture, What's Left of It." The illegitimacy rate in Britain is 50%, and that is with Muslims and Hindus have VERY HIGH LEGITIMATE rates. Single motherhood among them is almost unknown and among Muslim women, a capital offense.

You and Sailer are wrong, wrong, and wrong because your model fails to account for either British Whites or American Whites huge increases in illegitimacy, or past low rates of illegitimacy for US Blacks. So much for the "racial model" of family formation. Particularly, your model of racial-cultural behavior is rigid and fails to account for rapid changes in culture.

There is plenty of archaeological and historical evidence that Europeans pre-Roman/Christian had weak family formation, with big men fathering most of the children. Which shifted, massively, under Christianization in just a few hundred years. Providing among other things much higher social peace (less fighting over women).

As for ages of consent, there are sound reasons to keep them high, not the least of which is allowing teen boys monitored access (no sex but kissing/making out) with girls to keep social peace. It is generally not healthy to have a bunch of teen boys with no girlfriends to civilize and moderate their behavior in controlled ways. Low ages of consent usually mean older men hogging all the young girls and a violent society.

The experience of Yemen, where half the marriages are to girls under 15 is not a happy one.

[Gannon]

"Low ages of consent usually mean older men hogging all the young girls and a violent society."

That statement is completely false.

[DAJ]

Steve Johnson:

"Quite simply, the "problem" of illegitimacy will never be solved in the African American community."

Actually, the illegitimacy problem in the black community was in fact "solved" for quite a few generations in American history. Until the 1960s, the vast majority of black babies were born within the confines of wedlock. For instance, the black illegitimacy rate in the early 1960s was lower than the present white American illegitimacy rate. That this historical fact occurred suggests that maintaining a relatively low illegitimacy rate is not beyond the genetic reach of American blacks.

Steve Sailer has written on this selfsame subject.
http://www.isteve.com/2003_black_illegitimacy_rate_declines.htm

[David Alexander]

At the same time as illegitimacy soared, we had the condom, the pill, both cheap and easily available which along with abortion legal and affordable should have at first glance made illegitimacy rare. It did not.

I think it's necessary to look at the demographics of the users of such tools. Is this a problem that's affecting the upper and middle classes, or is this strictly limited to the poor? In turn, are these single moms waiting for the "big expensive wedding" before marrying the fathers of their children? What are the ages of the mothers *and* fathers involved in these births? All of these factors must be taken into account.

Qualities previously in demand, loyalty, kindness, faithfulness, etc. are now perceived to be the mark of the loser.

Those traits are also relatively unprofitable traits as well. One certainly doesn't become rich by having those traits. Of course, it makes one question if any of great men of history have had such traits?

The main question to ask is if there is an increasingly large pool of never married men, and if they're unmarried by choice? It still seems that people are getting married with the exception of the lower classes.

[Steve Johnson]

You and Sailer are wrong, wrong, and wrong because your model fails to account for either British Whites or American Whites huge increases in illegitimacy

Nope, sorry.

Culture changes reduced the cost of illegitimacy. Women responded by having more illegitimate children.

However, white women responded by going from a 4% illegitimacy rate to a 25% illegitimacy rate. Black women responded by going from 22% to 70%. The ratio of the rates closed but since the black rate can't go over 100%, that's inevitable as one rate approaches 100. In addition, the composition of white women changed in the years from 1960 to 2008. Hispanics are counted as white in the statistics and have an illegitimacy rate of 42%. This inflates the white rate.

Quite simply, if we shifted back to a society more like that in 1960 and completely eliminated both welfare and child support, the illegitimacy rate would drop for both black and white women but the black rate will always be "high" (when compared to the white rate) because evolution has driven black women towards being driven nearly totally by concern for the quality of the genes of their mate and with basically no concern for parental involvement. White women have been selected for a different set of traits.

There is plenty of archaeological and historical evidence that Europeans pre-Roman/Christian had weak family formation, with big men fathering most of the children. Which shifted, massively, under Christianization in just a few hundred years. Providing among other things much higher social peace (less fighting over women).

