Self-Licking Ice Cream Cones

The US military has some very colorful expressions – many, if not most, simply not appropriate for this publication.  One of the idioms that I always found to be deliciously descriptive yet imaginatively intriguing was the phrase, “Self-licking ice cream cone.”

The first use of the phrase is thought to have been in a 1992 paper by Pete Worden, then a US Air Force officer, titled “On Self-Licking Ice Cream Cones” critical of  NASA's bureaucracy.   Worden later worked on Capitol Hill, an experience that led him to say that NASA actually stood for "Never A Straight Answer.”  Ironically, after his retirement as a Brigadier General, Worden became the Director of NASA's Ames Research Centerin California.

 Worden, being a little unconventional, was known to occasionally appear in costume, “usually dressing as either Darth Vader, a wizard, or after arriving at NASA, as a goat herder.”   This behavior resulted in an “inquiry from Senator Chuck Grassley that led to an investigation by the NASA inspector general's office into a private project to photograph a group of Viking re-enactors….Although concluding that no government money had been spent on the Viking re-enactment, the investigation itself was estimated to have cost between $40,000 and $600,000.”  Only our Government can waste like that.

America’s prosperity has enabled a standard of living unmatched in human history.  It also has allowed for excesses and intemperance to the point of impending self-destruction.  Unfortunately, Americans, like our bureaucracies, are prone to obesity.  


The General Accountability Office (GAO) reports, “From 2004 to 2012, the federal non-postal civilian workforce grew by 258,882 employees, from 1.88 million to 2.13 million, an increase of 14 percent.”   According to a June 22, 2015 publication of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), 35 percent of men and 37 percent of women were obese, and over 65 percent of the United States population is overweight. Clearly, in many instances, bigger is not always better.

What can prevent this proclivity for counter-productive growth from leading to our self-destruction?  Most likely, reduction will not occur until the pain produced by the problem of unbridled growth becomes so severe that reduction becomes more attractive than an externally imposed dieting plan or an uncomfortable girdle.   Thus the intrinsic problem with the self-licking ice cream cone – it simply doesn’t have the will-power to stop itself. Perhaps nowhere is the self-licking, self-fulfilling nature of government bureaucracy more evident than in the government school system teacher unions.

Richard Berman, reporting on the 2014 elections explains, “Teacher unions have spent hundreds of millions of dollars obstructing reasonable reforms to ‘last in, first out’ hiring policies, seniority-based pay, and teacher tenure that could improve the status quo that protects unions and incompetence in the classroom at the expense of students. In practice, this means quid pro quo agreements with political candidates where campaign contributions are traded for promises of an anti-reform agenda.” 

Consider this cautionary tale of Government’s attempt to reform itself:

The government had a vast scrap yard in the middle of a desert. Recognizing someone may steal from it, they created a night watchman position (GS-4) and hired a person for the job. Then they said, "How can the watchman do his job without instruction?" So they created a planning position and hired two people: one to write the instructions (GS-12) and one to do time studies (GS-11). Then they said, "How will we know the night watchman is doing his job correctly?" So they created two management positions.  Then they said, "How are these people going to get paid?"So they created a timekeeper position (GS-09) and a payroll officer (GS-11). Then they said, "Who will account for all of these people?" So they created an administrative position and hired three people: an Admin Officer (GM-13), an assistant Admin Officer (GS-12) and a Legal Secretary (GS-08). Then they said, "We have had this organization in operation for one year and we are $22,000 over budget, we must reduce overall costs," so they fired the night watchman. 

Ronald Reagan described the self-licking nature of government’s insatiable appetite this way, “No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!”  

The Era of Big Government is here, and you WILL like it.  And if you don’t, expect a call from the IRS or some other self-licking eternal entity.

Tinfoil Hats and FEMA Camps

“These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” – Thomas Paine, 1776

I vacillate between believing whether the biggest threat Americans face today is the internal threat posed by the politically correct Obama administration and their gargantuan, overreaching, oppressive Federal bureaucracy, coupled with a burgeoning Federal debt OR the external threats posed by Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, the Islamic State, International criminal syndicates and other non-state actors coupled with an ineffectual Southern Border, as we reduce our military.  

