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May 11, 2007The Bootstrap Nation; Bill Clinton’s Best Legacy? - UPDATEDThat headline is going to make a few toupees spin, I know, but we’ve been talking, for the last few days, about socialism and socialized programs, and why they don’t work, or how they encourage mediocrity. As the discussion spilled over into the comments sections, I wrote:
The emails on this subject have been wide-ranging and in one of them I was taken to task by a reader identifying herself as a “progressive” and requesting anonymity, who wagged a finger at me for advocating a “bootstraps” mentality that - to this woman’s way of thinking - is a “tired old canard” belonging “to the last century.” This is not the first time I’ve heard that, and argued back. I will never understand the mindset that says “give me” is better than “please take,” whether it be on a spiritual or material matter. Yes, the work we do, the things we achieve fall into the “please take” category - because they come out of ourselves to be received by the world. I wonder if my progressive reader would feel differently about the “bootstraps” mentality if she were to consider that Bill Clinton, presumably one of her heroes, brought its value into sharp focus. Bear with me, Clinton-haters. Despite what the extremists on both sides would tell you, no one person is ever always wrong or always right, and while it looks nigh impossible for some on “the other side” to ever admit to President Bush doing something right, that doesn’t mean we can’t do the classier thing and give a fellow credit where it’s due. Bill Clinton might have vetoed the GOP-written welfare reform several times before finally - in an election year - signing the legislation, but he signed it. Amid all of the predictions of gloom and doom, the certainty of the left that the world would end should welfare-as-we-then-knew-it be updated and reformed, Clinton signed. Why did welfare reform work? Perhaps when people were liberated from the shackles of socially-engineered government dependence, when they were freed from the quicksand and muck of “Free Government Cheese” and able to move to the higher ground of “Unleashed Potential,” they grew in self-respect, self-confidence and - most importantly - in hope. The message “you can, if you try” was a louder, clearer and more spiritually sustaining message than “you can’t, so just give up” The reformation of our Welfare system, which in the early 1990’s was burgeoning out of control, became a pushback against what President Bush has called “the soft racism of low-expectations,” and the long-term effect of that pushback is not surprising. Encouragement will always trump condescension, and the fisherman who catches his own supper will always feel better about himself than the man who begs the scraps. When folks - any folks, of any background -are using their own gifts and ingenuity to make their way, they have reason to hold up their heads, to defer failure and to pursue their dreams and goals. That contributes to what David Brooks, in 2005 saw as a growing sense of “virtue,” and decreased reports of domestic violence, theft and general disorder. It might even contribute to new reports that divorce is on the decline. When folks feel good about what they are doing, when they feel like they have some control over the direction their lives take - they have hope. And hope is not simply a feeling. Hope says, “awake, O Sleeper, arise from death!” Hope is the builder of bridges, the tamer of winds, the harnesser of ideas and possibilities. A poor man with hope is immeasurably richer than a wealthy man without it, because he carries within him the spark that can alight a thousand tomorrows.
Hope sparkles from the wheel, and all possibility is contained therein. And the man who can sharpen his own knife, and teach his children that craft, will never be helpless or hungry or cast aside as worthless. He will, therefore, be at peace, and so will his house, and columnists will write about it in wonder. President Bill Clinton signed welfare reform into law. And it has been a good thing, a better thing - perhaps - than many of us even realize. Whether Clinton will claim this legacy, however, is questionable. After all, the success of Welfare Reform has only proved - once again - that the helping hand of necessary, but structured, social aid can uplift and encourage, while the hand-out of creeping socialism can only deplete and depress our human spirit, drive and ingenuity. It is a legacy of which any good conservative would be proud. And the Democrats, since they’ve gotten back in power, have talked like nothing but good socialists. Claiming Clinton’s legacy would spoil the whole script. Doug Ross writes about economics during the Clinton era. UPDATE: For some thoughts on welfare and Clinton’s welfare reform from someone in the system at that time, go read this remarkable post at Pursuing Holiness:
Read the whole thing. More evidence that welfare reform worked found here. http://theanchoressonline.com/2007/05/11/the-bootstrap-nation-bill-clintons-best-legacy/trackback/ 21 Responses to “The Bootstrap Nation; Bill Clinton’s Best Legacy? - UPDATED” |
May 11th, 2007 at 5:37 pm
Excellent!
