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I wasn't talking about those laws. I was referring to LBJ's Great Society, and War on Poverty which did just the opposite of what the Democrats said it would do.
Medicare was part of the Great Society. I love it and so do lots of conservatives who otherwise view single payer health insurance for everyone else as too much socialism.
Medicaid was also part of the Great Society. It pays for a big chunk of nursing home care.
Medicare was part of the Great Society. I love it and so do lots of conservatives who otherwise view single payer health insurance for everyone else as too much socialism.
Medicaid was also part of the Great Society. It pays for a big chunk of nursing home care.
We PAY into Medicare, and Social Security. I don't believe in single payer as I don't think the government can run health care well, nor run much of anything well. A friend of mine has to go to the Philly VA for his health care. Every time he goes he tells me horror stories, and he waits several months for treatment, is in pain regularly, and they just tell him too bad. That is government run health care.
In general the Great Society did more harm to the inner city Black Community than any other government initiative. It was designed from the beginning to BUY VOTES, and have Blacks vote Democrat. It succeeded at that. Philly is just one example of this disaster. Look at every other big city, and some smaller ones.
I am getting OT here, so I will stop. However, poverty in Philly does lead to CRIME.
We PAY into Medicare, and Social Security. I don't believe in single payer as I don't think the government can run health care well, nor run much of anything well. A friend of mine has to go to the Philly VA for his health care. Every time he goes he tells me horror stories, and he waits several months for treatment, is in pain regularly, and they just tell him too bad. That is government run health care.
In general the Great Society did more harm to the inner city Black Community than any other government initiative. It was designed from the beginning to BUY VOTES, and have Blacks vote Democrat. It succeeded at that. Philly is just one example of this disaster. Look at every other big city, and some smaller ones.
I am getting OT here, so I will stop. However, poverty in Philly does lead to CRIME.
No need to yell. lol. Considering that I paid a bundle into both, while I was working, I absolutely know we pay into it. And all
Medicare recipients pay premiums once you have it. It's not "free".
Why do people sometimes confuse Medicare for all/aka single payer health insurance with a government run health system like the NHS in UK or, yes, the VA? I'm talking, as do others, about extending Medicare to everyone. Medicare pays our existing private docs and hospitals, etc. It's insurance. I can get additional private insurance if I want for things Medicare doesn't cover. And I can switch to Medicare Advantage, which uses private insurance companies, to extend what traditional Medicare offers.
The SSA, imo, has worked perfectly for me wrt benefits. I applied online. Got back info in the mail about when my benefits would start and they did start exactly when they said they would. That was 6 years ago. Not a single problem. And I have never had to visit an SSA Office about anything. So parts of the fed gov do work.
Well, obviously I'm way off now wrt what this thread is for...
This will be a good test to see where our new DA is at...
There's a story today about how far behind he is wrt to taxes on some company. Total scumbag. I mean I want to scream, "Told you so!" to people who voted for him. There really is no valid case to be had about why they voted for him given how unqualified he still is. It's reverse Trump.
You, again, made the conclusion that ''we're all dangerous thugs''. Not sure why a tooth extractor was needed to simply establish a fact about crime rates.
Given that African-American males commit both on a national and local level here in Philly an massively disproportionate rate of violent crime, how can Philly crack-down or otherwise address the issue without having a higher rate of African-American males involved, thereby bringing up the ''racism'' or the ''more African-American males'' were arrested, stopped, or otherwise investigated. How could they not be?
Being an African-American male yourself and previously stating that ''we want this to end'' as well, what has or is the African-American community doing to stop the crime in their own community? I see noisy street demonstrations for Mill Meek, tearing down the Frank Rizzo statue, or an occasional flash-mob, but otherwise where is the African-American community on this? I see pro-sports players kneeling or wearing t-shirts on the NBA court about various police shootings etc.
Btw, any updates on Mill Meek's judge investigation?
