The new US Army manual for troops heading east apparently blames the tendency of Afghanistan’s US-trained soldiers and policemen to shoot their western “allies” on “American cultural ignorance”. Fortunately, the manual offers a solution:

The draft leaked to the newspaper offers a list of “taboo conversation topics” that soldiers should avoid, including “making derogatory comments about the Taliban”…

I mean, it’s not like they’re the enemy or anything.

…“advocating women’s rights,” “any criticism of pedophilia,” “directing any criticism towards Afghans,” “mentioning homosexuality and homosexual conduct” or “anything related to Islam.”

Stick to safe topics like the weather, the impressive increase in opium production, and how hot the local warlord’s child bride looks now she’s back in the burqa. Then, after handing your trainee his weapon, try to back out of the room slowly without catching his eye.

As Scaramouche says, don’t let’s be beastly to the Taliban.

A man caught having sex with a miniature female donkey (at least it was female!), is arguing that he has a constitutional right to, er, drive the herd any way he wants. He is in effect arguing that if the law says he can’t roger a donkey, then the law is an ass — which is ironic, since if the law were an ass, he might want to have sex with it too. From the article:

“By making sexual conduct with an animal a crime, the statute demeans individuals like Defendant (Romero) by making his private sexual conduct a crime,” the attorneys wrote.

As another possible reason for unconstitutionality, the attorneys add that the statute doesn’t require that the state prove any harm or injury to the animal “or any proof of the sexual activity being non-consensual.”

“Therefore, the only possible rational basis for the statute is a moral objection to sexual acts considered deviant or downright ‘disgusting,’?” they wrote.

Using religion or the overall consensus of the public that sexual activity with an animal is wrong as the basis of a law is unjustified and bars Romero’s personal liberties, the attorneys argued.

“The personal morals of the majority, whether based on religion or traditions, cannot be used as a reason to deprive a person of their personal liberties,” the attorneys wrote. “If the statute were to require sexual conduct with animals to be nonconsensual or to cause injury in order to be a crime, then perhaps the State would have a rational basis and legitimate state interest in enforcement.”

I particularly like the bit about the state needing to prove it was non-consensual. Apparently, the defendant thinks some donkeys are just asking for it. I wonder if he said to the cops: “Did you see the saddle that donkey was wearing? She knew what she was doing.”

The fight over right-to-work in Michigan will go on at least through the 2014 elections. Expect recall attempts, lawsuits, ballot questions, and more money poured into the gubernatorial and state legislative races than ever before. Last night, I attended a meeting distinguished Michigan conservatives. It was off the record, but I’ll share one quote from Joe Lehman of the (indispensable) Mackinac Center because he gave permission: “We’re looking at two years of war to hold the ground we took today.”

You know, they told me that if I voted for Mitt Romney we’d never get card check and the rights of organized labor would be eroded — and they were right!

The vote in Michigan is simply huge, huge, news. The cultural significance really can’t be exaggerated and the fact that the unions have opted to take defeat like a bunch of no-neck goons is a pr disaster. 

I agree with pretty much everything in NR’s editorial on the matter, but I think it’s worth adding two points. First, this conservative success in Michigan is, according to all reports, largely the result of liberal overreach. If the Dems and organized labor hadn’t been so greedy in the election (and so disgusting over the last decade or so, trying to “unionize” parents of disabled kids to collect the dues), this probably wouldn’t have happened, or at least not so fast. When the left goes too far it creates a counter-reaction from the right. That’s what the 2010 midterms were about (but, alas, not the 2012 election). The fear that Obama is free to do as he pleases over the next four years leaves out the fact that the American people are not nearly so committed to his presidency as many liberals are claiming these days. Remember, Romney was more trusted on leadership, the economy etc. Obama’s excesses will create conservative opportunities that hard to foresee right now, but no less inevitable for it.  The expression “careful what you wish for” applies to your opponents, too.

