The 50th. anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream..."

[annabenedetti]

 

[illusionray]

I don't know which one is worse. The actual order or the way they spelled "coloured". ugh

 

[Saved.One.by.Grace]

Your opening sentence isn't even factual.

And I already refuted you, which you've conveniently forgotten. That award was presented in 1966, seven years before abortion was legal in this country.

Your saying "thanks to frauds like Martin Luther King Jr., babies in the womb count as 0/5 of a person" is fraudulent in itself.

I hear that about a lot of Republicans and pastors.


You're right. Martin Luther King Jr. wasn't a Communist.


This is acknowledged.


Star Parker would count you as among the left. Congratulations, leftist.

Let's be aware of the concerted effort on the left to purge from memory that Dr. King was a Christian pastor, inspired by the truth of the gospel, who led an organization called the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
​

I just continue to find it amazing so many snow white, holier than thou "Christians" are so unforgiving of Martin Luther King's alleged transgressions that they're willing to disregard the positive aspects of his life. I wouldn't be surprised if these same people would be unforgiving toward Mary Magdalene!

Luke 8:1 Soon afterwards, He began going around from one city and village to another, proclaiming and preaching the kingdom of God. The twelve were with Him,
Luke 8:2 and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and sicknesses: Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out,
Luke 8:3 and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others who were contributing to their support out of their private means. [KJV]

Mark 16:1 And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. [KJV]

Mark 16:9 Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils. [KJV]

It doesn't seem that the disciples of Jesus had any problem with Mary Magdalene. Jesus even appeared to her first after rising from the grave. This won't put an end to the attacks on MLK. It's sad that they cannot be more forgiving because we are ALL needing a savior, Jesus.

Before Rosa Parks: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101719889

 

[annabenedetti]

That is one great post. Thank you, SObG.

 

[annabenedetti]

Irony:

Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them 8,000 miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would never live on the same block in Detroit. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.

--Martin Luther King Jr., "Beyond Vietnam"​

 

[Saved.One.by.Grace]

The following piece was written in 2011 about Dr. King, but I believe it applies even more today.


http://ourfuture.org/20110828/Today...ys_Struggles?gclid=CNzYqI3FrbkCFSVgMgodJEcALg


It's a fairly long article, but it's worth the effort. What Dr. King would think of today's culture can be reasonably extrapolated from the his words in the past. He would not see the progress he fought for. There's much work to be done and the wrong people, whether they have a (D), (R), (I), (S) or (L) after their name, to get the job done.

 

[annabenedetti]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you may murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate.
So it goes.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness:
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
[/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.[/FONT]

 

[PureX]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you may murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate.
So it goes.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness:
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
[/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.[/FONT]

Jesus' message, in a nutshell. God's love and forgiveness, acting within us and through us: it heals us and saves us from ourselves.

 

[Saved.One.by.Grace]

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
-- "I Have a Dream" speech, August 28, 1963

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
-- Strength to Love (1963)

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And he's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land . . . So I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man.
-- "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech, April 3, 1968 (the day before his assassination)

If a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live.
-- Speech in Detroit, Michigan on June 23, 1963

The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
-- Strength to Love (1963), Ch. 7


No man is perfect. Perfection is something to strive for. Christ has shown us the way, but it's only through His grace and mercy may we even approach His perfection, even though we cannot reach it in this life. We must run the race to the end. Compare Dr. Martin Luther King's writings and speeches to "Rev" Jeremiah Wright. While Jeremiah Wright preached hate, Dr. Martin Luther King preached love and forgiveness. Why do some imperfect humans expect perfection when they themselves are not perfect? Pot calls kettle black, it seems to me.

 

[99lamb]

PureX
There is some truth to that. But if you think that eliminating welfare is the solution, you are very mistaken. And if you think this can be turned around, quickly, you are also very mistaken.

