Posted on 08/24/2009 10:25:00 AM PDT by freed0misntfree
IMAGINE GETTING A bee sting; then imagine getting six more. You are now in a position to think about what it means to be poor, according to Charles Karelis, a philosopher and former president of Colgate University.
In the community of people dedicated to analyzing poverty, one of the sharpest debates is over why some poor people act in ways that ensure their continued indigence. Compared with the middle class or the wealthy, the poor are disproportionately likely to drop out of school, to have children while in their teens, to abuse drugs, to commit crimes, to not save when extra money comes their way, to not work.
To an economist, this is irrational behavior. It might make sense for a wealthy person to quit his job, or to eschew education or develop a costly drug habit. But a poor person, having little money, would seem to have the strongest incentive to subscribe to the Puritan work ethic, since each dollar earned would be worth more to him than to someone higher on the income scale. Social conservatives have tended to argue that poor people lack the smarts or willpower to make the right choices. Social liberals have countered by blaming racial prejudice and the crippling conditions of the ghetto for denying the poor any choice in their fate. Neoconservatives have argued that antipoverty programs themselves are to blame for essentially bribing people to stay poor.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
To be sure, FRiend. To paraphrase the greatest comedy ever put to film.....
"This situation calls for a really STUPID and FUTILE gesture to be done on somebody's part....And BO is just the guy to do it."
You need to read this article:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2323437/posts
“Chronic drunks’ treatment costs San Francisco big bucks”
Walters is usually too intoxicated to walk, which makes him ineligible for a sobering center. But regardless of where he goes, Walter’s isn’t bothered about the expense.
“Doesn’t cost me a thing,” he said cheerfully.
A problem is that community life is becoming more anonymous, so the status reward is becoming less valuable. It's possible now to do self-checkout at many stores, self-banking at ATMs, use a self-serve gas pump, get information and news on the internet, all without ever communing with another soul.
Maybe if local newspapers got more into providing a status platform and a voice to what accomplishments are valued, rather than being propaganda shills for communism, they would reclaim their value to the community. As the old mainstream media dies, hopefully a more local media will find a place. I wonder what publishing not just the local high school sports scores, but the honor roll and major test scores with photos would do for motivating students.
As I'm sure you noticed, most people on this forum have strong opinions about poverty, and most of us are against it. If you look more closely you will notice that what FReepers are most against are federal government entitlement programs, basically because we can find no constitutional authorization for them. This is a broad brush, and covers everything from food stamps to social security to student loans.
As the responsibility for charity moves closer to the local level, and further away from Washington DC, the argument may change some.
As for the causes of poverty, a good deal of what you will find here will be based in strong Judeo-Christian ethics. Most Freepers will refer to Jesus’s comment that “The poor will always be with us...” (Matthew 26:11). I believe most FReepers would tend to blame the all out assault on the family that has occurred for the last century as causing a great deal of our poverty. The statistics for single mothers and their children are staggering. Divorce, fatherless children and loss of community have turned the poor from our neighbors and family to wards of the state.
America is a very charitable nation, and you will find many active participants in charity here, both in treasure and time. But charity, like any free enterprise, has a difficult time competing with a government entitlement state that has little accountability and a grand history of corruption and abuse. As entitlements increase, and the burden upon the producers of our society increase in the form of taxes, charitable contributions will necessarily decrease as the available capital leaves the hands of those who created it.
You will find a low opinion of the War on Poverty here. Our society has been trapped by a liberal philosophy that people should not be allowed to fail. They discuss ‘safety nets’ and people who ‘fall through the cracks.’ I believe that our constitution was written to allow spectacular success by the individual - and spectacular failure. Starting with President Wilson and continuing through Roosevelt and Johnson our government has sought to limit failure and success equally. Unfortunately, by limiting success we you remove the ingenuity and drive that has lifted us all to the pinnacle of development and standard of living. As President Kennedy is attributed with saying “A rising tide lifts all boats.”
I have not read your book, having only heard of it today, but I would be curious to know your definition of poverty. According to some studies our poverty level is higher than the average standard of living in Europe. The government has very selfish reasons to increase the poverty level, therefore increasing the number of people who need their ‘assistance’ so I would look upon their arbitrary number with skepticism. There is no reason for anyone in the United States to go hungry, or lack for shelter. Other than those facing mental health issues (real ones) how many people in America that have no food or shelter are not in that position because of their choices?
