Nobody was at any stage talking about free public education. Prior to your last post nobody had even mentioned it. Free public education something that you introduced as a problem, just so you could say that the problem doesn’t exist. That makes it nothing but a strawman.
You have apparently read nothing that myself or even sven or manda jo several others have posted. The opportunities we all mentioned have nothing to do with the cost of public education. Hell, I even specifically mentioned a few lacking opportunities:
It’s all well and good saying that in theory my Father couldn’t be legally compelled to use the family car as a work delivery vehicle with no compensation. Sure he could have sued the employer. But as Sven points out, that option simply wasn’t available in practice. Not only didn’t he know that such an option existed, he couldn’t have afforded it even if it was. And even if he could he certainly couldn’t have afforded not to work for 5 years while the case was pounded out in the courts. So like many poor people he worked under conditions that didn’t allow money to be saved, or conditions that were unsafe and so on. Conditions that are guaranteed to keep you in poverty.
I also mentioned the lack of opportunity to understand that things like college scholarships exist for poor people, the lack of opportunity to dissociate form violent neighbourhoods and so forth.
None of these things have anything to do with your strawman characterisation of the problem as the cost of education. Nobody but you thinks that the cost of education is a problem, and you only mentioned that it was problem so you could immediately attack the proposition you yourself set up.
Oh, does it? You’ve never heard of a rhetorical question? Was there anyone who didn’t assume those were rhetorical questions?
Can you tell us where anyone in this thread suggested that we had to address the problem without disturbing any of the individuals that are part of the problem?
If not then this is clearly another strawman.
Or is this another case where we are meant to assume that you asking the question doesn’t mean that you hold the opinion that someone suggested that we had to address the problem without disturbing any of the individuals that are part of the problem?
I can’t keep up with it I’m afraid. When you ask a question like this is it a strawman because it misrepresents your opposition, or is it just you begging the question by demanding an assumption that nobody, including you, has made? Either way it is lousy debating technique and adds nothing to discussion.
We’re not talking about the working class, y’know – we’re talking about the poor. As a group, the poor tend to suffer from not just poverty but generational poverty. They’re characterized as victims because in the post-industrial information age in a captialist society they are victims: they’re lesser educated, with lesser and fewer job opportunities, poorer available choices, poorer facilities, obsolete technical skills and job discrimination both by ethnicity (which is illegal) and criminal records (which is legal, and rampant.) I have never seen instances of intracted generational poverty interrupted except by outside influences, direct intervention, family provisions and educational opportunities. Granted there’s no substitute for the gumption to dig one out of one’s bootstraps but that gumption without substantial governmental aid with childcare, career training and a quality education is next to meaningless.
I’m sorry you got that impression but thatt isn’t what I posted nor is it wahat I believe.
Just for ineterest’s sake can you possibly pull out some quotes where you believe I am portrayingthe poor as victims? Or where you think I am blaming the govenrment for the problems?
My real position, as posted and as belived, is that poor children are universally victims. It is very hard for a child to be other than a victim of her circumstances. Late teens have some degree of autonomy but younger children are 99% victim when it comes to their poverty.
And I never said nor have I ever believed that the solutions or the problems to be layed entirely or largely at the foot of government. What I have stated quite cleraly in this thread, and what I maintain, is that all of society has a vested interest in solving this problem and that the solution can only come from all sectors of society. Nowhere have I said that government needs to accept a larger share of this problem than industry, church or private citizens.
But if you can provide a few quotes of where you believe I said anything remotely like that I may be able to clarify it for you and for other posters.
Jeez, did you even read his post? He said that the oppurtunity was there, and asked how to get people to take advantage of it. He is saying the exact same thing you are. The oppurtunity to stay out of gangs, go to school, get a scholarship and get out is there for almost every poor kid. It may be outside of their world view, and thats the problem. The exact problem that Little Nemo asked for solutions to.
No, my amazing psychic abilities allowed me to quote it and repond in detail without actually reading it. :rolleyes:
No, he is saying almost exactly the opposite. I pointed this out above with a precis of why that is the case.
Yes, along with the opportunity to become President. right? A poor person would need to be incredibly naive to actually believe that. Apparently rich people genuinely do believe it.
The problem is that you are using precisely the standard of 'available" that I specifically said that I was not using.
Saying that the opportunity to become PUSA is available to a ghetto kid is technically correct, but it’s practically meaningless. As are your claims opportunities are available despite being outside someone’s worldview. And prior to your arrival this discussion was about practicalities, not semantics.
