Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Poverty, meaning material deprivation, has been practically eliminated in the US. No one is hungry. No one is shelterless. No one is unclothed. The figures round to these conclusions.
Individuals who still lack food, clothing or shelter are either addicted to drugs or mentally defective. Poverty reduction programs can't do much to help these people. Neither can other programs.
50 years ago mental cases would be institutionalized. They were under someones care or at least attention.
50 years ago the drug industry was in its infancy. It's now big business. Organized, powerful, ruthless. It corrupts governments and law enforcement. It makes its own customers.
Most drugs come from Mexico. Cutting them off at the border is the only way to win this war.
But as for poverty of the 1964 variety, it's over. Of as close to over as it ever will be.
Interesting, worthwhile comments.
It seems to me that the war was won partially by government programs and partially by providing opportunity for those less fortunate.
My own view of The Wall is that it needs to be built, but with big wide gates through which will pass those individuals who have been cleared for entry and given ID cards entitling them to legal employment wherever they like.
We will never stop drugs; we will never stop all illegals. But we should never surrender those wars.
Most drugs come from Mexico. Cutting them off at the border is the only way to win this war.
I presume you're referring to illegal drugs.
There is NO INCENTIVE for the government to "win the war on drugs." Imagine for a moment if it really were won - perhaps, as you say, by cutting them off at the border.
Think of all the government employees whose jobs would no longer be needed. If we won the war, countless tens of thousands of government employees would be out of a job.
Interesting, worthwhile comments.
It seems to me that the war was won partially by government programs and partially by providing opportunity for those less fortunate.
My own view of The Wall is that it needs to be built, but with big wide gates through which will pass those individuals who have been cleared for entry and given ID cards entitling them to legal employment wherever they like.
We will never stop drugs; we will never stop all illegals. But we should never surrender those wars.
The wall is so stupid.
I grew up in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Upwards of 80% of the residents there do NOT want a stupid wall. Over 50% of Texans in general don't want the wall: https://www.chron.com/news/politics/...l-12847966.php
It's a freaking FLOODPLAIN! The river snakes around like a curly-Q and changes its footprint after any big rain event like a hurricane. You can't build a "wall" down there - you can build a levee with tall, ugly bollards a long way inland.
All that will do is cut off everyone's access to the river - whether its nature parks, farmland, develop-able land, or whatever.
The actual border is the middle of the river. Just like fencing your own property, you de facto give up some space to your neighbor in order to cut them off. So we'd de facto cede hundreds of thousands of acres to Mexico. Not officially, but it would be a no man's land... the only way to get to it would be from the Mexico side, besides whatever border patrol access points there are. Already the double-fence from 2007 has created a decent amount of no man's land acreage on the U.S. side of the riverbank. It just grows up into weeds where plants & animals live and vagrants from the Mexico side occasionally camp, & the border patrol chases them out when they find them.
You can visualize from the proposals how much land we'd be forever cutting off access to: https://www.texasobserver.org/map-tr...cations-texas/ That's thousands of acres of productive farmland, not to mention the wildlife refuges & historic sites that exist on the other side.
Environmentally it'll create a big mess, because the river is supposed to swell naturally after rains. Because it'll grow up on its own without the ability of people to access it, more wildlife will move in, but artificially constrained by the barriers. With the wall/levee, it'll trap wildlife in there when it floods.
It could result in artificially sending more floodwaters to the Mexico side than would otherwise be the case, which could flood low lying areas on the Mexico side. It could also violate various water treaties between the U.S. and Mexico. With the incoming Mexican administration focusing on national pride and sovereignty, they will surely take that to international court. https://www.npr.org/2017/04/25/52538...te-1970-treaty
Lopez-Obrador just a couple weeks ago said at a security meeting that "no one will threaten Mexico with a wall." We can expect little cooperation on this after he takes office on December 1. http://thehill.com/latino/400582-mex...us-with-a-wall
Stupid.
Last edited by redguard57; 08-27-2018 at 03:29 PM..
It's fascinating to me that Asian and African immigrants from dirt poor countries with "weird" accents come to America and become highly educated plus professionally successful yet many of America's own natives fail to even graduate high school or get a college degree, preferring instead to whine about capitalism and oppression in their short time on earth. As if being born in India or some African country would've been far better for them.
I have no doubt that successful immigrants in America from all over the world routinely mock lazy American natives in private for blowing the great opportunities this country provides for them.
Sorry but saying that being poor is 100% your choice is ignorant. What about the people who grew up poor with limited education opportunities or people who have disabilities or just not born smart?
I was born with all that. I'm black, no other demographic knows true poverty better than my community.
My parents being poor was 100% their choice. No one stopped them from going to college. They were just too damn lazy to go.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Storm Eagle
Just blaming people for being poor is such a lazy argument.