Second, and perhaps more important, facts will always drive public policy — eventually. The plight of certain states will naturally lead to homegrown reforms. And it’s worth noting that conservative institutions are thick on the ground to advocate and argue for free market policies. Enormous progress has been made with state-based think tanks (By the way: Congrats to the Mackinac Center in Michigan!) over the last couple decades. The fight in Washington may be bogged down, but the fights on the ground in the various states are going better than we might of hoped.

Except of course in California, where you people are doomed. 

On tonight’s edition of Special Report, Charles Krauthammer argued that auto unions are an anachronism that simply don’t function in today’s globally competitive world the same way they did in the decades following the Second World War, when America had a leg up because it was the only industrial country that emerged from the war intact. Today, he said, the “wrenching choice” is between higher wages and fewer jobs, and lower, more competitive wages that provide “more people with the dignity of a job.”

The upcoming departure of Mario Monti, Italy’s unelected “technocratic” prime minister, will be mourned by the Berlusconi-obsessed Economist and the rest of the europhile claque, but the Daily Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans Pritchard is shedding no tears.  He lists a few of the assets that Italy has at hand:

 It scores top of the International Monetary Fund’s index for “long-term debt sustainability” among key industrial nations, precisely because it reformed the pension structure long ago under Silvio Berlusconi. “They have a vibrant export sector, and a primary surplus. If there is any country in EMU that would benefit from leaving the euro and restoring competitiveness, it is obviously Italy,” said Andrew Roberts from RBS.  

“The numbers are staring them in the face. We think the story of 2013 is not about countries being forced to leave EMU but whether they choose to leave.”

A “game theory” study by Bank of America concluded that Italy would gain more than other EMU members from breaking free and restoring sovereign control over its policy levers. Its International Investment Position is near balance, in stark contrast to Spain and Portugal (both in deficit by more than 90pc of GDP). Its primary surplus implies it can leave EMU at any moment it wishes without facing a funding crisis. A high savings rate means that any interest rate shock after returning to the lira would mostly flow back into the economy through higher payments to Italian bondholders – and it is often forgotten that Italy’s “real” rates were much lower under the Banca d’Italia. Rome holds a clutch of trump cards. The one great obstacle is premier Mario Monti, installed at the head of a technocrat team in the November Putsch of 2011 by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the European Central Bank – to the applause of Europe’s media and political class. Mr Monti may be one of Europe’s great gentlemen but he is also a high priest of the EU Project and a key author of Italy’s euro membership. The sooner he goes, the sooner Italy can halt the slide into chronic depression.

Ponder that for a second. Monti was “a key author of Italy’s euro membership”.  That alone ought to disqualify this quiet and clever fanatic from office. He is an arsonist, not a fireman, a vandal, not a builder. Nevertheless, his time in office has offered international investors the illusion of stability, and  the reality of quick profits. They are now nervously contemplating the prospects of his departure.

Well, argues, Evans-Pritchard, too bad.

The interests of Italian democracy and foreign creditors are no longer aligned. The 1930s deflation policies imposed by Berlin and Brussels have pushed the country into a Grecian vortex. The business lobby Confindustria said the nation is being reduced to “social rubble”.

Indeed it is (read the full article for details). But the prospects of an Italian uscita remain, for now, remote, despite the devastation that the Monti-supported ‘one size fits all’ currency has inflicted upon the country. There’s always the instinct to keep a-hold of Nurse/For fear of finding something worse, and, whatever the rhetoric, that view is still likely to win out for now.

Nevertheless, keep an eye on how Italy’s election campaign evolves and, for  that matter, on any revived flow of money out of the banks…

Swarmed by around 10,000 protesters today, Lansing is silent once again this evening. All that’s left is the litter.

Protestors discarded pro-union signs across the sidewalks surrounding the capitol, and many more posters are propped up against local businesses.

I spoke to several local business owners who said that, despite their voiced intention to stay neutral, union members had left anti-right-to-work posters in their windows or outside their premises in a contrived show of support for Big Labor.