Pedantically it is indeed possible to use something outside your worldview. Pedantically you have an opportunity available to use woy-woy even though woy-woy is so far outside your worldview you don’t even know what it is or that it even exists. It’s totally outside your worldview. Practically of course it is totally incorrect to say that you can use woy-woy. You can’t use it if it is outside your worldview.
In exactly the same way saying that the average ghetto kid has an opportunity to get a college scholarship pedantically correct and practically incorrect.
This is interesting becuase nowhere in my post did I use the word available.
Again, you are not comprehending what is being posted becuase we are saying the exact same thing. “Woy-woy” exists as an oppurtunity for me, that is not the problem. The problem is convincing me to take advantage of “woy-woy”, and that includes bringing “woy-woy” into my worldview.
I don’t mean to speak for Little Nemo, but I believe we are on the same wavelength. The oppurtunity for kids in the ghetto to avoid gangs, get an education, get a scholarship, and get out of the ghetto is there for them. Objectively speaking, these programs exist. They might not exist to a kid in the ghetto, but nonetheless they do in fact exist. This is what Little Nemo meant when he said that the fight for free education has already been won.
The problem is that kids in the ghetto don’t take advantage of these programs. Perhaps its becuase they don’t know about the programs, don’t want to follow these programs for social reasons, or might not even value the end result of these programs. These problems are what Little Nemo was speaking of when he asked “how do you convince people to take the opportunity?” The answer to that question might be as fundamental as, “Show them that this opportunity exists.”
No, as I just explained at length we are discussing exactly opposite things.
Well since it exists and the opportunity isn’t a problem then go ahead and use it and tell me the results. Go on, I dare you.
Despite the very concept of woy-woy being so far outside your worldview that you don’t even know what it is or that it even exists you claim that it exists as an opportunity and isn’t a problem. Well it’s time for you to put up. Take your claimed opportunity to use this thing that you don’t even know exists and prove to me that you used it. That way we will know that it really does exist as an opportunity for you and isn’t a problem.
Of course you can not, and hence it does not exist as an opportunity for you and it is a problem. Your claims to the contrary are nonsense.
No the problem is not convincing you to use it. The problem is initially simply making you aware that it exists. I can prove that easily by simply asking you to assume that you do want to use woy-woy and to do so and demonstrate that you have done so.
Saying that something is an opportunity when you don’t even understand that it exists is nothing but semantic nonsense. An opportunity you don’t know exists isn’t an opportunity at all, even if potentially it could be.
Like I said, your entire argument is sematic nonsense. It objectively exists but doesn’t exist for the people who need to use them. Pure semantics. The practical difference between “an opportunity to get out of the ghetto that doesn’t exist for ghetto kids”, and “an opportunity to get out of the ghetto that doesn’t exist at all” is absolutely nothing.
The distinction is purely semantic.
And as I said, if that is what he means it is is exactly the opposite of what I said and exactly the opposite of what I meant.
I was specifically referring to “making opportunities… truly open to poor people. Not just hypothetically available as it is today, not ‘available’ like the opportunity to become President is ‘available’. Truly and honestly available in the sense that if a poor person wants to do it they can do it.”
That is in direct contradiction to what you just claimed Nemo meant. You claimed that he meant opportunities that “might not exist to a kid in the ghetto, but nonetheless they do in fact exist”.
Let me contrast the differences here:
Nemo: Opportunities that exist in fact but don’t exist to a kid in the ghetto
Me: Opportunities not just hypothetically available but truly and honestly available to a kid in the ghetto.
The fact that you seem to genuinely think these things are the same beggars belief.
I am reminded here of an interaction in HHGTG. You really do sound like the council bureaucrat:
But the plans were on display...' On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.’ That's the display department.' With a torch.’ Ah, well the lights had probably gone.' So had the stairs.’ But look you found the notice didn't you?' Yes,’ said Arthur, `yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying “Beware of The Leopard”.’"
But the opportunity to view the plans still existed, even if it didn’t exist for Arthur.
What exactly do you mean by " truly and honestly available to a kid in the ghetto"? I live in NYC, a city with a very inexpensive public university which guarantees admission to any graduate of a NYC high school. The existence of this university and the fact that financial aid is available is well-publicized. And I don’t mean through whatever information is given out in the high-schools- I mean through ads on the subways and buses. If kids aren’t going there, it’s not because it’s being kept a secret.