O.K, let us see if we can establish a baseline on which we agree.
First what role do you think personal responsibility should play in the acceptance of welfare.
*My baseline if you are a healthy,able bodied individual there should be a requirement to work at least part time for the city from which you draw unemployment. This was proposed by democrat Mayor Ed Koch of NYC.
*If you are a female who gets pregnant and you are let's say 15 yrs old - the ability to collect welfare is contingent upon school attendance,grades,and completion of H.S. If the girl drops out of school, fails or doesn't complete H.S. her benefits cease.
*Again addressing pregnancy you get a one time grace allowance, if you become pregnant again while collecting welfare you are cut off from any assistance.
Three points to determine where PureX's position on personal responsibility is located.

 

[99lamb]

annabenedetti
[/INDENT]No, the programs didn't bring an end to the "conditions that breed despair and violence," but note the conditions these families were dealing with, and as I said earlier in the thread, it's so easy for someone to tell them to fix themselves... and here Johnson is saying exactly that:

"You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line in a race and then say, 'you are free to compete with all the others."

First, Frederick Douglas, former slave, kinda puts to rest the notion of the latter quote. I still read his autobiography and am amazed at what he accomplished, that he wanted nothing but to be left alone, to be a man.
Now, the programs of the War on Poverty have they helped or rather put a new set of chains on the Black person? Have they liberated or made dependent?
And do you believe there still remains some unspoken stigma to being Black?

 

[PureX]

O.K, let us see if we can establish a baseline on which we agree.
First what role do you think personal responsibility should play in the acceptance of welfare.
*My baseline if you are a healthy,able bodied individual there should be a requirement to work at least part time for the city from which you draw unemployment. This was proposed by democrat Mayor Ed Koch of NYC.

As an ideal, this makes a lot of sense. The problem comes with implementing it as a practical measure. It would cost us a lot more money to actually do this than it would cost to simply give them the aid. People would have to be hired to set up the work, to oversee the workers, to decide who is "able-bodied", and to buy vast amounts of equipment for all these workers to do all this work, with. We're talking about a vast sum of money being spent to make people work for a relatively small amount of public aid. It's just not economically feasible. Also, the vast majority of people collecting welfare are women with children. And we certainly couldn't afford day-care for all those children so that we could make their mothers work for their welfare checks.

I don't know if you realize this, but public welfare is not available to men of working age. They can get social security disability, if they can prove they are disabled, and perhaps food stamps, but that's about it. So this weird neo-con fantasy about hordes of welfare lay-abouts sucking up all their hard earned tax dollars is just nonsense. The vast majority of welfare money is going to women raising kids, while social security, medicare and medicaid is going to the sick, and the elderly. If you're looking for waste and fraud, the places to look are in the medical and health care industries that provide services to these people. Because that's where the vast majority of waste and fraud is when it comes to any kind of public aid.

*If you are a female who gets pregnant and you are let's say 15 yrs old - the ability to collect welfare is contingent upon school attendance,grades,and completion of H.S. If the girl drops out of school, fails or doesn't complete H.S. her benefits cease.

Again, how do you plan to implement this program? Who is going to pay for the child-care while the mother is in school? Who is going to oversee who went to school and who didn't, and when they don't go because they claim they're sick, or their child is sick, who is going to pay for the mandatory doctor's visit to confirm this, and then pay for the transportation to and from? It goes on and on. What I don't think you realize is that every time we put these "controls" on the help we give to other people, those controls cost a lot of money to implement.

I believe educating these mothers is a great idea, but the problem is that it would cost us far more than they're already costing us to stay home with their kids.

*Again addressing pregnancy you get a one time grace allowance, if you become pregnant again while collecting welfare you are cut off from any assistance.

You do that, and we will have children starving to death, being sold for money, and being thrown away in all kinds of ways all over the country. I think your mind is stuck on wanting to control other people, instead of thinking of real and practical solutions to real and practical problems.

It's like people who say they won't give money to a beggar because they think he'll buy booze or drugs with it. But who's going to follow the beggar around and make sure he doesn't? And what's the alternative? Letting him starve to death in the street?

