Posted on 07/28/2013 12:25:21 PM PDT by Rufus2007
On Sunday’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” on ABC, Washington Post columnist George Will took on proponents of federal assistance for Detroit, which declared bankruptcy earlier this month.
According to Will, the city isn’t undergoing a fiscal crisis, but is facing a much more serious cultural one, which is the source of its woes.
“Can’t solve the problems because the problems are cultural,” Will said. “You have a city, 139 square miles. You can graze cattle in vast portions of it. Dangerous herds of feral dogs roam in there. You have 3 percent of fourth graders reading at the national math standards. 47 percent of Detroit residents are functionally illiterate. 79 percent of Detroit children are born to unmarried mothers. They don’t have a fiscal problem, Steve. They have a cultural collapse.”
...more (w/video)...
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
I think what Will was saying was that it’s impossible to solve the fiscal problem because the other problems will still be there, therefore the fiscal problem will come back almost immediately.
It’s like seeing someone dying of a wasting disease and thinking that you can help him by giving him pizza.
“When the lights go off - you have a fiscal problem.
When people move far away from you - you have a cultural problem.”
Excellent! I have to remember that one. :)
I think that’s obvious, haven’t freepers been saying the same thing?
It's been that way in Haiti for a long time. I was in PAP in 1952 courtesy Uncle Sam and got my 18-year-old eyes opened wide.
I was on mess cook duty then and had to unload the garbage to a bumboat which showed up after every meal. The garbage was clean in that it was fresh scrapings from each guy's plate. We had fried checken one afternoon and after I loaded the cannister to be dumped, I turned around to lower it below deck.
A buddy next to me says, "Geez, man, look at that." The two guys in the bum boat were rummaging through the scraps, one guy seizing a piece of chicken bone and chowing down like there was no tomorrow. The other guy was licking the wrappers that came with those individual slices of Neopolitan ice cream we had every day.
Our boat's electricians had a monthly dungaree allowance as theirs always were eaten up with battery acid - literally rags. They went ashore and traded them to the locals for mahogancy jewel/cigar boxes. They went crazy over what we considered wiping rags.
I grew up in NYC and thought I had seen poor people, but the poorest were middle class compared to those poor people. It never got better, no much how they were helped. Even then I was a student of history and couldn't believe how little they had bettered themselve since Independence in 1804.
I recently talked to a missionary to Haiti and he said one of the problems there was a disdain for work after slavery was done away with that is a part of the culture to this day. Not only do we have something like that taking root here, but those that have this disdain also regard producers the same way. The next couple of generations have their work cut out for them. I can see a real reversal in immigration...out of the country.
Maybe that's because their teachers have reading and math mixed up. (Hint: math is the one with the numbers.)
Mark
No big deal. The important issue is they vote democrat.
That is the point of Will's comment. Fix the culture, and no help is necessary.
Leave the culture as is, and no help is possible.
This is NOT a discussion the left wants to have, which is why we should have it.
That much is self-evident anywhere you go, anytime in history. Conservatism works because it conserves what works. It really is that simple.
Liberal/Progressive policies do not, have never, and can not work long term because they inevitably end up destroying healthy aspects of society to feed dysfunctional aspects.
However, there is always a feel good phase between the time the progressivism disease takes hold — when there is still enough wealth in the society to absorb the losses and pay off the unproductive — that feels like the “progress” they have promised, but is actually nothing of the sort.
And, of course, there are always unscrupulous people who know damn well they are driving society right into the gutter, but do not care because they plan to be long gone before the crash.
Its regression.
Try youtube’s “Vice Guide to Liberia” to see the seed stock in action. This is expected behavior.
Socrates stated it thousands of years ago-—and America understood it also until the Marxists in the 30’s decided to target Virtue in school curricula with Dewey and the socialists like they did in Europe.
Sex Ed and perversion promotion is the easiest way to destroy Virtue-—and obscenity laws were ejected from our courts in the 50’s by Marxist Supreme Court members (progressives) who erased “Virtue” from the word “Justice” (erasing the meaning of words......as all good Marxists do......to blur truth and remove Logic and instill irrational (emotional) “thinking” in our children/culture/courts via schools and media AND LAWS is how the Marxists got away with destroying the “Rule of Law”. They removed Morality from our Legal System-—installed Positivism as “Might makes Right” philosophy of atheists/Darwinists/Marxists/pagans pre/Socrates.