The high school I attended 25 years ago, Franklin K. Lane, is one of the worst high schools in the city on paper. Only 29% of the students graduate in four years, and nearly 90% have incomes low enough to qualify them for free lunch. But of the students who graduated in 2004, nearly 50% planned to attend either a two year or a four year college. They obviously knew the opportunity existed. What is the reason that the other half of the class didn’t have college plans? They certainly had some contact with the college bound students over the three or four years they attended, so it’s not simply that the idea of someone from their neighborhood and background going to college never occured to them. It’s probably closer to the situation a friend of my son’s is in. He is one of the few children from our middle-class neighborhood to attend this school, which is less than a mile from my house. His parents are not poor- they bought their house when the going rate was $250-300,000. His friends are not only planning to go to college, but were raised in such a way that not going to college was never an option. Why is he not going to college? Because his parents don’t think he needs to, just like they didn’t see any need for him to attend a better high school. After all, neither of them went to college and they’re doing fine.
What would have to be done for you to consider this opportunities “truly and honestly available to a kid in the ghetto”?
Blake, I’m bowing out of this thread. You’re apparently determined to look for a fight where none exists. I see no reason to defend myself for things I haven’t said. Nor do I see any reason to attack you as you have done to me because, except for your personal attacks upon me, I think we are mostly in agreement on these issues. So I will simply repeat that you have misunderstood everything I have written. Anything further I had to say about the character of your posts would be inappropriate for this forum.
What can be done? There are so many things it’s ridiculous. Even if you don’t agree with all of these, you are bound to find some you can support:
[ul]
Stop unequal funding of schools. Right now in CA schools are funded by local property tax- which is accessed by the cost of the house when it was last bought. This means rental-filled ghettos are being funded by 1960’s property taxes while a school a mile away is funded by bubble housing prices. How can we call anything like this fair?
Enforce laws requiring zoning boards to spread social services evenly. Don’t allow one neighborhood to become a dumping ground for the city’s quota of halfway houses, group homes, reform schools, welfare offices and rehab programs. This is what turned my hometown in to a “ghetto” and when they incorporated their prospects changed dramatically.
End crap like kids with Spanish last names being tracked in to remedial classes. Right now.
Provide real police protection. Investigate things like burglaries. Don’t make people feel like they have to provide their own protection.
End racially biased drug laws- like the one that provides harsher penalties for chemically-identical crack than for cocaine.
Provide health care- especially reproductive health care. The wait list for a Planned Parenthood in Oakland (or anywhere near Oakland) right now is three months. I’ve been going to their San Mateo office- a four hour ten dollar bus ride away.
Provide business loans to small businesses opening in depressed areas.
Stop zoning downtown areas in to parking lots. Stop allowing downtowns to die. Zoning boards have incredible power. Make them accountable for this.
Put as much effort in to the public transportation systems that allow the poor to get to work and seek more opportunities as you do the freeways that provide the same things to the middle class. Don’t allow NIMBY’s to nix transit to nicer neighborhoods for fear of introducing a “bad element”.
Encourage people who employ low-skilled labor to train, advance and provide a living wage and health care for their employees. Discourage the current “disposable labor force”.
[/ul]
First, I want to thank treis and Blake for posts 4 and 5, which honestly made me change the way I think about what it means to be poor. I never realized just how difficult it would be to “get out” and how little exposure poor kids have to the possibilities that are suposed to help them.
I don’t have a lot to add to this (having no real experience with the kind of poverty in question) but for those of you who have been there: Okay, so we need outside propoganda and changes with education. What works, exactly? Are there any success stories (community, not personal)? If you had unlimited money (ha), what would you do?
Note: Post quoted out of order for clarity of response.
**
Blake said:**
I couldn’t agree more, and as I said I think your original post was dead on. I think it accurately describes the ‘situation’ in the inner cities.
We are in agreement as to the children.
And…you’ve suggested some problems and solutions in very global terms (which is fine because this has been so far a global discussion) but all of those problems/solutions have been government issues. (which as you’ve asked, I’ll quote below)
“The only solution is making opportunities like the opportunity to enforce basic labour conditions or the opportunity to attend college truly open to poor people. Not just hypothetically available as it is today, not ‘avialable’ like the opportunity to become President is ‘available’. Truly and honestly available on the sense that if a poor person wants to do it they can do it.”
“People need the opportunity to meet “our” standards to be able to meet “our” standards. I’m amazed that you overlooked that point. You can’t force people to do things they simply have no opportunity to do.”
“Once again though, you overlook the fact that people can’t follow the rules if they have no opportunity to follow the rules.”