I think we have to attack the causes of these problems, because they become too difficult and costly to fix once they're fully expressed. We need to learn why so many young women think that being a welfare mother is an acceptable life for them and a child. And then we need to find a way to offer them something better. For those who get pregnant by accident, we need to give them the tools to prevent this, and a reason to use them. With drug and alcohol addiction, why don't we offer addiction recovery to people, for free, instead of waiting until they're chronically addicted and then throwing them in jails, or declaring them disabled and paying them to drink and drug themselves to death?

More "control" is not the answer. Neither is punishment. Both just cost us more money and are ineffective. And I don't believe that simply washing our hands of all these people is an acceptable solution, either. They are our responsibility, because they are our 'people', and like it or not, we have helped to create them by creating and supporting a social system that enabled their more negative inclinations.

 

[annabenedetti]

First, Frederick Douglas, former slave, kinda puts to rest the notion of the latter quote. I still read his autobiography and am amazed at what he accomplished, that he wanted nothing but to be left alone, to be a man.

His is an amazing story, no doubt - but Douglass was an exception to the rule, wouldn't you agree? He said it was easier to build strong children than to repair broken men, and I think that's a good way to begin taking a look at your next question.

Now, the programs of the War on Poverty have they helped or rather put a new set of chains on the Black person? Have they liberated or made dependent?

The 1965 Moynihan report on black poverty by Daniel Patrick Moynihan during the Johnson administration has been praised and vilified, but either way you look at it the issue was as wrenching, as sobering and complicated then as it is now. Which came first, black poverty or the war on poverty? I would argue that the history of racism in this country, the treatment of people of color as less than human, as unworthy of using the same facilities as white people, living in the same neighborhoods, going to the same theaters, sitting in the same seats on the bus, earning the same wages... while at the same time being allowed to fight and die in the same wars... that the shameful history of black families torn apart by slave owners and segregated by a complicit government and apathetic if not overtly, often savagely prejudiced white populace set in place the barriers that even as they are lower today than they once were, remain - both materially and psychologically.

Here are two different looks at the Moynihan report, one conservative, one progressive. Both are excerpts, full text at the links.

From the Manhattan Institute's City Journal:

The Black Family: 40 Years of Lies

More than most social scientists, Moynihan, steeped in history and anthropology, understood what families do. They “shape their children’s character and ability,” he wrote. “By and large, adult conduct in society is learned as a child.” What children learned in the “disorganized home” of the ghetto, as he described through his forest of graphs, was that adults do not finish school, get jobs, or, in the case of men, take care of their children or obey the law. Marriage, on the other hand, provides a “stable home” for children to learn common virtues. Implicit in Moynihan’s analysis was that marriage orients men and women toward the future, asking them not just to commit to each other but to plan, to earn, to save, and to devote themselves to advancing their children’s prospects. Single mothers in the ghetto, on the other hand, tended to drift into pregnancy, often more than once and by more than one man, and to float through the chaos around them. Such mothers are unlikely to “shape their children’s character and ability” in ways that lead to upward mobility. Separate and unequal families, in other words, meant that blacks would have their liberty, but that they would be strangers to equality. Hence Moynihan’s conclusion: “a national effort towards the problems of Negro Americans must be directed towards the question of family structure.”​

Astonishingly, even for that surprising time, the Johnson administration agreed. Prompted by Moynihan’s still-unpublished study, Johnson delivered a speech at the Howard University commencement that called for “the next and more profound stage of the battle for civil rights.” The president began his speech with the era’s conventional civil rights language, condemning inequality and calling for more funding of medical care, training, and education for Negroes. But he also broke into new territory, analyzing the family problem with what strikes the contemporary ear as shocking candor. He announced: “Negro poverty is not white poverty.” He described “the breakdown of the Negro family structure,” which he said was “the consequence of ancient brutality, past injustice and present prejudice.” “When the family collapses, it is the children that are usually damaged,” Johnson continued. “When it happens on a massive scale, the community itself is crippled.”
Johnson was to call this his “greatest civil rights speech,” but he was just about the only one to see it that way. By that summer, the Moynihan report that was its inspiration was under attack from all sides. Civil servants in the “permanent government” at Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) and at the Children’s Bureau muttered about the report’s “subtle racism.” Academics picked apart its statistics. Black leaders like Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) director Floyd McKissick scolded that, rather than the family, “t’s the damn system that needs changing.”
In part, the hostility was an accident of timing. Just days after the report was leaked to Newsweek in early August, L.A.’s Watts ghetto exploded. The televised images of the South Central Los Angeles rioters burning down their own neighborhood collided in the public mind with the contents of the report. Some concluded that the “tangle of pathology” was the administration’s explanation for urban riots, a view quite at odds with civil rights leaders’ determination to portray the violence as an outpouring of black despair over white injustice. Moreover, given the fresh wounds of segregation, the persistent brutality against blacks, and the ugly tenaciousness of racism, the fear of white backsliding and the sense of injured pride that one can hear in so many of Moynihan’s critics are entirely understandable.

