They are all crud! I never had and never will believe a word they say.
Take a look at America. These geniuses have ran us 21 trillion in debt. Most big cities are broke along with their schools.
We have a major herion plague with people deficating in the streets.
we have a bogus war going on for 18 years.
We have a government shut down and playing games with impeachment process.
This is why they are politicians! They couldn't produce anything in the private sector,and will never produce in the public sector.
mike although I agree with most of your post you really need to add the word liberal in front of the words big cities and school systems....they have been controlled by libs for generations
Liberal post secondary education system brain washing the masses
After a few generations you see results
mcfarm,
One of the biggest reasons that big cities are controlled by democrats is that lower income people live there and for obvious reasons, lower income people vote for democrats on election day.
Is it then the democratic policies that are causing those poor people to stay poor?
If so, then tell us what republican policies would solve these big city problems. We can say with certainty that having more jobs, a stronger economy and promoting a better business environment are big positives.
But there is education, crime, drugs and most importantly, the role of family/parents and the current environment that they are being raised in.
I take an active role in educating our youth today. They are the future. Lucky for me, most of my volunteering is in school systems with higher education/income parents. These parents have the recipe for success already imprinted in their brains and can pass it on to their children.
But I've done alot of work with low income schools. The contrast with parental involvement compared to high income households is shocking.
At the biggest chess tournament in the southern half of Indiana that I run in March of every year, we get around 25 schools with 200 K-12 kids.
The kids from the 5 schools that I coach chess at almost always have at least 1 parent there with them. In many cases, both parents and even a grand parent or somebody else in the family.
The inner city schools?
Their chess coaches have to rent a bus to transport the kids because most of their parents are doing something else that day.
This is just one example. Which kids do you think are more likely to be successful?
On another level, this one controversial. As a chess coach of 3,000 kids, I am well aware of the differences in cerebral aptitude. Kids that have parents who are engineers and with PhD's or higher educations, usually have higher chess IQ's. You get mommy and daddy's eye and hair color and you inherit their intelligence potential too.
This sounds judgmental or stereotyping or discriminatory but its the opposite with me in practice. I will spend extra time with those struggling to learn chess because each child is unique and blessed with whatever gifts God gave them and we need to develop that to the maximum. They can all be great human beings with productive lives if we give them the chance. Some may be CEO's, others can still find good jobs but are just not cut out to accel in the academic world, often needed for high paying jobs.
This is all great. We need all these people. But the reality, is that more CEO genetics are living in houses in the suburbs, paying the higher taxes that allow those places to afford all the luxuries that the inner cities don't have. This along with parents in those lower income houses NOT having the blue prints to raising successful children(because they weren't raised that way) and you have 2 strikes against inner city children from the time that they are born.
But not 3 strikes because the system does have opportunites for every child, no matter how deficient their support system is..............it's just tougher to hit a home run when the count is 0-2 on you when you come up to bat.
My Dad never met his dad and was raised in the inner city of Detroit.......on welfare some of the time. He become an industrial engineer for Ford(graduated from the University of Detroit) and the best husband and father this world has ever known.
But he only had that 1 strike against him. Dad, at 94 years old is still a very skilled chess player. He has always had an incredibly brilliant mind(and tremendous work ethic).
If not for his gifted mind, I can't see Dad accomplishing what he did. His work ethic, that he learned from Mom busting her butt to raise 4 kids by herself, in an era when men and husbands earned all the money would have meant that he would have had a good job but not been an industrial engineer.
So the point here is that democrats running big cities are working with people that already have 2 strikes against them.
BTW, the kids and schools that I coach chess at do extremely well in tournaments and we always have numerous teams/kids that play in the state championships each March. How much of a role do I play?
I only provide the environment for them to apply their God/parent given, elite potential gifts.
My area of expertise is teaching beginners and helping them work their way up....and constantly assisting non elite level players to become better.
Players that were born to be elite(if they choose) often are so good from the get go that they don't need much motivation and you just give them the opportunities and watch them blossom into the best(always with strong parental support).
Regardless, I'm the lucky one because I get to play a positive role, watching/helping them, knowing them and their wonderful families and they each leave me with another fond memory.
