Re: Bush Strums as New Orleans drowns

On 21 Sep 2005 18:41:37 -0500, David Dyer-Bennet <dd-b@xxxxxxxx>
wrote:

>I could be a lot more comfortable with the libertarians if they didn't
>seem to largely take the position that poverty is a voluntary choice,

How do you define "voluntary choice"?

If I might recommend some reading, I would suggest that you take a
look at either _Code of the Street_ or _Streetwise_, by Elijah
Anderson. He's not one of those EvilRightWingers, so you won't
contaminate yourself reading him. In fact, if I had to guess, I'd
guess that he's left of center.

In any case, he's an African American sociologist who's written fairly
extensively about the oppositional subculture that's developed among
the black underclass. I don't think that anybody wakes up in the
morning and says "hey, I want to be poor and destitute my whole life!"
But I do think that there are indeed attitudes and behaviors which
make poverty far more likely, and that these attitudes and behaviors
have been subsidized by the welfare state. Changes in cultural and
social norms are also relevant, but, again, I think that many of those
changes are in part the result of well-intentioned liberals.

>and trying to help just encourages it. I find it shameful that
>there's a serious chance that a child born into the greatest nation in
>the world (yeah, I buy into some of that) has a significant chance of
>being uneducable by the time they reach school age due to malnutrition
>and probably abuse and a generally improverished environment. It's

If it's true, it's not because the parents lack the raw resources to
feed their small children a nutritionally-adequate diet. Food stamps
and WIC provide enough for somebody who cares to do that. If the
parents fail to give their kid adequate nutrition, it's because they
have bad habits and a short time horizon. Giving them extra money
won't make their habits any better, and, depending on how things are
structured, might make them worse.

Would you favor interventions which would actually work under such
circumstances? For example, you could require that all parents with
incomes below a certain dollar figure present their children for
inspection by state-appointed pediatricians on a regular basis. If
the pediatrician believe malnutrition was likely, the child could be
taken away and given to a middle class couple. Would you favor such
an intervention?

>also terribly expensive; human capital is the most important kind in
>the information age.

That I agree with you on.
--

Pete McCutchen
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: OT: ..Congress can power the country.
    ... Start if we could just convince poverty level parents to get married, ... and get jobs. ... and people of extremely limited intelligence. ...
    (rec.outdoors.rv-travel)
  • We (as adults) are creating a generation condemned to second class citizens
    ... No breakfast, no transport, no electricity, no running water, no pocket ... going children in Zimbabwe. ... Those living in absolute poverty lack the resources to live. ... Parents under ...
    (soc.culture.zimbabwe)
  • Re: before katrina
    ... it would "help" if the parents knew better what the consequences are of not getting a good education. ... I grew up in the poverty produced by the great depression and it motivated me to *not* be poor. ...
    (soc.retirement)
  • Re: before katrina
    ... it would "help" if the parents knew better what the consequences are of not getting a good education. ... I grew up in the poverty produced by the great depression and it motivated me to *not* be poor. ...
    (soc.retirement)
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