THE ROAD TO HELL

Yup. It takes some pretty selective reading and quite creative interpretation to get 'segregaton was a good thing' out of anything I (or you) have EVER posted.

Presumably you are/were in favor of mixed class neighborhoods. That there seems to be solid proof that they have failed to deliver on their theoretical promise should, it seems to me, engender a "Hmmnn, you know it didn't work perhaps we need to think of something else," as opposed to a "Conservatives want to crush the poor and therefore what do conservatives want to do about the poor?"

Your basic premise that conservatives don't give a damn about the poor sort of invalidates your question relative to how conservatives propose to deal with the poor --- don't you think?

Conservatives don't, like liberals, consider crime and poverty to be inextricably intertwined and so don't propose one solution for both ills.

In response to poverty, conservatives tend to favor a free and fair economy that provides equal opportunities to anyone who has drive and a solid work ethic.

People who are poor need to work their way out of poverty. Relying on osmosis in placing them in the vicinity of affluent people is idiotic.

It is to the advantage of society that the smallest number of its members, as possible, are not impoverished.

To this end, the State should provide educational (vocational as well as academic training) to those who cannot afford it .

And it does!

Public schooling is available from K through 12.

All 50 states have state university systems with subsidized tuitions and and a generous breadth of scholarships and assisted loans.

Having lived in a city (Charlotte) which prided itself on accepting bussing as a means of desegregation, and wherein all of my kids were schooled (K-12), I can speak with personal experience and say it didn't meet its theoretical goals.

I use the term "theoretical," because I believe there were too many prominent white Charlotteans who were looking to frame the city within the notion of the New South, while they all sent their kids to private schools, and there were too many black leaders and, frankly, parents who cared less about the quality of their kids' education than that the white citizenry might get away with continued segregation.

There is something pathologically wrong when people in dire straits care more about rubbing their dirty sleeves against those who are well off than they do about rising above their economic situation.

My own experience is that the black children of parents who achieved an economic status comparable to that of their local white neighbors were accepted without reservation or even conscious effort, and rose or fell in schools based on their abilities and will. Meanwhile the black children that were bussed into the predominately white neighborhood schools, in the majority, did no better than they would have in their local neighborhood schools, and they harbored a resentment that led to defacto segregation in terms of their willingness to be part of the greater student body.

We shouldn't ignore the racial undertones of the issue, but it is far more an issue of socio-economic differences than racial differences.

Cock-eyed optimists look to the younger generation to lead us to a color-blind society. This is nonsense.

First of all there are too many segments of the younger generation to generalize. Secondly, for those middle-class whites who pine for the salvation through our youth, their children are hardly color-blind.

They distinguish between "middle-class" blacks and "Ghetto" blacks (which is a step up from previous generations), but thanks to their insular environments and bussing, the only lower socio-economic class people they interact with on a daily basis are those members who are black.

Thus while prejudice against "Ghetto" blacks may bear little difference from prejudice against "White Trash," the absence of forced proximity to so-called "White Trash" leads them to associate lower socio-economic lasses with blackness.

Of course, with numerous exceptions, White Trash and Ghetto Blacks tend to deserve their stigmas, and herein lies the chicken vs the egg debate.

If we were somehow able to provide each and every citizen with at least middle-class affluence, would we do away with classes that can be described as White Trash or Ghetto Blacks? I don't think so.

Far more goes into the character of a person than personal wealth.

Striving to artificially create some superficial sense of similarity is, has been repeatedly proven, a poor strategy.

I don't speak for all conservatives, but here is what I believe we should do, acknowledging fully that there may never be a perfect solution:

The State should provide financial support for education to any and all, but on the basis of a strict meritocracy. Do away with all of the circular reasoning that leads to people who do not wish to work hard being afforded the same benefits as those who do. Frankly, the people that are able to job the system through appeals to anti-racism, while doing the least work are probably far more clever than most who put their nose to the grindstone. We need to stop allowing clever cons to take advantage of our guilt, and our compassion. Tough love.