You can NEVER remove Ethics/morality from a Legal System. That is what Justice (Law) is-—an Ethical System—and ours is built on Ethics which were formed throughout Western Civ-—and culminated in the Age of Reason (Greek philosophy combined with Christian Theological Virtues) It created the most perfect Ethical system which was embedded into our Constitution.
We had Natural Rights from God—that can not be taken away by the State. Human Beings (Individuals) can NOT be treated as a “Means” to an End.
Individuals trump the Collective......there you have it-—Collectivism can not exist with Christian Values which is the intrinsic worth of the individual. Marxists have to be allowed to kill off the useless eaters (people are Means to an End) and defiant ones, The Marxists think they can have a “utopia” that way——because the way they “think” will be forced onto everyone-—all irrational ideas—like Slavery is Good. Their goal-—is to make your children HAPPY to be slaves of the state. They will be too dumb (public schools) to understand any concepts of the Founding Fathers or the underlying Theology of Christianity which created the most Freedom in the history of man-—because of the dignity and worth of Individuals.
Schools constantly denigrate God/Christianity/Founders-—to destroy Patriotism/Chrisitan Ethics and create irrational (emotional) “thinkers”. They are easily led—great for mobocracies and to create chaos.
Socrates Philosophy: Without Virtue, there can be no Freedom. The only purpose of education is to instill Virtue. The only purpose of government is to promote “Justice” (the Queen of Virtue).
” Just Law”-—Cicero developed our idea of “Rule of Law” fully-—there is a Natural Law which preceded government-—Universal Truths that can NEVER be encroached upon by “just” laws. In other words——Laws that go against Natural Laws (Natural Moral Law included) which are our unalienable rights/duties protected by the US Constitution——can not force “EVIL” laws-—by definition they are unjust and unconstitutional. “When Laws cease to be Just, they cease to be Law” (St. Thomas A.) Blackstone/Marshall thought the same——when law was antithetical to the Supreme Law (First Principles/Natural Laws) they were “Null and Void”.
(Now for people to be Logical-—you have to understand the “meaning” of the original words like “Virtue”——(controlling the “meaning” controls the preceptions in the masses). Virtue-—for 2000 years has meant the same thing——until the sodomites are normalizing using human beings as a “means” to an end——which is never allowed in Christian Ethics——slavery, prostitution, sodomy all become a “good” if you allow human beings to be a “means” instead of have intrinsic value (dignity above animals/things).
Virtue is Excellence——always seeking the best-—Justice, Wisdom, Courage and Temperance are the Cardinal Virtues since the 4th century BC-—in Western Civilization. It is why the West prospered-—when they applied Virtue-—once Nero and the homosexuals started castrating boys and marrying them-—ejecting Reason/Logic/Virtue——Rome collapsed. Christian culture rose up-—they were more virtuous.
That is why the immorality of the Afghanis (boys in harems) is being forced in the Boy Scouts/Military/States——to erase Truth/Virtue/Logic from our children-—inculcating Evil as a “Good” is done throughout cultures. When little children are told by adults that anal sex is a “Good”-—then you may use human beings as a Means to an End——(slavery, etc)....which is destroying Reason/Logic and Christian Ethics in children. Their worldview is warped—they look at human beings as “Means” —they are conditioned to see human beings with NO dignity-—it is stripped from men/dads. It is an insidious worldview-—like what you see in the adult males of Afghanistan who make smacking noises at our young male troops and parade little boys dressed as girls (exactly as Nero did) and the boys take “Pride” in being selected/special.
Ethics will collapse when you indoctrinate children which twisted Logic and vulgar, sick ideas in childhood. Innocence is required for normal sexual identity formation (known since Rousseau and early Christians)-—it is what the public schools have been intentionally designed to do-—blur Truth—destroy Reason which kills Virtue-—by giving lies and twisted history-—and group math-—to destroy individuality—make dependents—followers—group thinkers.
Get your children/grandkids out of the public schools and throw out TV-—it is warping their worldview-—creating kids who think like little Afghani boys.
They will not be able to use Reason (Truth erased)-—they will be ideologues like Marxists who only use Emotion to determine Right and Wrong.