“They put it on the side of the window, so no one [in here] actually saw it,” said Boris Hsieh of Anqi Sushi Express. He added that the restaurant had tried to keep out of the debate.

Likewise, Ted Robison, the owner of Ted-Dees Sandwich, told me he’d been approached by union members yesterday who wanted to display a political sign in his window. He’d said no, telling them neutrality was important for his business. But when I visited the restaurant today, a sign was in his window. He said someone else had put it there without asking him, and that he intended to take it down.

Union protesters have undoubtedly trashed the town. Several bars and restaurants told me they’d been cleaning up picket signs all day. But other poster placements were also clearly misleading, suggesting the unions had businesses’ support, even if they didn’t.

For some proprietors, though, displaying support for the unions was a business decision. Although the unions didn’t threaten damage to the premises, “they gave people these signs and [said],  ‘If you put it up in your window, that was where the protesters [are] supposed to go,’” said Caitlin Sailor, a barista at Decker’s, a coffee shop near the capitol building.

Sailor said her boss initially wanted to be neutral but decided in the end to display the sign. It worked: “We were slammed for hours, couldn’t brew coffee fast enough,” Sailor said.

Elliott Abrams criticizes Senator Jim DeMint (R., S.C.), Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R., Mo.), and other politicians who leave office before their term has expired to take other jobs.

It may well be that Ms. Emerson can do a lot of good at the Cooperative Association and that Mr. DeMint will serve the conservative cause well at Heritage. Nevertheless there is something deeply offensive about walking away from the job you so ardently sought from the voters. That act diminishes the significance of elections and indeed of representative democracy, for the citizen elevated to the legislature by his or her peers is saying the whole thing is just not very important. Certainly the two appear to feel no strong obligation to the voters, or to their district or state.

That was part of my initial reaction to the DeMint announcement, but I didn’t write it because I had a second thought. Which was: Nobody criticizes office-holders who leave office to take other offices: say, the senator who joins the Cabinet, who is abandoning the voters of his state to serve in another way. So why should we criticize the official who leaves for the private sector, unless we believe that public-sector work is by its nature more of a service to the public than private-sector work? And I don’t see why we should believe that.

Our friend Melissa Dawdy shares her son’s video of union-goon violence in Michigan today:

With the sale of $7.6 billion worth of stock, another chapter in the financial crisis comes to a close. We managed to turn a profit, too, as the Wall Street Journal reports:

The Treasury Department said it would generate $7.6 billion in proceeds from its sale of American International Group shares, as it sold nearly all its remaining holdings in the insurer it helped rescue at the height of the financial crisis.

The government said Tuesday it would sell about 234 million common shares at $32.50 each, matching the price it got when it sold an even larger slug of shares in September. AIG’s stock closed Monday at $33.36, and jumped 1.6% to $33.90 in heavy pre-market trading Tuesday.

By Treasury’s calculation, the final round of sales means the government will have a net positive return on its AIG bailout of $22.7 billion.

This step in AIG’s turnaround, which essentially closes the book on one of the most controversial bailouts of the financial crisis, seemed nearly unattainable in 2008, when the insurer’s imminent collapse sent shockwaves through the global economy. At the time, U.S. officials cobbled together a rescue package for AIG that effectively nationalized the insurer, arguing that AIG needed to survive to prevent a financial apocalypse.

The U.S. committed as much as $182 billion of aid at the peak of the bailout, and Treasury at one point owned more than 90% of the company.

AIG’s stock is actually expected to strengthen considerably after this disposition, because there remained the eventual threat of Treasury dumping its final stock onto the market. The receipts from this last sell-off, $7.6 billion, will pay for the U.S. government’s operation for . . . about 18 hours.

Lest you think the U.S. government’s portfolio is now underweight equities, Treasury still holds interests in 229 smaller banks, part of Ally (formerly GMAC, GM’s financing arm), and, of course, General Motors. That last investment still, as of last month, leaves taxpayers $24 billion in the hole; GM’s stock will have to strengthen considerably for the government not to take a significant loss on it.