My disagreement is that I haven’t seen one comment (if I’ve missed it I’m sorry) that directs any of the culpability towards the adult poor individually or as a community, nor any solutions that are directed at the* individual* or the community.
Well, here: "Making opportunities available to poor people. And I mean making it truly available, not simply hypothetically available. "
In** post 14** you list 4 statements in quotes that are all directed at the individual, and accepting personal responsibility for their future. Yet you urinate all over them (FTR, I’m hard pressed to buy them as written) You call all of them ‘platitudes’.
You follow with 4 (presumably more pertinent) questions, that while vague,are geared towards programs and/or government involvement of one sort or another.
So, yea, I think you’re portaying the poor as victims.
Let me ask you, can you show me anything you’ve said in this thread that is directed at the [adult] individual that addresses failure on their part, nor any toward the community? What about solutions—any directed toward the individual or the community?
Agreed. But I haven’t seen any culpability, (like Little Nemo suggests) ,or solutions, assigned to the individual, not have I seen any directed towards the community.
Since you didn’t ask me those question and you didn’t ask me to alleviate the problem, quit whining. I only answer the questions put to me if and when I choose. I do not answer the questions you would prefer me to answer but have not asked.
In any event, your response betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of my answer. First, re-read it. Then consider that there’s a difference between saying that the solution is for the afflicted individuals to develop the skills, knowledge base, and other requirements neccessary for success and “to quit suffering from the problem.” I hardly claim that it’s an overnight process.
More to the point, you have no actual argument against me. That fact that you don’t like that I might be correct doesn’t mean I am wrong. The mere fact that the consequences of my opinion are not those you enjoy does not mean I am wrong.
Money is easy to provide, but no program can pull people out. They must push themselves or be pushed by relatives and mentors. The problem is not money or government assistance, it’s imagination and support. And governments cannot make those things. Parents, eductors, and friends don’t have to be brilliant or rich to help, but they do have to care. Bureaucrats and even school counselors can’t really encourage someone to be all they can be (to borrow the old Army saying).
That’s why the military has been pretty good for the poor. Aside from learning discipline, if neccessary, it really encourages people to be the absolute best. More to the point, it creates new formal and informal social bonds with a new network of encouragement and support.
I keep reading where people say that children are largely blameless for being in poverty. Understandably, I agree; This is not much of a surprise.
But I am going to put forth the somewhat controversial notion that grown-ass adults living in poor areas and coming from generational poverty are oftentimes largely blameless for being in poverty, too. How can you expect different?
Living in a “civilized” capitalist society, without a basic work ethic, responsible parenting skills, money management or time management, the default condition is poverty. That’s why most of these folks are working class, poor, homeless or living below the poverty line in the prison system. You have to be taught to how to acquire wealth, how to manage money, how and why you must delay gratification, how to upgrade job skills, how to assume self-control, when to assume responsibility or how to legally abdicate it. People who do not learn these skills will end up prosecuted, legally discriminated against, personally frustrated and poor, even if they come from middle class values. Most people who are poor never undestand, nor have the benefit of intimately learning and being modeled middle class values, have never learned the skills needed to survive middle class mores, just as most people who have been brought up rich would never survive extended poverty.
Put it another way: parents are your children’s first teachers. If parents do not communicate the importance of learning a basic work ethic, responsible parenting skills, money management or time management, chances are excellent kids will ignore their working class teachers and end up poor and swept up in the prison system.
If I seem to be disproportionately interested in getting the government involved, its because I honestly believe its the government’s ethical obligation to serve the interests of ALL poor Americans when it comes to issues like poverty, food, disaster-relief, shelter, response to and prevention of crime and mass education, whereas charitable organizations (corporations, ideological political lobbies, faith-based initiatives and the like) can choose to deal with whomever they consider their own constituents, based on their own guidelines. It’s great if charitable organizations contribute substantially in addition to the government, but I’d much rather see my tax dollars go toward a well-run organization with an definite agenda, and my charitable dollars go to well-run charities. Of course, I think most governmental agencies need to have project time limits (affirmative action programs should no longer be open-ended), personnel service limits (no more than, say, five years in a particular branch or division) and periodic customer service assessments (quarterly, every year) in order to avoid becoming intractable beauracrices. That’s another issue.
I teach in an inner high city school, and I see many of the problems Blake has suggested. What hasn’t been discussed, is that high school is too late. By the time they get to us, most of them are so behind on skills that even our honor roll seniors can’t get high enough scores on their ACTs to get into our state colleges and need to go to junior college first. They can’t read for content, and they can’t write. I used to get mad at their middle school and elementary school teachers but i finaly have realised the problem is the same one I face every day.
