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From: gam@amdahl.UUCP (gam)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!
Message-ID: <918@amdahl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 11-Jan-85 00:11:07 EST
Article-I.D.: amdahl.918
Posted: Fri Jan 11 00:11:07 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 13-Jan-85 06:55:20 EST
References: <118@decwrl.UUCP>, <210@talcott.UUCP>, <704@hou2h.UUCP>, <158@abnji.UUCP>, <714@hou2h.UUCP> <165@abnji.UUCP>
Organization: Blue Mouse Trailer Resort, Hellmouth, CA
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> >Why has the education system failed them !?!?!? Its just the reverse
> >they have failed the education system.
> >WOULD YOU GIVE THEM A JOB ????
> 
>... Why have they failed?  Peer pressure makes the ones who want to learn
> afraid to learn.  Teachers do not want to encourage their students to
> learn.  Schools become diploma mills, students without a future see no
> point in continuing and drop out.  The schools need to be revamped so
> that our societies children want to learn, and have equal access to educational
> facilities.

There are cultural differences here that you are ignoring.  You are
expecting a social utopia (of your middle class standards) where everyone
is happy happy happy.  I think "Brave New World" is the best model
for this I've seen (not knocking "BNW", I thought was a great book,
and a great model society, but it would be very expensive to do).

To accomplish the respect for schools and knowledge that would make
everyone terribly terribly smart and terribly terribly responsible
would require no less than a social revolution.  Those are very
costly, both finacially and psychologically.

(And what if I don't like your social revolution ...?).

> >The only way to get money ? What ? What the hell is welfare all
> >about ???? 
> >When I had no job and no money , I certainly didn't go around mugging
> >people.
> >Society hasn't given them the advantages ? Bull !!!
> 
> Welfare is meant to provide a basic standard of living, not "luxury."
> All around New York, you see advertisments for different styles of
> luxury, yet these poor people whom society has forgotten have no means
> of getting that, it must be awfully frustrating.

I doubt that poor people in this country have any idea what "poor"
means in the global sense.  "Poor" people live in apartments, have
heat, TV, and food stamps.

Again your "basic standard of living" is defined by your middle class
values.

> >There are public schools all over the country in which anyone can
> >attend and given a certain amount of initiative they can become a
> >positive part of society.
> 
> As I said earlier, initiative is stiffled through peer pressure.  Change
> that environment and maybe the results will change.

"Brave New World" is a great book, really.  You must read it.
That system works.  But I don't think that's what you want...

> The reference to Europe was meant to point out the following:
> 
> They have severe gun control.  Guns are not easily available, so criminals
> 	do not have them.  Crimes, when they occur, are not as violent.

Our culture views The Gun differently than the Europeans.  In our
country, the gun holds an important position as the symbol of 
freedom -- our country fought its revolution against Britain with
guns weilded by terrorists, we settled the west with guns, etc.
It is not surprising, then, that restricting guns has never been
possible here.

> In spite of the lack of availability of guns, and in spite of the lack
> of the "deterent" death penalty, out European allies suffer a much lower
> crime rate.  Why?  Perhaps they work to prevent crime right from the birth?

No, its because their culture is different from ours.  We are more
violent, more culturally heterogeneous, and many people have this fetish
about guns.  (I will agree that most people don't know how to use
guns, which is probably the major problem).

> A cynics definition of a recession is that that is when whites find it as
> difficult to get jobs as blacks always do.  (In spite of so called
> Affirmative Action.)  More than anything else, in my opinion, this lack
> of jobs is the cause of crime.  To correct this problem involves more
> effort than our society is willing to provide, it is not as easy as just
> jailing the lot of them.

Affirmative Action actually makes it harder for unskilled Black people
to get jobs.

Perhaps the cure is more expensive than the disease ...
-- 
Gordon A. Moffett		...!{ihnp4,hplabs,sun}!amdahl!gam