(1) We know that you can change genes in a few hundred years of strong selection (ex, Jewish intelligence).
(2) There's no evidence of a time in Europe when women could support children without male investment. If a (rich) big man actually is doing most of the fathering of the children that's quite different from women picking men based on the traits that women prefer (see my earlier post for those traits). Women don't fantasize about sleeping with a rich man, they fantasize about marrying a rich man; they fantasize about sleeping with the bad boy. If at some point a few men were able to hoard most of the women, that doesn't lead to the kind of sexual selection you see in Africa because women aren't doing the selecting.

Does that mean that that model is like what you see in the west later? Clearly not. It's more like the middle eastern model which seems quite unpleasant for everyone (except for the few men who have multiple wives).

David Alexander:

I'm 5'8, lacking in any muscle tone, not particularly dark skinned, lacking in verbal fluidity, lack rhythm to the point that whites mock me, and suck at most sports. Ooops.

I think you might be pointing this out to get some pity. However, if you are trying to argue that black men do not rate more highly in the traits I described I'll point out that a single exception says nothing about the distribution of traits of a group. Gabrielle Reese is taller than the average man but that does not invalidate the observation that men are taller than women.

[Steve Johnson]

DAJ:

Actually, the illegitimacy problem in the black community was in fact "solved" for quite a few generations in American history. Until the 1960s, the vast majority of black babies were born within the confines of wedlock.

Ah, but that's in retrospect. At the time the black rate was thought to be a huge problem.

If we somehow went back to that society, the same people who like to use race differences as a crowbar to demolish social structures would talk about the higher black rate as indicating some social problem (that would probably be "solved" by doing something that makes the problem worse).

[Turambar]

Talk about your Senator Pothole.... we need the race transcending Lightworker wasting time on this stuff?

Meanwhile Michelle Obama continues her record of being a castrating bitch:
“She said, ‘Let me tell you, every day is Father’s Day,’ ” he said. “ ‘Every day you’re getting away with something. You’re running for president.’ ”

[Polanski]

re The Negro Responsibility Act

Good post, Sigma; yes, the black female is the principal perp, spawner of the black underclass.

Shouls underclass "parents" take reponsibility, including jail, for the misdeeds of their spawn?

Yes, that's the issue of the day, the Negro Responsibility Act.

Obama is so full of shit!

Since women are the only ones who get to decide if they're going to have an abortion or not, they should be the only ones who have to pay the costs of raising a child.

Making someone a father against his will is a form of rape.

[Jim Rockford]

Steve Johnson -- the figures in Juan William's column showed Hispanic at around 40% or so, and White at 25%. Moreover, you ignore the evidence from Britain, where HALF the births are illegitimate.

Look at Ulrika Johnson in the Daily Mail. Four kids by four different fathers, by no means unusual. She is apparently some sort of celebrity in Britain.

If "race is destiny" how come British whites and US whites seem to be on that same destination?

Moreover, what is causing the differences in the White/Black populations in the US? Anecdotally it seems that Nigerian immigrants to the US have much lower rates of illegitimacy, as do Blacks in the UK.

Moreover, the traits of faithfulness, kindness, loyalty are positive attributes that women selected for, read Jane Austen, when they were vulnerable to being abandoned by men and suffering fairly dire consequences. In Austen's day, it was spinsterhood or prostitution. In Jim Crow days, it was abject poverty for your family and huge amounts of shame.

Black (and White) women selected for these traits in the US and (for whites, in the UK) within living memory, as recently as 40 years ago.

Consumerism, extreme personal and social mobility, and easy contraception are the only broad social trends that also apply to not JUST the US and UK but also other nations in Europe which have high amounts of illegitimate births. Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands come to mind.

Gannon -- the hogging of young girls by older men describes the Arabian experience to a T. Mohammed bin Laden had 22 wives and 57 children, among them Osama. He would "divorce" his wives when he tired of them and give them to subordinates. Many of his wives, when he was in his 40's and fifties, were 17 or younger. *I* would certainly not want to live in Saudi Arabia nor Yemen.

[Steve Johnson]

If "race is destiny" how come British whites and US whites seem to be on that same destination?

Not too complex: the same cultural forces have acted on whites and blacks. The result in the black community is almost total illegitimacy in the white community, around 23%. The change was due to a cultural force, the difference due to genetics.

As far as the UK goes, well, I guess it can get worse in the United States if we have more cradle to grave welfare and free health insurance. Compare whites there with whites in the United States. My initial guess for the reason for the difference would be the more extensive welfare apparatus.

