Hamas endorses Obama

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by shinerbock

I'm not overly fond of the argument that poverty is a valid excuse for crime....

No one said that in this thread and people who say that in real life are confusing the issue.

Poverty is a correlate of crime. It doesn't cause it and therefore doesn't "explain" it.

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by shinerbock

I'm not sure I've ever heard someone overtly say that crime is excusable because of poverty, but I've heard people come close. When you say that reducing poverty is necessary to reduce crime, it removes responsibility from those who've chosen to break the law, and I simply won't support that. How about we try and reduce poverty by helping people, and crime by punishing people?

How about we stop creating these distinctions for social issues that are so intertwined. We don't have to pick and choose. A mixture of addressing poverty and inequality in education along with holding people accountable for their actions will suffice. But people are so bent on these bullcrap liberal (address the root causes and potentially raise taxes) vs. conservative (blame people so we don't have to raise taxes for what's a personal problem) loyalties that they won't push to integrate these approaches. That's too much like right.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by shinerbock

I'm not sure I've ever heard someone overtly say that crime is excusable because of poverty, but I've heard people come close. When you say that reducing poverty is necessary to reduce crime, it removes responsibility from those who've chosen to break the law, and I simply won't support that. How about we try and reduce poverty by helping people, and crime by punishing people?

Are poverty and crime correlated? Sure. Do they have to be? No.

In an ideal world, you're right.

However, explaining something, particularly from a sociological/psychological perspective isn't the same as excusing it and I think that's a difficulty that people really have in these discussions. Explaining why a man murders his wife and children by looking at his past, his environment, his own psychological status doesn't make it okay. In the end he still chose to act.

Personal responsibility is a problem. However you get a kid who started hanging out with the guys on the corner back when he was 12. He's 17 or 18 and he gets arrested, what do we do with him? If we lock all of those kids up, they're MORE dependent on the state. However we also can't let criminals run free.

That's why I'm suggesting we address the systems in place when that kid was 11. It's the only way out of a no-win situation.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

Both sides get extremely polarized on it.

The idea that just because people are worse off in India and China shouldn't be a way to dismiss the fact that we are richer than those countries per capita and still have people who are starving. I wouldn't care whether it was the government, or charity, or whoever was providing the food, but it is neither or if it's both it isn't enough and that is incredibly tragic.

I guess I'm reluctant to agree that we have people starving who the government could actually help, and I think that our actual problem with food for the poor runs more to problems with their eating foods with high caloric content but not particularly good nutritional value, largely because individuals are provided with choice in the food they get.

The people who are starving are people, as much as I know, who because of their own poor mental health, drug use, or illegal immigration status won't seek the help from the community that is available. I suppose we could add ignorance about the assistance available. For example, we've got free or reduced price lunch programs in every public school, and if the needs at a particular school are high enough, they often have breakfast programs as well. We have food stamps, and charity food banks too.

I think the number of starving people in the US who seek help, especially from government funded social services, who are turned away with no food or referrals to other services is probably really tiny. But if they don't know who to ask or how to get the help, it's hard to figure out how all the social programs, especially bureaucratically administrated government ones, will really make anything better.

You can't give people the large amount of personal freedom that we do and then somehow expect that we can take care of everyone, especially in cases where the local community is unaware of the need.

I stand by my claim that people imagine that the world hates us for the very issues that those individuals don't like about ourselves whatever those might be, and while any of us might disagree with a particular reason or set of reasons, there's no way to know what changes we could make that would make people hate us less.

(In general, I agree that our recent foreign policy makes us seem arrogant. Would you educate me about what debts we haven't paid internationally? If it's anything other than basically funding the UN ourselves, I'm interested in learning about it.)

[shinerbock]

Originally Posted by DSTCHAOS

How about we stop creating these distinctions for social issues that are so intertwined. We don't have to pick and choose. A mixture of addressing poverty and inequality in education along with holding people accountable for their actions will suffice. But people are so bent on these bullcrap liberal (address the root causes and potentially raise taxes) vs. conservative (blame people so we don't have to raise taxes for what's a personal problem) loyalties that they won't push to integrate these approaches. That's too much like right.

I said clearly we should address both issues, but we shouldn't strive to stop one issue as a reason for another. I don't want a society that has low crime simply because poverty has been eliminated. I want this country to have reduced crime resulting from society taking a stand which says there is absolutely no excuse for it.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by shinerbock

I said clearly we should address both issues, but we shouldn't strive to stop one issue as a reason for another. I don't want a society that has low crime simply because poverty has been eliminated. I want this country to have reduced crime resulting from society taking a stand which says there is absolutely no excuse for it.

I'd take low crime because of low poverty, but it wouldn't mean I'd let the few criminals we did have off the hook.

[shinerbock]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

I'd take low crime because of low poverty, but it wouldn't mean I'd let the few criminals we did have off the hook.

I would take it too, but it isn't a "real" fix.

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by shinerbock

I said clearly we should address both issues, but we shouldn't strive to stop one issue as a reason for another. I don't want a society that has low crime simply because poverty has been eliminated. I want this country to have reduced crime resulting from society taking a stand which says there is absolutely no excuse for it.

Huh?

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by shinerbock

I would take it too, but it isn't a "real" fix.

Well, I think it'd would be a fix if it delivered the results, but it's wouldn't be better than a society with low poverty AND a shared sense of ethical behavior and a willingness of its citizens to act on those beliefs.