​

From Salon:

The Right's Outrageous MLK Ignorance

If Laura Ingraham’s comments were the most dumb and vicious, George Will’s (on ABC’s “This Week”) were the most outrageous, because they’re so widely and casually and cruelly held. Will disrespected and misrepresented not just King, but a man he and the rest of the right often pretend to venerate even more, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, by claiming that single motherhood, “and not an absence of rights, is surely the biggest impediment” to equality for African-Americans.
​

“A young social scientist from Harvard working in the Labor Department published a report,” Will told the other panelist pedantically. “His name was Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He said, ‘There is a crisis in the African-American community, because 24 percent of African-American children are born to unmarried women. Today it’s tripled to 72 percent. That, and not an absence of rights, is surely the biggest impediment.”
There is so much wrong with Will’s contemptuous ignorance. First of all, while there were things to find objectionable in Moynihan’s 1965 report “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action,” he makes a passionate case that it was the legacy of slavery, the persistence of racism, black male persecution and generations of poverty that had caused the so-called black family crisis – not the other way around. He also compared black Americans’ troubles to those experienced by some of his own forebears — the rural Irish exiled to American cities a hundred years earlier. “It was this abrupt transition that produced the wild Irish slums of the 19th Century Northeast. Drunkenness, crime, corruption, discrimination, family disorganization, juvenile delinquency were the routine of that era,” Moynihan noted.
And while one common beef with the Moynihan report is that it didn’t offer much in the way of policy prescriptions, that’s reading it in a vacuum (which too many on the left still do). Around the same time, Moynihan helped write President Lyndon B. Johnson’s famous Howard University speech on race, which committed the country not merely to equality of opportunity but demanded efforts to achieve a much more controversial “equality of results.” Working for Johnson’s Labor Department, Moynihan proposed public works jobs and affirmative action measures, as well as a guaranteed national income, to lift black families, whether they were headed by one or two parents, out of poverty. Later, under Richard Nixon (a career move that sealed his reputation as a proto neoconservative), he again proposed a guaranteed family income. Might Will join his friend Pat and back such policies today​

And do you believe there still remains some unspoken stigma to being Black?

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this, nor am I sure that stigma is the right word. Do you mean is there still overt or subtle racism in this country? And do you mean from a black perspective or from a white perspective?

 

[99lamb]

annabenedetti
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this, nor am I sure that stigma is the right word. Do you mean is there still overt or subtle racism in this country? And do you mean from a black perspective or from a white perspective?

Not racism at all, for that would be from an outside source.
Rather what I mean is a search for identity, the ever changing manner in which one is to refer to a man of color: Negro, Colored, Black, to African American.
The need to utilize positive slogans of affirmation Black is Beautiful, Black Power...
Do you believe that what happened historically, is somehow responsible (psychic transference) for what occurs today?
Does Black society have their own role models to emulate?And if so what are they promoting? education, hard work??
And would it be a legitimate comparison to put the Jewish people with a history of enslavement, attempted annihilation, up for comparison with African Americans?
What I am trying to understand or have you give an answer to is, other groups of people have suffered,been discriminated against, enslaved, systematically eradicated (I speak of the Jewish people) and yet make positive strides and become successful - what is the cause of the Black man's plight in your opinion.