The same people who stand by Darwin in the argument about Creationism can’t accept Darwin’s observations that some living beings are better equipped by nature to survive and prosper than are others.
The Founders guarantee of ‘Equal Opportunity’ does not guarantee the elimination of the stupid gene and the lazy gene.
***I was staffing a Power Plant one time **
I just retired from 31 years in a power plant. 47 operators? We did it with ten operators, five control center operators and five shift supervisors all on a rotating shift for 31 years. 528 MW coal fired unit.
Just on the definition of poverty, I believe in following common usage, rather than an officially stipulated definition. Obviously, what counts as not having enough to meet one’s basic needs differs by time and country, and that gets you quickly into some philosophical dilemmas. Were our American forbears who considered themselves middle class but who lacked indoor plumbing poor without knowing it? At the same time, the behaviors associated with “poverty” (nonwork, nonsaving, dropping out of school, alcohol abuse, etc.) are found alike in countries with very different poverty threshholds. So the fixes I recommend are not so time and place specific. Before I start sounding like I’m advertising, I’ll bow out and read!
My brother and a number of others from local churches spent almost 10 years (my brother was there for 1 year) helping the Hatians build up a herd of cows, hogs, chickens, and a whole bunch of other agricultural enterprises in the late 1950’s.
My father, as well as other families donated, and paid to fly down lot’s of seed stock animals. The Hatians were trained over that 10 year period on the husbandry skills to continue the project and turn it into a living for thousands.
WIthin a year of the sucessful enterprises being turned over to the Hatians to continue, everything was killed and eaten by the Hatians. Years and years of effort for naught.
Let’m starve to death. They’ve earned it.
Entitlement mentality is it's partner.
Hunger is a powerful motivator.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/7_2_a2.html
As the article mentions, the Irish in New York were not readily employable as domestics until they were trained and certified to be trustworthy and of good character. Hughes created the programs to do that, as well as the Catholic school system. In a generation, Hughes transformed New York's Irish.
Great post. People (and revisionist Irish Americans in particular) seem to forget that the Irish Catholics were America’s first “problem” immigrants (in matters such as obediance to the law, alcoholism, prostitution, gangs, etc.) at a time when there were virtually ZERO immigration laws.
Somewhere around this room is a photo of yours truly at Fordham standing in front of a statue of the Great Dagger John Hughes.
An oscumbo news conference; then imagine watching six more. You are now in a position to think about what it means to be insane.
(Where is Nurse Ratched when we need her?)
Nothing new in this stuff....same ideas and theories since forever....
With my Irish ancestry, I take some pride in not just John Hughes and other luminaries, but also the troublesome side of the Irish.
Despite a great record of good works and even miracles, the nickname “Dagger” suggests perhaps less than a full complement of saintly qualities.
Government handouts are corrosive, and over time they create a nightmare world, as described in the work of Theodore Dalrymple in the UK: Generations of families that have never worked, that cannot imagine working, that are outraged by even the thought of being asked to work.
But that's not the worst. Some government handouts are worse than others. The AFDC programs in the Great Society turned what was merely an underclass into a vast pool of sociopathy. The government began to give financial incentives for poor families to have no father in the house. And when you have a community where 70% of boys grow up without a father in the house, you no longer have a society, you have a felon factory. Poverty, then, becomes the very least of the community's problems.
It was both.
It appeared that the missionaries were doing a lot of coasting, although they certainly didn’t live extravagantly at all. They just didn’t seem to have much going on. Neither did any of their friends, who were also missionaries.
The missionaries were part of a mission that had been there for over 50 years, I remember meeting missionaries from there when I was a kid.
The people being ministered to; well the culture was such that people there are just lazy by American standard. And not very smart either. After 50 years it looked like the only progress that had been made was that of the missionaries, not of the native people.
It’s impossible to judge things in just or so, and so we don’t talk about it because we may have come away with the wrong impression, but it was enough that we didn’t want to send our hard earned money there anymore.
In many ways the ‘investigative’ part of the trip was very disappointing.
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