Ghettos—Cause and Reduction/Elimination
This topic is proving to be long so I will break it up into one session reading lengths.
While my career and lifestyle provided me meaningful contact with ghetto life, it would be an exaggeration to pretend that this refers to the most incorrigible ghetto elements. What I can attest to is that some of those who live in ghettos were some of the most honest, dependable, forthright, personable, co-operative, least prejudiced, hard working, generous, sympathetic to others, open-minded, emotionally stable individuals with whom I have ever met. Thus, I approach this topic somewhat from experience, but only with limited range of exposure to the underbelly of ghettos. This is a huge topic, one which clearly would require a life’s work to become an expert, if that is even possible.
So I will approach this by first gathering as many facts about ghettoes as I can, then try to assemble the facts into some sort of reasoned analysis about the topic. With google, facts are easy to find these days, that is—if the sources are really factual. The latter is no easy task. We can do our best to gather facts from responsible government or legitimate research studies. The trick here is to avoid studies by known political think tanks, biased self interest groups, or the obvious political hucksters—perhaps like me, spending a lifetime expressing opinions on all aspects of life. Ideally, every factual source would be listed. Doing this would quadruple the time to complete this musing as well as double the length. This is a major limitation for any reader. On the other hand, any reader is free to google their own search about any stats listed. And of course, no one is obligated to buy into any opinions in any musings I write—it is assumed any reader will be free to arrive at any differing conclusions dependent on the quality of experience and research they have on the topic. It would be helpful I suppose, if I allowed comments on individual musings. But then again I don’t want to provide yet another outlet for people to spew forth with emotional toxic venom about ethnic, cultural, religious, political, economic classes they hate with an irrational passion. Most responses to internet articles are nothing more than short, shallow emotional toxic tweets. I know, this is oft more tolerable than lengthy musings such as I write. But I remind others that these musings are written for my own benefit, there is no attempt to seek out, attract, or imply that others cannot differ and have their own conclusions. The only benefit anyone could gain from any of my musings is simply food for thought.
So what is the definition of a ghetto? “a part of a city, especially a slum area, occupied by a minority group or groups.” I am going to alter this definition for the purpose of this musing to “a slum area of any urban, suburban, or rural community.” The rationale here is that any slum area is controlled by the same forces regardless of ethnic background of the inhabitants.
“How many Americans live in slums? The number of people living in high-poverty areas—defined as census tracts where 40 percent or more of families have income levels below the federal poverty threshold—nearly doubled between 2000 and 2013, to 13.8 million from 7.2 million, according to a new analysis of census data by Paul Jargowsky, a public-policy professor at Rutgers University-Camden and a fellow at The Century Foundation. That’s the highest number of Americans living in high-poverty neighborhoods ever recorded. The development is worrying, especially since the number of people living in high-poverty areas fell 25 percent, to 7.2 million from 9.6 million, between 1990 and 2000”
“Out of the original 800 public school children he started with, 33 moved from low-income birth family to a high-income bracket by the time they neared 30. Alexander found that education, rather than giving kids a fighting chance at a better life, simply preserved privilege across generations. Only 4 percent of the low-income kids he met in 1982 had college degrees when he interviewed them at age 28, whereas 45 percent of the kids from higher-income backgrounds did. “The implication is where you start in life is where you end up in life,” Alexander said in a press release. “It’s very sobering to see how this all unfolds.”
Before going any further, this confirms some simple facts. Noone chooses to be born in a ghetto. No one chooses the kind of parent(s) they will have. Noone chooses what kind of schools they attend when a child, or what kind of teachers they will have, or the kind of health care received, and so on. The above data confirms what we probably suspected; that only 4% end up by age thirty in higher income brackets. This puts in perspective the obnoxious statement: “I achieved my economic status the old fashioned way, I earned it.” Wouldn’t it be nice, if when we hear this blather, we could press a button and have them start over their life in a ghetto. Even then they would still have whatever genetic advantages they possess.
Next, let’s envision what a child needs at the start of their life:
good genes
good parents
good health care
good schools
good teachers
healthy diets
safe environment at home, at school, and out in the neighborhood
It seems obvious enough that a child cannot effectuate any of the above. The next question is why don’t more of these children, seeing what life is about all around them and becoming aware via the media how other people live, just take a deep breath and make sure they are prepared to escape after their formative years? We all have known some individuals who grew up in slum areas who were determined to escape and did. I guess this proves that some do escape. But only 4% or some other more factual number ever do escape.
To proceed further we need to understand a principle well documented in Biology 101. Namely, no species can survive in a healthy fashion when that species suffers overpopulation. We are overpopulated right now—that is to say we do not have, at the present time, enough natural resources to enable all humans on the globe to live a lifestyle many Americans do right now. If the population doubles again, as it has in my lifetime, the price to pay for most humans will be unthinkable. It already is for 75 million global refugees, many of the residents of our own ghettos, and most of the global workforce. In most any logical and scientific analysis, certain assumptions need be made at the start.
Here are the assumptions at the start:
1. Wherever there is a gift there must be a gift giver. I call the gift giver of our Universe God.
2. If the human species cannot, in the nearest of futures, learn to control it’s own global population growth, than debates about other issues are moot, including what to do about human ghettos.
3. In other musing I have stated the case for believing God is the author of the rules which govern the evolutionary process, and that there is no evidence God ever suspends any of the rules in favor of any species or individual members of any species.
Ok, so what then do we do about the ever increasing size of human ghettos across the globe.?
We could all pray to God to eliminate them or expect the inhabitants to pray to God to help them.
This seems not to be working. Millions of people pray God to help them get out of a ghetto of some sort and millions of people pray that God will help the less fortunate, the poor, the sick, etc.
