I was around to witness the AFDC cf, and the fix, which fix proved to be remarkably successful, and at least in that case, it was the "liberals" angst about it all being reformed, which proved to not be well taken.
Appeal to self-expierence fallacy.....
And an especially absurd appeal in this case, as Torie has been privileged his whole life and never had any contact with poverty whatsoever.
It is not based on my
personal experience actually (I never suggested that), but rather based on well,
reading articles about the welfare issue over time as it was all unfolding and thereafter. Believe it or not, I do actually read stuff. I hope that helps.
Oh, and one other little ministerial matter. I actually have had contact with poverty believe it or not. I lived in a very marginal neighborhood in Chicago, in two different apartment buildings which curiously enough, both had African American hookers either in my building or the one next door. Sometimes, in the wee hours of the morning, when the hookers closed up shop, guys with very loud and powerful voices would shout out their displeasure from the street, and wake my up. Pity I was too shy then to sample their services, but such is life. Oh, and one night, the four apartments on the first two floors who broken into and the residents robbed at gun point, while I was playing bridge with my buddies in a third floor apartment. For some reason, the thugs didn't make it up to the third floor. And then there were the gun shots and the fire engines which I heard every night. I lived between 60th and 61st streets; south of 61st street was the neighborhood known as Woodlawn, which was essentially burned down while I lived there, dropping in population in 5 years from 70,000 to 20,000.
I remember one night walking down with about 6 guys to a Chinese Restaurant on 63rd street, and it was like walking through a Fellini film. On the two blocks there must have been about 200 people on the streets (this was around 8 pm), all screwing or getting high or drunk, amid the garbage and the broken glass everywhere. Two years later nothing was left. It was all burned to the ground, everything, by Harry The Torch for the insurance money I suspect. I made it a point never to allow my parents to see where I lived, because they would have freaked out. I figured what they didn't know, wouldn't hurt them.
So now you know the rest of the story. If interested, my next installment will be about living in the barrio in LA (which relatively speaking was a piece of cake compared to Chicago).
Cheers!
