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.
Please explain the numbers then. Seriously, I'm at a loss as to explain them. I'm no sociologist. I'm more worried about how things are than why, because it's the actual state of affairs that affects me. But I really would like to know what's causing all of this mess.
Generations of disenfranchisement, the prison industrial complex (mostly dealing with the war on drugs), lack of access to economic and social resources, etc. These problems existed LONG before Atlanta started to gentrify, and now all of a sudden it becomes a problem when suburbanites start to move into the city.
So the quality of life is being ruined by young hoodlums? Was what the radio guy said true about Atlanta? Some people are hearing hatred for blacks, but what I am hearing is a love for Atlanta & an irritation with wild kids. Who sets the definition for Quality of Life? You have some people here who feel wild out of control youth are apart of metropolitan living, that their should be wild kids on the train & loitering in places like the Underground JUST because we have 5.6 million people here. What is your take on that. How many wild kids should we really have percentage wise?
Yes, what he says is he's unhappy with how crimeridden the area has gotten. Some of that is due to the increasing population. But a whole lot of it comes from the attitude of the Atlanta citizen. As long as I've been living the attitide of the majority of Atlantans has been a dislike of civility and order. This is a town where the police are often as bad as the criminals, and the leadership racists on both side. Not to mention the Federal Government once caused the town to be destroyed.
Arrests and killing the criminals will not stop the problem. Black people know this, hence they are heading out to the suburbs to leave those foolish young whites with their old ghetto problems.
I'll be the King of the Obvious here for a bit but, here goes....
It's apparently that as a society we lack the will and tumerity to "do whatever it takes" in dealing with societies ills. We all talk tough on crime but, are somewhat hesitant based on the real world legal and moral problems one may face if they were to actually take the lawn into their own hands. Maybe this is a good thing, maybe not. Me? I do carry but, I also carry the knowledge, both moral and legal, that God forbid, I end up shooting someone in self-defense or the defense of others I've to a long uphill legal battle to win as well as a moral one that will never ever go away.
There are socities in the world that have handled this type of dilema with increasing harshness. The nazi's had a pretty determined way about themselves. The didn't seem to like anybody and were obviously not afraid to "do whatever it takes" to clean up the streets they occupied. Real or imagined, while we all do not like their tactics, no one can quite argue with their results. Send in some storm troopers in the areas of blight will full authority to "Do whatever it takes" and I'll show you a safe, albeit nervous, neighborhood inside of a week. Again, criticize the tactics but, can't argue with the results, now can you? I am NOT advocating this line of reasoning but it has become abundantly clear that were are somewhere between those that with their hands tied behind their backs in non-gun friendly states like Hawaii, New York, NJ, CT, etc.....and the Nazi's of "old".
There are numerous other societies in the world that don't really seem to have much of a crime problem (At least not by the citizens whose safety is their charge) and seem to have a rather blunt way of dealing with crime (Middle East, China, India, Thailand, Indonesia). Steal there and you may very well find yourself handicapped with one hand for the rest of your life. Is it harsh? You bet, is is right? Hard to say......
We now live in a society where we want tough laws and tougher prisons so long as they are not in MY back yard? Right? I think there has to be a middle ground. As far as expense, that's a myth. Joe Arpaio/Phoenix/Maricopa Sheriff proved that it doesn't cost as much as one would think so long as you are willing to "do whatever it takes" to keep those inmates in line. He has his cost down to $1.39 per day per inmate....compare that to the national average of incareration in a Federal Pen. About 25-30K per year. Throw in a few shivvings and it goes up. You get the idea.
So, where do we go? I kind of like the old Devil's Island approach. Christ, annex Wyoming as no one seems to want to do too much there anyway and set them loose....helo a bag of rice and beans every other day and let Darwin take over from there. Hmmmmmmm, that won't fly as we are not willing to "do whatever it takes" to really solve this. I think there is a middle ground. Perhaps:
Treat prisons like sheriff Joe. Cut the costs
Harsher terms, take them out of play
Gun ownership and more lenient "shooting laws"
More police. Heck, if they can use all those traffic camera laws for keeping their jobs, certainly we can use some of it for hiring some more?
More lenient shooting laws by the police. Don't sweat it, if you don't act like Rodney King (remember, he WAS/IS a bad guy first, you only saw a portion of the tape), whack him and move on
Hold parents more accountable and their kids treated as adults at say, 14?