Ironically billions of people pray for God’s help getting a job, getting well from sickness, winning a game, passing a test, right on down to asking God’s blessing for someone who sneezes. What group is given exemption from any of these situations? And if God’s favorite group or groups don’t get their prayers answered any more often than other groups, just exactly whose prayers is God Answering?
Thus, it seems logically clear that we can’t do anything about who gets whose genes. We can’t do anything about the parents of any children. We cannot decide which kids get born into what neighborhood.
Suggesting that the poor people in ghettos need to help themselves is a useless and silly notion. If it is not a silly notion than we need to sit down with each child in the ghetto and explain to him that his life will be better if he/she goes to different schools, gets better health care, has better job opportunities. lives in a safer neighborhood, and so on. “It’s your choice kid, and if you refuse to make these improvements, you are most likely destined to be ghetto bound till death do you part.
Another assumption is needed to be made here. Humans cannot know much about God. If we say God can do anything we are saying what we obviously don’t know. If we say God can do only this or that we don’t know what the this and thats really are. If God can do anything then why the hell didn’t He/She make everything perfect from the start? If He could have, but didn’t, doesn’t that make him a tad sadistic? All we can know, and only by logic, is that it must be God’s laws which govern the evolutionary process. In the end of course, our own comprehension limit prevents any possible answer as to “where did God come from”? Something coming from ‘nothing’ is way above our heads.
If our government is the only tool of our society which can eliminate or reduce in size our urban, suburban, and rural ghettos, then what exactly is government to do? Right away it gets complicated since we have local government, state, government, and national government. On top of that where is the money going to come from? Finally there is the common attitude amongst us that we earned our wealth and we are not interested in having our excess wealth taken from us and given to those who did not earn it.
This brings up another assumption needed in order to proceed. The needs of the entire society trump the needs or demands of individuals in that society. Thus, when anyone says they have the ‘right’ to control how many kids they bring into this world, it is poppycock since overpopulation is a dire threat to any species and like it or not, no individual can be allowed to procreate at will. And as a corollary here, if the government is going to ensure level playing fields for all kids in areas like health care, schools, job opportunities, safe neighborhoods, and so on—then the government has to put limits on just how many children a particular person can “enter” into this system. Some will immediately say that if they can afford to raise ten kids themselves and pay extra to the government then that should be their right. Of course it is not since the entire goal is to prevent human overpopulation.
It thus would seem at this point, employing logic as our guide, that since government is responsible, in the last analysis, for the kind of communities which are part of government domain—then we now need to list exactly how the government can level the playing field for all citizens, and especially all children. Some will quickly assert that if government is going to take care of all basic needs for everyone, then why will anyone work? They will just sit back and wait for all this ‘welfare’ to arrive and be a couch potato the rest of their lives, at least until the bars and nightclubs open. each night.
The word welfare is conveniently defined by most people as a source of help someone else gets which they themselves don’t get. In reality, all these basic needs given to any child is welfare from somewhere/someone to the child in question. In affluent families the parents are the source. Without spending time here on the topic of welfare, we do need mention that food stamps are welfare, housing subsidies are welfare, unemployment benefits are welfare, tax breaks are welfare, tax exemptions are welfare, tax shelters are welfare, good insurance premiums are welfare, inheritance is welfare, and on and on it goes. The total amount of welfare I have received in my lifetime, considering all the above, if far more than the welfare received of most anyone in a ghetto.
Another assumption to be made here at this point is that competition is good providing the playing field is made as level as possible. Government can’t change genetics, personalities, the amount of luck someone gets, the different priorities a person sets, where people are born, and so on. Seeking wealth or fame or power, or pleasure, etc. are not sins or evil or the work of the Devil. What the government can do and should do is to establish limits to the things mentioned here. The accumulation of wealth should have limits—precisely because it is damaging to the future of any society to let money accumulate in the hands of genetic cabals. There will always be the poor, the middle class, and the wealthy as long as there is such diversity of human beings. What changes when the playing fields are made as level as possible is how many advance in wealth, power, pleasure, etc.
It interests me that government uses test to determine who graduate from high school, can drive a car, can be a nurse, a policeman, and just about every occupation that requires some skills, and yet anyone can become a parent. It even gets worse. If a crack-head single gal wants an abortion because she sees clearly enough through her mental fog that she is not in a position to have a baby, the pro lifers want to force her to go through with the pregnancy. Pro life is a good state of mind if that extends to everyone throughout their life, not just their life in the womb. The day a baby to the crack head mother is born most pro-lifers disappear like thin air, at no time to give second thoughts about the prenatal child they sincerely thought so special. That’s just weird and astonishingly disingenuous.
Thus, males and females need to be licensed in order to legally have children. There ought to be certain evaluations throughout that child’s formative years to ensure the child is getting minimal support in various ways. The cost of education should borne by the federal government with the same amount of money available to spend on each child each year. Local control of how that money gets spent is good since those communities wich instill the better educational programs will find other communities following suit. Local control would mean all the parents who have kids in a certain system. Some will say, “I can afford that my kids have a swimming pool, and other non educational amenities”. Fine, they can form a private club to provide such amenities for their children. It seems oxymoronic to debate whether all children deserve good schools and good teachers. What did any child do to deserve less in this area than other children?
We now have another assumption to make here: whenever an individual or group becomes strong enough, they more often than not play God and decides which of God’s ‘children’ get which of the basic needs of life and to what extent—and these self-appointed Gods will use their own self-interest and ‘family values’ to ensure their own selves and families, religions, and economic group get all sorts of ‘welfare’ which gives them and their group endless advantages.
Now another assumption: The greatest ethical society is created when the maximum number of citizens practice the Golden Rule the maximum number of times. This is the one universal ethical principle and the one which is win/win for both parties involved. End Part 1