I haven't been following the Meek Mill saga at all. I know enough about it to conclude that some of what's happening involves a judge who has beef with one particular black guy in the criminal justice system, and that Mill's own behavior may have contributed to the beef, but that it also may stem from the judge wanting the defendant to do a relative of the judge's a solid on the entertainment-industry side, and Mill declining. I'm not saying this is the case, but you do know that those in power sometimes abuse that power, right?
Which gets us in part to the "what are we doing about it" question. I can't speak for anyone else, but the thing I'd like to do about it, which I think would be so effective as to make the problem disappear overnight, continues to meet resistance from many people who should be able to read history as I have. And that's this: Make marijuana legal - then expunge the criminal records of the many now in prison for nonviolent drug crimes (and even some violent ones) and set up ways they can enter the legitimate economy, just as some states did with the bootleggers and rum-runners when Prohibition ended and California is doing with its drug offenders now (or so I hear). It is happening slowly, at least.
But as for the others: I wouldn't dismiss my raising the "we're all dangerous thugs" issue as non-relevant. It certainly accounts for a lot of what you see in those protests. And it also stems from a lot of incidents in which blacks who have no connection to the crime conveyor belt wind up in encounters with police officers where it's clear the officer makes no attempt to distinguish between them and those who are. This is an issue that rankles many blacks, including me, as much as the crime, because it plays into the centuries-old demonization and denigration of our race. You surely know enough about the history of this country to know that this has happened and continues to happen. The elision from "too many of us relative to our share of the population commit crime" to "assume we all are likely criminals" takes place in the minds of too many whites for us to simply ignore it as a problem. And yes, I sometimes get the sense that you make this elision too, which is why you get the reaction you do not just from me.
I will also recommend to you, as I do just about everyone, that you read Chapters 6, 7 and 8 of Elijah Anderson's "The Cosmopolitan Canopy: Race and Civility in Everyday Life."
Now if you want to have a discussion about fatherhood and father figures, I'm willing to go there.
I haven't been following the Meek Mill saga at all. I know enough about it to conclude that some of what's happening involves a judge who has beef with one particular black guy in the criminal justice system, and that Mill's own behavior may have contributed to the beef, but that it also may stem from the judge wanting the defendant to do a relative of the judge's a solid on the entertainment-industry side, and Mill declining. I'm not saying this is the case, but you do know that those in power sometimes abuse that power, right?
Which gets us in part to the "what are we doing about it" question. I can't speak for anyone else, but the thing I'd like to do about it, which I think would be so effective as to make the problem disappear overnight, continues to meet resistance from many people who should be able to read history as I have. And that's this: Make marijuana legal - then expunge the criminal records of the many now in prison for nonviolent drug crimes (and even some violent ones) and set up ways they can enter the legitimate economy, just as some states did with the bootleggers and rum-runners when Prohibition ended and California is doing with its drug offenders now (or so I hear). It is happening slowly, at least.
But as for the others: I wouldn't dismiss my raising the "we're all dangerous thugs" issue as non-relevant. It certainly accounts for a lot of what you see in those protests. And it also stems from a lot of incidents in which blacks who have no connection to the crime conveyor belt wind up in encounters with police officers where it's clear the officer makes no attempt to distinguish between them and those who are. This is an issue that rankles many blacks, including me, as much as the crime, because it plays into the centuries-old demonization and denigration of our race. You surely know enough about the history of this country to know that this has happened and continues to happen. The elision from "too many of us relative to our share of the population commit crime" to "assume we all are likely criminals" takes place in the minds of too many whites for us to simply ignore it as a problem. And yes, I sometimes get the sense that you make this elision too, which is why you get the reaction you do not just from me.
I will also recommend to you, as I do just about everyone, that you read Chapters 6, 7 and 8 of Elijah Anderson's "The Cosmopolitan Canopy: Race and Civility in Everyday Life."
Now if you want to have a discussion about fatherhood and father figures, I'm willing to go there.
