The war on drugs is just one initiative, and it's hardly the only reason so many black kids lack a father figure. A simple way to see how the war on drugs is bad is to consider how Prohibition was bad: it lead to an increase of lucrative smuggling by thugs and gangs. Drug dealing provides a chance at wealth and the feeling of having a family that these black boys wouldn't have otherwise.
Your talking points focus on personal accountability, the freedom of choice and generally downplaying federal programs. While I agree we are each ultimately held accountable for abusing or not abusing a system, you argument comes from an idealistic sense of justice. You won't find a solution there, if a solution is what you're looking for.
Consider this: if you could make it on $800 a month, survive off that while living in your mommy's basement, while doing nothing at all besides watching tv and surfing the internet all day, would you? Would you instead work 40 hours a week for $2,500 a month? Can we just blame people for being lazy when there is a system set up that allows for such laziness to exist?
We can curse these people as lazy and wasteful and useless all we want, but leeching can only happen when they are given something to leech on.
Yes, yes we most certainly can blame people that have the capacity to be responsible for themselves and CHOOSE to not be.
If I am the one making $2,500 a month, working 40 hours a week and say $80 from the taxes of each paycheck (and the other people making $2,500 a month) I get go towards this moron sitting in his mommy's basement collecting $800 doing absolutely nothing than I can and will look down upon that same person who is doing that.
The whole problem today is people saying "the system this and the system that". People ARE the system. Once there are enough idiots sitting in basements doing nothing the whole thing will collapse. And I personally won't be happy if that does happen. And the idiots sitting in the basements won't enjoy my tolerance very much.
I don't have an idealistic sense of justice. I have a very realistic sense of what life actually is. It's the "idealists" that have put us in this mess to begin with.
As an aside about the basement-dwellers: forget race, consider the near future when robots replace truck drivers and low-income jobs become more and more automated. I think we both agree the current system can't account for this, since it's already failing as is.
I agree that it is morally wrong to take the $800 and do nothing, as opposed to working for your $2500 and paying taxes. That isn't my point. My point is that it makes logical sense that people will lack a desire to work when all their needs are met. To fix this problem, in my opinion, requires significant reform to social security and welfare programs, reform that will never win you a political election.
No one wants to bite that bullet, the buck is passed and eventually, sometime, the system will collapse. It has to. I am curious if you have any ideas as to how to fix the problem with low-income blacks leeching off the system.
The problem is exactly what you said in a nutshell. Nobody will ever get elected espousing the reforms that you are talking about. The buck has been continually passed until its not even recognizable anymore.
I wish I had ideas of how to force people to be productive. Unfortunately each person has to choose to be that. The inner cities have already started to collapse.
Institutionalized Racism
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The war on drugs is just one initiative, and it's hardly the only reason so many black kids lack a father figure. A simple way to see how the war on drugs is bad is to consider how Prohibition was bad: it lead to an increase of lucrative smuggling by thugs and gangs. Drug dealing provides a chance at wealth and the feeling of having a family that these black boys wouldn't have otherwise.
Your talking points focus on personal accountability, the freedom of choice and generally downplaying federal programs. While I agree we are each ultimately held accountable for abusing or not abusing a system, you argument comes from an idealistic sense of justice. You won't find a solution there, if a solution is what you're looking for.
Consider this: if you could make it on $800 a month, survive off that while living in your mommy's basement, while doing nothing at all besides watching tv and surfing the internet all day, would you? Would you instead work 40 hours a week for $2,500 a month? Can we just blame people for being lazy when there is a system set up that allows for such laziness to exist?
We can curse these people as lazy and wasteful and useless all we want, but leeching can only happen when they are given something to leech on.
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Yes, yes we most certainly can blame people that have the capacity to be responsible for themselves and CHOOSE to not be.
If I am the one making $2,500 a month, working 40 hours a week and say $80 from the taxes of each paycheck (and the other people making $2,500 a month) I get go towards this moron sitting in his mommy's basement collecting $800 doing absolutely nothing than I can and will look down upon that same person who is doing that.
The whole problem today is people saying "the system this and the system that". People ARE the system. Once there are enough idiots sitting in basements doing nothing the whole thing will collapse. And I personally won't be happy if that does happen. And the idiots sitting in the basements won't enjoy my tolerance very much.
I don't have an idealistic sense of justice. I have a very realistic sense of what life actually is. It's the "idealists" that have put us in this mess to begin with.
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riffraffy
7 years ago
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As an aside about the basement-dwellers: forget race, consider the near future when robots replace truck drivers and low-income jobs become more and more automated. I think we both agree the current system can't account for this, since it's already failing as is.
I agree that it is morally wrong to take the $800 and do nothing, as opposed to working for your $2500 and paying taxes. That isn't my point. My point is that it makes logical sense that people will lack a desire to work when all their needs are met. To fix this problem, in my opinion, requires significant reform to social security and welfare programs, reform that will never win you a political election.
No one wants to bite that bullet, the buck is passed and eventually, sometime, the system will collapse. It has to. I am curious if you have any ideas as to how to fix the problem with low-income blacks leeching off the system.
--
Anonymous Post Author
7 years ago
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The problem is exactly what you said in a nutshell. Nobody will ever get elected espousing the reforms that you are talking about. The buck has been continually passed until its not even recognizable anymore.
I wish I had ideas of how to force people to be productive. Unfortunately each person has to choose to be that. The inner cities have already started to collapse.