boutons_deux
05-13-2015, 10:51 AM
Sex, Drugs and Poverty in Red and Blue America
“We don’t smoke marijuana in Muskogee, we don’t take our trips on LSD, we don’t burn our draft cards down on Main Street, we like livin’ right and bein’ free,” Haggard declared (http://www.lyricsfreak.com/m/merle+haggard/okie+from+muskogee_20227307.html). “We don’t make a party out of lovin’, we like holdin’ hands and pitchin’ woo.”
Times have changed.
Today Muskogee, Okla., a city of 38,863 (http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/40/4050050.html), has nine drug treatment centers (http://www.yellowpages.com/muskogee-ok/free-drug-rehab-centers) and acourt (http://www.ok.gov/odmhsas/Substance_Abuse/Oklahoma_Drug_and_Mental_Health_Courts/Drug_Court_Contact_Information.html#M) specifically devoted to drug offenders. A search for “methamphetamine arrest” (http://www.muskogeephoenix.com/search/?mode=article&q=methamphetamine+arrest&nsa=eedition&t=article&l=10&s=start_time&sd=desc&f=html&d=&d1=&d2=) on the website of the Muskogee Phoenix, the local newspaper, produces 316 hits.
In 2013 just under two-thirds of the births in the city of Muskogee (http://www.towncharts.com/Oklahoma/Demographics/Muskogee-city-OK-Demographics-data.html), 62.6 percent, were to unwed mothers, including 48.3 percent of the births to white mothers. The teenage birthrate in Oklahoma was 47.3 per 1,000; in Muskogee, it’s 59.2, almost twice the national rate, which is 29.7.
Muskogee County voted decisively for Ronald Reagan in 1984 and for Republican presidential candidates in the last three elections. In 2012, Romney beat Obama (http://www.ok.gov/elections/support/12gen_cnty_51.html)57.4 to 42.6.
The second reason is that worsening conditions in working-class white Republican communities indicate that the conservative moral agenda (http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/graham/050324) has not decisively won the battle for the hearts of America’s youth.
But let’s get back to the conservative reaction to Baltimore.
John Nolte, who writes for Breitbart.com (http://www.breitbart.com/), Tweeted (https://twitter.com/NolteNC/status/592862472308203520) at 9:26 p.m. on Monday, April 27, “Baltimore is what happens when you replace the two-parent family with a welfare check & union-run public schools.” An hour later, Laura Ingraham, a talk-show host, followed suit (https://twitter.com/IngrahamAngle/status/592877443758829568): “No fathers, no male role models, no discipline, no jobs, no values = no sense of right & wrong.”
Baltimore “is a Great Society city that bought fully into the big-government vision of the 1960s, and the bitter fruit has been corruption, violence and despair,”according to Rich Lowry (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/05/02/baltimores_decline_is_all_democrats_work_126472.ht ml), the editor of National Review. “This is a failure exclusively of Democrats.”
Never one to miss an opportunity to critique the opposition, the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal declaimed (http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-blue-city-model-1430263661):
“Let’s not forget who has run Baltimore and Maryland for nearly all of the last 40 years. The men and women in charge have been Democrats, and their governing ideas are ‘progressive.’ This model, with its reliance on government and public unions, has dominated urban America as once-vibrant cities such as Baltimore became shells of their former selves.”
Many regular folks share these views. “The cause of disproportionate crime and poverty rates among blacks in Baltimore and the U.S. is the continued degradation of the nuclear family,” Thomas Neale of Baltimore wrote in a letter to the editor (http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/readersrespond/bs-ed-baltiimore-race-letter-20150318-story.html) of the local Sunpapers.
Insofar as conservatives identify the erosion of the traditional family as a cause of civic disorder, the erosion is not limited to minority communities in Democratic cities. These trends are increasingly characteristic of white communities in red states.
The highest rates of white teenage pregnancy in the 30 states with available data are in red states. While the national white teenage pregnancy rate (http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/USTPtrends10.pdf) in 2010 was 38 per 1,000, white rates were at least 10 points higher in nine states: Oklahoma (59), West Virginia (64), Arkansas (63), South Carolina (51), Alabama (49), Mississippi (55), Tennessee (51), Kentucky (59) and Louisiana (51). Each of these states cast decisive majorities for Romney in 2012.