The State should fairly and vigorously enforce the laws that are already in place to combat key areas of discrimination. This means, as well, not wasting public resources on trying to get rich and connected women to be accepted as members of the Augusta National Golf Club, and other such frivolous but politically hot issues.

The State should make a concerted effort to avoid incenting anti-social behaviors. Case in point: Welfare laws that incented women to have multiple children and keep the father out of the household. This is just insane, and yet it happened thanks to well intentioned by poorly considered programs.

We will always have an underclass. We need to accept this and stop coddling those who choose to reside within that class, doing our utmost to encourage and support those that strive to rise.

Liberals can always find an excuse for why some bum is lying in the street, crapping his pants and drinking sterno. I'm sure the poor bum has a sad tale to tell, but if he is offered an opportunity to get on his feet and refuses, what is Society's obligation to him? Keep spending money to revive him until he dies from an overdose in an alley?

Society's resources are finite.

It is all too tempting to rob from the rich to pay for the poor, but entangled in this supposed axiom is who is actually rich, and who is actually poor.

Liberals tend to have an incredibly expansive definition for both which will ensure a break down of the system.

So called "rich" people are not going to just sit back and allow the State to rob them to pay for the so-called "poor."

They will spend their wealth attempting to change the governance of The State, and if that fails they will depart to greener pastures. What will America do then? Refuse to let them leave? Confiscate their wealth?

In virtually every instance where this approach has been tried, it has failed.

To put an end to this post: The State should treat poor people the way parents should treat their kids.

Finn writes:


Or as Benjamin Franklin succinctly opined so long ago:

Foxfyre, after being in business for a number of years, I think it is getting worse in terms of even businesses taking advantage if you allow them. I had a collections agency person tell me not long ago that you have to treat people, and businesses, like children, otherwise they won't pay. Net 30, Net 60, whatever seems to mean nothing these days, and if you don't hold people accountable, they will take advantage, including big businesses and corporations. Time is money, so you have to treat them like children. If you give them a little slack, they will take it. Sadly, it has gotten worse, as it wasn't nearly as much like this 20 years ago.

I need to qualify the above by saying there are some people still that take their obligations seriously, but most of them are small businesses, individuals, with honesty, and they are almost without fail very successful businesses.

Poor people are the same way. They need to be held accountable, for their own long term responsibility and happiness. Politicians that ignore this and promise people something just to gain votes are plentiful these days, and it makes it very difficult for any honest politician that wants to uphold the law and the constitution to compete.

I think some poor people honestly do need a hand up, but I prefer the way private agencies such as the Salvation Army provide that hand up which is to allow the person dignity of earning what they receive.

While I think Finn has a good handle on the issue, I am not sure I agree with Finn about treating the poor as we would treat our children. We feel obligated to take care of the kids whether they hold up their end or not. That's the liberal point of view re the poor.

I prefer Ben Franklin's philosophy which is more of treating the poor like adults. Give them the knowledge (lead) and incentive (make being poor quite unpleasant) and get out of their way so that they can do what they need to do to become unpoor.

Of course a moral society takes care of the truly helpless, but I agree that politicians who overtly or subversively keep people poor in order to gain the gratitude (and votes) of the impoverished are neither compassionate nor honorable.

That is not the conservative way.

I understand your point, but I think you are in agreement with Finn, in this respect, that children need to be held accountable in order to grow up and not be children anymore. I took that to be the meaning of what Finn said. Children should not remain children, but they need to be held accountable as a parent does a child so that they grow up, mature, and become adults. A parent that gives a child everything it wants will continue to have a child, perhaps supporting them their entire life.

I think that is the philosophy of conservatives, that if you facilitate irresponsibility, you will breed more of it. Therefore, giving things to the poor is one way to treat a child, but the right way to treat a child is to give them a hand up but require they do something to earn the help. Then they become more self sufficient and then hopefully complete and responsible citizens, thus more like adults.

