A maxim of life and economics is that you will get more of whatever you subsidize. Make it easier to be a drug addict and you'll get more drug addiction. Bail out poorly managed banks, free the bankers from the consequences of their greed, and you will get more mismanaged banks in the future needing bigger and bigger bailouts. And put a day-care center in a high school to make life easier for teenage girls who get pregnant, and guess what you'll get? At least that's one plausible theory for the pregnancy boom at Gloucester High. That progressive high-school put in a day-care center so that teenagers with babies wouldn't be unduly inconvenienced. It was a subsidy for teenage pregnancy, one that also highlighted the "glamor" aspects of motherhood (seeing the adorable little babies and their teenage mothers enjoying the unconditional love of their child every day in the halls of the school). And guess what? Now there are 17 more pregnant teenagers who will soon be benefiting from the subsidy as well. You get more of what you subsidize and condone. Some forms of "compassion" can actually be harmful.

Oh, I hear that many of those moms are just 16 and have unwed fathers who are 18-year-old men (maybe even older?). Sounds like a culture of sexual child abuse. Anybody for sending in tanks to the Gloucester compound to haul away all the children to safer foster homes? I hear Massachusetts has a much safer foster care program than Texas, so it should be OK. Anyone care to make an anonymous hoax call to get the process started?
Continue reading at the original source →