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GG...we should probably take THIS topic to another thread, since we sure seem to be straying off the OT! LOL But meanwhile, let me address a couple of your points (and you can have the last word! LOL). And ALSO, say that I very much respect the fact you are a person who DOESN'T claim to have all the answers. In fact, I mean this respectfully, you seem one who can actually see both sides of it. I don't agree with what I detect as some of the "liberal" positions you take...but I sure as hell give you credit for not being a rigid and righteous ideologue as so many on the left are, nowdays.
Anyway...
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Originally Posted by goldengrain
Under this Pres the government IS business. No, I would not want the government to regulate business, because that is exactly what they are doing now.
We both agree then, that government regulation is at the least, a definite part of the problem...?
Quote:
Look, we have a mess. I really do not give a hoot about how much money other people have. I do care about the growing numbers of poor Americans in the country. I am frustrated because I don't know where the solution will be.
I very much respect and admire that you say you don't know where the "solution" lies. I personally would say it DEFINTELY doesn't lie in more government programs or "solutions". If it did, the billions of dollars spend since LBJ's "War on Poverty" would have made a difference. On the contrary, all it did was create a permanent underclass. Something related I want to suggest -- which is a "given" of the conservative belief system -- is that perhaps there are no "solutions"? That certain things are just a given of human existence and that "trade-offs" -- via a free social, political, and economic market - are about the best that can be realized. (a classic work on this "dichotomy" is found in Thomas Sowell's classic work "A Conflict of Visions").
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It seems as though we are faced with problems that really scream for a centralized planner to steer us out of this pit we are falling into. I don't know what to do about it, but I am sure that corporations will not voluntarily take measures to address these issues, some of which they are the cause of. The bottom line to them will always be profit. For the market to take care of some of these problems would mean we keep going in this downwards direction until the population thinned and business realized that their market was sinking because there were fewer people to purchase their goods. THere has to be another way.
Here we go back to square one. Centralized planning does not work, because those who will be the "planners" will act in their OWN interests to "solve" the problem. In fact, it will BE in their interests to keep the "problem" on-going...so they can justify their own power and earnings. For instance, it would not be in the personal interests of those in the welfare state bureaucracy to actually elminate poverty, because it would cost them their own jobs! Nor those who make a big production -- and a good living -- about being concerned of the plight of the "homeless" for there to actually be no more homeless people! *Whew*
Ok...I could go on...but I better stop here and accept a warning from the Mod to not stray too far OT!
According to an FBI Behavioral Unit study (broken link) 85% of the world's serial killers are in America. At any given time 20 - 50 unidentified active serial killers are at work continually changing their targets and methods.
No, a link to the FBI Behavioral Unit Study - not a DVD promo
David Schmid, Ph.D., associate professor of English at the University at Buffalo, points out that despite the fact that this country produces 85 percent of the world's serial killers, Americans consistently represent them as "other" than themselves -- as loathsome, monstrous, utterly alien creatures.
At the same time, he says, we treat them as icons, celebrity performers and fetish figures."
David Schmid, Ph.D., associate professor of English at the University at Buffalo,
An Associate professor of ENGLISH, with no law enforcement experience / background, is not an expert in criminology and would not be allowed to testify as an expert on the topic in any court in the US.
I think there are probably dozens of contributing factors, but only a handful come to mind:
1. Great disparity in economic opportunity and increasingly limited prospects for the traditional "middle class" lifestyle for millions.
Good Point. And an 'entitlement culture' means this disparity is a justification to 'act badly'
2. Culture clash; America's "melting pot" inevitably brings incompatible cultures into close contact.
Agreed...and unlimited cultural diversity, with no corresponding pressure to conform or assimilate, inevitably means endless cultural clashes
3. Glorification of violence in entertainment aimed at the young.
.So true..
4. A steady diet of fear peddled to the public by the so-called "news" media. Local crime stories are now trumpeted to all areas of the country as though they were a grave concern to everyone everywhere.
Once again, true...bad news sells; good news doesn't
5. A welfare system that encourages those least able to provide competent parenting with incentives to reproduce as rapidly as possible.
Agreed also...and this is looked at as a 'personal choice' and nothing more.
Good points all...permit me to add point #6...
Today's heavy culture of ACLU-sanctioned Political Correctness means that society's more stable and responsible members have NO right to criticize or 'scold' their less-responsible 'neighbors'. Thus NOBODY is qualified to judge anybody ELSE'S behavior. In this 'values-neutral' world, there's no 'bad' or 'good', therefore no incentive to IMPROVE any behavior.
An Associate professor of ENGLISH, with no law enforcement experience / background, is not an expert in criminology and would not be allowed to testify as an expert on the topic in any court in the US.
I don't think a PHD is going to pull numbers out of his butt, he isn't Bill O'Really. That FBI study is widely quoted in a number of places.
Good points all...permit me to add point #6...
Today's heavy culture of ACLU-sanctioned Political Correctness means that society's more stable and responsible members have NO right to criticize or 'scold' their less-responsible 'neighbors'. Thus NOBODY is qualified to judge anybody ELSE'S behavior. In this 'values-neutral' world, there's no 'bad' or 'good', therefore no incentive to IMPROVE any behavior.
It's good that we agree in general, but where do you come up with this political correctness superceding the Constitution baloney?
It's good that we agree in general, but where do you come up with this political correctness superceding the Constitution baloney?
I wasn't aware that either you nor I were discussing the Constitution at all....I may have missed something. This thread, as far as I know, is about whether or not America has a violent culture....and why this is so.
Political Correctness can undoubtedly affect the WAY in which court decisions interpret what the Constitution supposedly "means". But as I said, that wasn't the "baloney" I was writing about.
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