We live in a “culture of dependence.” That was a phrase coined by Michael Barone who used it on my radio program last week. One example he used to illustrate the “culture of dependence” was an exchange between a CNN reporter and a man at a tea party event in Chicago.

The CNN reporter asked him, “Do you realize that you’re eligible for a $400 credit?” When the man refused to lower his “drop socialism” sign, the reporter went on to say, “Did you know that the state of Illinois got $50 billion out of the stimulus.” The reporter is no longer at CNN, but I suspect the man is still attending tea party rallies. I don’t think his vote or his allegiance can be bought for $400.

The exchange, says Michael Barone, illustrates the battle between the culture of dependence and the culture of independence. The CNN reporter reflects the prevailing idea that if you are getting $400 or if your state is getting $50 billion, you should shut your mouth and be glad that for what the government is giving you.

Essentially it is a clash of worldviews. On one side is the view that people cannot take care of themselves. So government needs to step in and provide for the citizens. That is the culture of dependence. On the other side is the culture of independence. The people who hold to this view are a much larger group than just those who attend a tea party rally. They realize that as government grows, it increases a citizen’s dependence upon it and it squeezes out their ability to pursue their dreams and goals.

Is there a place for various institutions (the government, the church, and private organizations) to help the poor? Of course, but the goal should be to provide a hand up rather than a hand out. Programs geared to help citizens become self-sufficient rather than dependent should be a part of this culture of independence.

And that was the problem with the exchange between the CNN reporter and the man at the tea party rally. His allegiance (and my allegiance) cannot be bought for $400.

Abortion is devastating the black population in America. In an article by Star Parker and Gary Bauer in a past edition of the The Weekly Standard, they lay out statistics showing how abortion is affecting African-Americans more than any other identifiable group or population.

They point out that President Obama’s “ascendance to the White House has been almost uniformly regarded as a complete victory for black Americans, it also stands to exacerbate one of the black community’s most intractable problems: the destruction of black children in the womb.”

Legalized abortion in this country has led to the killing of over 50 million unborn Americans. But the percentage of abortions varies and is higher in the African-American community than in any other. Nearly half of black pregnancies end in abortion. Three in five black women will abort a child. That means that 1,500 black Americans are aborted every single day.

What has this done to the African-American population in America? Abortion has reduced the black population by roughly one-third because of abortion. And the disparity among racial groups is widening according to recent reports.

In the last twenty years, the share of all abortions performed on white women decreased from 45 percent to 35 percent. By contrast, the percentage share of abortions performed on black women increased from 32 percent to 37 percent. Since blacks now constitute 13 percent of the population, this means that black babies were aborted about five times the rate of white babies.

A study in Canada shows that the high abortion rate among black women is also a “probable cause” for the disproportionately high rate of subsequent premature births among blacks. That rate is three to four times higher than for women of other ethnic groups.

Abortion has had a devastating impact on America, but the greatest devastation has been among the African-American community.

A generation ago, the middle class in America had a significant influence on the political and cultural direction of the country. Now we are seeing greater polarization of incomes and a large cultural disconnect.

At the top end are wealthy people who are making policy and driving culture. They live in upscale locations on the West Coast and East Coast. They include the political elite and the media elite. Those in government pass laws or implement policies that don’t really affect them. The laws they write or administrate on issues ranging from medical policy to immigration have a significant impact on the general population. These policies really don’t affect them adversely. They have enough money to get the doctors and hospitals they need. They live in gated communities unaffected by poverty or changes in immigration laws.

At the other end are the poor or the working poor. They try to make ends meet, and most of them are dependent upon federal entitlement programs. These range from welfare to student loan programs. Any change in any government policy affects them much more than it affects the wealthy in America. The poor and the working poor live in communities that usually are deteriorating and have to deal with crime.

Victor Davis Hanson explains in many of his columns that California provides a view of what America might look like in the future. The golden state has become two cultures. “The coastal elites champion wind and solar mandates, transgender restrooms in the public schools, gay marriage, and high-speed rail. In the interior, rarely visited by the elites or the journalists friendly to them, the preponderance of poorer and minority residents largely explains why of all the states, California has the largest number of welfare recipients and the highest percentage of the population before the poverty line, and why it is nearly dead last in public-school performance.”

California is a picture of America’s future unless there are major political and cultural changes. The country is becoming two disconnected cultures.