More police dogs. Still can't figure out why we don't employ those. While most are afraid of guns, EVERYONE is afraid of a powerfully angry German Shepard? And they don't need a pension, don't call in sick, and don't give attitude...well....sorta...
Lose the uniforms. Wear jumpsuits, consolidate all the bureacracies and make one police force. The savings on flattening the management out alone would create enough free cash flow to add some cops
Quit taking their shiite in the streets. We let soldiers be soldiers, let cops be cops. That or use the National Guard.
Bad guys are not as tough as we think. We just LET them think so. Imagine a world where most of society WILL gang up on you (like in South America) when you get out of line and believe me, most criminals will think very, very carefully before they acts the fool on MARTA.
Are you ready to "Do whatever it takes"? Until that day, continue to endure?
I have to disagree with you on this one. I can provide two reasons why.
1. If there are any problems with the Great Society system, it's that this system of benefits lacked the proper "carrot & stick" balanced approach to helping people help themselves. I likened this situation to a hobo with a 3rd grade education who suddenly hits the lottery and becomes an overnight millionaire. More than likely because of the hobo's relative lack of a decent education especially in fiscal matters, it becomes situation of "a fool and his money are soon parted." It's no different than giving functional illiterates welfare benefits.
2. Also, there has always been this annoying social/christian conservative faction of our country who always seem to yell the loudest when it comes to being against birth-control(that's why Roe V. Wade is still being contested to this day). And as we all know, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Because of this constant fight, having a settled and established birth control plan nationwide has always been an "ad hoc" affair at best.
Finally, these two situations when combined will obviously create the situation that we see before us, with the inner city folks having disproportionate OOW kids. My question would be what is it that other advanced industrial westerns like a Germany or Finland doing that we Americans are not? What allows these nations that I have mentioned to have a great economy and yet still have a properly governed social safety net system?
Furthermore, why are we Americans so incapable of looking outside of our social-political bubble and have the curiosity to ask such questions?
Quote:
Originally Posted by arjay57
I caught a few minutes of Boortz' show this afternoon. He had a caller (who identified herself as a black woman) who also said it was about the breakdown of the family. She blamed the Democrats since the Great Society days of LBJ.
That's a theory I've heard a number of times, i.e., that the welfare state supported having babies out of wedlock and caused blacks to become dependent on the government. That seems kind of one dimensional to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Box
Generations of disenfranchisement, the prison industrial complex (mostly dealing with the war on drugs), lack of access to economic and social resources, etc. These problems existed LONG before Atlanta started to gentrify, and now all of a sudden it becomes a problem when suburbanites start to move into the city.
"...Let us return to the Republican Party’s ideological facelift that replaced raw racism with code words and allowed conservatives to tap white resentment, not by assailing blacks but by championing small government, states rights, and lower taxes. Ponder the words of Lee Atwater, Reagan’s campaign consultant, speaking with rare candor in an anonymous interview in 1981, in which he explained the evolution of the Southern strategy:
You start out in 1954 by saying, 'n*gg*r, n*gg*r, n*gg*r.' By 1968 you can’t say 'n*gg*r' — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than 'n*gg*r, n*gg*r.'[xxiii] ..."
Last edited by aries4118; 06-20-2011 at 11:18 PM..
As a whole it's not just the welfare state. Society put up barriers for Black men to support their families. It's only been about 40 years since 1070.. Break up the family unit and children assume the lessons of life..Then it goes on and on... As for those who say racism isn't a driving issue, try being on the constant receiving end..
Race is involved in this situation, so yes I agree with you. But such wording is not going to reach or appeal to a lot of people in this modern day and age.
Regular voting-age individuals at the ground level who see themselves as living normal functioning lives and who did not have any physical involvement in slavery, its aftermath De Jure segregation, and the accompanying southern strategy will not be reached by some racial guilt strategy which is what I see in your writing, no matter how true you are. It's been tried for far too many times and this shaming tactic is not working.
To reach and change minds you have to out-think these outsiders/non African Americans and challenge them at their own ideology.
Make them see that they are not even following the tenets of their own belief systems. Find parts of those ideology that will help black people the most. Then finally, challenge these outsiders to recreate or re-adjust current laws and implement systems that guide them into truly following parts of their own ideology that would help us African Americans the most, be it freemarket, conservative, and/or progressive/liberal.