We got some great coverage and pictures from the local newspaper at our tournament earlier this year:
to me MM much of this education debate boils down to competition. Big lib school systems are petrified of simple competition and therefore charter schools are not allowed to spoken of in many areas. Same old large expensive/student over administrated, too politically correct schools systems in our large cities afraid to challenge the youth of today. Heck its so bad currently in our large way too expensive ivy league colleges that Harvard has pandered so blatantly to blacks that Asian students with much higher gpa's and credentials have had to sue to get a fair chance just to enroll. Not that its fair to black kids either who then fail at a higher rate. In short libs have the education system held tightly and will not giver up this strangle hold easily.
My Father was orphaned by time he was 16,immigrated to America in 1941,joined the marines. He served in the pacific,came home to Philly,and guess what? He put himself through LaSalle Univ and became an Industrial Engineer for Burroughs.
Its a common theme,bad politicians give bad parents bad schools
Mikempt,
Your cynicism of politicians is understandable but I would like to push back a bit.
Take the 21 trillion debt as an example.
In my lifetime, when a Democratic politician said we needed to raise taxes to get our fiscal house in order (like Mondale) the voters reject them resoundingly.
When a Republican politician advocates for reducing entitlement programs to get our fiscal house in order they are rejected resoundingly. Even Republican voters want "other people's benefits" cut, NOT their own (70% in recent polls). And, the Trump Republican party isn't even pretending to be fiscally responsible anymore.
So, instead of blaming the politicians, it is clearly the American voter who is getting exactly what they voted for.
Ya know,JOJ,that fiscal incompetence you allude to might just be a result of Trump NOT kicking the can down the road like most other Dems and Cons have done in the past.
Rather than simple maintenance and upgrades of, lets say, existing "infrastructures",replacement is necessary.
Larger $.
John
Is it then the democratic policies that are causing those poor people to stay poor?
MM, I could spend hours on this, but that's not what I do, so I'll summarize.
Ya know what is the single demographic shared by more lower income individuals and career criminals?
They come from single parent lower income homes.. Just about every single one.
Ya know what welfare encourages? Lower income single parent homes. If you are getting welfare and food stamps, you are penalized if you actually get married. So you end up with single moms and sperm donors who work off the books, or maybe part time here and there.. And they get little/no penalty for moving on. Which they often do, leaving young males with no consistent male role model. The asorted role models they have are irresponsible. Granted, welfare is on the federal level, but it is more liberally applied in liberal towns.
Then you have liberal law courts. In Atlanta, (yes, Atlanta is very liberal) a study showed that 80+% of the violent crimes are committed by about 450 individuals... But these poor victims are continuously "treated and released" . Society has been so unfair to them doncha know. Throw in sanctuary cities, and yes, illegal aliens are responsible for more than their fair share of violent crimes. Prison statistics back that up. Violent crime is terrible for business and property values.
Then take cities like Chicago in states like Illinois, where they decide that the shortfall in revenue can only be offset by additional taxes and anti business regulations leading to a max exodus of business and productive citizens.
Throw in "safe injection zones" and free safe hypodermic needles and other pro-homeless policies and you have a place where decent hard workers don't want to be. Vagrants defacting in the streets does not make for a "warm fuzzy".
Then, limit the schools to the political indoctrination centers that they've become and do everything you can to obstruct options, and the productive tax payers will look for better options for their kids.
So yes.. Liberal policies ruin cities. What baffels me is that the people fleeing these liberal hell holes vote for the same sort of politicians that created the hell holes they fled. How weird is that?
very thorough summary Tim
"They come from single parent lower income homes.. Just about every single one.
Ya know what welfare encourages? Lower income single parent homes. If you are getting welfare and food stamps, you are penalized if you actually get married. So you end up with single moms and sperm donors who work off the books, or maybe part time here and there.. And they get little/no penalty for moving on. Which they often do, leaving young males with no consistent male role model. The asorted role models they have are irresponsible."
Tim,
You assume then, that not having welfare, will cause these same people, to get married and not commit crimes and decide to go back in a time machine and have new parents to raise them differently.
So the question really is, what came first. The welfare they received for being this way or the culture that they were raised in that caused them to be this way.
Oh, maybe it was because the grandparent taught the parent to be this way.
If we are going back that far, then we are talking exactly about my Dad. Exactly. Raised by a single Mom with zero child support and zero dad but on welfare in the inner city of Detroit. Turns out, that my Dad was a smashing success. Dad says that being on "The Welfare" as he calls it was a massive embarrassment in those days. They tried to hide it from their classmates/friends. Dad said that all the welfare kids had the same shoes and clothes, so everybody at school knew who they were. One year, when Dad was in 7th grade, his good friend told him about how he was helping the Catholic Church in his parish. They were bringing turkeys to the poor families and his buddy told him "we brought one to your house!" Dad wanted to crawl under a rock!