 

[resurrected]

whitey, of course


whitey be keeping a brother down

 

[TomO]

whitey, of course


whitey be keeping a brother down

They don't think it be like it is...But it do.​

Oscar Gamble
~1975​

 

[Saved.One.by.Grace]

The environment needed for more to succeed takes money and will.

The US Government wastes more money than we will ever know. Some of the money is wasted on trying to make friends out of enemies. Some of the money is wasted on pet projects in a Senator's or Representative's State or District. Some of the money goes into the pockets of big contributors to a senator's or representative's campaign for re-election. And so it goes.

The answer begins with education: education at home and education at school. Less emphasis on Heather has two mommies and more emphasis on Reading, Writing and Arithmetic.

Help people on Welfare get off Welfare. No one has every gotten rich on the Government's handouts. Help those truly in need and don't put up roadblocks keeping religious organizations from doing their share and more.

Stop micro-managing the economy. The minimum wage is fine where it is. No one is suppose to be able to raise a family on minimum wage. Minimum wage is designed for teens to get a taste of capitalism and how to manage their money before leaving home and starting their own family.

Cut businesses some slack (taxes) if they are creating jobs and training for those jobs in this country. Companies like GE should not get a free ride because they own the President.

While a flat tax seems fair on the surface, it's only going to hurt the lowest income earners. So I'm not against a progressive tax rate so long as we get rid of the loop-holes. But I'd really rather see no income tax and a national sales tax. I would exempt homes and health care. Speaking of health care, there was no reason for the ObamaCare Tax so I think it should be repealed or defunded.

We should stop trying to use the tax code to change behavior someone disapproves of.

Would Dr. King agree with all of this? I don't know. But I wish he was still around to start a national dialog on these issues.

 

[annabenedetti]

What I am trying to understand or have you give an answer to is, other groups of people have suffered,been discriminated against, enslaved, systematically eradicated (I speak of the Jewish people) and yet make positive strides and become successful - what is the cause of the Black man's plight in your opinion.

I don't think the comparison works because you'd have to go outside the U.S. to do it and we're talking about citizens of this country who've undergone enslavement and segregation.

As to the cause? There are many, many causes, and the point I keep trying to make is that among them are the effects of long-sustained bigotry. Too often the case is distilled by conservatives to welfare dependency, and that's too easy and comfortable. Conservatives point to a need for, or lack of self-sufficiency as the main factor while Liberals look to environmental causes and effects and there's truth to be found in both places, along with a host of other factors both economic and sociological. What I'm trying to highlight is the ease with which bigotry is denied as a factor that still remains to be overcome.

 

[Saved.One.by.Grace]

Black Unemployment Rises to 13 Percent

Daniel Doherty | Sep 06, 2013

Echoing syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer’s sentiments on ‘Special Report’ a few weeks back that Jim Crow is dead, I also believe that lowering the black unemployment rate (if it isn’t already) should be a top priority for civil rights leaders everywhere. Via CNS News and the Green Room:

The unemployment rate in the African American community climbed from 12.6 percent in July to 13.0 percent in August, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
At the same time, the number of African Americans 16 year [sic] or older who held jobs dropped from 16,318,000 in July to 16,108,000 in August--a decline of 210,000.
The labor force participation rate in the African American community dropped from 61.4 percent in July to 60.8 percent in August. The 60.8 percent African American labor force participation rate in August was the lowest that rate has been since July 1982.
When President Barack Obama took office in January 2009, the African American labor force participation rate was 63.3 percent.
​

Read more at: http://townhall.com/tipsheet/daniel...ack-unemployment-rises-to-13-percent-n1693233

 

[99lamb]

PureX
As an ideal, this makes a lot of sense. The problem comes with implementing it as a practical measure. It would cost us a lot more money to actually do this than it would cost to simply give them the aid. People would have to be hired to set up the work, to oversee the workers, to decide who is "able-bodied", and to buy vast amounts of equipment for all these workers to do all this work, with. We're talking about a vast sum of money being spent to make people work for a relatively small amount of public aid. It's just not economically feasible.

