The South killed the safety net

[coldmountain]

The South killed the safety net

"The South’s aversion both to taxes and to mandated government safety net structures had a long, and somewhat surprising, pedigree. In the late eighteenth century, popular radical writers such as Condorcet in France and Tom Paine in England had called for the creation of comprehensive social insurance systems based around universal pensions, child allowances, and education for all. Neither, however, managed to successfully alter prevailing political and moral doctrines. In France, after the frenzy of the revolutionary years the counterrevolution of the post-Napoleonic period put a halt to radical social experiments for decades. And in the United Kingdom, at least partially in response to the violence unleashed by revolutionaries in France, the early nineteenth century saw a tide of conservative reaction. Give money to the poor, the theory went, and you were encouraging indolence, dependency, and ultimately societal chaos. In 1834, after the publication of the Poor Law Report, “outdoor relief”—the giving of state moneys to the able-bodied poor in a non-workhouse context—was banned. For most of the rest of Queen Victoria’s near-seventy-year reign, “the great unwashed” were either left to find their own ways through terrain of hunger, homelessness, and disease, or were corralled into the sorts of ghastly workhouse settings made infamous by the writings of Charles Dickens.

In America, the South in particular took the Victorian lesson to heart, though to a lesser degree so too did the rest of the country. As did most of Europe. After all, Great Britain was the dominant power of the age, its economic prescriptions as hard to avoid as, say, the Washington consensus’s emphasis on opening up markets to international trade, privatizing public services, and deregulation a century and a half later. Coercive poor law politics, shaped around workhouses, poor houses, and other near-prison-like conditions for confining and attending to the subsistence needs of the poor was, as a consequence, the dominant response to poverty on both sides of the Atlantic throughout the middle decades of the nineteenth century."

http://www.salon.com/2013/09/07/why_dont_americans_want_a_social_safety_net/

Progressives around the world need to start boycotting the South and rewarding other regions that do the right things. Vacation somewhere else. Boycott southern based stores like Walmart and Dollar General. Buy a UAW built car instead of a non union JapanInc car built by non union workers. Reward Detroit and Toledo and not Kentucky.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

1. How ironic that coldmountain is in NC ...

Do you even realize the irony of your own post?

Somehow I seriously doubt it.

[coldmountain]

3. The movie "Cold Mountain" was extremely anti-Confederate

Watch the movie, it rips the shiny face of the Confederate legitimacy off and reveals the worst sorts of corruption.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

4. Enjoy your stay here.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

12. Enjoy your boycott of the south.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

17. Thank you for your advice. I really appreciate it. Have a nice day.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

18. Are you o n MIRt? I suggest you sign up next time. I hope you don't hurt your head

banging it on the wall like that.

[A HERETIC I AM]

21. Yes, I am.

But after thinking about it for a while....

[coldmountain]

8. Corruption in the Confederacy

Corruption in the Confederacy

Between 1862 and 1865, officers of the Confederate District Court of North Carolina, empowered by a new national law, confiscated and sold millions of dollars worth of property from North Carolinians accused of being “alien enemies.” The proceeds of confiscated and sold property were to be sent immediately to Richmond, but most was never reported. Many officers of the District Court, like David Schenck of Lincoln County, became wealthy enforcing the Act of Sequestration while thousands of their fellow Tar Heels were deprived of their property, charged with disloyalty, and in some cases even executed as enemies of the Confederacy.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/corruption-in-the-confederacy/?smid=fb-share&_r=0

This what the movie "Cold Mountain" is about.

[leftstreet]

2. I thought South Bashing was on Wednesdays

[coldmountain]

5. If much of the South would quit fighting the Civil War, South bashing would have ended decades ago

I'm afraid Civil War won't end until whites are a minority in the South.

Y'all need to get it through your heads that the Yankees liberated the South instead of conquering it. That's the progressive way of looking at it. Watch the movie "Cold Mountain" and see how evil the "Homeguard" was.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

13. South bashing is not only tolerated; it is actually encouraged on this site.

[cordelia]

23. Yes it is, and I'll be keeping bigoted threads like this in mind when it's time to

pony up $$$ come renewal time.

[coldmountain]

25. How is it encouraged?

[Tuesday Afternoon]

28. as if you didn't know. you slay me. you really do, cold mountain.

your username is too good for you.

[coldmountain]

30. Did you see the movie or read the book?

[Tuesday Afternoon]

31. as a matter of fact, yes. Must I inform you that this is 2013 and not 1913? We here at DU are

trying to elect Democrats, are you? Or you just here to refight a war or, maybe start one?

Just what is your intention with this thread?

[cherokeeprogressive]

33. Let me take a stab at answering your last question...

[Tuesday Afternoon]

35. by jove, I think you've got it!

