12 year olds playing "robbers and victims" -- with guns (Cleveland: coupon, crime rate)

[Sarah Perry]

Originally Posted by kjbrill

So you would rather people stick their heads in the sand and pretend it does not exist? The comment it is in the news one night and over implies people expect and are oblivious to the conditions as a commonplace occurrence. I sure hope the good people of Cincinnati, and here I mean the entire area, do not accept such events as part of everyday life and continue to ask questions as to how it can be avoided. There needs to be a certain amount of anger or the conditions will never improve.

Well, I for one don't especially want to live in a community where a fatal shooting of a citizen by a police officer--especially in a crowded public square--gets one mention on the news and that's the end of the conversation, as abr7 seems to indicate he thinks is more appropriate. I want plenty of light shining on these incidents, if for no other reason than to ascertain that the police officers are acting appropriately--as did NOT seem to be the case in 2001, and as DOES seem to be the case now.

[abr7rmj]

Of course it's news, and I never suggested that it shouldn't be. But there is a definite imbalance. People draw their lines in the sand and refuse to budge from if one side or the other was at fault. Even in a textbook, clear-cut, open-and-shut, obvious case such as this one.

And our local "media" won't ever be accused of being anything more than sensationalistic panderers who like - no, make that love - to stir up controversy. And not for any noble, healthy, good-for-the-community cause either. Make no mistake: Local crime = big, big ratings. This is undeniable. I was news editor of a newspaper for five years, and zero - literally nothing - jacked up single-copy sales like local crime and particularly murders. People eat that up and, unfortunately, ratings-driven local TV, radio and newspapers are more than happy to deliver the red meat as long as they're getting a response.

[Sarah Perry]

Originally Posted by abr7rmj

Of course it's news, and I never suggested that it shouldn't be. ..

Sorry. When you wrote earlier "When this happens in DC, Pittsburgh, Denver, even Cleveland, it makes the news one night and it's over with." I guess I got the wrong impression.

[Arctic_6]

I've largely stayed away from this thread for a while. But I'm coming back because C. Wright Mills' admonishment of my avoidance of conflict in this subject has started to get to me.

When you assume that "progressive measures" have failed you're assuming there were actually progressive measures in the first place. All I've ever seen is us defining a problem group and throwing money at them, which does nothing. There's an inherently anti-democratic train of thought running through Wilson513's argument: he's asserting people aren't authorities on their own lives; rather, he is the authority on others.

The benefit of contemporary sociology and community psychology is that they have demonstrated that programs which allow community members to voice their concerns, their desires, and their goals and then forms policy around those (opposed to trying to shoehorn those people into "normal" society) we find that communities actually grow and leave the cycle which conservative thinkers like to call unbreakable.

Programs need to be formed by communities with their consent and the assistance of professionals. Empowerment, politically and morally, is only possible when you act with the consent of the population and knowledge of it. Our current programs don't do any of this, rather they assume an instinctive capacity for handling money (when economy is a man-made creation and not a biological entity). I try to stress that policies like Head Start were most effective in their first incarnation: they addressed the wants and needs of one geographic community with great success. It's when they are copy-pasted into umbrella prescriptions for society's ills that they fail to operate correctly.

It's not an unrealistic goal to think of non-profits or even an entirely different social program of the government doing this. The restructuring would be extreme, for sure, but it may well result in much less expense and much more benefit to society. As is, our policies dictate to people what is right and wrong without actually giving them any assistance in planning or achieving agency and empowerment.

The danger of anti-democratic thought is best demonstrated by what happens when it turns on you. If I came into this thread and started posting authoritatively about the members here without consulting them, I can't think a single one would accept that as okay. But it looks a little different when you're doing it to another segment of the population that has an entirely different experience of life.

You can't just solve the problem by throwing checks at it. That's wasteful and inefficient. But a society which forces everyone to conform to a relatively rigid standard of conduct is not one with the respect for the inherent dignity and decency of persons that a democracy should have. When I say that the urban poor value education, family, and employment as much as the middle class in America, I'm bringing it from the experts on the situation: the urban poor. To counter that with sweeping generalizations and prescriptions for mankind is not only inherently narcissistic, it contains strands of the same rationalizations that legitimated fascism and its later forms of thought.

[Wilson513]

It is the disease of the liberal statist, the progressive thinker, that identifies self reliance and the imposition of self sufficiency by withholding welfare benefits to able bodied persons that causes them to identify such philosophy as "anti-democratic" or more typically as "cruel" or "uncaring."

