Posted on 01/12/2020 6:05:54 AM PST by ModernDayCato
Background: My family has an email list where we share articles and opinions. Someone recently circulated this opinion piece from the New York Times, and I am offering my response hoping for comments from my FRiends.
Who Killed the Knapp Family?
YAMHILL, Ore. — Chaos reigned daily on the No. 6 school bus, with working-class boys and girls flirting and gossiping and dreaming, brimming with mischief, bravado and optimism. Nick rode it every day in the 1970s with neighbors here in rural Oregon, neighbors like Farlan, Zealan, Rogena, Nathan and Keylan Knapp.
They were bright, rambunctious, upwardly mobile youngsters whose father had a good job installing pipes. The Knapps were thrilled to have just bought their own home, and everyone oohed and aahed when Farlan received a Ford Mustang for his 16th birthday.
Yet today about one-quarter of the children on that No. 6 bus are dead, mostly from drugs, suicide, alcohol or reckless accidents. Of the five Knapp kids who had once been so cheery, Farlan died of liver failure from drink and drugs, Zealan burned to death in a house fire while passed out drunk, Rogena died from hepatitis linked to drug use and Nathan blew himself up cooking meth. Keylan survived partly because he spent 13 years in a state penitentiary.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I would say it’s very much about personal choices, but not 100%. Some of it is about environment. For example, if I wanted to become addicted to meth or heroin, I wouldn’t know where to begin.
My family has some issues with alcohol use and smoking-related illness, but no association at all with drug use, and that’s over several generations and an array of in-laws, cousins, etc.
Yes, the writers had a case they wanted to make, and made this family the centerpiece.
“In fact, the federal government is a complete scam.”
As are state and local governments in their douchebaggery.
What happened to the Knapp children's father? After mentioning his line of work at the beginning, the authors don't mention him again.
The article begins with a false narrative (happy children representing a happy family) and their downfall came because "society" (the American way of life) failed them.
The original NYT article is an agenda hit piece meant to blame American society for their downfall.
These kids made bad choices because of their home-life. The kids are described by others as 'feral' meaning they had little guidance from high-functioning parents.
The authors of this article quickly dismissed and glossed over the dysfunctional family structure to point the finger at the alleged destructiveness of the American society and a heartless capitalist economy that chews families alive.
The NYT article is pure agenda 'journalism'.
I agree that the NYT article ranges from tendentious to irrational. However, the underlying issues of poor education, drug abuse, and multi-generational dysfunction are very significant. The examples of lives (potentially ...) reclaimed through drug rehabilitation programs are individually inspirational, but they are a drop in the bucket of the greater societal breakdown.
Cross the above article with this one:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3807547/posts
and you’d think, “Well, we’re toast.”
I went to high school with a guy named Chris Knapp, who went on to become one of the greatest kickers in Auburn history.
I knew a news-reader in San Antonio named Debbie Knapp.
“A plate of cocaine”...??? in a picture???...oh, yeah...normal, everyday life in America...NOT.
NOBODY I've ever talked to, said, "Hey, see all these high-quality, made in the USA products? I'd really like to have my choices taken away and replaced with cheap sh!t from China that doesn't work, and have my job taken away so the CEO can pay for a fourth vacation home for his fourth mistress."
This started with the execrable vermin Jack "Neutron" Welch ("We didn't give them lifetime employment. We gave them lifetime employability.") and the cult of the infallible CEO...together with executive compensation being made up largely of stock options.
No, it started before that.
Since about 1971, the US GDP has approximately quadrupled.
And yet wages, inflation adjusted, are about the same.
Where did all the extra wealth go?
The few at the top.
Another counter example, troll.
The recent Boeing crashes. Sure saved a lot of money for the shareholders, didn't it.
Nice rant.
But you and Kristof miss the elephant in the room entirely.
Working class jobs are still out there in rural areas. They go to low wage illegal aliens.
Mid level factory jobs still exist. They go to non-whites who are hired to meet racial quotas or because they choose their own kind over whites when they are in supervisory positions. Have seen this over the last 30 years on steroids. Same is true of white collar and engineering jobs.
Outsourcing to China is huge as a problem, but immigration is even bigger: it’s really hard to dislodge a human being who made it into the country to engage in wage competition. Far easier to simply increase a tariff schedule.
IMMIGRATION is the biggest problem for working class Americans who don’t have hyphens in front of the “American” label. That means white people. The black people already get preferences but their pathologies prevent them from doing a lot more: nobody moves a company to Detroit to take advantage of the labor force.
Raising the minimum wage to real value reflective of inflation will do nothing if off the books wage cutters are still allowed in the game. Without immigration enforcement, the cheaters will be allowed to run all the way to the goal line.
Rural drug problems are more of a symptom, not a cause. People do that when they lose hope and decide it’s all to hard.
The libs have been pouring gas on this fire for 30 years once they figured out the aliens could be given the vote and keep them in power. Prior to that they were ostensibly on the side of the Workin’ Man.
Insourcing (immigration/H1B) + Outsourcing (China/India) = Job Annihilation
End both.
Very astute.
Alcohol, weed and cigarettes are the issues in my family. Oh, and mental illness on my ex’ side. Like electroshock therapy mental illness.
Like the NYT authors, neither of you connects the dots between the economic or policy factors you identify and the drugs, crime, and car wrecks of the principals in the story.
That family was a train wreck.
T’sk t’sk, Tax-chick. That kind of societal dysfunction is not driven just by poverty, but poverty reinforced by hopelessness.
Lots of great points in the comments. One more Is the absence in the article of any mention of God. (Or did I miss it?) In the NYT worldview, neither fathers nor religion have any explanatory value for family failure.
I would say it’s very much about personal choices, but not 100%.
Wow. Great stuff here. I started to mention illegal aliens (loss of American identity) but I thought this was too long already. It also would have led to the scourge of liberalism, which could have been another few pages. But you are absolutely right.
I’m confused. So it’s the CEO’s fault?
Stick options makes him/her a shareholder.
From a purely economic standpoint if it makes sense to send labor overseas you could argue that not only should the CEO do it but he is REQUIRED to do it as part of his job.
Even if it’s douchbaggery, if it’s legal than you could argue it’s his/her fiduciary responsibility to the owners of the company, including the CEO.
If you’re talking about the lack of ethics, see #1 above.
Damn auto correct. That’s STOCK options.
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