Another Political Analogy

Allow me to show you some real life situations where liberal policies are more sensible and don't fit into the above mold.
What if we could invest $X million dollars into a rehabilitation program for inmates that supplies them with the tools they can use to support themselves in society without going back to crime and we know through trials that the reduction in crime and inmate population through decreased recidivism will save us more than $X million tax dollars. Should we not make that investment because we don't want to spend money on helping someone who has taken to destroying our society?
What about a working woman who is going to school who find herself pregnant, and through complications finds herself with a doctor's bill up to $100,000. Stuck with a massive medical bill, and a child that prevents her from being able to continue school, she is unlikely to get back on her feet for quite a while, if ever. What if the tax payers could help her out with some of that bill so she can finish school soon and become a productive adult who won't be on further welfare and is paying sizable taxes from her good post-college job.
Take another child who was born with a major mental disease such as schizophrenia and did not have the fortune of having good parents. Through physical and mental abuse from his parents he finds himself out on the streets after high school. Unable to get past the depression his parents forced upon him and sometimes violent and odd behaviors he experiences through his schizophrenia, he is unable to hold a job. He goes through life homeless and drunk, talking to himself in the gutter. Is this his fault? Should we do something about it? What can we do about it?

Daniel, while I appreciate your sincerity and desire to help, I strongly disagree with you. First, I have done charitable work in an attempt to help underprivileged people. I live in Saint Louis, MO, where there are plenty of opportunities to help people in poverty. I've spent holidays working at downtown shelter for homeless women. I've worked on Habitat for Humanity projects in the city. When I went to church, our youth group did several charity projects to help as well. And do you know what I saw when I did these things? I saw capable people who had the ability to make something of themselves. In some cases, they were doing exactly that, hard as it was. It other cases, they were more content to live the status quo. I don't think these choices have anything to do with economic status, per se, they are simply choices that everybody faces to one degree or another. My rants aren't uninformed; on the contrary, it is precisely because I have seen these things first-hand that I have come to these conclusions.

And please don't misunderstand me. I am not advocating that we should ignore people who have needs or who have harder lives than we do. I will never support a system that tries to use coercive force to change that, however.

I highly recommend that you read Booker T. Washington's book "Up from Slavery" (if you haven't read it already). He was a mixed-race child of a slave woman who grew up in the south after slavery was abolished. If anyone was truly a victim of environment, circumstances, etc. it was him, but he didn't let any of that stop him from becoming one of the most influential black leaders of his time. He literally built the Tuskegee Institute with his own hands, and made his life-mission the education and progression of his people. His life was incredible, and he is one of my heroes.

@ Daniel

\"You are participating in their suffering, and virtually guaranteeing their failure, by staying unengaged and watching as they continue to suffer and reproduce.\"

Pure f*cking poetry. I think some people support the situation as it stands in passive ways on the basis that it\'s not in their cities.

I was talking to Mar about it today, and she repeated the same thing, that \"if you hear you\'re not equal all day long, you will believe it.\"

So, I asked her, isn\'t it a choice to believe?

And, isn\'t it our choice to believe that better can happen?

I do. I f*cking believe. However, it isn\'t enough. Make the change, ask the hard questions, because the answers are statements that stand as testimony to the system in place.

And my beliefs, whether they slap the system across the face in a direct challenge to how it stands unjustly to burden the weak by their weaknesses, to exploit them, then I\'ll just have to throw that gaunlet down and so challenge the system.

@ everyone else

What\'s being done isn\'t working. Daniel is asking the hard questions, and bringing the statements to the table. Calling him a racist or an elitist won\'t shut him up, or stop the obvious from becoming more obvious while the situation for impoverished classes gets worse and farther behind where it should be.

So hurl your epithets, and look at how you react to the question, \"why am I fighting against the chance to change the situation?\" We are a group of intelligent people bent on finding the truth in our observations. But even then, our conditioning to not ask why we react in such ways is strong, because you have felt the strict diet of cultural programming so long the bad taste it can be numb in your minds. Take the time to delve into those knee jerk reactions, and see if they really are something you can get behind, or something you need to put behind you.

-=T=-

Daniel,

I'm OK with most of your post (granting that your statements are not about ALL liberals or ALL conservatives - and of course you didn't MEAN all), but stereotyping is rarely constructive. It tends to make people get defensive and this tends to lessen the value of the interaction. On the other hand, I agree almost entirely with your last reply.