The future of private practice for physicians does not look bright. A recent Physicians Foundation survey of 20,000 U.S. doctors found that about a third (35%) described themselves as independent. That is down from two-thirds (62%) in 2008. In less than a decade independent doctors have gone from being the rule to the exception.

Scott Gottlieb of the American Enterprise Institute predicts that this trend will continue unless there is quick reform of our health care system. The Medicare payment system is forcing doctors to sell out to hospitals. There will be a continued “consolidation of previously independent doctors into salaried roles inside larger institutions” (usually a central hospital).

He argues that members of Congress need to pursue a different course. If not, local competition between medical providers will diminish. That will make it harder to implement market-based alternatives to Obamacare. He proposes legislative remedies that the next Congress should pass.

Congress should remove the bias in Obamacare that favors hospital ownership of medical practices. Many of the current payment policies “are tilted far in favor of having hospitals pool their risk, and not looser networks of doctors.”

Real reform will come when Congress gives independent, private-practice doctors an equal footing. They should be allowed to band together and bid against hospitals for a pool of patients. They also deserve an equal footing when it comes to reimbursement. Medicare currently pays much more for a procedure performed in a hospital than in a doctor’s office. This is true of everything from a colonoscopy to even a 15-minute doctor visit. This is another reason why hospitals are buying doctor practices.

We should be concerned about government policies that are forcing doctors out of private practice. And reformers need to do a better job of explaining how market-based alternatives to Obamacare will be better for doctors, patients, and the American taxpayer.

What will be the financial impact of President Obama’s executive order concerning nearly 5 million undocumented immigrants? The White House has acknowledged that these newly legalized workers will contribute to Social Security and Medicare. Will this help us with our current crisis of entitlements or make the problem worse?

There are some that believe it will help us since we will have millions more paying into Social Security and Medicare. I even had one caller suggest that this might be a way to deal with problem created by abortion. We have aborted millions of unborn children who could have been taxpayers paying into the system as millions of Baby Boomers are retiring. He thought these new immigrants might replace those lost to abortion.

Dr. Merrill Matthews runs the numbers and shows that there might be an initial benefit, but that will be followed by a financial unbalance that will make the problem much worse. The long-term unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare are at $49 trillion. We already have a problem because people retiring and receiving these benefits will receive more in benefits from the two programs than they paid into the system.

The newly legalized immigrants will be paying into the system even less, for two reasons. First, their likely income will be less than the average worker. And second, they will be paying into the system for a shorter time. Most of the newly legalized are working-age adults with children already in their 40s who would only pay FICA taxes for perhaps 15 to 20 years. They may help the government trust fund initially (assuming they all quickly find good paying jobs here in America). But they will be fully eligible for these government programs when they retire.

Using one simulation model, Dr. Matthews estimates that the government will receive about $500 billion in payroll tax revenue. And the government could expect to pay out some $2 trillion in benefits over several decades. In other words, if you do the math you see that this executive order will make the entitlement crisis even worse.

The latest research by the Barna Group has uncovered three trends that are redefining the information age. Social media (like Twitter and Facebook) along with other digital platforms (like eBooks and mobile apps) are changing the way we are processing information. We are now much more likely to scroll and skim rather than read in depth.

The first trend the Barna Group identified was the feeling most people have that modern life is accelerating and becoming more complex. A majority of adults believe life has become more complicated.

Those who feel the greatest strains fall into two groups. The first are those who lack certain social supports like quality education, a stable income, or a spouse with whom they can face life’s challenges. The second group is people of faith who are more likely to feel that life is getting more complex.

A second trend is the reality that more and more people are becoming accustomed to skimming content. More than 7 out of 10 affirm this self-description. This is understandable. In a 24-hour news cycle, “keeping up” can be hard work.

A third trend is the desire on the part of many to move beyond mere facts and information. They are looking for a holistic integration of faith and life. They want to be informed, but they want that information in a way that gives them a meaningful life. Put another way, we don’t want more data. We want meaning and want to know what all of this data means to us personally.

For Christians this means a “rich integration of faith and life.” A sizable majority of practicing Christians say they want to know how their faith speaks to the current issues they face. But even American adults in general say they are searching for ways their faith addresses current challenges and opportunities.

Put simply, we are overwhelmed with data and information. We are looking for people and organizations like churches and Christian media that can give meaning to this overload of information.

