Posted on 09/04/2012 5:37:03 AM PDT by Travis McGee
Doesn't have to be either bureaucratic or political. It can be due to another financial meltdown, or a massive, long power outage, or just plain state bankruptcy.
This essay is largely bunk, a scare tactic screed from the right based on a superficial understanding of the political realities of poverty.
I guess you were on vacation during the post-Katrina looting. They weren't just taking food.
I also guess you don't live near a major NE city. I live within one mile of the Philly city border. And I see this as a very realistic scenario. After all, they form flash mobs up here just for the fun of it - mobs to loot stores or beat up passers-by. What will happen when there is no food to be had in their neighborhood? They will form mobs to go look for it. And the mobs won't just be composed of bored teenagers.
Heck, in Spain, there is already organized looting of food stores. And they aren't even at the full meltdown stage yet. That is what can happen when the participants in the welfare state start to rationalize taking away what others have. They have instilled in them a sense of entitlement to the possessions of others. And that drives them to want to just go and take it. Especially if they are hungry and perceive that a law-and-order breakdown has happened as well.
You really need to back off the racism claims. This is a cold, hard look at what could happen in an UNEXPECTED cutoff of welfare benefits - as opposed to a planned, phased cutoff like you (and all of us) would like to see.
I will call out actual cold racism on FR when I see it. This is no such thing. Just as it isn't racist to point out that higher murder rates in a state generally correspond to the black population percentage in a state, better than any other statistic.
Wrong. Once again, I guess you don't live near a few hundred thousand of them on some form of welfare. Not only do they believe they are entitled to such, many think they should be getting more. A lot more. And keep voting Dem in the hopes that will happen eventually.
I agree there are those in that population who would gladly take a job if one was available. But you are dealing with a culture that shuns those who try to get a good education. So many are largely unemployable in our modern economy.
"Struggling" how?
"Oppressed" how?
"Manipulated" how?
"Pit" of what?
"Designed" by whom?
"Forced upon" how?
What "wicked politicians?"
Throwing around nebulous concepts too fuzzy to be disproven is easy, and always the mark of a charlatan. The writer has provided many historical analogues for the scenario he presents. You have provided nothing but slander and wishful thinking in dissent.
If the Black community is held in contempt, it is precisely because of the crusading, yet inane, exculpation you demonstrate, here.
Better yet:
NO REPRESENTATION WITHOUT TAXATION!!!
Meanwhile, their kids shun any of their peers getting an education as acting white. Thereby largely making those kids unemployable for a decent job once they become an adult.
The disconnect is between the older blacks who have apserations of doing better by hard work and those under 25-30 who grew up in the rap-addled urban culture. And it is those in the 15-30 age group that largely compose mobs.
Put me on the ping list for the results, please.
This article doesn’t talk about the the 800 pound gorilla in the room; Nukes! Yes, even neutron weapons...don’t think they couldn’t assemble those in a hurry. You drop a few of those on particularly troublesome regions and it will pacify some areas real quick! Neutron weapons particularly would be useful because there would be little long lasting radiation!
You get an amoral dictatorship in charge who is desparate to restore order, and all options will be on the table!
You’re claiming then that if the welfare payments stopped the unmarried black women would suddenly clamp their knees together and black men would wake up in the morning, start working on their business plans, and buy suits and ties in preparation for making their presentations to the venture capitalists?
And how successful and transformative have THEY been? Do you see anyone here criticizing Black "business people" or "churches?" How did THEY escape the evil government boogie man?
Viewing the entirety of a community by the actions of select members is the very definition of "prejudice." And that is exactly what you are proposing here.
That you are doing so to commend rather than condemn the Black community, is no less bigoted than any other racist.
Are you claiming that emancipated slaves and their descendents adhered to the party of the Klan, Jim Crow, fire hoses and dogs?
First, please cite where I said, “Blacks will riot and pillage when their benefits stop.”
Cite it, or shut your pie hole.
Second, can you cite an example of millions of people in a city quietly starving to death, without going out to find food “by whatever means necessary?”
Your use of “RACIST!” as your catch-all critique is worn out and no longer effective. You need to argue from facts and ideas, not just scream “RACIST!” when you are out of constructive ideas.
marker...
That is the entire thesis of you article, premised on that single event. Second, you have posited a red herring. Finding food is always preferable to destroying the source of food. Third, it is vital to understand the nature of racism. It is the expression of false categorical imperatives such as that the termination of benefits will cause the gimme generation to riot in the streets. As I have made clear this is the basic racist argument of the left. Sadly some apocolyptics perpetuate these slanders. No doubt there will be some inconvenience. However, there will be an immediate and substantial response from the private sector to alleviate suffering and deprivation. If you can not consider this most basic human response to catastrophe your thesis does not stand the test of human decency. As to the "shut your pie hole" and "out of ideas" nastiness I leave those to dear reader to decipher.
A brilliant example of dialectical materialism. You have successfully described good as evil.
Yes, in time.
Why?
Is it possible you really believe such nonsense?
Blacks side with the Democrats because the Republicans won't protect them from...the Democrats?!
You're as bad as the mohammedens who blame women for their own rape!
Where to begin. Before government benefit programs there was a vast network of religious and secular helping agencies that dealt directly with poverty and need. These have largely been supplanted by government mandated programs creating a diminishing of caring for and about those in need.
The one size fits all notion of dealing with human deprivation has reduced our ability to respond appropriately to individuals in crisis. We now keep them in perpetual crisis by providing a modicum but not a sufficiency of help to overcome their crisis. This is the nature of oppression, to maintain the conditions that create suffering.
The rest you will have to figure out for yourself. I can not do all your work for you.
As to the writer’s historical analogues there are, in a word, misrepresented.
Masterful obfuscation. We have a mole.
It would not be that dramatic a change, but behavior would change over time, in alignment with the new incentives and disincentives.
A woman who would have to support her kids herself, by the sweat of her own brow working in McDonald's, would develop more enthusiasm for birth control, and would have decreased interest in jobless boyfriends.
Guys who had difficulty in getting laid, because being unemployed made them less attractive to women, would have an incentive to get a job, and in getting the education that would allow them to get a better job.
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