I guess I (defensively perhaps) just want to again point out that I do not believe the far right's stereotype of liberals as a group who "fight to ensure that nobody talks down to the lifestyles of the poor and uneducated. They insist that the way they live is nobody’s business." The fact is that liberals do not want people blamed for ALL of the circumstances in which they find themselves, but (most .. not just some, but MOST) liberals do NOT excuse people for not trying to take advantage of the help they are given. And, I don't think I've EVER known of a liberal who insisted that the fact that the way people live (those living lives of crime for example) is nobody's business. It is true that (like libertarians) liberals tend to believe that unless people are hurting other individuals, or society, or even just themselves then the way they live their lives is nobody's business. For example, a liberal might claim that it's nobody's business if someone is gay. That doesn't mean that they would also claim that it's nobody's business if someone is committing crimes. THIS is one of the big lies about liberals. Rush (and his ilk) are likely to assert that liberals don't believe that the way people live is anyone's business. It's simply not true, and THIS (in a nutshell) is my issue with the original post.

@Nicholas

You should really re-think how you've reacted to this post, my friend. It's quite inappropriate.

Is it elitist that roughly half of black kids don't finish high school? Is it elitist that smart kids in black culture are shunned in most cases? Is it elitist that this ruins their ability to compete in the modern world?

No. Facts aren't elitist. Facts are reality. Those are facts. All I'm trying to do is help fix them.

The anti-intellectual and uneducated are suffering, man. They are in pain. Every day. The can't get high paying jobs because they lack skills. They don't have a mastery of the English language. Most can't write a decent paragraph.

The cultures that thrive within their communities are the reason for this, and that's what needs to be fixed. The culture of anti-intellectualism and a focus on popularity and material possessions is literally killing entire groups of people -- starting with the children.

They can't fix this themselves -- and if they could it would take many, many decades. The change needs to come from the part of society that has had more luck and more opportunity. It needs to come from the outside.

The reaction you had to this idea is precisely why the people who suffer will continue to suffer. You are part of the problem, sir. People like you would rather watch someone wallow in misery than intervene on their behalf, lest you be called a bad word like "racist" or "elitist".

I say shame on you. Shame on you for caring more about being called a name than whether or not thousands of kids in that bad neighborhood will learn to read. You are participating in their suffering, and virtually guaranteeing their failure, by staying unengaged and watching as they continue to suffer and reproduce. It's quite sick.

There's a reason you can't go to the bad parts of town after dark. It's because you're not willing to help them. You're too concerned about your delicate morality and reputation. You say you're helping, and you make lots of noise in that direction, but you're not helping them until you take steps to intervene and pull them out of their cycle of pain.

Their suffering is your fault. Their suffering is my fault. It's anyone's fault that isn't actively pushing for intervention into the lives of the children who are being permanently stripped of any chance of being a productive member of society.

@Carl

I don't see anything you've said that disagrees with what I've said. Both liberals and conservatives want more people to be productive members of society. Of course. The question comes down to why a large segment of the population is NOT productive.

That's where the break takes place.

My point is that I think MOST people on both sides are missing the cause and the fix. The conservatives mostly say, "Screw them because they have the same opportunity we do.", and the liberals mostly say, "It's not their fault because all the failure is externally generated."

Again, both positions are wrong.

The problem is a lack of willingness to intervene on behalf of those who are suffering. To intervene for conservatives is a hassle we shouldn't be required to undertake, and to intervene for liberals is a colossally elitist mistake bordering on holocaust and slavery (see ncloud's response).

Once again -- both sides are wrong.

My point is that both of these reasons for NOT intervening to end the pain will simply allow the situation to fester.

Does this clarify anything for you, Carl? Also, remember that when I say "liberals" or "conservatives" I'm talking about general populations -- not everyone. You keep wanting to say that not EVERYONE who's liberal has these types of views.

I think you need to realize that not everyone is as educated or as thoughtful as you just because they're also liberal. You are an exception, and your positions are exceptional as well. As such, you should consider that my views of what liberals think might be generally correct even though they don't match your own on a particular issue.

This analogy applies everywhere conservatism is applicable to the proposed loss of common sense.

Within the last year legislation has been brought to the floor of Congress to subsidize foreign oil imports, which includes the national company of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez\' extremely anti-American oil exporter. Why would we do such a thing in a time when oil markets are booming and the average American consumer is feeling the brunt of the impact? Because we\'ve lost out common sense. Or at least it\'s being challenged by some form of passionate madness, perhaps too much ill-advised charity, to see the trees before the forest.

Guns are in the same category. We, in our discourse, have become to passionate in our need to keep little Timmy safe from the evils of his father\'s gun in the shoebox on the top shelf of his parents\' closet. Well, I am little Timmy, 30 years later. My dad had two guns, one on his holster, as he was a deputy sheriff (now retired), and the other was his off duty piece he kept around because he lived in the community where criminals he helped guard were able to see him on the street after they were released. I don\'t remember being taught about the importance of never ouching his gun, just like I don\'t remember being taught how to right and read, because it was so early in my life.

