[539] in libertarians
Teens on Welfare & Objective Journalism
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Joseph C. Baxter)
Mon Jan 2 16:53:16 1995
Date: 02 Jan 95 14:39:42 EST
From: "Joseph C. Baxter" <74352.3634@compuserve.com>
To: Morning Edition <atc@npr.org>
Cc: Libertarian List <libertarians@MIT.EDU>
Morning Edition
C/O All Things Considered (Couldn't Find The Address for M.E.)
National Public Radio
Washington, DC
Dear Morning Edition,
This morning's piece on teen mothers on AFDC is yet another example of why NPR
has come under fire from those who hold your purse strings. The story was not
journalism but emotional pandering; it was subjective and distorted in a way
that one would not expect of an august news organization that NPR purports to
be.
Save but a token sound bite from the reporter and one of the teen welfare
mothers there was no real objectivity to be heard. There was however
villification of those who would remove these people from the dole and hold them
responsible for their own actions (or inactions in the case of those too
ignorant to practice simple birth control). There was much whining about the
proposed end of the hand-outs from the government that is perceived as having
limitless riches to bestow. There was evident the palpable sense that these
government-funded teen mothers and their government-funded mentors felt that
some crime was afoot or that they were about to be refused their "fair share".
What was not touched upon was the bete noir of social welfare: who will pay for
that "fair share".
Since the time of FDR the morally-bankrupt idea that government is some sort of
charity and miracle-worker able to cure all social ills has been perpetuated by
the social-welfare elite. However, no one every stopped to question where the
money for these programs would come. Well, I am here to tell you that
government "charity" is paid for with my tax dollars and that the miracle-worker
has been peddling snake oil. I and tens of millions of my fellow tax-payers are
sick-to-death of the Great Society and its socialist hog-wash. We have
exercised our franchise and sent to Washington a group of men and women with a
very clear mandate: get government off our backs and out of our pockets.
November's elections ought to have been a wake-up call for NPR, social-welfare
liberals, and the snake oil salesmen in America that the Great Society Hoax is
over.
Joseph C. Baxter
Hull, Mass.
