tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7480207999294007243.post2679636846243536712..comments2024-03-28T04:18:16.323-04:00Comments on The Liberal Pulpit: It's Getting WorseRev. Meredith Garmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09600609816550758194noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7480207999294007243.post-11746492043744712812015-01-14T15:44:55.688-05:002015-01-14T15:44:55.688-05:00You might find these interesting. San Francisco v...You might find these interesting. San Francisco vs my hometown from The Encomist back in 2002 A portrait in red and blue<br /><br />The great American political divide, as seen through the congressional districts of Nancy Pelosi and Dennis Hastert http://www.economist.com/node/2313020<br /><br />and more recently, the striking correlation between wealth and politics and income inequality here http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/opinion/sunday/is-life-better-in-americas-red-states.html?_r=0<br /><br />Bill Baarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07095486926836836714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7480207999294007243.post-11913527148714623192015-01-14T15:39:20.188-05:002015-01-14T15:39:20.188-05:00re: 1) I don't think they're connected ei...re: 1) I don't think they're connected either, how ever I think the numbers have both grown but for different reasons. 2) I think the number of same sex households has grown. It certainly has in my community. Not just same-sex but the contrast most noticed is same sex male couples. Often rehabbing large homes, while single moms live in the apartments. It's a striking development with whole neighborhoods gentrifying with Gay men leading that change. 3) I don't know if an increase in single moms is anyones agenda but the social services favor single moms. I've seen that with my own daughter who lost many welfare benefits in Illinois when she married. And re 4) the problem here is while your gap may be wide, it's also a pyramid with the a base a peak. The community experience of the peak is an outlier... an outlier to extent that its an irrelevant and trivial community. The real community is in the base and I believe family experience creates more community than income does here. If your proposition here is the impact of wealth on community, I'd wager it's not much because this tiny group of extremely wealthy people are irrelevant to the larger community. Bill Baarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07095486926836836714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7480207999294007243.post-91159308789851683862015-01-14T11:29:52.941-05:002015-01-14T11:29:52.941-05:00I do believe that, for understanding our society, ...I do believe that, for understanding our society, facts matter. (1) There's no evidence that the rise in visibility of same-sex couples is causally connected to the rise of single moms. (2) There's no evidence that hiding the same-sex couples -- so that the community appears to be uniformly opposite-sex couples -- improves community cohesiveness. (In general, same-sex couples are pretty good at community involvement -- if there's a community to be involved with.) (3) Increasing the number of single moms has never been on anyone's agenda, liberal or conservative. (4) There's actual evidence that, while community cohesiveness is compatible with "a wide range of incomes" (as your experience confirms), when that income inequality becomes as huge as it has gotten in recent years, it has a detrimental effect on social life.Rev. Meredith Garmonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09600609816550758194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7480207999294007243.post-19731438670042057012015-01-14T10:04:38.833-05:002015-01-14T10:04:38.833-05:00I lived in Oak Park Illinois and probably the star... I lived in Oak Park Illinois and probably the starkest divide was between Same Sex male couples and single moms. What at one time had been a community of wide range of incomes yet united around a family model of one man, one women, and sometimes up to a dozen kids and the shared activities that come with that family life became a starkly divided community between Gay Men and Single Women. In many respects its the current liberal agenda that's driving divisions much more profound than any income variances would do.Bill Baarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07095486926836836714noreply@blogger.com