It’s a long essay, but I wrote about compassion, poverty, the homeless, world hunger, welfare, and the Clinton reforms, giving him credit for at least that. See here.
May 11th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
Hi - I went through all the trouble of registering to say a heartfelt thanks for the Whitman, and for a great essay.
May 11th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
Hi Anchoress - thank you for the Whitman poem. Excellent. And a great essay. Made me think.
May 11th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
A remarkable, brilliant piece here. It gave me hope and a sparkle just reading it. Love the Walt Whitman poem which is even more perfect because Clinton so idolized him.
Very interesting and little noted, this odd blip of genuine triumph in the Clinton term. We sure don’t hear much about it now. Wonder if Hillary would disown welfare reform like she’s disowning the war.
May 11th, 2007 at 11:31 pm
[...] Scan of the ‘Sphere Biofuels more expensive sez Gore The Bootstrap Nation; Bill Clinton’s Best Legacy? If you’re not watching Couric, the problem is YOU? Class tells; Class wars do not US Cancer [...]
May 12th, 2007 at 10:23 am
“the helping hand of necessary, but structured, social aid can uplift and encourage, while the hand-out of creeping socialism can only deplete and depress our human spirit, drive and ingenuity.”
/One of the most dreadful things about the “conservative” point of view is the constant confusion of how we feel about facts with the facts themselves.
/It really doesn’t matter, say, that Mexican immigrant laborers feel good about the fact that they work like dogs,which both they do. They are still exploited and trapped by an economic system and a legal status which will allow them to do nothing but work like dogs and earn rock bottom wages.
/It really doesn’t matter that someone on “workfare” feels good about working when they are the last hired in good times, and the first fired in bad, hence constantly booted back through the revolving door of not having worked long enough to qualify for adeqate unemployment compensation while they look for work, of sitting in grimy bureaucratic waiting rooms or going to food pantries to keep eating, and clawing after the steadily diminshing health coverage of Medicaid. If they can even get it. Which they can’t in my state.
/They can’t go to Dr.Feelgood either.
/Anchoress, you are trapped in a wilderness of purple rhetoric much of which is absolutely contentless and some of which is patently absurd:
“And the man who can sharpen his own knife, and teach his children that craft, will never be helpless or hungry or cast aside as worthless.”
/How many knife grinders do you see, happy and smiling, on the streets of your quiet Long Island suburb?
/Never be helpless? When the plug is pulled by your company on the pension fund, which you contibuted money to, and when that money of yours goes to where the woodbine twineth? [I like a little purple rhetoric myself now and then] When they tell you about the cancer and they don’t tell you that your richer cousin will live longer with it than you because of his insurance coverage?
/Never be hungry? Perhaps not. But not because of the “knowledge of your craft”. You can thank “socialist” programs like unemployment compensation, food assistance and so on for that fact, as well as the private charity which would utterly collapse under the strain of a poor bereft of that “socialist” aid.
/Never cast aside as worthless? Like the 55 year old white male booted out by his company because his benefits are too expensive, pounding the pavement with grey hair and a resume both of which make him “overqualified”?
/I suppose age really does consist of “too many qualifications”, just as people with names, faces, and souls are obviously “human resources” too precious to waste unless, of course, they are “overqualified”.
/But it isn’t even age, really, that makes you “overqualified”. You can be like an acquaintence of mine, female, forty, unmarried, overweight and working for Chase collections. There’s lots of good work out there these days for her ever profitable knife grinding craft. Chase has just opened a new facility in Mumbai to handle the overflow.
/Which facility do you think they will close when the next recession comes?
/Never hopeless? When the dozens of resumes you drop off every week don’t even get you one polite form letter saying that we have all the knife-grinders we need now but we’ll keep you on file.
/All these people are at peace, of course, and that’s why columnists are writing about them and their like in wonder.
