The Liberal Solution to Ferguson, MO? More Liberalism

spectator.org ^ | Sep. 24, 2015 | Andrew B. Wilson

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Speaking of the restoration of the centuries-old Bourbon monarchy — following the massively convulsive interlude of 22 years between French Revolution and Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo in 1814 — Talleyrand quipped, “They [the Bourbons] have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.”

On a smaller scale, the same judgment applies to the lessons learned (or studiously ignored) in a lengthy report released last week into the “underlying issues” behind the riots and looting that erupted in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson (pop. 21,200) following the shooting death of a young black man by a white police officer on Aug. 9, 2014.

Commissioned by Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, the report is long on liberal pieties and dogma, including the advocacy of some policies that will only worsen existing problems, but short of practical suggestions for improving economic or social conditions in a close-in, big-city suburb that went from predominantly white to predominantly black in the space of two decades.

For example, the Ferguson Commission calls for expanded job opportunities for black youth. Who can argue with that? As the commissioners point out, for blacks aged 16 to 19, the unemployment rate (nationally) is 30.1 percent, compared with 15.5 percent for whites in the same age group. But then the report endorses calls for almost doubling the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

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{**MAJORFACEPALM**}

This report's recommendations are just more of the same failed liberal policies that have been tried at other Liberal Utopias for decades.

It's frustrating to see these same liberal morons get re-elected or re-appointed year after year.

[Noumenon]

It’s really very straightforward: you will get more of whatever you subsidize.

It’s interesting to note that this simple statement gets heavily downvoted whenever I post it on a liberal site. Go figure.