[quote]vroom wrote:
Dammit Reddog, I don’t think I’m going to find a way to disagree with you on this one!
Anyway, there are many ways to attempt to insert the proper incentives to spur people to take charge of generating their own achievements – other than simply turning off the spigot completely. [/quote] No, not completely, but welfare & the war on poverty is clearly not the solution. [quote]
Poor people, white, black or otherwise, need to unlearn the hopelessness that their parents and community drill into them.
This is true for fat people, who need to unlearn the unhealthy eating and lifestyle habits that were drilled into them as well.
It is an instinct to continue to do things that appear to “work” for us. We eat the same foods, we follow the same habits, we use the same strategies.
I know it isn’t universal, there are exceptions, but by and large people learn the habits that will guide their lives unless something happens to shake them out it.
Some things that many poor children probably didn’t learn:
- How to manage your money.
- How to take charge of your future.
- How to start a business.
- How to manage employees.
- How to climb the corporate ladder.
- How to buy a house.
- How to exercise self-discipline.
I may be wrong, but if people don’t know how to do something, the odds of them going out and doing it will be greatly lowered. The world is pretty damned difficult to succeed in if nobody taught you the skills that help you succeed.
We can sit around and bitch about the fact that poor people don’t spontaneously realize what it is that is holding them back and correct it, or we can break down some barriers and make it easier to pick up and apply these skills.
Obviously, I’m not talking about handing out cash for sitting on your ass.
I guess I’m probably talking about making it possible for people that have grown up and found that their childhood has given them nothing useful to get what they need to succeed.
You know… we all do it to one degree or another. We grow up and figure out that life sucks because we have to go to work every day, we have to pay our own rent, we have to buy our own food. In short, we suddenly understand that we want a better life and only those of us that made good decisions at an early age will have the needed skills.
The decisions made at that early age will be influenced by our parents and by others in our community. They will often be very poor decisions. Why do we force people making bad decisions up until the age of 18 to live with the consequences. They were not responsible adults at the time the decisions were made. They didn’t choose to have parent that didn’t have the ability to make them successful in society.
Anyway, I’m not talking about some big handout or anything like that. I’m talking about giving people that are able to prove themselves by showing desire and dedication some additional opportunies to pick up their needed skills.
It is in our own financial interest to do this… whenever a member of society is willing to work hard and elevate themselves. An elevated person passes on their knowledge and attitudes to their children – breaking the chain of poverty and dependence and demonstrating to others that it can be done.
In the past, segments of society have been sunk, stripped of skills and independence, denied of opportunity and now we complain because they aren’t spontaneously lifting themselves back up. They didn’t put themselves down there on their own and they shouldn’t have to life themselves up by entirely their own efforts alone either.
When people reach up, of any race, we need to help pull them up… without creating dependency on handouts or any other disincentives.
What programs out there do this now?[/quote]
Rev. Peterson’s B.O.N.D. is a start. Having popular culture glorify drug use & violent crime is a step backwards. Jesse Jackson’s brand of racism is also a step backwards.