Depends how you define equal opportunity. I would say that opportunities are abundant for minorities compared to 40-50 years ago, let alone the years prior to that. Yet blacks today seem to struggle more than the blacks of the pre civil rights era. Why is that?
Yes, opinion. When government makes it more attractive to remain on welfare than to go out and be productive, that's nanny state. When 43% pay no income taxes, that's another good indicator. Sure, we weren't discussing SNAP in particular, but since you mentioned it, let's start there. Show me the number of SNAP recipients and how they've been declining since...well, whenever you want.
Food-Stamp Use Starting to Fall As the Job Market Improves, More Americans Are Able to Wean Off the Program http://www.wsj.com/articles/food-stamps-starting-to-fall-1409606700
Unemployed yes, but why? We can't blame all of this on the most recent economic collapse. While the events of 2008 certainly exacerbated the problem, the issue with young black males has been with us for 30 years plus. What changed, what we all know in our hearts has changed, is the collapse of the family structure in our society. All races have been impacted but it seems to have hit blacks much more severely. Something is driving that. What? And no, I don't have, nor do I think there is a very easy answer. Millions of black men did not just wake up one day and say, screw this shit, I'm going to be a completely irresponsible piece of crap.
There's only one solution to this horrific conundrum foisted upon us by those right wing bastards. All black children must be exchanged with white children, spending the year with white parents and white children spending the year with black parents. They must go back and forth every year. Jewish and Muslim children must do the same. Poor people and rich people the same. This way the fight can degenerate into" he didn't start sliding in school till the year he spent with you blacks" and on and on and on.
Yes, abolish the family! That's obviously the solution. Back to the old days 10,000 years ago before civilization! I'm feeling a sense of nostalgia!
Until you provide this source for your info (my previous post asked for the full link, as the article you posted requires subscription), I cannot discuss it. But I went to the USDA site, downloaded the data into excel and created a chart for you (I separated the last 4 fiscal reporting months from the previous FY close). Has SNAP data in the latest month declined over the previous month? Sure. I think it's a bit premature to celebrate, much less offer that Food Stamp use is "starting to fall". It's down less than 1% from 2014 levels in the last month only. A one month decline in a series that has shown volatility in the past at much greater levels does not show anything. The 400,000 or so people that dropped off could have dropped off because states are beginning to require drug testing or application to work programs BEFORE qualifying for SNAP payments now. They are seeing reduced claimants as they institute these requirements. Even without any of that, the chart/data above shows no real decline to support your thesis.
The left demonstrates a fundamental error when they accuse families of providing "unfair advantage". To them, any success in life means somebody else failed. Anything you have that somebody else does not means you got that thing because of a basic unfairness. To them, life is a big pizza and if one person takes too many slices that means that some other family only gets the box to eat. But that's not the way reality works. Take for example, the guy that started Amazon. He made a fortune. But that fortune did not make everybody else poor. In fact, most of us are better off with the ability to go to a website, buy most anything and have it shipped to our door. One could make the argument that some stores such as WalMart lost a bit and I would enjoy seeing the anti-capitalists whining about hurting WalMart, but they would be correct. However, overall we are better off having Amazon. The underlying assumption the left makes is that when two people exchange goods there is no increase in value. But there is. If two people did not both gain by free exchange, then they generally would not engage in it. If you grew apples and I grew oranges, the marginal utility of that 100th bushel of apples for you would be pretty minor, as would that 100th basket of oranges for me. But it we traded, we would both be better off. All this stuff has been discussed ad-nauseam here even with great videos from Milton Freidman, explaining this fairly simple stuff. But understanding requires the rigorous application of logic and reason while minimizing emotions - the exact opposite of how liberals operate.