Lots of myths surround the subject of divorce. One of the most pervasive is the concept of a good divorce. Book titles like The Good Divorce, Collaborative Divorce, and Happy Divorce keep coming.

Diane Medved has seen enough and wrote a great column in USA Today on the myth that divorce is good. She is certainly qualified to write on this subject. She is married to film critic and radio talk show host Michael Medved. She also wrote a book many years ago with the title: The Case Against Divorce.

She points out that the claims that divorced couples settle amicably and are better for the decision doesn’t hold up. Family researcher Maggie Gallagher noted that 80 percent of U.S. divorces “are unilateral, rather than truly mutual decisions.”

Children are often “collateral damage” when a divorce takes place. Judith Wallerstein is the author of a landmark 25-year study of divorced families. She rejects the cliché that “kids are resilient.” She documented the negative impact divorce had on children and showed that it continued into their adult years. She found that “many of these . . . children forfeited their own childhoods as they took responsibility for themselves, their troubled, overworked parents; and their siblings.”

The increase in divorce has also changed our perception of marriage. Diane Medved says that our notion of commitment has become shorter. Couples walking down the aisle hope their marriage will last, but they have much less assurance that their marriage will last in a culture where divorce it so prevalent.

Divorce has also decoupled paternity from marriage. The latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveal that 48 percent of women cohabited with a partner as a first union. The overall out-of-wedlock birth rate is now at 40 percent.

Not all marriages can survive, especially when one partner strays sexually or is hopelessly addicted or abusive. But we now live in a world where divorce has become commonplace, and that is not good for marriage, family, and children.

Attending a top university and graduating at the top of your class is often an important key to success. Unfortunately, that is not true if you plan to be a federal judge. That’s the conclusion of John Lott in his latest book, Dumbing Down the Courts.

He tracked the federal judge appointments over the last four decades and found some startling statistics. Graduates of the top ten law schools who also served on their school’s law review had a 30 percent lower confirmation rate than their peers. He also found the confirmation took 65 percent longer for those who did reach a federal judicial post. And he also found that the confirmation length for graduates of the top law schools who distinguished themselves further by getting clerkships on circuit courts and then the Supreme Court was 158 percent longer. Put simply: there seems to be a bias against the best and the brightest when it comes to federal court appointments.

To illustrate why this is so, John Lott explained that someone like me probably doesn’t get to serve on many juries. A lawyer would look at someone who could sway other jurors as a potential problem. So lawyers on either side would want to use a peremptory challenge to keep me off a jury.

The same seems to hold true for judges on a federal court. A smart and persuasive judge could influence other judges to change their votes. Liberals don’t want smart, influential conservatives on the court. Conservatives don’t want intelligent, articulate liberals on the court. While this is true of both parties, John Lott did find that a Republican nominee usually faces more difficult confirmations.

This problem has grown worse over time because the courts are making more and more decisions. Thus, the stakes are higher. When Ronald Reagan was president, it took an average of 68 days to get his nominees confirmed. By the time George W. Bush was president, the average wait was 362 days.

John Lott’s book is a reminder of how dysfunctional the judicial confirmation process has become. We are the worse for it.

Here is an interesting fact. Families in San Francisco give almost exactly the same amount to charity each year as families in South Dakota. Arthur Brooks talked about this in his book, Who Really Cares? He went on to explain that these two communities were very different. They were separated by not only geography but by many cultural differences.

Their donations to charity also represented a significant difference due to income. The average San Francisco family made (back when the book was written) nearly twice as much each year as a family in South Dakota. Put another way, an average South Dakota family gave away 75 percent more of its household income each year than the average family in San Francisco. When Brooks asked an executive of a foundation in South Dakota why people in her state gave so much more, she had a simple answer: religion.

People of faith give much more than secular people. In his book, he divides Americans into four groups to show their differences in giving to charity.

Religious conservatives are the largest group of the four. They represent 24 percent of all Protestants, 19 percent of Catholics, along with a number of other religious groups. This group is most likely to give money to charity and they give away the most money.

Religious liberals are the smallest of the four groups. They are almost as likely to give as religious conservatives. They are a little less likely to volunteer

Secular conservatives are much less likely to give to charity. They are also much less likely to volunteer or help people in need. Secular liberals are the second largest group and have the highest average income. Nevertheless they are poor givers, even to secular charities they might be expected to support.

The obvious conclusion is that faith makes a big difference in whether someone gives time or money to a charity.