That is the only way that I feel that these problems will be solve.
"...Let us return to the Republican Party’s ideological facelift that replaced raw racism with code words and allowed conservatives to tap white resentment, not by assailing blacks but by championing small government, states rights, and lower taxes. Ponder the words of Lee Atwater, Reagan’s campaign consultant, speaking with rare candor in an anonymous interview in 1981, in which he explained the evolution of the Southern strategy:
You start out in 1954 by saying, 'n*gg*r, n*gg*r, n*gg*r.' By 1968 you can’t say 'n*gg*r' — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than 'n*gg*r, n*gg*r.'[xxiii] ..."
Generations of disenfranchisement, the prison industrial complex (mostly dealing with the war on drugs), lack of access to economic and social resources, etc. These problems existed LONG before Atlanta started to gentrify, and now all of a sudden it becomes a problem when suburbanites start to move into the city.
The only thing that I'll agree with is the draconian war on drugs.
Many young black men and women have records due to the fact that they were caught with small amounts of weed.
I've carried small amounts of weed at times in my youth.
Atlanta is a large city, and any large city is going to have a certain level of crime. But when I moved here, aside from select "drug neighborhoods", much of the crime involved car break-ins, home break-ins in certain intown neighborhoods, and a very rare mugging. Today, it does seem commonplace to hear about "crews" raiding homes (with and without people inside), groups of guys in stolen SUVs mugging someone (with guns they use even if the person gives them what they want, in some cases), and "smash and grab" robberies in broad daylight, among others. These were not daily headlines in the 1980s or early-to-mid 90s. They seem to be now.
Violent crime rates were much higher in 80's than they are today.
The biggest difference between then and now is that our establishment, in Atlanta and in the nation as a whole, was much better at protecting Important People (read: rich whites and quisling blacks) so crime wasn't as out to make headlines. Our civilization was in the middle stage of collapse back then, rather than the late stage at which we now find ourselves.
Quote:
I don't like Boortz. I think he's a loudmouth. I also don't like the idea of every single citizen here arming themselves and carrying "heat" when they go to the grocery store. However, I will say this - if more people who are carjacking and home invading wind up leaving the scene in body bags as opposed to handcuffs - yes, it MIGHT make some folks think twice before they do it. But it's a slippery slop between self protection and going back to the days of the Wild Wild West, too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by captaincatfish
And before anyone gets up in arms, hell no, I am NOT defending the freaking criminals...just not wanting to have anyone feel like they're living in Dodge City...
It's funny how everyone likes to bring up the Wild West whenever the issue of armed citizens is mentioned, when that was statically one of the most crime-free eras in American history (War of Northern Aggression and Wars of Indigenous Genocide notwithstanding).
Race is involved in this situation, so yes I agree with you. But such wording is not going to reach or appeal to a lot of people in this modern day and age.
Regular voting-age individuals at the ground level who see themselves as living normal functioning lives and who did not have any physical involvement in slavery, its aftermath De Jure segregation, and the accompanying southern strategy will not be reached by some racial guilt strategy which is what I see in your writing, no matter how true you are. It's been tried for far too many times and this shaming tactic is not working.
To reach and change minds you have to out-think these outsiders/non African Americans and challenge them at their own ideology.
Make them see that they are not even following the tenets of their own belief systems. Find parts of those ideology that will help black people the most. Then finally, challenge these outsiders to recreate or re-adjust current laws and implement systems that guide them into truly following parts of their own ideology that would help us African Americans the most, be it freemarket, conservative, and/or progressive/liberal.
That is the only way that I feel that these problems will be solve.
Lol...No, my Brother Acid--I was not trying to shame or reach anyone. I was just showing a small part of the article/link that I thought was particularly interesting. That wasn't my writing (it was from the article).
The reason I posted the link was as an informative piece relating to some of the commentary/posts on this thread. Just food for thought.
Me trying to reach and appeal to people/racists (especially through "70's-era racial guilt")???...puh-leeze/as if!
I'm not in the business of trying to change people's minds--life's too short and time too valuable to consider otherwise. I will inform--but people have to change themselves.
Read the link I posted...it's a semi-long, so make yourself a cup of tea!
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.