May 12th, 2007 at 10:37 am
Nice to hear from you again, too, Joseph. Not in France, yet?
May 12th, 2007 at 10:48 am
[...] 12th, 2007 In The Bootstrap Nation; Bill Clinton’s Best Legacy?, the Anchoress breaks stride with the march du jour. As is often the case, she has trouble walking [...]
May 12th, 2007 at 11:44 am
No I’m not in France. And I still can’t do HTML worth a darn. I keep constantly forgetting the backslash on the closing perameter, which makes me look very silly.
/But then I’m being very silly I guess, what with projecting on America my own struggles with SSA, Food Stamps, Medicaid, food pantries, physicians charity care, “sliding scale” mental health care, drug company supplements of my extremely expensive psychoactive medications, and the incredible amount of stress, time, effort, begging, cajoling, and form signing that all this requires.
/It is, after all, merely plain factual evidence of the conditions I’m talking about, and I’m pretty foolish to be persuaded by it alone.
/I’m always deceived into believing in the power of mere facts to clarify thought.
/I guess I should simply rest happily and securely in my two temporary and part time jobs. I’m really good at them. I’m a very good knife grinder. Always have been. And I have met and talked a lot to quite a number of the people I describe above. They’re generally pretty good people, though they would be better company if they were under less stress.
/I am particularly good at the one job where I talk on the phone to all the people tangled up in the same full time job of being underemployed, poor, and mentally ill as I am. For some reason, when these people talk to me, they calm down, no matter how bad their situation.
/Of course, the job does leave me innundated with more depressing facts, clouding my mind and distorting my political judgment.
/It is, however, a help when I revisit my wonderful mental health oriented employment coaching service [paid for wholly by government funding I'm sorry to say]. As a “success story” for them, I can give aid and comfort to the “overqualified” whose struggles to hold their life together have pushed them into clinical depression or worse.
/Besides, they have free computer access for present and former clients, which, besides the occasional charity of a close friend, is the only way I can now get into the Blogosphere.
/So I have not neglected you from intent or personal difficulties, and its nice to sneak back on one of the few Saturdays when I can afford to ignore my household chores for a time. I hope your life has been penetrated by the Holy Spirit and that your faith remains strong and firm.
/As to France, well, maybe we will see the Margaret Thatcher experiment tried again. Unfortunately, France does not have North Sea oil to prop it up nor the grit and the sense to restrain their own energy consumption which has kept Britain doing largely very well, even under Labor government.
/In any event, we should wish France, as I wish you, bonne chance.
May 12th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Joseph, you remind me of something my Auntie Lillie used to say about one of my downshouting uncles, “talk, talk, talk, call for solutions and then find all of them unacceptable…what is you’re solution, old man?”
‘
His solution usually involved the pub…which I am not assigning to you, Joseph. But uncle was always a little easier to please after a pint.
May 12th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
[...] that the way for me to get off of welfare and out of poverty was to plan - and to plan to work. The Anchoress was entirely correct when she wrote, The message “you can, if you try” was a louder, clearer and more spiritually sustaining [...]
May 12th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
The real story behind the ‘Clinton Economy’…
Two unique events played influential roles on the United States economy during Bill Clinton’s tenure. Many have forgotten these events, the result of which is a general misunderstanding of the real drivers behind the “Clinton Economy”……
May 12th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
Joseph, I lost my husband while I was pregnant. I was poor, unemployed, and hungry. I’ve had some bad things happen to me, to the point that I was diagnosed with PTSD and dissociative disorder and had to rely on the tender mercies of the state for physical and mental healthcare. I’ve bounced around from job to job.
Those are the facts I lived with, very similar to yours, and after doing so I am persuaded that I am fortunate to be in a system that provides opportunities instead of one that provides outcomes.
May 13th, 2007 at 12:11 am
Anchoress, I thought about responding, read Joseph’s comments and thought about responding to those, read the comments and finally decided I could be somewhat coherent.