The irony could choke a horse. The invaluable Byron York Tweets that 18 Democrat U.S. Senators have asked to delay the Obamacare medical device tax because raising taxes on manufacturers will cost jobs. Knock! Knock! Knock! Hello? Is anybody home? 

When Michigan begins seeing the economic benefits of right-to-work, it will have a first-term representative to thank.

Representative Mike Shirkey of Jackson took office only two years ago, in 2010, but he buckled down immediately on his top legislative priority, right-to-work legislation.

He tells me today that his interest in labor issues began 40 years ago, when he got his “first taste of oppressive workpace rules” working as a supervisor of a production line at GM.

Shirkey attributes right-to-work’s success in Michigan partly to political luck (Machiavelli would approve). When unions introduced a ballot measure attempting to constitutionally prohibit right-to-work legislation in Michigan, it changed the political conversation. And Indiana’s right-to-work conversion provided a sense of urgency for Michiganders seeking to remain economically competitive.

Suddenly, Shirkey’s pet issue was in the spotlight. “A special opportunity came along, and we seized it,” he tells me today. “[In politics], you still have to rely on timing that you cannot control.”

It’s not just luck, though. Jase Bolger, speaker of the Michigan House, tells me that Shirkey deserves significant credit for the legislation’s success. Shirkey has gained notoriety for talking about right-to-work whenever the opportunity arises.

But the first-term legislator is reluctant to take credit. True, “when I started my campaign, I made this my top priority, [and] not on a whim,” Shirkey says. But “it literally was a team effort, and I was privileged to play a very small part in a very large effort.”

Still, Shirkey is thrilled to see his dream codified. “I am excited for Michigan, I am excited for Michigan workers, and I am excited for future generations of Michiganders,” he says. “We removed the last remaining obstacle for many who may not have considered [starting a business in Michigan]. The opportunity here will come our way mostly because we have such a highly skilled workforce. It will be evident soon.”

Tonight, he says, he’s going to go home, hug his wife, and have a nice glass of wine to celebrate. After that? “Begin working on the next things we need to do to reinvent Michigan!” he says.

I just spoke with David Fladeboe of Americans for Prosperity, who was working security outside the tent cut down by pro-union protesters outside the Michigan statehouse today. (Fladeboe can be seen in this video previously posted by Jonah — he’s the bearded, burly redhead trying to keep the tent upright.)

Fladeboe said the tent, for which AFP-Michigan had received a permit a week earlier, held between 30 and 40 people before protesters began stabbing at its straps with knives. He said that at first, protesters were targeting random straps to avoid being caught — then, finally, they focused on one corner of the tent in an effort to pull it down. Fladeboe said that even once several of the straps were cut, the local police on the scene did little to help the volunteers re-secure them.

Eventually, protesters were able to snap one of the tent stakes in half and pull it from beneath the tent, causing it to collapse. Fladeboe said that despite reports that the tent had been cleared of people before it went down, there were about a dozen people still trapped inside after it had fully collapsed.  “You could see people inside of it trying to get up, and you could see the tent moving,” he said — a problem exacerbated by the fact that protesters began “stomping” on top of the collapsed canvas while volunteers tried to help those trapped inside.

Before it had collapsed, the tent was held up by two 20-foot poles, which had to have fallen for it to collapse; volunteers were worried that those poles could have landed on someone stuck inside the tent. There also was hot coffee and hot chocolate served inside the tent that could have burned people if tipped over.

Fladeboe said that once the tent was clear of people, the protesters began pushing and shoving them — it was only then that the police got involved. The police formed a circle around the melee, then began pulling AFP-Michigan volunteers out of harm’s way. “We all regrouped, and luckily everyone was fine,” Fladeboe said, although he conceded a lot of the workers were “shaken up” by the experience,  given that many of the volunteers were women and elderly people.