Yet, in that time \'til now, I read about misfirings of mishandled guns, hurting kids or themselves, and I realize that the crime isn\'t in owning these weapons, it\'s in not teaching the kids, at an early age, that they kill.

As a father, the one thing I\'ve told my kids repeatedly, when they come to a street or when they are about to enter a parking lot, is that cars will kill you. They can repeat that on demand. They know it\'s not a nerf world, that there are deadly things that YOU as a child and as an adult, must watch out for.

My wife, when we were out shopping for homes, brought to my attention that there was a drug deal happening just next door to the house we were looking at. Something that never would have dawned on me, but it\'s something I wouldn\'t have ignored after it was brought to my attention, rather inexperienced as I am in being able to observe such things.

Instead of paying attention to common sense, many people ignore the circumstances around them, even as they are presented as pure observations with obvious conclusions, and decide, \"Well, if anything goes wrong, I can sue them later.\" And they do. How many times do we hear about parents of kids that died from mishandling guns suing the companies for not having enough safety precautions on the gun or safe use instructions in their packages?

Where these parents perhaps should be grieving in jail for neglecting the safety of their children, they are given the freedom to illicit a civil suit against a company that profits from it\'s commitment to the safety of American citizens. How is that for ignoring common sense?

If these guns were meant to commit crimes, then the advertising would be, \"because our version of the glock would make you able to steal more money! or kill your enemies much faster!\" It\'s like saying a car that can go 150 mph is the same as a car that can go 30 mph, because they are both on the road at the same time, basically threatening someone\'s life.

Don\'t believe me, just ask yourselves this question; \"is it the car, or the driver?\" Alternately, \"is it the gun, or the shooter?\"

And please, don\'t forget to use your common sense.

-=T=-

I seriously can't believe how elitist this is. You divide the world into the "us and them" dichotomy -- the "us" who are educated, self-motivated, self-sufficient, smart, etc., and "them" who are ignorant, impoverished, unable, uneducated and under advantaged -- and then have the audacity to suggest that the former group has the moral authority to rule the lives of the later group by dictating the terms under which they will be allowed to live and function. The last time I checked, that was called slavery. And justifying slavery to save the abstraction of "society" throws us back to the middle ages or worse.

I haVe to agree with Maxo's comment to the previous post:

"The above story is only good at trying to paint over simplistic pictures of complicated issues."

That comment hold equally true for the current story. AND (I hate to say) for your response.

Allow me to quote from your post above:

"No, the real blame lies with the society that allows the system to exist in the first place. The problem is not having the political nuts to discourage/disallow lifestyles that destroy children. Until that happens we’ll keep having these discussions."

I think that this is correct.

"The sad fact is that poor, uneducated people will continue to destroy the lives of their children, and foolish neocons will keep thinking that those children have the same tools to succeed that other children have who come from good homes. Both of these things hurt our society greatly."

I think that both parts of this are overstated. Though you didn't say "all," I think it needs pointing out that it is neither true that ALL poor uneducated people will destroy the lives of their children nor that ALL neocons (though perhaps all of the "foolish" ones if "foolish" is defined appropriately) really believe that poor children have the same tools to succeed as wealthier children -- or (perhaps more to the point) children with parents who fully understand the value of education.

"In short, conservatives want damaged children to produce at the same rate as well-raised children — which is impossible. And the liberals fight to ensure that nobody talks down to the lifestyles of the poor and uneducated. They insist that the way they live is nobody’s business. So the problem perpetuates."

The first sentence here is more or less a restatement of the previous paragraph (which I have already commented on). The other two sentences are an overstatement (but are precisely the stereotype that those neocons would love everyone to believe about those on the left). It is simply NOT true that liberals insist that the way people live is nobody's business. There's a difference between hoping that everyone is treated respectfully and not blamed for things that are not their fault and asserting that there is no right or wrong. Liberals believe very strongly in education and in helping give those who start life at a disadvantage some assistance to help them make a success of themselves (and a liberal's definition of success is not so different from that of a conservative). Conservatives often talk about these issues as if all liberals do is steal money from the wealthy and give it to the poor. I would argue that the liberal's vision of government's use of money is to use the tax revenue (and to be sure a greater percentage of the income of the wealthy is collected in taxes) in the best interests of the country. I'm sure that conservatives have the same ideal. One difference is that liberals are more likely to want to help create a larger number of contributing members of society -- to help those who are disadvantaged (by virtue or birth or poor education in their region or ...) overcome their disadvantages and become more productive members of society.