ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, September 5, 1996 TAG: 9609050066
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Ray L. Garland
SOURCE: RAY L. GARLAND
IN HIS acceptance speech, President Clinton mentioned children 47 times. One major newspaper called it a "three-hanky" convention - not that Bob Dole is any slouch when it comes to turning on the waterworks. Both shows seemed lifted from Oprah. Our politics is now an exercise in sensitivity training.
While Clinton presented himself as a bridge to a new century, "where everyone has a place and plays a role," Dole took the risky gambit of recalling a halcyon past where people accepted more personal responsibility. Mrs. Clinton defended her book, "It Takes A Village," which touts community responsibility for raising a child. Dole countered with, "It doesn't take a village, it takes a family." This barb was aimed at the culture of social workers, counselors, educators, etc. who swarm around today's youth and are seen, increasingly, as an arm of the Democratic Party.
Though public-school teachers make up less than 2 percent of Virginia voters, they held 10 percent of the seats in the state's delegation at this convention.
One wag suggested Republicans should counter with a book of their own, "It Takes A Nanny." But joking aside, it is the Clintons who represent the "nanny" state. As the president put it, "Let us build a bridge to help parents raise their children, to help young people and adults get the education and training they need ... to help Americans succeed at home and at work ... ."
Only a churl would suggest their programs bear any responsibility for the current condition of American youth. But in the past 64 years, Democrats have controlled the House all but six and the Senate all but 12.
An enterprising reporter for The New York Times wandered two blocks from the convention to a housing project, where he interviewed a 17-year-old resident. "It's been real peaceful around here," James Jackson said. "All the drug dealers got scared off by all the police. But they'll be back, and all the killing will start up again."
The state of youth in all times and places has seldom been entirely pleasing to those no longer young. But the present news does seem particularly distressing. At the opening of school, many students ran a gantlet of armed guards. In the past 15 years, the number of cases in juvenile court has increased 50 percent. And perhaps most disturbing of all, according to "The Statistical Abstract of the United States," 2.8 million children in 1993 were the subject of an official report of abuse or neglect.
Of course, it isn't only the young. There were 4.8 million people over 18 in jail or on probation in 1992, compared to 1.8 million in 1980. And 30 percent of all births that year were to unmarried women - 68 percent in the case of blacks. Abortion now terminates a quarter of all pregnancies, or about 1.5 million a year.
In the midst of the politics of compassion and sensitivity, is one entitled to ask, "What kind of a people have we become?" Surely not one that is grudging in support of the state. Government at all levels consumes more than a third of our total personal income. And affluent taxpayers in more than a few places pay half of what they make in taxes.
Various theories of blame have been put forward. Liberals blame Republicans for depriving government of sufficient funds to attack these problems at their root cause with all the resources needed. And conservatives blame Democrats for inculcating a welfare-state mentality that breeds contempt for law and duty.
More practical souls might ascribe the rapid and often disastrous course of social change to the invention of the automobile, or the introduction of antibiotics, "the pill" and legalized abortion that gave freedom from the inconvenient side of sex.
It's odd, however, that the party of children's hope would also be a party militant for abortion under almost all circumstances, which rather seems to terminate hope for lots of wee souls. Of course, we're not going back, but is part of the price of cheapening life the kid who calmly shoots his teacher?
Democrats also pose as the great protectors of Social Security and Medicare. Both ideas, while sound, are unsound in their structure. Is it right for those now enrolled to get benefits that are five or six times larger than what they paid for while younger workers pay five or six times over for what they can expect, even assuming benefits aren't scaled back in the future, as they almost certainly will be?
No, Democrats can't have it both ways. They can't pose as champions of children while defending to the last ditch a system that hobbles the financial future of those same children. Even the most modest reductions in the rate of growth in these benefits - compounded over the next dozen years - would make things a lot easier (and fairer) for everybody. The sad part is, Clinton and many other Democrats understand this, but fear to lose the good politics that comes from scaring seniors.
But the prize for hypocrisy must go to Vice President Gore, who recalled at painful length the death of his sister from lung cancer in 1984. "And that is why," he said, "I will pour my heart and soul into the cause of protecting our children from the dangers of smoking." The only problem with that was that at least two generations of Gores raised tobacco, and continued to do so for some years after his sister's death. Gore also didn't raise the issue of his father's pension exceeding $100,000 a year for congressional service that ended 30 years ago.
Let's end on a lighter note. The honor for wittiest line at the convention must go to Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, who said, "When I die I want to be buried in Chicago so I can stay active in politics." With motor-voter, which stops states from purging inactive voters, he won't have to limit the site of his post-mortem career to the Windy City.
Ray L. Garland is a Roanoke Times columnist.
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