Fladeboe, who was present in Madison for the Wisconsin union protests, said the Michigan protest was “smaller, but a lot more intense” than the Wisconsin protests.  “The anger and the vitriol of these people was shocking,” he said, adding that, in the past two years, he hadn’t seen anything like this in Madison. 

Video is now breaking of Fox News contributor Steven Crowder being assaulted by the downed tent by a union demonstrator:

The Detroit News has the first reports of disturbances I’ve seen so far. It reports only two arrests, a remarkable statistic given early estimates of 10,000 protesters:

Protesters began chanting “Hell, no we won’t go!” as troopers escorting Gov. Rick Snyder threatened to arrest protesters who were occupying the entrance to the Romney building after the legislation passed the Legislature.

The protesters then attempted to sit down and resist police from creating a pathway to the door — they were removed but not arrested as troopers pulled protesters off the ground.

Troopers also came out of the building to get the wall of people to retreat but only got a few feet before protesters stood their ground and yelled, “push!” Police on horseback then dispersed the crowds, as other law enforcement in riot gear pushed back crowds with their batons.

Troopers also had to secure the scene earlier outside of the Capitol Building on the front lawn where rowdy protesters caused a tent used by the conservative group Americans for Prosperity to collapse. No one was hurt, but Love said several people told police “they escaped just in the nick of time before being crushed by the tent.”

Another incident involved a trooper’s use of pepper spray when a female officer was grabbed into the crowd by a protester, according to the MSP.

Michigan’s police — many of whom are union members themselves, and all of whom were required to pay union dues — have been criticized by many of the protesters today.

The police were there “to threaten us,” said Homey Smith of Ann Arbor, a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. He said he counted 61 police cars, five police trailers, and six county horses. I saw him heckling officers in uniform. (Smith also told me Governor Snyder “has got to watch his back.”)

Likewise, Mike Matlas of UAW International told me that “I think this governor is using the state police for his benefit.”

That all runs contrary to what I saw today. The police in Lansing were very effective — and very polite — in their crowd control. Many told me they were committed to creating the circumstances in which peaceful protest could occur. What’s more, I couldn’t prod any of them into disclosing their political views.

This struck home for me. Having just returned from China, where there is no freedom of assembly, and where the police are as likely to be oppressors as protectors, it’s a beautiful thing to witness a government upholding the political rights of the citizens, however eccentric.

When Representative Gabrielle Giffords was shot, polite society came to the obvious and sensible conclusion that the real villain was not psychotic shooter Jared Loughner but Sarah Palin’s graphic designer, who had placed crosshairs over congressional districts targeted for electoral challenge. The man who inexplicably is president of these United States felt the need to opine on the case, Frank Rich practically wet himself in the New York Times, Andrew Sullivan acted precisely like Andrew Sullivan, etc.

But what of Michigan? In Michigan, we have actual Democratic elected officials threatening acts of political violence, and we have actual Democratic activists carrying out those acts of political violence. Mr. Sullivan? Mr. Rich? Mr. Obama?

The lead image at the Times’s web site right now is that of an Argentine soccer star the paper is profiling. Mr. Sullivan’s lead item is about the film Killing Them Softly. The public beating of a conservative activist at the hands of a Democratic mob? Not news, apparently.

“Snyder is acting more like a dictator, not a governor.”

So says Mike Matlas, who works at United Auto Workers International. I’ve heard similar complaints from many union protesters across the capitol today. Democrat lawmakers echoed the sentiment on the House floor. One lawmaker’s hyperbole veered toward offensive, saying that what was happening at the capitol today “reminds me for some reason of Syria.”

Of course, this says little about the right-to-work legislation that passed today in Lansing — and everything about union workers’ understanding of American government.

Democratic legislators couldn’t argue against Republicans’ legislative majority, so they’ve instead attacked the process, complaining about the legislation because it passed fast and in a lame-duck session. They also don’t like that the law was written in a way that prevents it from ever facing ballot referendum.