You're probably right and apologies to Finn if I mischaracterized his take on it.

Awhile back, fate allowed me to have a prolonged conversation with a bright, attractive young (guessing mid to late 20's) Katrina refugee that wound up here in Albuquerque. She had never been much of anywhere other than the poor New Orleans neighborhood where she had grown up as a single child of a single mom who is now deceased. In that closed, insulated society, she described herself as vaguely angry and exceedingly dull--no concept of what she could accomplish or what was available to her.

Here in Albuquerque, however, where the community reached out to the 25 or so refugees who landed here, she said she began to realize real possibilities. For the first time she was exposed to people--white, brown, black, red--who were not necessarily rich but they were not angry and they were living normal lives with a sense of freedom and hope that had never occurred to her. Once the blinders came off, she got busy, got herself a job, got into a good church, met a nice man with prospects to date, and she said things are pretty darn good. She doubted she would ever return to New Orleans.

I haven't seen her again, but I imagine her story is not that unusual among the country's poorest of the poor.

Good story, Foxfyre, and unfortunately I think that Democrats and the media feed the close minded pessimism felt by people in inner cities. We need to once again need leaders to gender optimism, we need another Ronald Reagan. Now, we have politicians playing on and feeding peoples failures and pessimism. People have power to change their lives for the better, if they only believe it, then set goals and work toward them.

I agree with you. A politician who says "Yes, We Can!", talks about Hope and Change, and rejects fear and hatred....

That would be a politician I could really get behind.

Now why on earth would anyone want another felon/war criminal as a politician. That seems to be a strong conservative trait.

http://hungryblues.net/2004/06/11/remembering-reagan/

... and push him off the edge of a cliff.

I prefer a politician who says 'Yes, We Can and Here's How the Goverment Will Get Out of the Way So It Can Happen!' instead of one who proposes to pour billions and billions more into government programs that have already failed miserably to end poverty as we know it.

Geez!

For two people who say they want optimistic leaders, you sure are pessimists.

((by the way, I did like Reagan's policy on immigration))

The kind of optimism we are talking about is akin to the parenting discussion a few posts back. Optimism is not a parent that tells a kid your situation is terrible, its all my fault, then gives a kid everything he needs and says, yes, great kid, we will not make the same mistakes that were made before, we can make you comfortable. Instead, optimism is a parent that tells a kid, yes you can do lots of things, it all depends upon you, you have the ability, the possibilities are great, and I will help you somewhat only if you want to go to school, college, tech school etc., but it depends upon your hard work and finding a line of work that you like, are interested in, and want to do.

Is it pessimism that recognizes that there is little to show for the six trillion dollars expended so far on the war on poverty and therefore it is reasonable to assume that expending more billions or trillions on the same or similar social programs will not produce a different result?

Is it pessimism to believe that it is condescending and arrogant (as well as opportunistic and uncompsassionate) to characterize poor people as too stupid or inferior or black or incapable or helpless or anything and therefore they must be kept dependent on government programs and beholden to (Democrats) for all that gratuitous help that never quite really helps?

Is it pessimism to believe that there is a better way to do it and, if we are truly compassionate and care about the poor, we had jolly well focus on ways that work instead of repeating policies that have quite suficiently proved themselves to be inadequate and that have failed?

And Reagan's immigration policy was well intended but it also was wrong headed and, while intended to end the illegal immigration problem, it has had the effect of guadrupling it. This is another illustration of not repeating a bad idea a second time let along for decades.

This all reminds me of Gingrich's welfare reform, wherein the libs were all worked up over some of the details, such as requiring people to actually show up for an interview to get any benefits. Guess what, that detail alone cut out a huge number of people because they were frauds, did not exist, had fake addresses, etc. That is my recollection at least. And Clinton at first did not go along, but later had to, then took credit for it, but it was a Republican initiative. That is one example of what we are talking about here.

Yup, you just can't beat those repubs for their diligence and hard work.

Foxy, whatever happened to your thread about the future of conservatism/Repubs?