Moreover, the traits of faithfulness, kindness, loyalty are positive attributes that women selected for, read Jane Austen, when they were vulnerable to being abandoned by men and suffering fairly dire consequences. In Austen's day, it was spinsterhood or prostitution. In Jim Crow days, it was abject poverty for your family and huge amounts of shame.

That's exactly my point. Those are the cultural changes. Women don't suffer dire consequences from having an out of wedlock child. As a result, there are more out of wedlock children.

However, you do not see the same rates between blacks and whites when they are in the same circumstances. The reason for this is that although European women were selected for many many generations in circumstances similar to those you described, women in Africa could support themselves. Fear of abandonment was never a selected for trait (since abandonment in Africa entailed basically no negative consequences).

Iceland I'd prefer to leave aside for now (being an island where everyone is closely related is quite different than the conditions elsewhere). Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands are good examples of my point. Even when Swedish couples do not get married, they still co-habitate and are exclusive. Welfare in the United States looks nothing like this.

Anecdotally it seems that Nigerian immigrants to the US have much lower rates of illegitimacy, as do Blacks in the UK.

Anecdotally, many Nigerians are princes trying to get funds out their country and, if you are willing to help, they will generously reward you. Let's stay away from anecdotal evidence (especially when it so strongly contradicts actual, real evidence).

[Steve Johnson]

BTW, my stats on this post come from :

waysandmeans.house.gov/media/pdf/greenbook2003/AppendixM.pdf

I'll take those over the numbers from Juan Williams (did he conduct a huge national survey?).

[loki on the run]

Africans and African Americans are perfect examples of how sexual selection can shape a race.

What an ignorant statement. It is most likely that all racial groups have been shaped (differently) by sexual selection.

[tommy]

Actually, the illegitimacy problem in the black community was in fact "solved" for quite a few generations in American history. Until the 1960s, the vast majority of black babies were born within the confines of wedlock. For instance, the black illegitimacy rate in the early 1960s was lower than the present white American illegitimacy rate. That this historical fact occurred suggests that maintaining a relatively low illegitimacy rate is not beyond the genetic reach of American blacks.

Crime rates used to be a lot lower in the black community as well. They didn't really explode until the 1960's. This is one of those things that gives me (very slight) hope that we may find a way to turn things around.

[David Alexander]

Look at Ulrika Johnson in the Daily Mail. Four kids by four different fathers, by no means unusual. She is apparently some sort of celebrity in Britain.

Three of the children are from marriages.

Consumerism, extreme personal and social mobility, and easy contraception are the only broad social trends

The problem is that children are the one thing that still conflicts with consumerism and mobility. The television show Sex in the City would never work if the women were single mothers with kids. We should be asking why are women having children despite the obvious difficulties that come with motherhood? Would these women have gotten pregnant if they were married with "good boys"? Again, we have to look at demographics to see who is our typical single mother and their male sex partners. Besides, it can't all be "bad boys" since child support payments would eventually cripple their lifestyle...

My initial guess for the reason for the difference would be the more extensive welfare apparatus.

For the fun factor, maybe we should compare with the other Anglo-Saxon Commonwealth states and a random sampling of Europe.

[Steve Johnson]

loki: It is most likely that all racial groups have been shaped (differently) by sexual selection.

I don't doubt that but I think that both the cause and the effects of sexual selection in this case are really clear.

Off the top of my head the only other examples of sexual selection causing racial differences I can think of are stuff like blue / green eyes and blonde / red hair. Both have costs but make their possessors more attractive to the opposite sex. Note that both of these tend to make women more attractive to men rather than the other way around. A big clue about the different environmental pressures that allowed different types of sexual selection to take place.

Bringing it back to the original post, the idea that Obama could "fix" black illegitimacy is absurd. Even with the hugely different society we had before the 1960s the black rate of illegitimacy was still seen as a problem. All we've learned since then is how to make the problem worse. In an important way, we know less now than we did then.

[crackpot]

i give ulrika johnson a 'pass' only b/c she is fairly good looking, even for her age. i would be a lot harder on the average single mom popping out probable losers.