That argument is flawed, as I’ve already noted. Regardless, several Democratic lawmakers made appeals on the house floor today to take right-to-work directly to the people. (Never mind that in November, voters handily denied a union-backed effort to ban right-to-work legislation by constitutional amendment in Michigan.)

Few of the protesters I spoke to argued against right-to-work on the merits. Instead, their complaint seems to boil down to the suggestion that this is an attack on representative government. Many of them seemed to think that if they don’t get to exercise their political rights through direct democracy, they are being denied their freedoms outright.

That’s a profound misunderstanding of the American political system (and most every political system, ever).

Here in Michigan’s capitol, it’s getting crowded. Union protesters fill the rotunda, drumming, yelling, and chanting. There’s a lot of Carhartt. And jeans. The noise is faint on the state-house floor, though. Protesters are now drumming and yelling “veto!” Here’s a view from the top floor:

Seventh Circuit judge Richard Posner, who was no fan of the Supreme Court’s recent gun rulings, nonetheless has held that these decisions imply a right to carry a loaded gun in public.

As the Supreme Court has noted, bans on concealed carry have a long history in the U.S. — but bans on all carrying are a subject of debate. It will be interesting to see where this case goes — and how far the Supreme Court is willing to go in micromanaging state and local gun laws.

Hat tip to Eugene Volokh and, by extension, How Appealing.

Corner readers, I’m live in the Michigan state house as right-to-work passes and unions protest. Follow me on Twitter (@Jilliankaym) for breaking details and pictures.

As protesters chanted, drummed, and waved signs outside the Michigan capitol, lawmakers just passed the first of two house-side right-to-work bills.

Without a legislative majority, unions’ Democrat allies were left arguing against the procedure used to pass the bill. They complain that it’s being adopted in a lame-duck session, and they oppose a $1 million appropriation for implementation because it keeps the law from facing ballot referendum.

But the Democrats’ claims are looking more and more strained. Michigan Republicans lost five seats in November, but the vote on the first piece of legislation passed 58 to 51, suggesting it would have passed even in the next session.

And Republican state representative Ken Goike tells me that he voted against right-to-work because his constituents don’t support it, but that his fellow Republicans “didn’t do anything illegal” in the way they passed it.

Goike adds that although right-to-work legislation had proceeded quickly ahead, long debate would not have made much of a difference because Michigan lawmakers already know where they stand on the issue. He reminds me that Democrats used similar strategies for years when they held the majority.

Up in the gallery overlooking the house floor, union protesters chanted “shame on you” and booed after the vote.

There were a few last-ditch attempts by Democrats: Representative Kate Segal and Representative Rudy Hobbs sought to cut the $1 million appropriation, and Representative Vicki Barnett fought to take the policy to the voters.

Both requests, unsurprisingly, were denied. The law, after receiving the governor’s signature, will take effect April 1, 2013.

Union protesters tore down the Americans for Prosperity Tent in Lansing. Obviously this is just another example of the Koch brothers’ inciting violence.

Ron Unz has a (very long) investigation of the question. Charles Murray seems persuaded. 

The “constitutional right of armed self defense is broader than the right to have a gun in one’s home.” So says a Chicago federal court, which this morning struck down Illinois’s ban on carrying guns in public (America’s last such ban) and granted the state legislature 180 days to draft concealed-carry legislation. The full decision is available here.

UPDATE: Michael James Barton has an analysis of the decision over on Bench Memos.

Speaker of the House Boehner took to the floor of the House this afternoon to update the country on the current state of the fiscal cliff negotiations:

We’re still waiting for the White House to identify what spending cuts the president is willing to make part of the balanced approach that he promised the American people. Where are the president’s spending cuts? The longer the White House slow walks this process, the closer our economy gets to the fiscal cliff. Here’s what we do know — the president wants more stimulus spending and an increase in the debt ceiling without any cuts or reform. That’s not fixing our problem; frankly, it’s making it worse.

