Baltimore, a Great Society Failure

National Review ^ | 05/01/2015 | Rich Lowry

[Last Dakotan]

Totally separate and unrelated problem.

What would you employ the inner city population with if not manufacturing?

Is there any other economic activity that can employ thousands of low skilled people? Why else would the rest of the world subsidize manufacturing to export to the US?

[Last Dakotan]

Our manufacturing base was not 'shipped' to Asia.

Yes, it was.

I'm looking for solutions. Sure, step one zero out the alphabet agencies.

[okie01]

What would you employ the inner city population with if not manufacturing?

For the most part, they are currently unemployable -- uneducated (or under-educated), unmotivated and irresponsible, accepting of a lifestyle based on government handouts.

There needs to be a broad revolution in both education and welfare -- not to mention attitude -- in order for the current inhabitants to be productive members of society.

Thus, it isn't the departure of manufacturing that created this regrettable situation. Nor would the return of manufacturing solve it.

[Last Dakotan]

There needs to be a broad revolution in both education and welfare -- not to mention attitude -- in order for the current inhabitants to be productive members of society.

I agree with you, but then what? You have to be able to show an alternative.

You can't tell someone to "get a job" and then take all the jobs away.

[okie01]

You can't tell someone to "get a job" and then take all the jobs away.

Of course not. But my point was: that's a separate issue.

I.e., the inner cities are not the way they are because manufacturing jobs have gone overseas.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Baltimore, a Great Society Failure

SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.

Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him, out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others. - Thomas Paine, Common Sense

Johnson's pledge of a “great society” was always premised on the identity of “society” and government. And indeed, your typical liberal will be unable to distinguish between the two because their rhetoric has systematically obfuscated the fact that the difference between “society” and “government” is freedom. As Paine demonstrated two centuries ago.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Jimmy Carter’s pledge of “a government as good and great as the American people” was, like Johnson’s “great society” promise, inherently fraudulent.

Government is a necessary evil, so it cannot be good.