Posted on 09/15/2014 6:04:08 AM PDT by Kaslin
This is my third consecutive column about the shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old black youth, by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.
I have focused on this because the circumstances that led to this tragedy point to more than narrow, parochial concerns of low-income minority communities. They point to things fundamentally wrong in America that are dragging us all down.
Hopefully, remedial measures will be adopted that will lower the likelihood that a police officer will reduce a black youth to a racial stereotype and kill him.
But even with such measures, we cannot continue to ignore circumstances that practically guarantee ongoing intergenerational poverty and the dysfunctional behavior that accompanies it. The costs of not addressing and changing what has failed in low-income communities and the whole country are enormous.
The economic costs consist of the hundreds of billions of dollars in inefficient poverty programs, at a time of huge budget deficits and growing national debt and the huge opportunity costs of lost human potential. A McKinsey & Co study in 2009 estimated that the potential annual gain to our GDP of black and Latino education test scores reaching the average of white students exceed $500 billion dollars.
The moral costs speak to our willingness to tolerate hundreds of thousands of babies born in our country each year whose chances of a decent life are miniscule and yet continuing, year after year, the same failed policies that assure no future for these children.
I’ve written recently about the importance of Congressman Paul Ryan’s proposal to change the way the billions of dollars of poverty program funds are delivered which would allow more local control and creativity. And I have written about school reform advocate Howard Fuller and the importance of giving black parents power to choose where they send their children to school.
Another leader with ideas that could change current realities is Max De Pree, former CEO of the Herman Miller office furniture company and author of the best-selling book “Leadership is an Art.”
Although the focus of De Pree’s discussions on leadership is primarily corporate leadership, his important ideas are relevant in any arena, including political leadership.
De Pree says the art of leadership is about “liberating people to do what is required of them in the most effective way.”
There are two novel things here.
First, leadership is not about telling others what to do, running their lives and defining their world. It is about creating circumstances that allow individuals to assume responsibility and giving them the freedom to work in the best possible way, fitting to who they are.
Second, the focus is on personal responsibility. This is particularly novel given our national culture today is all about rights and entitlements.
Leaders, according to De Pree, “endorse a concept of persons.” The appreciation of the fundamental uniqueness of each individual flies in the face of putting people in income and racial categories and based on these, producing government programs that will supposedly address their problems.
Also different and important is De Pree’s idea of diversity. Rather than being about ethnic and gender head counting, it should be about recognizing “diversity of people’s gifts, talents, and skills.”
Bottom line is big government control of lives, particularly its dominance in low-income communities, is the opposite of Max De Pree’s idea of leadership. It diminishes rather empowers.
Leadership amounts to getting out of the way, paving a path to freedom, and embracing values that enhance each individual’s ability to take control of and responsibility for their own lives.
Max De Pree’s principles of leadership tell us it is time to move away from what has failed. The bureaucratized welfare state has only perpetuated poverty, crime, and deepened racial tensions in our nation.
Max De Pree has the answer to Ferguson.
The liberals have not created “inefficient poverty programs”
In fact the liberals have been very successful in creating more and more poverty in the USA — and have done so with great efficiency.
“When liberty becomes license, dictatorship is near.” Will Durant
Exactly, and the idiots that vote for the rat party still don’t get it that it doesn’t free them
I don't know anyone else's opinion, but they can all go to hell as far as I'm concerned. Living in the USA, even under barack the idiot, you still have the opportunity, the best opportunity of anywhere on the planet, to make something of yourself. Yet so many choose the thug-and-drug path. It makes for a short life, generally speaking. Then their contemporaries riot at the injustice of it all.
There is a simple solution - promotion of marriage and fatherhood.
This is done by reversing what caused the demise of marriage and fatherhood - the welfare state.
Then hold them to exactly the same social and legal standards as the rest of us, with the same consequences if they deviate.
The laws preventing discrimination based upon race are there already. No more excuses.
What bothers me is black conservatives like Starr Parker are failing to articulate the real reason why the regime is promoting racial division. Or express concern how the fabrication of events is manipulated propaganda being used that is turning into destroying as the balance of society views it, into questioning whatever is left of black decency ? .
Those so called Martin/Brown Ferguson organized “protests” should be investigated. It’s clear it benefits the regime. What are the reasons for creating racial division by the regimes propaganda which has by its silence condoned looting, and created the climate resulting in racial attacks ending in murders of whites,hispanics and asians. ? And winds up portraying a black society that lacks a moral compass and has no basic values of right and wrong
The regime won’t have to explain its corruption, malfeasance,and constitutional abuse...because the blacks will riot.... That’s how socialist/ communists work.The charge as to why this is going on?. It is clear: To prevent investigations into this inept and corrupt regime
Not recognizing why this “racial divide” is being perpetuated has nothing to do with such lofty counter arguments being offered by too many conservatives both black and white on “equality” or “justice”. Those discussions are viewed with glee and laughed at by the democrats because it first of all lends credability to their lying assertions and diverts focus from the real reason why the those in power are using this political device known as division. It’s to keep them unquestioningly in power.
Want a true monster? That has gone unreported besides the local one? This man STRANGLES TO DEATH 5 children, ages 1-8, his own children.
Man strangles his 5 children, ages 1-8 to death
His attorney Aimee Zmroczek requested a mental health exam for her client as soon as possible, the New York Daily News reported.
“He is being portrayed as a monster,” Zmroczek said. “He is just a man, and he is trying to deal with the situation.”
- See more at: http://www.opposingviews.com/i/society/crime/five-south-carolina-children-likely-strangled-father-da-says#sthash.N7sQDgP0.dpuf
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/society/crime/five-south-carolina-children-likely-strangled-father-da-says
No.
First—let’s start with the TRUTH.
“Unarmed” is a deception and misnomer.
We DO know what happened well enough. The whole “black” theme is a LIE. From start to finish.
Now, carry on.
That's as far as I got. He was not unarmed, he had two fists and 300 lbs behind them. And he was not a youth.
You were correct though, with that he had two fists, and his weight was almost 300 lbs (292 lbs). You forgot his 6'2 height and all of these were his weapons
He was not unarmed imho. Though he did not carry any weapons per se, his 6’2 height, 292 lb weight and his fists were certainly his weapons
No, he was a Teen. You have to use the current obfuscation.
{:0)
Indeed
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