I don't postulate that progressive measures implemented since the great society have failed. No, far worse. They have caused the current problems of the urban poor. That underclass serves the statists as their predicate for controlling the lives of citizens through government.

[Arctic_6]

I'm simply presenting you with what's been empirically observed and the theory that's been built off of that empirical observation. Your philosophy has not been supported by repeated observation and theory. It often runs counter to the tradition of thought handed down so far.

You've got a very patriarchal outlook on society, which implies a top-down view of authority. It's a common view, and it's not right or wrong. The very fact that you labeled progressive thinkers as diseased goes on to prove the point that you disrespect for those who disagree with you. You are easily one of the most civically disengaged people I've ever encountered, and it seems willfully so. It's perfectly okay if you want to believe in things like inherent inferiority (which was implied in your first post in this thread), but views of inherent morality are entirely subjective. It's okay to be uninformed an opinionated, though. It's actually one of your rights. But it's a civic disgrace to promote yourself and your way of life over those of others with different viewpoints. It is inherently anti-democratic to believe that the voices of the poor don't matter. From what I've gathered you're self-absorbed and so set in your ways that change terrifies you unless it's changing other people to be more like you.

There's my top-down, patriarchal analysis of you in a nutshell. And no, it is not actually what I believe, but I hope there was at least a little indignation on your part reading it so you can understand what it's like to have people dictate your status to you. You're enfranchised, and in your own conceited world that's means that if everyone was just like you the world would be perfect.

The reason I left this thread is that I don't debate with people with your views. You're already absolutely convinced you're right, and you don't have the kind of evidence that would give me pause because we value different kinds of evidence. The thousands of pages on social inequality and processes I read last year alone don't mean a thing in your eyes. All of the anecdotes and grand prescriptions don't do a thing for me. We argue from different frameworks, therefore it isn't really an argument. It's two people who hear and speak on different frequencies shouting at the top of their lungs.

I do respect you as a person. And I'm not trying to be intentionally inflammatory in any way. If I was, I would have just posted the central part of this post without the disclaimer. What I'm trying to do is argue that a true democracy values every voice, not just those of the enfranchised.

[Wilson513]

I think you were right to leave the thread. And, you are utterly wrong about who I am and the philosophy which I believe. And, your uninvited personalization of this discussion tells me that it is you that is insecure and terrified by the discussion. Hopefully, you will follow your first instinct.

[Arctic_6]

Glad to see I got your ire up and that you missed the part where I disclaimed the personalization of the thread. It's a different feeling when the ideological attacks are aimed at you and not some imagined other.

It's a shame for you that I'm not going anywhere. Your curt responses and the drastic change in your vocabulary signify that you're intimidated. I'm rather secure in my knowledge and my beliefs. And I actually do respect you and yours. I was intentionally trying to incite the feeling of "that's completely wrong" through what I posted, and even told you that I was. It was a way of informing the feeling of how others feel when you dictate their circumstances to them.

[Wilson513]

Nothing could serve to dictate a person's circumstances to them more than the payment of substantial support to a woman with children at home but deny it to her if a man co-habitates with her, or God forbid, actually is married to her, regardless of his circumstances.

For those unfamiliar with the centerpiece of progressive welfare, that was the rule for obtaining ADC for almost 30 years. So, for almost two generations women were forced to put the man out of the house in order to secure what was often several thousand dollars per month. And we wonder why there is decay in the urban family and a deficit of self esteem in the urban male?

[wolden]

Originally Posted by Wilson513

And, you are utterly wrong about who I am and the philosophy which I believe. And, your uninvited personalization of this discussion tells me that it is you that is insecure and terrified by the discussion.

Wilson,
I think his post was more sophisticated than you may have realized on first reading it. Your reaction above actually proves the point.

People can look at other classes of people and make all sorts of unfair generalizations about them. That is what he presented in his post.

Someone who is "treated" this way protest: "You don't know anything about me"! This is exactly how you reacted.

And you are right. But the whole point is, (a very clever one) that this is what a lot of people do when they unfairly stereotype the whole class of "poor" people. It is right to point out that we are way of the mark, often, when we do this.

The point being that that class of people knows more about their condition, and their own identity, than we do (just as you know more about yourself and your values than strangers do). So, it might be more productive in the long run to let them articulate their own solutions. It is a lot more democratic.

Of course it doesn't make all the actual social problems any easier.

JMHO. Think it through , I am curious if it makes any sense.