Or maybe it is the way the Obama administration ignores the external threats, all while cozying up to Iran and Cuba, as he alienates our allies and reduces the military.  

  

But every cloud has to have a silver lining right?  The only reason I don’t wear my tinfoil hat all the time is because I’m convinced the politically correct Obama administration and their gargantuan, overreaching, oppressive Federal bureaucracy is also completely inept.  It would be funny if it weren’t so darn imprudent and expensive.  

Just this week, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) officials announced the results of the interagency forensics investigation into a recent cyber incident involving federal background investigation data.  The utter magnitude of the ineptitude makes the VA medical system look like the Mayo Clinic or Johns Hopkins.   Here is what DoD informed present and former members:

 “In late May, as a result of ongoing efforts to secure its systems, OPM discovered an incident affecting background investigation records of current, former and prospective federal employees and contractors…  The forensics investigation determined that the types of information in these records include identification details such as Social Security numbers; residency and educational history; employment history; information about immediate family and other personal and business acquaintances; health, criminal and financial history; and other details.” 

Oh great.  Not just personal information, but the family’s too.  “Some records also include findings from interviews conducted by background investigators and fingerprints. Usernames and passwords that background investigation applicants used to fill out their background investigation forms also were stolen.”  But wait, there’s more, “Since learning of the incident affecting background investigation records, OPM and the interagency incident response team concluded that sensitive information, including the Social Security numbers of 21.5 million individuals, was stolen from the background investigation databases. This includes 19.7 million people who applied for a background investigation, and 1.8 million non-applicants, predominantly spouses or cohabitants of applicants, officials said.” 

 

OPM’s silver lining, “While background investigation records do contain some information regarding mental health and financial history provided by those that have applied for a security clearance and by individuals contacted during the background investigation, there is no evidence that separate systems that store information regarding the health, financial, payroll and retirement records of federal personnel were impacted by this incident."  

In order to prove their incompetence was not just a onetime fluke, they offered this encouraging tidbit: “This incident is separate, but related to, a previous incident discovered in April… affecting personnel data for 4.2 million individuals.”

And just who got all this information?  According to senior American officials, Chinese hackers broke into the computer networks.   Not to worry though, “For the 21.5 million background investigation applicants, spouses or cohabitants with sensitive information stolen from OPM databases, OPM and the Defense Department will work with a private-sector firm specializing in credit and identity theft monitoring to provide services tailored to address potential risks created by this particular incident for at least three years, at no charge.”  No charge to anyone except the US taxpayer. 

The failure to secure our personal information needs to be seen in light of the abysmal failure to secure our physical borders and sovereignty of our country.  The most recent illegal alien related tragedies have spawned a new term -- “criminal illegal.”    Orwell would be proud.  In what might also be called criminal, these folks have found refuge in our liberal-led “sanctuary cities.”

Between the Obama administration’s ATF, DHS, DOJ, EPA, GSA, INS, ICE, IRS, OPM, NSA, SSA, TSA, VA and the SCOTUS’s incompetence and the external threats, it’s hard to be sure what constitutes the greatest threat to America.  The only silver lining or source of solace for the soul:  if (or when) Obama does declare Martial Law – our inept Federal Government won’t even be able to operate the FEMA camps correctly.

The SCOTUS Goes Rogue

There will be much written about the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) most recent King v. Burwell decision regarding the Orwellian named, “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”  Derisively named “Obamacare” by its critics, it was aptly renamed “SCOTUS-care” by Samuel Alito who wrote a stinging dissent to the bizarre and lawless decision by the six partisan lawmakers in black robes masquerading as Supreme Court justices.  

The reason for the exact wording that the 6-3 majority deliberately chose to ignore was plainly disclosed by Jonathan Gruber in many of his arrogant lectures.  The subsidy (“free money”) was to only be available to those who "enrolled…through an Exchange established by the State..."  Some 34 states, primarily led by Republican Governors, chose not to establish State exchanges.  The left intentionally crafted the bill to incentivize states to create exchanges and punish those who didn’t.   

On January 18, 2012, Gruber, an economist who was paid millions of dollars as a consultant on the ACA, said, "What's important to remember politically about this is if you're a state and you don't set up an exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits."  On January 10, 2012, Gruber said, "... if your governor doesn’t set up an exchange, you're losing hundreds of millions of dollars of tax credits to be delivered to your citizens."  It was by design and codified in the law.