Most days I have about 60% attendance in any given class. They aren’t the same 60% from day-to-day though. There are 3 or 4 who are never there and 3 or 4 who are always there, but the rest are in flux. How do you do long range planning that involves building on the material from the day before or the week before; and what is writing if not that? It winds up a balancing act trying to make sure most of the class has most of the material they need but we wind up going alot slower than we should be, and don’t cover some portion of the material we should.
Households in poverty are always in crisis it seems. Things that can be solved pretty easily with a little cash create constant turmoil. When education is not a family priority that seems to be among the first things to get jettisoned, so kids miss school because the car is broken, or mom lost her job, or because it is raining. It isn’t just that kid that suffers though, the whole class does. By the time they wind up in high school they are missing years worth of work. They also don’t really know how to behave in school or in a classroom.
I don’t know how to fix it. No Child Left Behind is not an answer. It puts a bandaid over a festering sore, trapping the poison within. My city is playing with issuing tickets to parents for truancy, but they seem to be focusing on high school, I think that is the wrong end.
My own opinion is that if students can’t read, research and write a decent college-level essay by tenth grade using post-collegiate language, realistically-- they need to prepare for military, labor or service work.
On the other hand, it’s not too late for high school age students to have in their curriculum a realistic andragogical approach to fundamental life skills: time management, money management, critical reading skills, basic writing skills, basic arithmetic, standardized (timed) test taking skills, parenting classes, sex education, some basics in the law, utility payments, common consumer scams, building a support group and yes, (I hate to admit this) be well-versed in the options of military service or at least Americorps community service .
Stop focussing on a defunct middle class educational paradigm. It’s probably too late by eighth grade unless there’s some massive culture shock like what Ebert discusses in the documentary Boys of Baraka.
Beyond what it says there is no real short answer. It varies widely depending on precisely what opportunities we are talking about. If you wanted a universal representation then the opportunity has to be not just known to the kids, but know to be available to the kids and known to be taking place in a safe environment.
To give one example, when I was at school there were some extra-curricular activities that I could potentially have availed myself of. Those opportunities all existed potentially, but most programs were scheduled to take place at the school, after school hours. How exactly does a child of a single mother attend such programs? Nobody has a car, the mother can’t sit and wait for 4 hours with other children at home and a child can’t travel alone after dark in these neighbourhoods. So the programs were for all intents and purposes not available to me. They were available ‘in practice’ as Treis keeps saying. But to me they simply were not available.
That is the sort of thing I mean when I say “truly and honestly available to a kid in the ghetto”. Basically for a program to be truly available to child in poverty it has to include everything. That means meals, transport to and from, someone to do most of the paperwork and so on. Simply setting up a remedial reading class or an extracurricular science club that is open to all comers does not make the program practically open to the poor.
It’s obviously necessary to advertise that the college exists and that financial aid is available. We couldn’t claim it was available otherwise. But then we get back to the point I mentioned in my first post. It can be hard to wrap your head around, but when you have lived your entire life in poverty you develop a mindset that says that these things simply don’t apply to you. Even if you see the advertisements they are no more directed at you then the advertisements for luxury cars. They simply serve to inform you that such a things exist for other people.
It may be this college has managed to find a way to overcome that, I certanly hope so. It’s been over 10 years since I was in that situation and over 15 years since I was in high school. But the point is that advertising the existence of something is not the same as advertising its existence for poor people. All sorts of things are advertised, but even things that are mundane for most of the population are unobtainable luxuries for those in poverty.
That’s true in the example you provide where most students at an inner city school plan to attend college. But I doubt if most inner city schools have a 45% college application rate.
Unfortunately there is a lot of that goes on. I’ve also known children who have been all but forbidden form going to college by their parents. Obviously those sorts of situations are pretty much a guarantee of failure. The problem we then have to address why the parents believe that college education has no value. Maybe that problem is insoluble in some cases, but experience tells me that most parents believe that college because they have never seen it work for anyone and as a result believe they are just setting their kids up for disappointment and another 4 years of work for nothing.
I have no idea if that is justified. I have no idea what the graduation rate is for children of poverty attending colleges, or what their employment prospects are like, but there is certainly a feeling that it is often a waste of time to attend community colleges.
In a nutshell you need to have someone explain to the child what is involved and what the benefits are, in terms the child understands. Then you need to have someone explain the same to the parents, in person. Then you need to cover 100% of the costs involved. Not just the costs of the actual program/activity but the cost of transport, any special materials needed, any meals required and so forth.