The high pregnancy and birthrates (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr64/nvsr64_01.pdf) among white teenagers in states where the Christian right and Tea Party (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/t/tea_party_movement/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) forces are strong reflect the inability of ideological doctrines stressing social conservatism to halt the gradual shift away from traditional family structures.
The Southern Baptist Convention (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/s/southern_baptist_convention/index.html?inline=nyt-org), one of the most socially conservative denominations in America, is dominant in every one of the nine states with the highest white teenage pregnancy rates, with the sole exception of West Virginia.
a convergence in the marital and reproductive behavior of whites and blacks — and of red and blue states — with low marriage rates, dipping (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN) fertility (http://www.childtrends.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/79_appendix1.pdf), and rising cohabitation rates for both races.
Republicans, in complete control of 24 states, are conducting a full scale assault on liberalizing cultural trends.
Their focus is on the enactment of legislation restricting abortions (http://www.guttmacher.org/statecenter/spibs/spib_OAL.pdf), including placing limits on access to the procedure and the imposition of tough regulations on abortion providers.
A dozen states have enacted constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_constitutional_amendments_banni ng_same-sex_unions_by_type), and 19 states have enacted religious freedom laws (http://time.com/3766173/religious-freedom-laws-map-timeline/) that civil rights advocates contend allow businesses to discriminate against gays.
While right wing commentators are demonizing the social and cultural values of the distressed citizens of Baltimore and their political leaders, they are oblivious to the vulnerability of their traditional moral agenda during a time of inexorable demographic change.
The problems of majority black Baltimore (http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/24/24510.html) are extreme, but many of the trends found there are as extreme or more so in majority white Muskogee (http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/40/4050050.html).
The Baltimore poverty rate is 23.8 percent, 8.4 points above the national rate, but below Muskogee’s 27.7 percent.
The median household income in Baltimore is $41,385, $11,661 below the $53,046 national level, but $7,712 above Muskogee’s $33,664.
If conservatives place responsibility on liberal Democrats, feminism and the abandonment of traditional family values for Baltimore’s decay, what role did the 249 churches in and around Muskogee play in that city’s troubles?
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/05/06/opinion/sex-drugs-and-poverty-in-red-and-blue-america.html?_r=0
Hey, Muskogee is a Bible humping "Christian Town" :lol
Livin La Vida Christiana!
“We don’t smoke marijuana in Muskogee, we don’t take our trips on LSD, we don’t burn our draft cards down on Main Street, we like livin’ right and bein’ free,” Haggard declared (http://www.lyricsfreak.com/m/merle+haggard/okie+from+muskogee_20227307.html). “We don’t make a party out of lovin’, we like holdin’ hands and pitchin’ woo.”
Times have changed.
Today Muskogee, Okla., a city of 38,863 (http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/40/4050050.html), has nine drug treatment centers (http://www.yellowpages.com/muskogee-ok/free-drug-rehab-centers) and acourt (http://www.ok.gov/odmhsas/Substance_Abuse/Oklahoma_Drug_and_Mental_Health_Courts/Drug_Court_Contact_Information.html#M) specifically devoted to drug offenders. A search for “methamphetamine arrest” (http://www.muskogeephoenix.com/search/?mode=article&q=methamphetamine+arrest&nsa=eedition&t=article&l=10&s=start_time&sd=desc&f=html&d=&d1=&d2=) on the website of the Muskogee Phoenix, the local newspaper, produces 316 hits.
In 2013 just under two-thirds of the births in the city of Muskogee (http://www.towncharts.com/Oklahoma/Demographics/Muskogee-city-OK-Demographics-data.html), 62.6 percent, were to unwed mothers, including 48.3 percent of the births to white mothers. The teenage birthrate in Oklahoma was 47.3 per 1,000; in Muskogee, it’s 59.2, almost twice the national rate, which is 29.7.
Muskogee County voted decisively for Ronald Reagan in 1984 and for Republican presidential candidates in the last three elections. In 2012, Romney beat Obama (http://www.ok.gov/elections/support/12gen_cnty_51.html)57.4 to 42.6.
The second reason is that worsening conditions in working-class white Republican communities indicate that the conservative moral agenda (http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/graham/050324) has not decisively won the battle for the hearts of America’s youth.
But let’s get back to the conservative reaction to Baltimore.
