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Originally Posted by dc_dux
The last 40 years, since the Great Society programs, demonstrated to me that the emergence of a growing black middle class was, in large part, a product of those programs.
BTW, blacks are also twice as likely as whites to work in government jobs...for city, state, or federal government.
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Wrong. The growth of the black middle class was as a result of the civil rights laws, which removed to a large degree artificial obstacles to individual rights and pursuit of self-improvement for people of disfavored groups. That's not a social program. It didn't GIVE anyone anything, it just removed an artificial and unjustified disability so that they could EARN on their own on the same terms as anyone else. People in the black middle class didn't get there because of AFDC.
As for why blacks are more likely to work in govt jobs, I would guess there are a lot of interesting sociological explanations for it. But that doesn't make govt employment into a social program - or are you suggesting that govt work isn't real work, or that black civil servants somehow aren't earning their pay?
The lesson of the last 40 years that I'm talking about is the huge increase of crime and virtual destruction of the intact urban black family as a result of disincentivizing fatherhood (as distinct from breeding and leaving) and work. The link of the Great Society programs with the social dysfunction of the 70s and 80s was pretty well documented. They were enacted with the best of intentions (to use your word, "compassion"), and with wonderful logic behind them - and ended in disaster. I wrote about it
here; go have a read.