I understand Kamms' sentiments and I think he has some valid points. I also see what you're saying. I think expunging those who have been in jail/prison for marijuana charges is the right move, but I wouldn't expect them to automatically be productive members of society. No more so than anyone else who has an income issue and exposure to the sour side of life. The question is around how someone makes their living despite their situation.
And regarding police officers. Many of them suck. They suck for pretty much everyone, but of course, they particularly suck for those meeting specific demographics. TBH, we have a police issue, not just a race issue. The police issue is going to be worse for those who live in certain locations and meet the look (race, dress, etc.). To be honest, I've had some bad run-ins with the police and I find them to be dishonest, abusive, and intimidating. And I'm a middle-class white guy. Our race issue stems from outside of the criminal justice world and its rotten core is embedded in our public dialog and media IMO. How can people come together when our approach to doing so is to arm ourselves with pitchforks and a nasty dialog, escalating the rhetoric and racism?
Great conversation and I appreciate how respectful everyone has been, but this conversation would be better someplace else. If anyone has some old fashioned crime to report, this thread is the place.
I haven't been following the Meek Mill saga at all. I know enough about it to conclude that some of what's happening involves a judge who has beef with one particular black guy in the criminal justice system, and that Mill's own behavior may have contributed to the beef, but that it also may stem from the judge wanting the defendant to do a relative of the judge's a solid on the entertainment-industry side, and Mill declining. I'm not saying this is the case, but you do know that those in power sometimes abuse that power, right?
Which gets us in part to the "what are we doing about it" question. I can't speak for anyone else, but the thing I'd like to do about it, which I think would be so effective as to make the problem disappear overnight, continues to meet resistance from many people who should be able to read history as I have. And that's this: Make marijuana legal - then expunge the criminal records of the many now in prison for nonviolent drug crimes (and even some violent ones) and set up ways they can enter the legitimate economy, just as some states did with the bootleggers and rum-runners when Prohibition ended and California is doing with its drug offenders now (or so I hear). It is happening slowly, at least.
But as for the others: I wouldn't dismiss my raising the "we're all dangerous thugs" issue as non-relevant. It certainly accounts for a lot of what you see in those protests. And it also stems from a lot of incidents in which blacks who have no connection to the crime conveyor belt wind up in encounters with police officers where it's clear the officer makes no attempt to distinguish between them and those who are. This is an issue that rankles many blacks, including me, as much as the crime, because it plays into the centuries-old demonization and denigration of our race. You surely know enough about the history of this country to know that this has happened and continues to happen. The elision from "too many of us relative to our share of the population commit crime" to "assume we all are likely criminals" takes place in the minds of too many whites for us to simply ignore it as a problem. And yes, I sometimes get the sense that you make this elision too, which is why you get the reaction you do not just from me.
I will also recommend to you, as I do just about everyone, that you read Chapters 6, 7 and 8 of Elijah Anderson's "The Cosmopolitan Canopy: Race and Civility in Everyday Life."
Now if you want to have a discussion about fatherhood and father figures, I'm willing to go there.
Wonder why Mill Meek waited to play the ''judge is corrupt'' card?
Your sense that I make the ''they are all criminals'' conclusion is misplaced, yet not surprising. So much for discussing ''crime'' in the Philly or any other U.S. forum. Assumptions being made about others by the folks that don't like assumptions being made about them.
Not sure this really belongs here since no real crime was committed.
Since it's gone kinda viral, it's on youtube, I'm posting about it. PPD arrested two black guys for "trespassing" in the Starbucks at 18th and Spruce. They were waiting for a friend who did show up. Near the end a white guy is asking the cops "What did they do?" over and over. He also said he had waited in there, without buying anything apparently, "a million times", without being confronted.
City Starbucks do have a policy now that you can't use restrooms without purchasing something but this seems like a clear case of racial profiling to me.
Comments anyone? Hopefully we won't end up with a lot of arguing.
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