The New York Times’ Nick Kristof — last seen decrying the use of private generators in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy — last weekend almost redeemed himself with a column that every liberal should read. It’s not perfect, of course, but it certainly grabs your attention from the opening paragraph:

THIS is what poverty sometimes looks like in America: parents here in Appalachian hill country pulling their children out of literacy classes. Moms and dads fear that if kids learn to read, they are less likely to qualify for a monthly check for having an intellectual disability.

Then he goes on to channel Rick Santorum:

This is painful for a liberal to admit, but conservatives have a point when they suggest that America’s safety net can sometimes entangle people in a soul-crushing dependency. Our poverty programs do rescue many people, but other times they backfire.

Some young people here don’t join the military (a traditional escape route for poor, rural Americans) because it’s easier to rely on food stamps and disability payments.

Antipoverty programs also discourage marriage: In a means-tested program like S.S.I., a woman raising a child may receive a bigger check if she refrains from marrying that hard-working guy she likes. Yet marriage is one of the best forces to blunt poverty. In married couple households only one child in 10 grows up in poverty, while almost half do in single-mother households.

If we’re going to reform a “safety net” that destroys lives and helps bankrupt our country, then we’re going to need at least some on the left to wake up to the reality of the system they helped create. But while Kristof’s attention on the abuse of S.S.I. is welcome, he’s barely scratching the surface of a system that seems almost perfectly created to shove formerly working poor and lower-middle-class Americans into a lifetime of dependency.

I live in rural, southern Tennessee, in a beautiful county that has a serious meth problem — and a serious disability problem not unlike the one Kristof describes. Curious to discover how and why so many of my neighbors end up “disabled,” over the last several months I’ve been talking to doctors and other professionals involved in the process (I really should turn this into a larger article).  

At the risk of over-simplifying the problem, here’s a typical way that a tough economy combines with our so-called “safety net” to produce a disability crisis: A high-school friend (we’ll call him “Rob”) has long worked in various blue-collar jobs in the area. In the 15 years since high school, he’s worked in manufacturing plants, on construction sites, and even — when times were particularly rough — mowed yards to help make ends meet. The work was hard, the pay wasn’t great, but he supported himself and made his child-support payments on time. He was a productive, respected citizen who took pride in his work and worked hard.

In early 2009, Rob was laid off from his latest job and immediately began receiving unemployment benefits. He’d received unemployment before and had always found another job, but this time the job market was more difficult. He looked for work, but he looked less and less diligently with each passing week. Benefits were extended — then extended again. While unemployed, he lived a far more sedate lifestyle and quickly began gaining weight — eating foods purchased with government assistance — and as he gained weight, his health deteriorated. His joints ached, his blood pressure rose, and he became extremely anxious.

Knowing friends on disability — and realizing that the benefits were roughly equal to the pay he received at his last job — he applied, claiming that his muscular-skeletal problems combined with his anxiety prevented him from working. Within months, he was approved, and he stopped any effort to look for work, knowing that if he found a job his benefits would cease. His sedate lifestyle continued, his health deteriorated even further, and — soon enough — he was truly “disabled” by any objective medical measure.  

In other words, we safety-netted Rob into chronic illness and long-term dependency.

Now, it’s true that at any point Rob could have taken concrete actions to change his path — and he bears moral responsibility for his failure to act — but it’s also true that our government has relentlessly incentivized every step of his deterioration, all in the name of compassion. Even worse, by providing such generous benefits with no meaningful strings attached, we’ve also essentially immunized him against the kind of assistance that he truly needs — the “tough love” that demands that a man do what he can to help himself through productive work.  

The result? Another statistic. Another father who is no longer a role model for his children. Another sadly shortened lifetime’s worth of money (some borrowed from China) paid to sustain a lifestyle not good enough to enjoy and not tough enough to leave.

It’s a national tragedy of our own making.