In 1964, Lyndon Baines Johnson stood up and declared in the most masculine of words: A War on Poverty. A manly pursuit. Never again would an American child lie down to sleep hungry. Never again would a mother worry about having enough money to care for her children. Never again would a family shiver through a cold, winter's night. Never again would a father... Be necessary. For almost every one of the last fifty years, the United States has spent more money than the year before on programs to help grow out of poverty. Pretty quick, that has become more than ONE TRILLION DOLLARS a year. And the results? In those fifty years, the percentage of children born to unmarried parents has climbed from less than ten percent to well over forty percent. And Supplemental Security Income, SNAP, Medicaid, and countless other programs have taken over where once fathers fought. It is not to say that these programs are bad in and of themselves. By no means. They have buoyed countless families in ...
a counter-cultural pause