Ya know Wayne,you may not get many responses to a lot of your posts but there are many like me who read them and contemplate an opinion. 

Keep it up. 

John

That goes for many here on both sides 

I appreciate you the most Wayne and thanks John for recognizing this.

"Do we as a society owe a debt to those who by accident of birth may not be the sharpest tool in the box or just can't afford a good education or for any reason beyond their control deserve a basic income. These are honest hard working people but just don't have what it takes to move up the monetary ladder"

Absolutely we do. These are great points of yours Wayne. We can go beyond just discussing those that were not blessed with the same genetic traits which allow them to make the most money or endowed with the same work ethic(which lazy people can't just generate as adults to succeed).

There are the mentally ill too who can't control this. Many homeless are mentally ill. This group is judged because we can't see inside of minds and measure this handicap quantitatively like we can with a person in a wheel chair or broken leg(that society cuts a break for regarding performance expectations)

The haves, know best what they did to succeed and know their minds which are subjective by nature, so its almost impossible to be in the minds of the have nots. 

What is interesting, would be for them to trade places.

The haves becoming the have nots, and have nots becoming the haves......while maintaining their minds, experiences and personalities.  It's seems likely that, over time, they would go back to where they started............the haves that become have nots have the recipe for success ingrained in them. The have nots, being given tons of things that they never worked for would blow it all because they would not know how to act to be successful, whether they started poor or rich.

I use my Dad as the quinessential example. He grew up in the inner city of Detroit and never met his Dad, often on welfare with almost nothing. As a kid, he constantly worked to help support his Mom and never complained. He graduated from the University of Detroit and was an industrial engineer for Ford for 37 years. He was the best parent/Dad on the planet and he didn't have a dad as an example(sometimes thats a good thing when the parent has major flaws)

He had a wonderful mom though. Sometimes, all you need is one good parent. Almost nobody in his situation did as well as he did. Should they all be judged because he had something special which allowed him to break the chains of poverty?

My dad was always assertive and even at 94 years old, is trying to learn new things and keep his mind active. He can still play chess with skill(and we play several games every day when I visit him). This defined him his entire life. It's programmed into who he is.  Somebody like this was born to be successful.

I should add now that I have coached over 3,000 children in chess over the past 25 years. They are all wonderful. Some are brilliant from the get go, some struggle but I can see and measure a sort of raw, cerebral aptitude of theirs that displays clearly their ability to think analytically on a chess board.  It's like an IQ test and more. 

It's fun to witness young brilliant minds growing and developing and obviously, its more challenging when we have little ones that are having a hard time understanding the basic rules. In fact, I'm the only chess coach that I know who allows kids that struggle and kids that come who don't even play chess half the time to be in our clubs.

To them, you are there to play chess and if you can't or won't do that, you don't belong there. I welcome them all and think that maybe its better to have them play a little chess than no chess because they can't meet a minimal standard set by all the other clubs. 

I will spend time working with those that are struggling(and still not getting it) as I do with our chess prodigies because they all have different potentials and I can assist them in getting there................whether its just understanding how to moves the pieces correctly or winning first place in a competitive chess tournament against the best chess players in Southern Indiana. 

I feel this principal should apply in all other realms of human interactions, especially as they relate to what Wayne has brought up here and here's what I mean by that.

In society, we have standards that people must meet in order to become successful and the rewards then gush in.........the have's' as Wayne calls them. Many people are unable to make those standards and will never be successful, no matter what. Should we not include those people in our have's club(sort of like kids that can't or won't play chess not allowed to be in a chess club)? 

With regards to earning the rewards, the haves will do just fine on their own because they were programmed with the cerebral/personality traits to be successes from early on.  

The have nots will never match this. Put them in a perfect environment and it will help but until science is doing gene and brain transplants, some people will always struggle more. But their value as human beings should not be measured in terms of  how productive they are or can be. Not in terms of how smart or educated they are. Not in terms of how athletic they are or how good they are at chess in a chess club. The accomplished ones will do just fine under most circumstances but then, what is the fair and just way to treat the others?

Over the years, human beings have been compassionate in sharing and helping the less fortunate. Many people don't appreciate this but the Catholic Church following the teachings of Jesus, (parables of Jesus like the Good Samaritan in the Gospel of Luke) which tell us to love and help our neighbors. Even to love our enemies........a mind boggling concept, especially in this divisive political environment that features so much hate...........this Catholic Church is responsible for trillions of dollars of generosity and  a zillion hours of human beings helping other human beings. 

My concern about the future is the increase in hate and decrease in generosity and tolerance of others. 

The idea of socialism by one group right now has some good ideas about sharing the wealth to those less fortunate and I actually like some of these principles, even if those proposing them fall short because their applications are manufactured unrealitistic realities that are made up to get elected and could never work in the real world....they are promising things that they can't deliver on because it will appeal to the most amount of voters(like the Green New Deal or reparations to get black votes). 

So Wayne, you and me are the long winded guys here and hopefully we don't put everybody else to sleep. 

I have discussed my solution before here.

We must do much more than give poor people free stuff.  We have to change the system. I'll see if I can find a previous post on this from earlier this year.

Here is a discussion with some positive ideas/suggestions on how to help break the cycle of poverty and bad parenting. 

                My Take on Politicans            

                            11 responses |                           

                                            Started by mikempt - Oct. 6, 2019, 8:12 a.m.            

https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/40468/

"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.