As the number of illegal invaders and ignorant Americans in our country rise faster than the temperature of a swine flu patient, the cost of health care will correspondingly explode.  As Ronald Reagan is often quoted as saying, “If you want more of something, subsidize it; if you want less of something, tax it.”  Only Obama, Pelosi, Reid and the other lying liberals could come up with a plan that manages to get the worst of both worlds -- subsidies creating inflation of prices and taxes to make less low-cost care available.   Not to mention, the less you earn/work, the greater your subsidy – a completely perverse incentive.

Some of the increased taxes to pay for this disaster include: “higher Medicare taxes, new annual fees on health insurance providers, fees on manufacturers and importers of brand-name pharmaceutical drugs and certain medical devices, limits on tax deductions of medical expenses, a new 40% excise tax on "Cadillac" insurance policies, and of course a 10% federal sales tax on indoor tanning services (or as Obama calls it, “the white privilege-tax”).

While it’s true it costs money to buy snake oil, and smart people usually have money, smart people don’t usually fall for the snake oil salesman’s pitch.  Stupid people, who might otherwise fall for the snake oil salesman‘s pitch, normally don’t have the disposable income for snake oil, or if they do, it’s not a lot of money; hence, the price of snake oil stays low.  But now, thanks to Obama/SCOTUS-care, the price of snake oil is about to explode, and those with money are about to fork out the money to buy it for those without. 

This is markedly different from the Georgia lottery. The lottery serves largely as a tax on the ignorant.  In the case of this government scheme, the state lures the uninformed and ignorant in to spend money they don’t have a lot of in the hopes of winning millions that they almost assuredly won’t.  The profits from this immoral but legal scam are then transferred to the children of the smart in the form of Hope Scholarships so that the cost of college tuition can continue to explode.  Easy-to-get student loans are similarly fueling runaway college costs.  The colleges know all-too-well that the parents are getting this “free” money, so they jack-up their prices accordingly.

If you thought health care or college is expensive now, just wait until it’s free.  Like the “cash for clunkers” program, Obamacare uses other people’s money to co-opt partakers into participating in the destruction of something that was actually working fine for many.  Like the lottery example above, the car dealer knows you got cash for your “clunker”, and you can bet he’ll get “his share” of that money.  The net result of cash for clunkers: a shortage of used cars for consumers that needed them and the complete destruction of those thousands of serviceable vehicles. 

 

The true destructive nature of Obamacare is yet to be fully realized.  Before you know it, the Supreme Court will rule two men can marry each other.  Truly, words have no meaning anymore.

This article was also appears in the 1 JUL 2015 Upson Beacon

What Does the Ultrasound Say?

Perhaps the saddest thing about America today is the palpable divisiveness at virtually every level and in every realm of our national life.  Internationally, I’m not sure President Obama could make it any worse, even if he tried.  It seems it is all reaching a crescendo, a boiling point, a breaking point, an explosive eruption.  Jesus described a coming time of terrible distress “wars and rumors of wars” and that, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.  All these are the beginning of birth pains.”   It’s time for the world to enroll in a Lamaze class.

Domestically, it hasn’t seemed this bad since the tail-end of the civil-rights movement with its attendant urban riots.  That period included the Harlem Riot of 1964, Philadelphia 1964 riot, Watts Riots of 1965, and the 1966 Hough Riots in Cleveland.   I can vividly remember 1966, as a six-year old boy, visiting my Aunt and Uncle’s place in Ohio.   A throng of rioters were marching down their street.  The adults had my cousins and brothers all huddled in the attic, while my Dad and Uncle armed with a hunting rifle and a shotgun kept watch out of the attic window.   

The following year, 1967, over 100 US cities experienced widespread rioting, including in Newark, Plainfield, NJ , Detroit, MI  and Minneapolis-Saint Paul.   After the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, extensive rioting again occurred in cities across the country, most notably in  Chicago,   Washington, D.C.  , Louisville,  and  Baltimore.   