The Age of Reason was created by Christianity (only)——not possible with other ideologies where Universal Truth and Reason/Faith never conflict with each other-—NEVER-—because of the Summa by St. Thomas A. in 13th century. (No one’s perfect though-—but USA was the MOST perfect).
If you read this far-—my apologies for the length-—I can get carried away and the concepts are difficult to get across to most people who are brainwashed in public schools—this is for “them” —because emotions get in the way of Logic and most people have never studied “Logic” and are poor at Math——Reason is rare-—as Ayn Rand stated-—Marxism is irrational and with all the White Noise-—disinformation (Marxism) in media/schools-—24/7-—Reason has been thrown out of our culture completely now
That is why schools are forcing girls to use their restrooms for boys who “think” they are girls. More of the cultural Marxism to destroy Reason in children-—to expose all normal kids to perversion and force them to think it is “Good” and “Normal” so it will destroy their innocence and Logic-—focus them on sexual parts during Latency which is unnatural-—so they will be perverted along with the abused, warped children who had Marxist parents who destroyed Truth and Virtue in their little children and want to force that sickness/thoughts into normal children-—to corrupt the whole generation for the NWO which needs stupid, ignorant people who are just concerned about their genitals.
Very good.
The Democrat party provides the means for these foolish liberal ideas to be promoted and implemented. Marx was just an oddball thinker with a small audience until the Communist party started implementing his stupid ideas. Hitler was a nothing with one obscure book until the Nazi party started putting his insanity into practice. The Democrat party must be dismantled in order to save our nation. Obama and socialist propaganda are small potatoes. It is the Democrat party that provides the means for people to hurt our nation.
50 years of Progressive Rule caused this. From Jerome Cavanagh to Kwame Kilpatrick (Bing I’ll leave off the hook) and the c(h)ity council.
Partly true, but the riots were under the watch of white progressive leadership. They get the blame too.
Just wait until when—not if—the EBT system collapses and the “free” food stops coming into our cities.
Kingston, Jamaica, is more populous.
Harold Washington wouldn’t have acted like Coleman Young even if he could have. Washington was a practical Machine politician; Young was a radical labor organizer embittered over blackballing during the Red Scare.
If you're not familiar with the book Where Black Rules White: A Journey Across and About Hayti, you may find that the author, Hesketh Prichard, had experiences which paralleled your own. Here's a summary...
When Hesketh-Prichard visited in 1899, the ruins of French plantations were still visible, though they were rapidly being reclaimed by the jungle. Cap-Haitien, the onetime “little Paris . . . the center of luxury and fashion,” lay in ruins. A small black-man’s city of ramshackle wooden huts lay amid the sprawling stone ruins like “a sparrow’s egg in an abandoned eagle’s nest.” The plain which had been so prodigiously fertile in the days of French rule now produced “not a red cent;” cultivation had been abandoned, and its black inhabitants were content to enjoy the mangoes that still grew from the now-wild vegetation.
The best Haitians were of the poorer classes, especially those in the rural districts. Hesketh-Prichard found them impeccably polite and generous with the pitifully little they had. But these simple, good-natured people bore the twin weight of degrading superstition and a parasitical official class.
Voodoo, the real religion of Haiti, was a combination of ecstatic dancing, animal- and occasional child-sacrifice, and the multifarious poisoning techniques of a class of voodoo priests known as “papalois.” Hesketh-Prichard’s one proposal for social reform was the physical elimination of this class.
The Haitian army had more officers than enlisted men. Hesketh-Prichard claimed with only slight exaggeration that every third person he met in the country was a general. In rural districts local authority was exercised by such generals. They were often unpaid by the government and had to get their living by preying upon the people under their authority. The highest ambition of the common man was to be appointed general—which rarely required having to rise through lower ranks.
Urban areas enjoyed the protection of a police force armed with iron-tipped clubs called “coco macaques.” These men received no salary, but got a small sum for each person they arrested. When hungry, they could be observed arresting passers-by to collect enough for a meal. Conditions in the prisons were horrifying, and the prisoners were not fed. Escape “seemed to be childishly easy,” but the men did not have the enterprise to attempt it.
Here's an online version of the book for free if you're interested: Archive.org
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