[coldmountain]

36. Obvious the Confederacy is not dead even though it's politically incorrect to point that out

The reality is the so-called South pulls together to fight modernity, has terrible statistics, terrible history, the biggest class division in the western world, is the base of an arguably anti-American political movement that often talks about leaving the union, fights organized labor even if the company wants unions, fights implementing Obamacare, on and on

I think calling bigotry is actually political correctness of the worst sort. The truth is absolute defense against libel.

[Recursion]

6. No, that really gets a lot wrong

The South skipped the Industrial Revolution, more or less. The South was also a crucial leg of the FDR coalition that ended up enacting the New Deal safety net. So, nice troll, but no.

[coldmountain]

7. They only did the New Deal because the Democrats at the time were the "anti-black" party

Remember the "Dixiecrats" and "Yellow Dog" Democrats.

[Recursion]

9. Dixiecrats and Yellow Dogs are polar opposites

Dixiecrats preferred a third party to supporting Truman. Yellow Dogs stayed with the party despite their disagreement over racial issues. And my point stands: the South elected the Democrats who enacted the New Deal.

[coldmountain]

14. The Dixicrats were Democrats who felt betrayed by FDR after voting for him

The Dixiecrats were Democrats who became Republicans, a real "Yellow Dog" Democrat is still voting Democrat. Many of the Southerners who voted for FDR or JFK even out of tradition, turned against Democrats after seeing what they did. Hence, LBJ talking about losing the South for generations after the "Civil Rights" bills were passed.

[leftstreet]

16. It's voting Democrat'ic' not Democrat n/t

a real "Yellow Dog" Democrat is still voting Democrat.

[cherokeeprogressive]

27. Noticed that. n/t

[Tuesday Afternoon]

34. me too.

[coldmountain]

40. Spending so much time in the rural South which is almost all Republican, I picked it up

Sorry if "Democrat" is politically incorrect but I usually say "Democratic" like it says in the rest of my posts.

[JVS]

38. That's not what polar opposites are. Those are different sides of the same coin.

Dixiecrats preferred a third party to supporting Truman. Yellow Dogs stayed with the party despite their disagreement over racial issues.

Supporting segregationists third parties because of one's own support of segregation is not the polar opposite of supporting the democratic party despite one's pro-segregation disagreement with the party.

Also, New Dealers were not generally Southerners. An example of a Southerners vs New Dealers would be the contrast between Wallace and FDR's other VPs. Garner was very unsupportive of the New Deal and Truman was also considered a moderate on labor issues.

[name not needed]

10. And then they jumped ship at the thought of having to live side by side with their fellow man.

Fuck em.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

32. my, aren't you just a lovely piece of humanity.

[kelliekat44]

19. For the south, government help and safety net is ok so long as minorities are excluded.

Their aversion to any kind of safety net and paying taxes is because they know that it means their taxes are going to help people who don't look like them.

[jazzimov]

20. As a Southerner, I find this post offensive. nt

[coldmountain]

22. Is being an American, a Democrat, a liberal, etc more important than being a "Southerner"?

I wished we were all just Americans but the South acting like a voting block and increasing like some "Confederate" ethnicity has had huge implications for America and even the world.

Is the "Southern by the grace of God" bumpersticker offensive? It's certainly divisive for no good reason.

[cordelia]

24. YOU are certainly divisive for no good reason.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

29. who on here has that bumpersticker? why are you on here talking about that? how does that help

get Democrats elected? what is your purpose with this thread?

[pnwmom]

26. Sorry if the truth offends -- but there is a large concentration of tea party people in the south.

And they are doing everything they can to destroy the safety net.

[coldmountain]

37. Lively discussion over at Salon about this article

Here's a great post.

esmense 1 hour ago
@t.sopraon1 Actually, it is a result of a slave state past. The notion that there are basic resources, that encourage success, security, and upward mobility, for both the individual and the community, that ALL members of the community should share in and take responsibility for doesn't fly in the South -- because it undermines more traditional, slave state values of hierachy and rewards based in privilege and status rather than in work.

Southerners not only don't believe in a safety net, they don't believe that work is something that deserves reward -- which is why they object to labor rights, the notion of a living wage, etc., as violently as they do to a social safety net (that is, those that apply to those without privilege -- they are fine with government programs that mostly benefit the rich, because they support the success and promote the prosperity of the "right" people). Labor rights, living wage, safety net, are things that promote economic mobility -- and in the process undermine a system in which privilege and status is determined by who and what you are, rather than earned. (It is the value that most contributes to the regions poverty).

http://www.salon.com/2013/09/07/why_dont_americans_want_a_social_safety_net/

[pnwmom]

39. Thanks! n/t