The other movement I distinctly recall from my youth was the anti-war movement.  Hippies protesting the Vietnam War turned against the government, their parents, and virtually all authority. “Never trust anyone over 30” was their code.  The police became “pigs.”  And who can forget their recruiting slogan and raison d’être, “Sex, Drugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll.”  Virtually every mall had a “head-shop” and record stores that served as a reminder and promoter of their counter-culture practices. 

Although the civil-rights and anti-war movements were both against the status quo that the US government represented, they never really converged as completely as one might have thought.  Even though Martin Luther King, Jr. was against the Vietnam War, he didn’t trust the hippies enough to fully embrace them.  Dr. King expressed this sentiment in a 1967 lecture at Massey College in Canada, “The importance of the hippies is not in their unconventional behavior but in the fact that hundreds of thousands of young people, in turning to a flight from reality, are expressing a profoundly discrediting view on the society they emerge from.”

Tragically, or perhaps ironically, we now see the worst of these two movements merged in one man -- Barack Obama.  He’s not alone. Many modern leftists of similar temperament come to mind, e.g., John Kerry, Eric Holder, Bill de Blassio and Hillary are all comparable.  They’ve sworn to uphold and enforce the law but know that won’t produce the outcomes they desire – so they find themselves conflicted, occasionally defending and enforcing it, other times condoning or demonstrating outright lawlessness.   They are expected to ensure tranquility and the common defense, but loathe the police and military that are charged with trying to achieve it.  They dare not admit there’s a war on – not even on poverty -- let alone admit they are the very reason we are losing it.

Martin Luther King, Jr., in decrying the “white moderate,” describes the character of these modern leftists to a tee, “I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the {African-American's} great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the {African-American} to wait for a ‘more convenient season’.”  

I agree with Dr. King, as long as these leftist/moderate whites are in charge, they’ll continue to paternalistically dole out government largesse, as if that’s the solution -- in the hopes of coming to a more convenient season or their next election, whichever’s first. 

The contractions have started.

Fog or Confusion?

When a hand grenade lands in your midst, one of the surest ways to save your buddies (and become a hero), is to dive on it. The left has lobbed a grenade into our Armed Forces that no one dares dive on, no matter how much carnage it might prevent. 

That grenade rolling around in the midst of the Army nowadays is deliberately designed to feminize, neuter, emasculate and pacify our military.  The ongoing social tinkering is not designed to produce a Frankenstein – it’s designed to produce a Michael Jackson.  The left knows they can control Mike a lot easier than Frank.  And that’s their ultimate objective; “control” the military.  Control is their goal – not combat effectiveness.

The three main axis of advance for the left are; 1) force the homosexual issue, 2) force women into male roles/units, and 3) get rid of those bigoted and pesky Christians.  First axis – check, objective accomplished.  Second objective -- underway.  The third one, they can’t even admit it’s an objective.  The left knows that one who is committed to the King of kings won’t cave to their carnality. After all, it was Jesus himself who said, “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’”

What’s the big deal about male homosexuality in the military – it requires at least one of the two men involved to act like a woman.  Here’s what the Department of Defense regulation for decades said about it:  “Homosexuality is incompatible with military service. The presence in the military environment of persons who engage In homosexual conduct or who, by their statements, demonstrate a propensity to engage in homosexual conduct, seriously impairs the accomplishment of the military mission.  The presence of such members adversely affects the ability of the Military Services to maintain discipline, good order, and morale; to foster mutual trust and confidence among servicemembers….”   So exactly what has changed about human nature or the military mission (other than liberal politicians are in power, and Generals would rather get promoted than defend morality)?  

The collateral damage from the left’s grenade may only now be evident.  This month the Department of Defense released its annual Sexual Assault Report .  A Military Times article about the report opened with this, “Across the military, men suffered more sexual assaults last year than women…”  The report itself said, “From 2012 to 2013, there was an unprecedented 53% increase in victim reports of sexual assault.  In 2014, the high level of reporting seen in 2013 was sustained with 6,131 reports of sexual assault. This figure represents an increase of 11% over 2013 numbers.”  DoD's Dr. Nathan Galbreath explained, "Men, relative to women, are more often experiencing multiple sexual assault incidents throughout the year. They are at the hands of multiple offenders. These occur in daytime hours in their duty locations."  Exactly whose bright idea was all this again?