[scottynx]

Jim Rockford writes: "Steve Johnson -- the figures in Juan William's column showed Hispanic at around 40% or so, and White at 25%. Moreover, you ignore the evidence from Britain, where HALF the births are illegitimate."

Latest figures show that 26.6 percent of non-hispanic white births were illegitimate in 2006, 49.9% of hispanic births, and 70.7% of non-hispanic black births. Illegitimacy rates increased from 2005 to 2006 for all races listed.

see pg 6 of National Vital Statistics Reports: Births: Preliminary Data for 2006
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr56/nvsr56_07.pdf

[scottynx]

correct link:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr56/nvsr56_07.pdf

[scottynx]

Jim Rockford: "What Sailer fails to mention is that quite recently, until the mid-late sixties, Black illegitimacy was fairly low."

Jim, you (and everyone) should read Steve Sailer's article: "How Much Ruin In A Nation? UK vs US White Working Class"
http://www.vdare.com/sailer/050410_ruin.htm

It is a very interesting article, and in it, Sailer does in fact explicitly talk about blacks having much lower illegitimacy rates before the 1960's. Here's an excerpt dealing with US blacks, US whites, and Englishmen:

"Speed. Remember the tale of how to boil a frog? Just keep raising the temperature imperceptibly so the frog never notices it's being boiled alive. (Don't try this at home, kids.) Something similar happened in England, where society fell apart so slowly that elite opinion had time to get used to each new outrage.

In contrast, the U.S. murder rate doubled in just ten years—from 1964 to 1974. African-Americans served not as the frog in the pot but as the canary in the coalmine.

The welfare state took decades after its introduction in 1945 to corrupt the English. But the American liberal innovations of the 1960s, such as generous welfare for single mothers and shorter prison sentences, had such an immediately catastrophic on black morals that within a decade and a half, "liberal" had permanently become a term of abuse in American politics."

and Jim, the illegitimacy rates for black mothers in the UK are generally not very low, contra your anecdotes (see page 84 on this pdf):
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_population/FM1_32/FM1no32.pdf

[Kirk]

Kirk: I still think the best thing to do, would be to just deny child-support to women who became impregnated outside of wedlock. Currently, the law is diminishing the importance of marriage, and promoting irresponsible sex.

I wholeheartedly agree that a detterent to prevent low-quality people from having babies they cannot hope to raise. Maybe you should consider a solution that does not indirectly hurt the well-being of the children. Otherwise, your deterrent seems to diminish the importance of childhood, or the innocence of the kids that did not ask to born. ;)

The taxpayer is not responsible for these women's children. And we are not doing these children a favor by rewarding their moms for being sluts.

Never allow anyone to hold their own kids hostage to your good graces. You either take the kids from them, or ignore them.

[DAJ]

Steve Johnson:

"The change was due to a cultural force, the difference due to genetics.

I think that this is a very cogent explanation.

[Gannon]

"Gannon -- the hogging of young girls by older men describes the Arabian experience to a T. Mohammed bin Laden had 22 wives and 57 children, among them Osama."

But the issue you are complaining about is polygamy, noy low ages of consent. Also, even in the US age of consent is a lot lower iy you marry the girl, like this dude did. High ages of consent essentially are to deter guys who are 20-35 to engage in consentual sex with teen girls.

[Vim]

To a large extent, differences in social indicators between races in America are seen as de facto evidence of racism -- the belief that race is a primary determinant of character or aptitudes in humans. On the one hand, some would view this racism as justified based on genuine group differences and on the other, some would see it as invalid, based on our intuitions of fairness and respect for individuality.

For instance, if a doctor does not check a dark-skinned person for skin cancer quite as diligently as he would a fair-skinned person, he or she can perhaps be forgiven. If the same doctor refuses to treat a black patient at all simply for being black then this should strike most of us in the modern world as being unfair.

In this context, what should be learned from large scale group differences? I feel these problems are important in that if there are inherent differences, they would be most succeptible to analysis when we can compare large groups. Many effects are more observable and reproducible in large ensembles.

However, I often feel that people are trying to read what 'ought' to be rather than what is. In other words, some feel the point of analysing the differences between races is to assign blame. The reasoning is if we can figure out whether whites are more to blame or blacks are more to blame for high illegitimacy rates of African Americans, then we can figure out who ought to pick up the tab. To a first order, perhaps this is possible, but as we add nuance to our understanding of these differences and we move beyond first-order approximations, as with most systems, there is no clear distinction between causes and effects.