But we seem to have given up on the idea that we can teach and enforce any uniform sense of citizenship or character.

[shinerbock]

Originally Posted by DSTCHAOS

Huh?

Second sentence got sort of unwieldy.

Option A) Crime is reduced because of efforts made on the poverty front

Option B) Crime goes down because of a societal shift which places pressure on individuals to act responsibly.

I choose option B. Although I would take option A, being satisfied with that isn't enough because it addresses motivations instead of end results.

I care that people are poor. I don't care why they commit crime (I actually do, but not for the purpose of this discussion). I don't care that Cho got made fun of, I don't care that Denmark newspapers ran offensive cartoons. Regardless of alleged motivations, criminal end results are simply unacceptable.

I think we should work on both fronts, and I'm not arguing for a false dichotomy. I realize they're intertwined, but I'd like to see us work toward real solutions for each. Otherwise we end up with one real solution and one temporary solution which is bound for failure when some other stress-inducing catalyst develops.

[shinerbock]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

Well, I think it'd would be a fix if it delivered the results, but it's wouldn't be better than a society with low poverty AND a shared sense of ethical behavior and a willingness of its citizens to act on those beliefs.

But we seem to have given up on the idea that we can teach and enforce any uniform sense of citizenship or character.

Yes I agree absolutely. And you're right, if we could magically cure poverty which is directly correlated to crime, then sure, crime would stay low while poverty was low...until some other prompting event occurs which sparks the underlying issues we haven't been able to resolve.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

I guess I'm reluctant to agree that we have people starving who the government could actually help, and I think that our actual problem with food for the poor runs more to problems with their eating foods with high caloric content but not particularly good nutritional value, largely because individuals are provided with choice in the food they get.

It's not something you agree with or don't, it's fact. You're thinking of a stereotype of urban poor.
http://www.secondharvest.org/who_we_...ger_facts.html
This is about elderly people living on fixed incomes, people who cannot support themselves on the wages available, urban and rural.

The people who are starving are people, as much as I know, who because of their own poor mental health, drug use, or illegal immigration status won't seek the help from the community that is available. I suppose we could add ignorance about the assistance available. For example, we've got free or reduced price lunch programs in every public school, and if the needs at a particular school are high enough, they often have breakfast programs as well. We have food stamps, and charity food banks too.

So the mentally ill don't deserve food? These things are wonderful if you live in a large enough city to support them and have transportation etc. Your perspective is very very focused on one portion of the population. See the links above about people in America who resort to eating clay.

I think the number of starving people in the US who seek help, especially from government funded social services, who are turned away with no food or referrals to other services is probably really tiny. But if they don't know who to ask or how to get the help, it's hard to figure out how all the social programs, especially bureaucratically administrated government ones, will really make anything better.

So you're for the social programs run by the government? And if those aren't adequately meeting the needs of the population you'd be for expanding them so they are?

I stand by my claim that people imagine that the world hates us for the very issues that those individuals don't like about ourselves whatever those might be, and while any of us might disagree with a particular reason or set of reasons, there's no way to know what changes we could make that would make people hate us less.

... I cannot follow that sentence. People in the world hate us for different reasons, but you cannot exclude reasons because they don't fit your worldview.

(In general, I agree that our recent foreign policy makes us seem arrogant. Would you educate me about what debts we haven't paid internationally? If it's anything other than basically funding the UN ourselves, I'm interested in learning about it.)

Monetary as well as other promises we make, but you do realize that 25% of our national debt is in the hands of foreign countries right?

We also do owe the UN 1.246 billion dollars because Congress thinks its fun not to pay in order to try and make the UN do what we want. We currently pay 22% of the UN's budget because they have a "ability to pay" scale. This does not make use "basically funding the UN ourselves"

[shinerbock]

To be fair, the UN's reliance on the United States extends far beyond mere financial support.

For example, they were completely unprepared to take significant action on Iraq, despite a decade of Saddam rebuking their authority. (I'm not arguing the war here, just that the UN has no inherent spine).

Look at today, where the IAEA pitched a fit about Syria, and the US told them to go screw themselves. The world's nuclear agency didn't have the information, so they bitched at the US.

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by shinerbock

Second sentence got sort of unwieldy.

Option A) Crime is reduced because of efforts made on the poverty front

Option B) Crime goes down because of a societal shift which places pressure on individuals to act responsibly.

I choose option B.

It isn't a matter of choice, though.

There is no predicting which crime prevention measure will actually make crime decrease. And there's no way of knowing that Option B works unless evaluations are conducted that determine that it was Option B instead of Option A and/or other factors (stronger family units, decreased structural inequalities, better schooling, etc.).

But like I said implementing a number of crime prevention and control measures provides a holistic approach. We just have to get tax payers to understand that these prevention measures are not free. Even holding individuals accountable through punishment and advancing family values and morality aren't free initiatives.

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by shinerbock

crime would stay low while poverty was low...until some other prompting event occurs which sparks the underlying issues we haven't been able to resolve.

Not guaranteed. But we would be addressing one of the many correlates of crime, plus improving other aspects of this "powerful industrialized, civilized, economically developed, capitalist nation."

We might not have to wait for a prompting event, however, crime rates do respond to economic shifts, imprisonment rates, demographic shifts, and so forth.