In 1896, Clausewitz described “The Fog of War” as, "the state of ignorance in which commanders frequently find themselves as regards the real strength and position, not only of their foes, but also of their friends."  Politicians now use the term to excuse and mask their poor decisions; blaming their blunders on a “fog” that was really brought about by their own ideological blinders.  The newest liberal “fog” is complete gender confusion on every front.   

To advance the left’s second objective the “women in Ranger school” experiment is underway.  If they can demonstrate that a woman can pass what has been called the "toughest combat course in the world" and "most physically and mentally demanding leadership school the Army has to offer"  there will be no reason to maintain the exclusion of women from any job or any unit. 

From 2000 – 2012, the historically male-only Ranger School graduation rate was under 49%.  The results thus far for the ongoing gender-bending class:  381 males and 19 females started the course; 184 men and eight women passed the initial four-day Ranger assessment.   All eight of the women and 69 of the males then failed the first of the three phases (Darby, Mountains and Florida).  Their second chance at the Darby Phase began 14 May 2015.   

Perhaps the only two things more confused than our Armed Force’s gender policies: Bruce Jenner trying to decide which restroom to use and the left trying to figure out how he could be a Republican.

 

One day a woman may become a “Ranger” -- but she’ll never be a man.  

May the fog lift soon. 

 

This article was published in the 20 May 2015 Upson Beacon.  Full disclosure.  I am a Ranger Class 13-87 graduate.  My son and I both served in the 75th Ranger Regiment.  I also served in the Ranger Training Brigade.   

The Coming Constitutional Clash

America is headed for a train wreck…you can see it coming if you look far enough down the tracks.  There was a small sampling of this coming wreck earlier this month in Garland, Texas.  The locomotive powering the American experiment – the US Constitution, has been chugging along for well over two-hundred and twenty-six years.  That freedom train is headed for a clash with Islam.  Not just radical, militant Islam, but “American” Muslims as well.

Our Constitution, in the very First Amendment, guarantees “freedom of religion” and “freedom of speech.”   Every member of the US Military takes an oath to “support and defend” that right and all other rights enshrined in that sacred document, “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”  Our Christian founders knew these rights had to be enumerated to keep the federal government, and others, from dictating the manner in which people could worship, and to prevent the establishment of a national church like the Church of England. 

When someone exercises their First Amendment free speech rights in a way that offends Christians, the Biblical response is to, as Jesus half-brother James said, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.”   Jesus put it this way, “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.  Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

How have some Muslims responded to something that offends them concerning their “Prophet”?  We’ve seen it in Denmark, Paris, and most recently Garland, Texas.  Those groups were only exercising what the US should consider, constitutionally protected, First Amendment free speech. 

Wenzel Strategies conducted a poll of six-hundred American Muslims (with a margin of error of less than four percent.)  When asked, “Do you believe criticism of Islam or Mohammed should be permitted under the Constitution’s First Amendment?” 57.8% said, “No.”  A clear majority do not believe the Constitution protects free speech with regard to Islam.  Perhaps because, in the same poll, over 32%, nearly one-third, said Shariah law should be the supreme law of the land in the US.  Is it confusion about the Constitution, or an underlying belief that Sharia trumps the Constitution?     

It’s one thing to have a philosophical or theological disagreement, it’s quite another to believe you should be killed over it.  When those same American Muslims were asked, “Do you agree or disagree that Americans who criticize or parody Islam should be put to death?” 11.5% of the American Muslims surveyed either agree (4.3%), or strongly agree (7.2%), that Americans who criticize or parody Islam should be put to death. 

Given that a majority of American Muslims don’t think criticism of Islam or their prophet is protected, and more than eleven percent thinks that offensively exercising one’s Constitutional right deserves death, just how big is the impending train wreck going to be?  Let’s use the study titled, “The American Mosque 2011″ by Ihsan Bagby of the University of Kentucky.  