Not such a problem since programs are already in existence and would take minimal upgrades to accommodate the new workers - one such program the crews in the orange jumpsuits picking up trash on the side of the road.
Another Community Service.

Also, the vast majority of people collecting welfare are women with children. And we certainly couldn't afford day-care for all those children so that we could make their mothers work for their welfare checks.

Another obstacle that is scalable: Low income hosts a variety of programs that help those with child care services, I worked with Faith based groups IUGM (International Union of Gospel Missions) that ran Rescue Missions and other agencies that had the facilities to do daycare. Since the Mothers would be working for an already supplemented income they would not be drawing a paycheck from those facilities, they would be attendants under supervision from the staff that work in those facilities.

I don't know if you realize this, but public welfare is not available to men of working age. They can get social security disability, if they can prove they are disabled, and perhaps food stamps, but that's about it. So this weird neo-con fantasy about hordes of welfare lay-abouts sucking up all their hard earned tax dollars is just nonsense. The vast majority of welfare money is going to women raising kids, while social security, medicare and medicaid is going to the sick, and the elderly. If you're looking for waste and fraud, the places to look are in the medical and health care industries that provide services to these people. Because that's where the vast majority of waste and fraud is when it comes to any kind of public aid.

Good then fraud and waste among recipients is something that needs to be addressed. And again I have witnessed first hand men who would obtain multiple addresses and identities for the express purpose of obtaining SSI / SSD paychecks.

Again, how do you plan to implement this program? Who is going to pay for the child-care while the mother is in school? Who is going to oversee who went to school and who didn't, and when they don't go because they claim they're sick, or their child is sick, who is going to pay for the mandatory doctor's visit to confirm this, and then pay for the transportation to and from? It goes on and on.

I have already given a suggestion for the child care programs. As school attendance, this would be another small obstacle, attendance sheets. People I knew in college who had their company pay partial tuition contingent upon grades and attendance had weekly sheets of attendance signed by professors and turned into Human Resources.

What I don't think you realize is that every time we put these "controls" on the help we give to other people, those controls cost a lot of money to implement.

Not as much as you think and certainly the idea of the person gaining independence is a greater goal than what is currently in practice, and what is being taught as a handout or a right rather than something that must be worked to obtain.

I believe educating these mothers is a great idea, but the problem is that it would cost us far more than they're already costing us to stay home with their kids.
You do that, and we will have children starving to death, being sold for money, and being thrown away in all kinds of ways all over the country. I think your mind is stuck on wanting to control other people, instead of thinking of real and practical solutions to real and practical problems.

Gross exaggeration.
Instead I would that the person turn from the path that led them into this situation and strive to be a responsible independent person.

It's like people who say they won't give money to a beggar because they think he'll buy booze or drugs with it. But who's going to follow the beggar around and make sure he doesn't? And what's the alternative? Letting him starve to death in the street?

I have, as I said earlier I worked in the Rescue Missions for three years and yes there a great many of these people who drink the money, given to them.

I think we have to attack the causes of these problems, because they become too difficult and costly to fix once they're fully expressed. We need to learn why so many young women think that being a welfare mother is an acceptable life for them and a child. And then we need to find a way to offer them something better. For those who get pregnant by accident, we need to give them the tools to prevent this, and a reason to use them. With drug and alcohol addiction, why don't we offer addiction recovery to people, for free, instead of waiting until they're chronically addicted and then throwing them in jails, or declaring them disabled and paying them to drink and drug themselves to death?

More "control" is not the answer. Neither is punishment. Both just cost us more money and are ineffective. And I don't believe that simply washing our hands of all these people is an acceptable solution, either. They are our responsibility, because they are our 'people', and like it or not, we have helped to create them by creating and supporting a social system that enabled their more negative inclinations.

I agree with certain aspects but I believe you are trying to connect "control or punishment" to something that is not present in my argument for responsible behavior. You want to make the case that someone who has made poor choices should not be held accountable for those actions. Instead they should most certainly be taught that continuation in such choices will not be supported, and if they want to reject help that restricts behaviors, then they will be cut off from such programs. Believe it or not most people especially young woman want structure they want to learn right choices, and be responsible.