The system is different today of course and yes, some people use it and it makes it easier to justify not working when you have a safety net that supports you. However, the vast majority of single mom's raising kids did not get that way because of welfare. To suggest otherwise would mean that not having welfare, would cause irresponsible men who don't want to be good fathers or get married .........to turn into good husbands and fathers if only they would get rid of welfare.
You have nailed the problem but are blaming way too much of it on the wrong reason.
Young black males commit violent crimes at a rate(in the study that I sourced a couple of year ago) 6 times higher than young white males. Being raised without a good male role model has alot to do with that. Would taking away welfare cause young black men to suddenly metamorphose into responsible fathers and husbands?
Maybe you think that young black women would stop having sexual relationships or use better protection if there was no welfare.
Turns out that black women actually abort more babies than they raise in many big cities and many of them raise those children without husbands. If they are having those children because it gets them welfare, then we must assume that no welfare would result in a higher black abortion rate.
The welfare system is not the main problem in this case. Changing the culture requires outside help. These people on welfare and in the inner cities that were raised by single parents(moms) or in dysfunctional families, don't have the understanding or blue prints to know how to be good parents(especially the men) or how to be successful in life.
There has to be something that interrupts the repeating, viscous cycle via the education system or thru local organizations that connect with vulnerable children, starting at young age to teach them.
I strongly believe that good parenting classes in high school should be mandatory, especially in low income areas with single parent families. Can you teach love? This is not about religion but that's exactly what the 4 Gospels of Jesus did. .....and its blossomed into Christianity that has profoundly changed the world for the much better. What I'm suggesting is ethics classes combined with parenting classes. The principles go hand in hand. Teach children to respect others, the value of human life and what a good parent and spouse should be doing in a successful relationship. Have people in their community(ideally from their neighborhood) come in to share their positive experiences as dad's/husbands and mothers/wifes.
With absolute certainty, this would have a profoundly positive affect on many children in dysfunctional families.
https://education.seattlepi.com/would-mandatory-parenting-classes-schools-good-idea-1803.html
Teaching at school can only do so much. What happens when they leave school to a bad neighborhood with a bad parent(s)?
A high % of bad black fathers are in prison. This is another topic altogether but it's another golden opportunity for other men, regardless of color to step forward and be mentors, role models or good examples. This is absolutely realistic.
How would that work? First you identify the men. Many will be from the suburbs, many, will be older and will have already raised their own children successfully. Some will be very young and want to have a family but haven't found the right partner yet. I have recruited men like this to be my basketball, soccer and baseball coaches(mostly the younger ones for sports). If you offered money, you will get more than just volunteers but most people like this don't do it for money. There needs to be screening, background checks and child protection classes to avoid predators/pedophiles that will weasel into programs like this to abuse boys.
Men, filling in as a positive father figures/ideally foster parents(even if they are paid) will and do make a difference in most of these boys lives. The younger the child, the better chance to connect with them before the bad things in the world surrounding them define who they are:
https://www.fosterfocusmag.com/articles/just-foster-dads-part-1
Forget about the welfare or no welfare issue or government, no government's role. Either situation is a recipe for failure if you don't have responsible adults that understand what it takes to be good parents applying their love and skills to the at risk, vulnerable children.
Most parents and spouses learned about parenting/married life from being their parents children.
We spend billions of dollars on the education system but fail to educate and prepare children for the most important role they will ever have as adults.
If these are such great idea's why aren't are paid politicians and government on to it?
Our politicians and government don't work for us much of the time and their ideas are usually not creative unless it ties in with something that will help them get elected........promises to give people things like reparations for blacks or free health care or free college. ....or to save the planet(sorry if that offends anybody from one party-but if you look at my belief system today, its the one that defined the democrats from the old days-which included me).
Being a good parent(and citizen) is several orders of magnitude more important to individuals/families and society than actions to address a fake climate crisis........even if there was a climate crisis.
1st, we need welfare reform. Work for welfare, or something to that effect. Single parent homes skyrocketed among minorities following Johnson's great society as did minority crime.
Tougher courts. Get and keep violent criminals off the streets.
More school options. End the monopoly held by liberal teachers unions.
Thats a good start.
Out reach by people like you is invaluable, and helpful, but will never be enough to offset the systemic failures.