Bagby reports there are 2,106 mosques in the US, more than double the 962 in 1994.  This doesn’t include groups not considered Islamic, e.g. Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam.  According to Bagby’s work, the states with the highest number of mosques are: New York (257), California (246), Texas (166), Florida (118), Illinois (109), New Jersey (109), Pennsylvania (99), Michigan (77), Georgia (69), and Virginia (62).  Based on his work Bagby projected 2.6 million “mosque participants,” up from 2 million in 2000.  Bagby extrapolates that if non-affiliated adherents were included the total “should be closer to the estimates of up to 7 million.”  

Using a conservative figure of three million American Muslims, there are roughly 1.73 million Muslims (57.8%) here that believe your First Amendment right does not allow you to criticize their religion.  That would also mean there are some 345,000 American Muslims (11.5%) that think Americans who do criticize or parody Islam should be put to death. 

The Center for Immigration Studies reports, “Immigrants from the Middle East are currently the fastest growing immigration demographic coming into the US” and predicts, “the immigrant population from the Middle East will double in fifteen years and triple by 2050.”  

The coming Islamic train crash is not with Christians, it’s with the Constitution.




This article was written before the recent Amtrak crash in Philadelphia and appeared in the 13 MAY 2015 Upson Beacon..

Our Father and Baltimore

Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.   Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in Baltimore, as it is in heaven.   

I saw former Georgia Bulldog tight-end, Benjamin Watson, being interviewed a couple of times on the news this weekend regarding the recent Baltimore uprisings.  He is a very impressive and thoughtful gentleman.  Here is an excerpt of what he posted on his Facebook page:

“We have major problems as a nation. Yesterday Ferguson burned. Tonight ‪‎Baltimore burns. Tomorrow it will be another city in our homeland. Watching the coverage I’m hearing yet another version of a nauseatingly familiar narrative. Violence by police reciprocated by violence by the community, reciprocated by violence by police reciprocated by…. It seems fruitless to continue to analyze, condemn, and respond to these dreadful episodes. ‘Frustration, anger, tension boiling over, upset and unfortunate’ are words we hear from Baltimore residents. When it comes to law enforcement, race, poverty, education, immigration we always talk about fixing ‘broken’ systems….After each situation the more I am convinced that the love of God for our fellow brothers and sisters who were created in His image, is our only hope for reconciliation. But the only way we can even see him that way is if God illuminates our view and changes our thought process…I see a brokenness that only Christ can give us the wisdom and power to mend.”

I must say, I fully agree with Benjamin, Christ is the answer, because He is the way to the Father.  Jesus put it this way, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.  If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him….The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.  Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me…”

It is also earthly fathers that hold the answer to Baltimore and many of our urban problems.  Many are claiming that the problem in our urban centers is poverty.  Poverty is not the problem.  A lack of earthly fathers living up to their obligations is the problem – poverty is the result.  A 2012 Heritage Organization Report titled, “Marriage: America’s Greatest Weapon Against Child Poverty” had this to say about the role of fathers and the God-ordained institution of marriage: 

“Child poverty is an ongoing national concern, but few are aware that its principal cause is the absence of married fathers in the home. Marriage remains America’s strongest anti-poverty weapon, yet it continues to decline. As husbands disappear from the home, poverty and welfare dependence will increase, and children and parents will suffer as a result.”  

Additional findings indicate that the benefits of fathers and marriage are not just monetary.  “Children raised by married parents have substantially better life outcomes compared to similar children raised in single-parent homes.  When compared to children in intact married homes, children raised by single parents are more likely to have emotional and behavioral problems; be physically abused; smoke, drink, and use drugs; be aggressive; engage in violent, delinquent, and criminal behavior; have poor school performance; be expelled from school; and drop out of high school.  Many of these negative outcomes are associated with the higher poverty rates of single mothers. In many cases, however, the improvements in child well-being that are associated with marriage persist even after adjusting for differences in family income. This indicates that the father brings more to his home than just a paycheck.”

 

 Those looking for an explanation to poverty and its associated problems would be wise to understand the troubles associated with single-parenting.  When single-parent families are compared to intact married families, the children are, “More than twice as likely to be arrested for a juvenile crime; Twice as likely to be treated for emotional and behavioral problems; roughly twice as likely to be suspended or expelled from school; and a third more likely to drop out before completing high school.”    
 

Benjamin Watson is right.  For those who turn to Christ they can come to realize that God is, “A father to the fatherless.”