re: Dennis Prager on why poverty does NOT cause crime

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i'm lucky that my big learning experience failure was an international sports website that i lost only like a grand (and time).

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mine was buying a failing restaurant. was young and stupid and didn't know shite. thought i could turn it around on my name alone. ended up losing about $75,000. i was actually lucky i was able to get out when i did because it could've been alot worse

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According to a recent Census Bureau report, 80.9 percent of households below the poverty level have cellphones.

When the left talks about the poor, they don’t mention these statistics because what matters to the left is inequality, not poverty.

But that is another subject. Our subject is the question: Given these statistics, why do the poor who commit violent crime do so? Clearly it is not because they lack the basic necessities of life.

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Kind of undermines Prager's Grandpa Boomer schtick when a cell phone is part of the "basic necessities of life," and not, let's say, rent, or food, or medical care.

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yeah i could be living in germany with a hot gf like karma

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o

Would lammo have to be your dad too?

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Poverty does not cause crime, lack of opportunity causes crime.

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And i know the left love to hate Sean Hannity, but his "get America back to work" campaign has been a success. A guy called in a few days ago and he said he heard about the opportunities in North Dakota. Said he and his family moved there and he went from being unemployed to making 127k/year.

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I definitely would agree but the reality is the opportunities are likely going to just be more of the same. Not a real chance to get ahead.

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What do you consider an opportunity, and what do you consider "getting ahead"? The majority of Americans are in debt. The majority of Americans do not have sufficient savings for retirement. The majority of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.

Acting like everyone besides the extremely impoverished are on some other level of riches that cannot be obtained by poor folks is silly. You're describing something that only a small portion of Americans accomplish. People in poverty can obtain middle class status fairly easily if they try. We're not talking about rising from the ghetto to be the next Donald Trump.

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On the other hand, you have a point - cocaine is cocaine and the effect of treating crack like heroin resulted, particularly at the street dealer level and the megapossession ("with intent") in disparate treatment between powder cocaine users/dealers and crack user/dealers.

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Even with simple possession as well (despite roughly the same levels of usage between crack and cocaine).

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Meh. There was no genocide. There was no extermination. There wasn't even ethnic cleansing (although barriers were fairly well maintained) - it was an apartheid, legal, instutional, no question. It was barbaric.

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So state-sponsored terror is defined as genocide?

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But the authorities tried actively to root out the terror elements and there was steady progress through much of the 20th Century towards Civil Rights reform

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Boy that is an awfully charitable reading of history - particularly towards the south. They were dragged - kicking and screaming - to the CRA in the mid-60's...and then really only because it impaired our Cold War position which is what got Kennedy on board.

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Do I want to talk about solutions going forward? Yes. Do you? I'm not certain. It seems that you and others want to dwell on festering wounds, pick at scabs and put off the healing process as long as possible on principle.

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As I've said on here before, it has to go like this if it's going to work:

American society must admit to and actually acknowledge its history of race terrorism. Honestly. That means when someone says "Jim Crow", you don't get a kneejerk "yeah, but Irish need not apply" in response. It means simply admitting the plain facts that blacks were terrorized, brutalized, ghettoized and impeded socially and economically for many many decades.

Next, American society must admit that the literal centuries of this sort of treatment brings with it - BY DEFINITION - lasting social impact which manifests itself decades later. This means acknowledging such things as the multi-generational wealth gap which was intentionally created and from which modern blacks now suffer from.

Then and only then can we ever talk about any real solutions. And part of the solution will also be admitting that racism (and it's historical echoes) is still alive and well.

I've also said that I don't know if there is a "solution". I think all of this ugliness is our country's original sin and is perhaps permanent in its effect (which makes sense since it was so evil and ugly.)

My ears are open to honest-minded discourse and solution. However, I shut down when I see people actively waiting for the state to kill rioters.

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Anyway, what causes crime?

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Dysfunctional culture.

a. Stealing is good.
b. Being caught is bad.
c. Take care yo bidness (fighting).

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Poor people are not all "lazy." That's a bullshite argument. Some of them are, but many are simply behaving rationally in terms of maximizing what they have. They are avoiding the risky behavior of taking chances that could potentially yield great success or, alternatively, great failure.

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Poor people are indeed lazy. They would rather take welfare than take the risk of getting up before noon.