It's a true argument, they drop out of high school, they have kids out of wedlock, they commit crime, they finance things they can't afford. I suggest you do research of the trends of america's underclass.
It's a lazy argument to think the rich are obligated to re-distribute their wealth. Burger flippers don't create jobs, the rich do. Jeff Bezos created countless jobs, not Jeff the janitor.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Storm Eagle
I am pretty sure no poor people in other countries are envy of people here who have to worry all the time if they will have enough money to pay for rent or have enough to eat. In many third world countries even though they are poor they can at least afford a shack and not worry about being evicted.
You personal opinion doesn't reflect reality.
America's poor are the envy of the world, case closed. Hence the reason people south of the border die to come here every year.
Poverty, meaning material deprivation, has been practically eliminated in the US. No one is hungry. No one is shelterless. No one is unclothed. The figures round to these conclusions.
Individuals who still lack food, clothing or shelter are either addicted to drugs or mentally defective. Poverty reduction programs can't do much to help these people. Neither can other programs.
50 years ago mental cases would be institutionalized. They were under someones care or at least attention.
50 years ago the drug industry was in its infancy. It's now big business. Organized, powerful, ruthless. It corrupts governments and law enforcement. It makes its own customers.
Most drugs come from Mexico. Cutting them off at the border is the only way to win this war.
But as for poverty of the 1964 variety, it's over. Of as close to over as it ever will be.
I was with you except for the bolded. I really think the root of the drug problem is a spiritual one. How can you cut drugs off at the border when you, yourself admitted that it corrupts governments and law enforcement? When people want something bad enough, they always find a way to get it.
Poverty in America is a hard thing to define when using government provided statistical evidence to determine the overall well being of America's poorest citizens. My own views of poverty as something akin to a political football, usually fall into that category of logic which states, "you don't need a weatherman to tell you which way the wind blows." I see a new and more disturbing kind of poverty today, one which includes many foreign born new arrivals struggling to make a living, way too many living in tents along our city streets, and a ton of displaced youth recently emancipated from our failed foster care system.
I also see a lot of big city slums falling into further disrepair, something that connotes the fact of poverty becoming more of an accepted state of living, as long as it doesn't impact the nicer areas of the city. Children are still one of the most affected groups of people living in a very consequential kind of poverty, often socially shunned, poorly fed, and poorly educated. Poor parenting, unfortunately, seems to be an adjunct of those experiencing a life of institutional poverty.
When governments and their citizens accept a form of rule which allows the power to be held in the hands of a few, we can assume that that nation's poor will never be served at the same rate of representation as the few who control that nations institutions. Yeah, we feed and help clothe the poor, and we try to ameliorate the most extreme effects of poverty among those who suffer from it, but at day's end we aren't all that concerned about poverty at the individual level. Football, or the latest Kardashian doings it seems, has a much greater impact on the citizenry than poverty.
My guess is that the US will gradually become more of a two tier economic state, with those on the very bottom simply existing outside the norms of societal expectations. A kind of American version of Mumbai's Dharavi sector. In my city it is already looking like a permanent slum of tent dwellers will be around a long long time. I don't think the comparison of the poor to the very wealthy is really a fair one, it's now a comparison of those with nothing compared to those living in their car that really puts the poorest among us in their rightful place.
I agree with much of your assessment, except for the idea that we aren't much concerned about poverty. I think most people are. And as you said, most are also concerned about the poor parenting that goes along with it. But once again, the ruling elite likes to keep people divided. Liberals want more welfare state policies and don't want to admit that much poverty is self created. Conservatives see liberal permissiveness as a big part of the reason why there is so much poor parenting, out of wedlock births, and sometimes get a bit obsessed with personal responsibility as the one and only cure for everything, etc. People agree there's a problem, but then everyone fights each other about what to do about it. Everyone seems to think there's only one cause (forces outside people's control for liberals / lack of personal responsibility for conservatives), and "one best way" to fix things--their way. Perfect divide and conquer tactic.
Last edited by mysticaltyger; 08-30-2018 at 12:55 AM..
That kind of "kick the can down the road" kind of thinking is why we're in the mess we're in. We've done it with so many things. It's gonna get ugly and a lot of people are going to regret the head in the sand attitudes they've had.
No one is stopping you from doing something the world wants done so you can provide for your family. The poor in this country will never have sympathy from the poor in Mexico.
I think you a little too absolutist when you say it's 100% the person's fault. There are always going to be those cases where it was completely or mostly beyond a person's ability to control. However, I agree with your general sentiment. We do need to have a war on laziness.
My sister says something similar about Mexican people she treats in her hospital. Those people are out and ready to work as soon as possible whereas lots of native born Americans are looking for ways to milk the disability system. My (liberal) social worker friend says similar things. She's less liberal than she used to be after getting tired of dealing with large numbers of veterans who just want to milk the VA's disability system...and no matter what she did for them, they always wanted more.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
