Foundlings:  A pre-modern social welfare system

I actually knew a foundling once so it's really quite recent history. It reflected a time when food was much less abundant than it is now in a modern capitalist society.  Lots of people had to battle to feed their families.  There was even some real starvation. 

Under those circumstances, a father wanted to be sure that the kids he was feeding were all his.  And the only way he could achieve that was by forging all sorts of bonds which would ensure that his wife slept only with him.  Marriage was a public agreement that she would do that and he would provide for the resultant kids.  And the society generally co-operated with that.  There were all sorts of norms for female behaviour that made it punitively difficult for her to stray.

But the sex drive being what it is, women did sometimes stray. The woman and her lover of course did the utmost to hide her lack of virtue but that became difficult when a baby popped out.  The social disgrace was enormous and even the woman's family would not support her lest they to fell into disgrace.

So how was she to support herself and the babe?  She could hardly go to work with a new baby and the poorhouse would close its doors to her.  The poorhouse was the Victorian social support net for those who could not support themselves.  So on many occasions the baby had to be disposed of in some way.  A common way was for the mother to wrap the baby up warmly and leave it on the doorstep of one of the great houses.

When one of the servants opened the door of the house next morning, the babe was found.  And there was generally some sympathy for it among the servants.  The cook (who had access to food) or some other kindly person would informally "adopt" the babe and see to its needs. It became a foundling. 

The master of the house would not always be told imediately but, when he was, he would generally accept it as a fait accompli and wash his hands of the matter.  As long as his dinners were not interrupted and the cleaning was done, he could allow the servants the occasional folly. But he would not acknowledge the baby in any way.

But babies grow up eventually and the legitimate children in the house would sometimes notice another child in their environment and might even get to play with it. So if the child had some virtue -- a clever brain or a pleasant manner, say -- this would become generally known to all -- eventually even to the master.  And for the inculcation of virtue, the foundling would quite often be included in the children's lessons. 

Children of a great house were not sent to a school.  They were taught at home by a tutor or a governess.  A tutor mainly taught Latin and a governess generally taught French but there was some general education included.  So foundlings often got a better education than children brought up in a poor household.  And there were occasions, when the foundling displayed some talent or other, that the master of the house would give some acknowledgement to the foundling -- taking personal credit for having taken in the foundling.

So it was a very hit-and-miss social safety net but its results for the child would fall within the range of what many legitimate children experienced at the time.  That it didn't starve was a significant achievement.

Having a great house nearby was not always available so an embarrassing babe would be left on the doorstep of what was apparently a prosperous couple -- with uneven but not too terrible results.  The foundling I knew was actually unaware for most of her life that she was a foundling.  She was brought up no differently from the other children of the family.  It is normal for babies to be treasured.

There are of course still foundlings of a sort in the Western world today.  A babe is left at a hospital by a distressed mother and modern social welfare measures grind into gear.

In history and in literature there are many stories about foundlings, starting with Moses.

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Don Lemon really is a lemon

After news broke that a Michigan man threatened to carry-out a mass shooting at CNN’s headquarters, Don Lemon placed the blame for the domestic terrorist threat on President Donald Trump’s rhetoric against the press.

The man in question, reported Hitler-fan Brandon Griesemer, allegedly called CNN 22 times this month before his arrest claiming he was “coming to gun you all down” and referring the network as “fake news.”

In response to this incident, Lemon said the following:

“There’s nothing random about this. Nothing. This is what happens when the president of the United States, Donald Trump, repeatedly attacks members of the press simply for reporting facts he does not like. I’ve heard from a number of very credible sources from within the White House that you watch this show. So, Mr. President, I’m going to speak directly to you: The caller who threatened to kill CNN employees made his threat using these words: ‘Fake news.’ … I wonder where he got those words.”

Of course, the term “fake news” has been Trump’s go to slam against the press for the past two years — particularly CNN. He used the attack against them as recently as yesterday morning, calling them “Fake News CNN,” and famously shouted, “You are fake news” at the network’s White House reporter during a presser.

SOURCE

So by this logic, is Don saying that he and his party are responsible for the Democrat Bernie supporter who shot at a bunch of congressmen on a ball field nearly killing Scalise? This was after their rhetoric of GOP killing everyone.

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Trump was right -- again

Donald Trump recently got in trouble with liberals for referring to one of the most impoverished third world countries, Haiti, as a s*******. Port-Au-Prince, the biggest city in Haiti, doesn’t have a sewer system and crime is out of control but apparently, that’s not enough for liberals to classify it as a bad place to live.