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I understand what you mean about having initiative and “bootstrap-pulling”. I also understand Joseph’s point that you can be working against a quicksand that’s pulling you down just a LITTLE bit faster than you can pull yourself up. I’ve been in both situations, and the only thing that saved me in the latter was friends and family who were as bad off or worse, so they moved into my dinky one-bedroom apartment and, if they couldn’t share expenses or bring furniture, they at least kept the place clean and occupied to prevent B&Es. We always had at least three people there.
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When you’re in the hole, all you think about is how awful it is to be there and to even resent the people who aren’t. It also depends on how long you (and your family) have been struggling. My mother told me that she didn’t realize her family was poor (even with her having rickets and siblings suffering from malnutrition) until she went to college in the late ’50s and realized her classmates took things like electricity at home for granted. (Her parents got electricity after she went away.) She never really lost the expectation that life would give her a beating the first chance it got, and any material gain you had was likely to disappear - so work hard and save every penny!
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The flip side, of course, is “the culture of poverty” wherein you’re so used to living day by day that making long-term goals and carrying them out is a foreign concept. You’ve been raised and you’re raising your children to spend money while you have it, because you might not get any later. (I won’t take over your combox, but suffice to say that two years ago I got a very detailed, researched and sad explanation of why a mother will send her kids to school hungry and with dirty clothes, yet show up with acrylic nails and an expensive hairdo.) If you’re so used to living day-to-day, you might get to the point where you er they got and then lost everything when disability or unemployment came.
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As for getting accustomed to a hand-out, it’s no different from the person who gets accustomed to living on a certain income and good benefits. It’s seductive. They believe it’s going to last forever, so they don’t bother to save or sacrifice for some vision of tomorrow. I saw both mentalities when I was growing up. I lived in one of the counties that was vying for the title of Welfare Capital of the U.S. during the ’80s (most of the time that dubious honor went to Harrison County, Michigan). It was also a popular area for “summer people” with second homes, because of the hunting, fishing, and boating. I was very aware of the benefits and abuses of welfare. I remember when I figured out the system wasn’t exactly fair. It was the winter of ‘82 and my classmate X’s whole family was sleeping next to a woodstove because they chose food over electricity, but our classmate Y’s widowed mom used some of her foodstamps to get hamburger to feed her three dogs. Y’s family always had a kegger when Y’s social security check came in. Y’s family never thought about getting rid of the dogs or seriously looking for work (although his mom and grandmother would babysit for cash or foodstamps). He was the first person in three generations to get a job, mostly because his girlfriend (and later wife) set all sorts of longterm goals for the both of them.
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The odd thing is that I see a lot of parallels right now with my current community. A lot of people have lost their jobs and/or benefits, or have had their hours so curtailed that the bottom has dropped out from under them. They can make ends meet between their unemployment and what they have in their savings, but not for a full year. As the summer approaches, gas prices increase as does the the cost of commuting to a job (or an interview) in the metro area (which is too high-rent for them). They have equity in their house, but they can’t sell it because every fifth house on the street is up for sale. They have four or five garage sales for extra cash. But taxes are going up to fill the gap made by companies leaving the state. Some of them finally pack up whatever will fit in the car (family first) and mailing the housekeys to the bank. (It’s called “jinglemail” around here.) Everyone else is afraid that they’re going to lose everything, too.
May 13th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Well, maybe anybody can do these wonderful things, but certainly everybody has not done them. People have only very rarely done them. I think they are the exception and not the norm, though like most of us, it may feel normal to them.
/Could I do these things? Maybe, though at fifty-five, the sand in my hourglass is a little short for it.
/From practical experience of professional conversations with many more of the seriously mentally ill, I can tell you two things. The conditions are not “cured”, they are only kept at bay with dangerous and debilitating medication as well as lifestyle changes to manage [not eliminate] the symptoms. And, for many of us, sooner or later the medications cease to work and have to be regularly changed.
/There was a top headline article in USA Today last week pointing out that the average life expectancy of the seriously mentally ill is a full twenty-five years less than the normal population. The side effects of these medications on the liver and the endrocine system are a large part of the reason.
/I have both a personal and a professional commitment to what we call “recovery”. And I have “recovered”.