So I have two general critiques on the shape of the discussion:

1. The point of this exercise should not be to demonize a particular race either black or white. There is a problem known as "blame assignment" in (computational) learning theory, where the purpose of assigning 'blame' is to figure out which component of a system has the most explanatory power and thus which component would have the most effect if changed. I think this is a more productive view of where to place the 'blame'. The point should be to reduce problems where they are problems. There were points in time where behaviour changes in the white population did the most good. I think we are somewhat long past the point where the pendulum has swung in the other direction and behaviours in the black community would do the most good.

2. Difference isn't always a problem but sometimes a problem manifests itself as a difference. I think a more feasible approach, is the thin, red line approach. We come to a consensus on how much of a particular social problem is too much for a population and where it gets too high, for whatever reason, concerns of public health and order might lead us to get involved. For instance, we might distribute free birth control in a particular community. (This is of course something that is already done and people are getting smarter about implementation as data collection and analysis becomes cheaper and easier.) The 'differences' between races don't need to be fixed but this should not dissuade us from reducing social problems where possible.

[Full of it]

Obama is going to take care of this problem? Right. Talk about the willfully blind leading the low IQ blind. Liberals and black politicans like Obama need plenty of low IQ black voters and they intend to ensure a steady supply.

And that post by "Vim" at 7:27 is just bizarre. Where to begin?

"The reasoning is if we can figure out whether whites are more to blame or blacks are more to blame for high illegitimacy rates of African Americans, then we can figure out who ought to pick up the tab."

Maybe it is "possible" to see who is "more to blame" for high black illegtimacy rates. The babies are black, so I'm guessing the fathers and mothers were as well (I'm not sure if whites are sneaking around impregnating black women with the sperm of black men. Maybe the KKK is doing this?). Are whites forcing blacks to have children at gunpoint? If so, I haven't noticed.

And we all know who picks up the tab.

[Marc]

People, people, people! Illegitimacy is not a perfect tracker of paternal investment. The majority of the rise in the illigetimacy rate among whites in the U.S. over the past thirty years has been due to an increase in children born to cohabiting couples, where the father is present and active, but not married to the child's mother.

From the CDC:

"Most of the increase in births to unmarried women since the early 1980’s was in births to unmarried cohabiting women; nearly all of this increase was among non-Hispanic white women."

National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 48, No. 16, October 18, 2000

[Svigor]

The status quo can't last. Eventually men are going to cotton on to the fact that they have 1/2 the responsibility, and 0/2 of the rights (Woman has 100% of reproductive rights and control, but only 50% of responsibility; Man has 0% of former, and 50% of latter).

Maybe men should only be held legally responsible for children they sire in wedlock?

Strictly speaking, the only path forward that respects individual rights is let 100% of the reproductive rights and control remain with the woman, but give her 100% of the responsibility as well. Her body, her choice, her responsibility.

[Svigor]

What happened to drive both BLACKS AND WHITES to much higher illegitimate rates, and for Blacks in particular to have much much higher rates of single motherhood?

I think you're asking the wrong question. That should be:

What circumstances kept black illegitimacy rates low in the past, which no longer obtains?

Obviously, white pressure on blacks to conform to the former's norms is now gone, and liberalism has presided over the flowering of natural black culture. Hence, the convergence of American black norms and African black norms as whites lost their nerve.

[Polanski]

well said Svigor--in this case, it is whitey's fault

[Susan C]

Why hasn't anyone explored the fact that Obama is probably illegitimate? No one has ever found a copy of a marriage license. Although Obama's white grandmother says that her daughter Ann was legally married, Obama admitted to David Mendell (OBAMA, p.27) that he never even looked for government documentation of his parent's marriage. More impotantly, the copy of Obama's birth certificate posted on his website gives his mother's name as Dunham, not Obama. An article about Obama's father in the Honolulu Star-bulletin when Obama would have been around two-years old makes no mention of a wife or child.(See Obama,DREAMS FROM MY FATHER (2004 ed.,p.26).
No copy of a divorce decree has ever been found. Does this matter? It reflects on Obama's honesty and tendency to make himself up.