Now, some videos have emerged that prove Trump was absolutely correct. Narrative shattered. From Conservative Tribune:

Despite all the grief President Donald Trump recently received for allegedly referring to Haiti as a “s***hole” nation, the fact remains the island does suffer from some serious sanitation problems — primarily because it lacks a conventional trash disposal system.

As a result, Haiti is teeming with trash everywhere — on the streets, in rivers and even along the coast. According to Deutsche Welle, it’s so bad there that sadly many Haitians literally live “in (and around) garbage.”

And according to environmental activist Rosaly Byrd, there’s so much trash that it’s virtually impossible to go swimming anywhere in Haiti without encountering some.

All Trump did was ask a question that not enough politicians have asked. Why are we importing a lot more unskilled and impoverished workers from places like Haiti than we are people from places like Norway? A normal person can think about that question rationally. Liberals aren’t capable of seeing beyond race.  It’s really pathetic. They can’t accept reality.

It has really been remarkable watching how badly liberals were triggered over Trump’s comment.

SOURCE

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Why evangelicals stand by Trump: Those calling out the hypocrisy of Christian conservatives ignore the scars of recent history

Evangelicals don't see Trump as the embodiment of Christian values but as a protector of their right to live by them

By S.E. Cupp

It was one of President Trump’s most supportive voting blocs in 2016: 80% of white evangelicals voted for him, according to exit polls. Just 16% voted for Hillary Clinton.

Many on the left and in the media were shocked then by Trump’s evangelical support, and they are shocked now, after some faith leaders have brushed off credible new allegations that the President had an extramarital affair with a porn star years ago, then paid her to stay silent.

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins told Politico, “We kind of gave him — ‘All right, you get a mulligan. You get a do-over here.’ ” Franklin Graham, son of the Rev. Billy Graham, told CNN that Trump is a “changed person.” He rationalized, “These alleged affairs, they’re alleged with Trump, didn’t happen while he was in office.”

There are two ways to view this: Either evangelicals like Perkins are rank hypocrites or, in the spirit of their faith, are simply very, very forgiving.

Many lean toward the former interpretation, and I get the temptation.

But it willfully leaves out a lot of recent history. As the left and liberal media try to “figure out” Christian America during this latest, complicated moment, it’s instructive to understand where they’ve recently been.

Two years into Barack Obama’s first term, I wrote a book on the liberal war on Christianity. When “Losing Our Religion” came out, folks on the right got it immediately. “Of course the left is attacking Christians,” was the general refrain.

Many on the left, however, were incredulous. One far-left radio host had me on to tell me he had no plans to read the book, but that my premise was absurd on its face. Christianity’s the biggest religion in the country; it can’t possibly be an oppressed class, they insisted.

OK, ask one — just one — evangelical Christian why they voted for Trump.

Perkins spelled it out. Evangelical Christians, he says, “were tired of being kicked around by Barack Obama and his leftists. And I think they are finally glad that there’s somebody on the playground that is willing to punch the bully.”

It wasn’t just Obama’s condescension toward the faithful, who he famously said “cling to guns and religion” when angry or scared. It was eight years of policies that trampled on their religious values, from expanded abortion rights and decreased regulation, even in the face of horrific cases like Dr. Kermit Gosnell’s, to continued efforts to chip away at religious employers’ rights.

It was a smugness from the liberal media, which talked about Christian America as if it were a vestigial organ of some extinct, diseased dinosaur.

Liberal television hosts mocked Sarah Palin for banal things like praying, and reporters wrote that her faith — Pentecostalism — was fanatical, kooky and bigoted. Liberal networks and newsrooms were windowless cocoons of secularism that only deigned to cover Christianity to dismiss its relevance or spotlight its perceived backwardness.

And it was decades of concerted cultural elitism that marginalized Christians as not cool enough to cater to. Movies like “The Passion of the Christ” and “The Chronicles of Narnia” were blockbuster hits in spite of dismissive Hollywood film critics who refused to believe there were enough Christians to go see them. Celebrities called them fanatics; comedians made fun of them.

Many evangelicals I talk to say they grew tired of turning the other cheek. In Trump, they finally found someone who was willing to voice the anger and resentment they had been holding in.

They could overlook his personal foibles — after all, let he who is without sin cast the first stone — and his evangelical illiteracy, in exchange for getting someone who would tell off all their past tormentors.

It’s worth noting, there’s also Trump’s record. From tapping Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court to acknowledging Jerusalem is the capital of Israel to following through on his pro-life rhetoric, the President has delivered on a number of promises he made to evangelicals. But that’s not why they voted for him.

So while the willingness to forgive and even defend Trump’s alleged sins seems anathema to many, the fact is evangelicals, like many Trump voters, had good reason to pull the lever for him — and now to stand by him.

SOURCE

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