/I am medicated. I am employed. I work exactly the amount of time and the level of effort that is consistent with my being able to sustain a professional level of performance: Absolutely no more than forty hours a week in three week bursts followed by a week of rest with less than professional demands, or only 16 to 20 hours a week maximum, with 24 to 48 hour breaks 2-3 times a week, as a regular work schedule.
/My symptoms [so far] are well managed, and my treatment team is pleased with my progress. But they and I both know that anyone in “recovery” must always prepare for the possibility of relapse, and relapse is the norm for by far the majority of us. I have flirted with it from time to time, particularly when I push too hard on my work and stress limits.
/But recovery is not the same for everybody. For some folks I talk to, it is simply to move from a more restrictive to a less restrictive ward in a State Hospital because their behavior improves, for others it is merely to get the voices in the head under enough control that they are no longer separate personalities but appoint one of their number as an exterior spokesperson for the rest.
/For others it is accepting the fact that they are less than fully employable because most employers are too afraid that they might be “dangerous” to have around. We call this The Stigma. For still others, including some who are “recovered” as much as I am, it is coming to moral terms with the harm that they did while not sane, which can be as deadly as having caused the deaths of their own children.
/They are all “recovery”, as are the sterling examples where such recovery is a triumph of the will, rather than a modest victory [like mine], or a simple step of progress [like more than most people really want to know about].
/When your recovery is less than a triumph you inevitably have a full-time hobby managing your own access to the social service system, even if you are lucky enough to have a competent and effective Case Manager to help.
/The triumphs are wonderful. But the triumphs are exceptional. And the triumphs are rare. At least they are rare for those of us who deal professionally with the mentally ill, whether or not we have a personal stake in recovery ourselves.
/Over the years, the margin for recovery has gotten narrower and narrower as political resistance to extending [or even maintaining] social services has built up.
/In addition, that same political resistance has pushed many of us out of the actual mental health care we need, because it costs the public “too much” or because political view that the public has no reason to be responsible or involved at all.
/Hence we are summarily “de-institutionalized”, pushed out, without medication, to “recover” or relapse willy-nilly, with little or no help and no clue as to how to find what help there might be.
/Or, more horribly, we never get the first steps of help, even when a Probate Court orders it, even when we are under a “pink slip” [though a pink slip itself is as archaic as a manual typewriter].
/We just saw a possible result down at Virgina Tech. And the last time I visited my own psychiatrist, he seriously asked my professional advice on how to get the local police departments to enforce Probate Court orders for confinement of patients who are sucidal or in danger of committing felonious assault. I’m not kidding. They really refuse to do it.
/I also talk professionally to many family members who are suddenly confronted with the serious mental illness of a loved one and are terrified.
/I have to level with them. I have to be as blunt with them as I have been to you. I tell them “recovery” is possible, but triumph is unlikely.
May 14th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
The Locus of Responsibility…
Two years ago I wrote a post on Responsibility. In part it was a bit of an explanation of why I Blog and what I Blog about:Looking back on what I have been writing about on this blog, I think…
May 15th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
A few afternoon links…
Iraq: We could eliminate the enemy and stabilize the nation in 48 hours with a few of these handsome airplanes on the right (that’s a model H on the left, and a B on the right). However, we are trying to fight a half-war - or a Nice War. Neoneo takes…
August 14th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
[...] paying attention. I’m praying. And I still say socialism doesn’t work. by TheAnchoress @ 10:55 am. Filed under Culture of Life/Death, Faith, Catholicism, Socialism [...]
October 29th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
[...] The Bootstrap Nation; Bill Clinton’s Best Legacy?, the Anchoress breaks stride with the march du jour. As is often the case, she has trouble walking [...]
December 3rd, 2007 at 3:40 pm
[...] presidency would immediately be more historically compelling and relevant than Mr. Clinton’s ever could be. And, as someone said recently - I can’t remember where I heard it - if Hillary, as CIC, [...]
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:17 am
[...] the front and center and got the job done. Still, he did eventually sign it and it may well end up the best part of his legacy. He deserves some credit for [...]