John Nolte, who writes for Breitbart.com (http://www.breitbart.com/), Tweeted (https://twitter.com/NolteNC/status/592862472308203520) at 9:26 p.m. on Monday, April 27, “Baltimore is what happens when you replace the two-parent family with a welfare check & union-run public schools.” An hour later, Laura Ingraham, a talk-show host, followed suit (https://twitter.com/IngrahamAngle/status/592877443758829568): “No fathers, no male role models, no discipline, no jobs, no values = no sense of right & wrong.”
Baltimore “is a Great Society city that bought fully into the big-government vision of the 1960s, and the bitter fruit has been corruption, violence and despair,”according to Rich Lowry (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/05/02/baltimores_decline_is_all_democrats_work_126472.ht ml), the editor of National Review. “This is a failure exclusively of Democrats.”
Never one to miss an opportunity to critique the opposition, the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal declaimed (http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-blue-city-model-1430263661):
“Let’s not forget who has run Baltimore and Maryland for nearly all of the last 40 years. The men and women in charge have been Democrats, and their governing ideas are ‘progressive.’ This model, with its reliance on government and public unions, has dominated urban America as once-vibrant cities such as Baltimore became shells of their former selves.”
Many regular folks share these views. “The cause of disproportionate crime and poverty rates among blacks in Baltimore and the U.S. is the continued degradation of the nuclear family,” Thomas Neale of Baltimore wrote in a letter to the editor (http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/readersrespond/bs-ed-baltiimore-race-letter-20150318-story.html) of the local Sunpapers.
Insofar as conservatives identify the erosion of the traditional family as a cause of civic disorder, the erosion is not limited to minority communities in Democratic cities. These trends are increasingly characteristic of white communities in red states.
The highest rates of white teenage pregnancy in the 30 states with available data are in red states. While the national white teenage pregnancy rate (http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/USTPtrends10.pdf) in 2010 was 38 per 1,000, white rates were at least 10 points higher in nine states: Oklahoma (59), West Virginia (64), Arkansas (63), South Carolina (51), Alabama (49), Mississippi (55), Tennessee (51), Kentucky (59) and Louisiana (51). Each of these states cast decisive majorities for Romney in 2012.
The high pregnancy and birthrates (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr64/nvsr64_01.pdf) among white teenagers in states where the Christian right and Tea Party (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/t/tea_party_movement/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) forces are strong reflect the inability of ideological doctrines stressing social conservatism to halt the gradual shift away from traditional family structures.
The Southern Baptist Convention (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/s/southern_baptist_convention/index.html?inline=nyt-org), one of the most socially conservative denominations in America, is dominant in every one of the nine states with the highest white teenage pregnancy rates, with the sole exception of West Virginia.
a convergence in the marital and reproductive behavior of whites and blacks — and of red and blue states — with low marriage rates, dipping (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN) fertility (http://www.childtrends.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/79_appendix1.pdf), and rising cohabitation rates for both races.
Republicans, in complete control of 24 states, are conducting a full scale assault on liberalizing cultural trends.
Their focus is on the enactment of legislation restricting abortions (http://www.guttmacher.org/statecenter/spibs/spib_OAL.pdf), including placing limits on access to the procedure and the imposition of tough regulations on abortion providers.
A dozen states have enacted constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_constitutional_amendments_banni ng_same-sex_unions_by_type), and 19 states have enacted religious freedom laws (http://time.com/3766173/religious-freedom-laws-map-timeline/) that civil rights advocates contend allow businesses to discriminate against gays.
While right wing commentators are demonizing the social and cultural values of the distressed citizens of Baltimore and their political leaders, they are oblivious to the vulnerability of their traditional moral agenda during a time of inexorable demographic change.
The problems of majority black Baltimore (http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/24/24510.html) are extreme, but many of the trends found there are as extreme or more so in majority white Muskogee (http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/40/4050050.html).
The Baltimore poverty rate is 23.8 percent, 8.4 points above the national rate, but below Muskogee’s 27.7 percent.
The median household income in Baltimore is $41,385, $11,661 below the $53,046 national level, but $7,712 above Muskogee’s $33,664.
If conservatives place responsibility on liberal Democrats, feminism and the abandonment of traditional family values for Baltimore’s decay, what role did the 249 churches in and around Muskogee play in that city’s troubles?
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/05/06/opinion/sex-drugs-and-poverty-in-red-and-blue-america.html?_r=0
Hey, Muskogee is a Bible humping "Christian Town" :lol
Livin La Vida Christiana!