Uncle Sam's Plantation by Star Parker
Have you heard of Star Parker? Do you know who she is? I didn't know who she was until recently, when I heard her speak at the Union Gospel Mission luncheon this summer. I will add that that was a day I will long remember, not because of her, but because it was a day in which a lot of things were happening in my life on a personal level during that time, and in it all, God included me hearing her speak.
After she spoke I bought a couple of her books to read, and this was one. It is subtitled,
How Big Government Enslaves America's Poor and What We Can Do About It. She writes from a conservative perspective, and she is a Christian. To learn more about her back ground read about her at
wikipedia or read her book.
It's interesting to read her story and see her insight into what keeps the poor poor and on welfare. I also believe her testimony about the slavery of the welfare system is something other people experience too. This book is definitely an eye opener, not only of the value of free enterprise and giving people a chance to work and make a living, but also of Jesus Christ and what a difference he makes in people's lives.
I applauded Star Parker when she spoke that day in the banquet hall at Red Lion, and I applauded her personally in my living room after reading her book too. I think she says a lot of really important things that need to be said.
Parker says that being dependent on government, instead of independent, is as lot like living in slavery. She says and it's no secret, that if you are poor, living in a ghetto in bad situations, stuck in the grips of sin... it's bad and you may even need help, but government programs like welfare cannot be the savior to the problem. She says that because the system feeds the system, it creates jobs that people need to keep, it creates people who can get by without needing to work and this coupled with a liberal mindset is only bondage. Parker says such a system, has not worked yet, is only growing bigger, not smaller and only works to keep people in it's form of slavery.
She points a finger at the government funded programs that just keep throwing money (from more taxation) and more "programs" at the problems. She says that this has created a system that is all about the money and the programs, not the people.
Parker also points a finger at liberal politics, which she claims has broken down the necessity and concept of family and family life, especially among the poor. Feminism has been sown in our mindset and swept marriage out the door. She says men feel freedom from the responsibility of father hood because women do not respect them, or want them in their lives. And on a governmental level, Who needs a dad to work and support a child, and certainly not financially, when Uncle Sam will simply pick up the tab with monthly welfare checks for unmarried moms.
Parker says that for men liberalism in politics and the media has taken away the moral compasses of men who instead are guided by a belief that their self worth comes in the form of sexual conquests and in the power of money. Many now believe that abortion is simply a medical response to the illness of pregnancy. She even goes so far as to use former (liberal minded) President Bill Clinton as an example of a man who is sexually a predator of women, and a media in America, who would have us all believe that adulterous actions (for men in particular,) really are quite natural, just a part of and what it means to be a man, and really no body's business but his own. (She points at how this is the role model for men, and for men in the ghetto, who see the president as a man with power and money too.)
She says that feminism has taught women that marriage will make them dependent on men, they learn that marriage is nothing but another form of slavery and prostitution. So with a feminist mindset, legal paid for abortions and birth control, and welfare checks, women, like men, do not have to have the responsibility of raising a family and if they do raise a family... children are born out of wedlock. Where are the men? Who needs them? Just keep the welfare check coming.
Parker says that Uncle Sam wants you on his payroll, because you are the one who keeps a reason for his own paycheck drawn from taxes. She says that Sam's taxes gladly pay for abortion after abortion too. Parker knows the score; a woman on welfare for years, she has had four of them herself. She says unequivicably that Uncle Sam's money is not the solution to poverty or ghettos, or any other social ills. The solution, according to Parker is not big government or money, it is morality.
Parker believes that America has shifted from believing in God and believing in God's ways. She says that government has taken on the role oif the church, even urges the church to be pro-active in the solving of social issues, (like Union Gospel Missions feeding and sheltering the homeless, and this instead of government funded programs!) She assesses that more and more, the church is falling into the wood work as government and government funding takes over in doing what the church has always done. She urged her listeners and readers to be actively the church and not let government programs take over what the church should be doing,
She also says that people have been brainwashed into believing they deserve a handout from Uncle Sam, something they need to stop believing. She said people are quick to look to the government for help financially, something she says began as our country went through "the Great Depression."
I liked Star Parkers frankness and honesty. I liked her courage to call a spade a spade and tell it like it is, her courage to continually point the reader to Almighty God. She does not mince words either in person as a speaker, or in her books and she admonishes the church to exercise real faith and dump the governmental, "faith based" federal funding to private charitable groups.
Parker reminds her readers that her in the USA the government's job is to secure freedom not enslave us to our sin, but to set men free. Their job is to protect and defend our freedom, to allow human beings to have faith in God and speak about our faith and live as God intended we should live... not as slaves of sin or slaves of government, not as those who are free from having any morals or values, but as those who are truly "free."
She says wean people off these government systems and stop the mind control. God's morals and ethics, his idea of family and family values, and the Christian faith, is what is needed. It's the remedy.