It seems pathetic but you basically need to take total responsibility for the kids from the time the walk out the font door to the time they get home. Even looking back on it now that seems weird to me, but that’s thew ay it is for most poor people. My mother wasn’t illiterate, but she wasn’t a strong reader either, Any material sent home that wasn’t very clear that an activity was 100% free etc. would be put into the ‘we’ll see category’. Looking back now I know that was because my mother was embarrassed to admit she didn’t understand. She didn’t want herself or me to face the humiliation and disappointment of signing up for something and then finding out later that the ‘small print’ said that money was involved or that it was after hours or that additional material was required that we just couldn’t afford and that I couldn’t go. So when in doubt it wasn’t for us. Because that’s what life teaches you.
And many of these parents are genuinely illiterate. Anything opportunity for poor kids that is advertised mainly in writing is pointless. It may as well exist on the moon.
And that’s only the basic level required to make these oportunities accesible.
What works? Well to this point obviously nothing works. That’s; why we still have the problem, no? Sven has mentioned a lot of the big picture factors that have to be changed. That doesn’t mean that changing those things will work, but we can be fairly sure that if they aren’t changed nothing will work.
Are there any community success stories? Not that I know of. But it would be hard to actually pin down even if they existed. Realistically no community is going to have 100% success in one generation. Instead you would find that at best 25% of a community would ‘get out’ each generation and the community would gradually evaporate over a century or so.
What would I do if I had unlimited money? Start by hiring case workers for every single child living in poverty. Not case workers for the parents but for the children. Find out what each individual child needs. Work on changing the child’s perceptions about what is possible. Give the children every opportunity that is available to wealthier children. That would be a good start.
No, in fact not one of them has been solely a government issue. Juts look at the examples you posted:
The opportunity to enforce basic labour condition. The formation of Unions is a community issue, not government. Pro bono legal work is a company or individual issue, not a government one. Those are the main things needed to give poor people the opportunity to enforce basic labour conditions. Government certainly could provide more free legal, but in no way did I imply that it should. And of course government can’t provide a union, although it could provide favourable industrial legislation.
The opportunity to attend college. A heck of a complex issue, but once again community groups, churches, charities and individuals to act as mentors have at least as big a role o play here as government. Yes government has a role to play. That does not justify your claim that this is a government issue.
The opportunity to meet “our” standards. About as broad as you can get. This is a problem for churches, charities, communities, individuals, corporations, law enforcement, justice system and yes of course, government.
Your claim that all those problems are government issues has no basis in reality. Can you perhaps explain to us why you believe that governments must play a larger role in solving those problems than charities, community groups and individuals?
Prior to this post I haven’t directed culpability towards anybody. While it’s true that I haven’t directed culpability towards the adult poor individually I equally haven’t directed culpability towards the churches, the charities, the corporations, the government or the individual adult rich.
This is an issue where ‘directing culpability’ is at best pointless, and usually counterproductive. Nobody is blameless in producing this situation and as I stated earlier, we are all victims of this mess as well. ‘Directed culpability’ in these situations is meaningless. Everybody is culpable, me, you and ‘the adult poor individuals’ no more or less than anyone else.
Raindog you
Riiiight. That’s because they are platitudes or bland truisms. Do you really disagree that “The solution to the poor getting out of the ghetto is for the poor to learn how to get out of the ghetto” is anything but a platitude? Calling such ‘solutions’ platitudes in no way evidence for your claim that I all of those problems/solutions have been government issues with government solutions.
No, that simply isn’t true. No matter how hard I try I can’t even twist that meaning out of my post with effort.
Please explain where you see the use of the word ‘government’ implye din the questions I asked, as opposed to churches, charities, community groups, individuals or any of a plethora of other entities.
Perhaps you could explain to us why you feel this strong need to be directing culpability towards anyone? How is this in any way useful when addressing the global problem?
Raindog you seem to believe that every social issue is one that has to be solved by government. You are entitled to that opinion of course (and it might make an interesting debate in another thread) but I don’t; agree with that viewpoint. So please stop saying that I do agree with you. I never said that government has responsibility fo all social problems. In fact I never even used the word government before you introduced it.
You also seem to feel that these problems can only be addressed by laying blame. And you seem to believe that since I have studiously avoided blaming anyone I must therefore by absolving poor adults of any blame. Once again, that is purely the result of you projecting your views onto my posts and beliefs. I of course neither posted nor believed any such thing.