Things we'd be talking about if the forum wasn't deadFollow

I said that you were the one that was arguing white flight from poor neighborhoods (as opposed to the middle class), not that white flight caused poverty. Do you understand the flaw in your interpretation? Now multiply this by every post.

It is in the United States.

I'm doing the exact opposite by saying that welfare can be good or bad for any individual depending on how they decide to utilize it. You're the one claiming that it is absolutely bad most, if not all of the time.

Wikileaks complains that Clinton stole their logo. Beyond the irony of Wikileaks complaining about unauthorized usage, they don't look much alike past "red arrow!"

Maybe FedEx can sue both of them.

DC might want to get in on some class action action, as well:

Left or right, Ugly?

Green or red, Ugly?

Oh. And in addition to you completely failing to read what I wrote, there's also this bit of fantasy by you:



Here's the original exchange where you first introduced "white flight" into the discussion:



It's not clear with your mangled syntax, but on the off chance that you are actually trying to claim that you didn't argue that white flight causes poverty (presumably in black neighborhoods at least), you very much did exactly that.

And for the record, the paragraphs I wrote to which you responded with this bit was specifically about poor neighborhoods. Not middle class neighborhoods. Poor neighborhoods. I was talking about racial population concentrations within high poverty areas, and making the point that blacks are much more likely to live in poor neighborhoods than whites (based on the data I linked to), and speculating that if we increased the threshold from 20% poor in an area we'd see an even more disparate trend. You responded to that post, not by addressing what I wrote (typical of you), but by spinning off on a tangent about gentrification and white flight.

Basically, the whole white flight thing has been a means for you to avoid talking about the issue at hand: Does welfare create and/or perpetuate poverty among the poor? My argument is that it does, and that blacks are disproportionately poor today because they were disproportionately poor at the time we introduced many of our welfare programs. I have further argued that there is a clear correlation between poverty and crime and that this in turn explains the higher incidence of crime and police interaction among black populations in the US and that we'd be better served looking at the poverty angle rather than chasing after an "institutionalized racism" boogieman.

You keep avoiding this argument and trying to spin off to talk about anything else you can think of. How about actually addressing what I'm saying? Can you do that?

The sheer enormity of your inability to follow a conversation is forcing me to break this down into multiple posts. Maybe then you wont get as confused. Maybe.



That's great. But, once again, you didn't actually respond to a single thing I said. Why the heck did you quote all those paragraphs, none of which mentioned Jim Crow, or why welfare was created, or skin color at all, with this?

BTW, this is what I mean by "tap dancing". I intentionally removed any references to skin color or politics or race so as to just talk about the concept of opportunity cost so that we could first agree on that concept prior to applying it to any real world situation. I do this because many people have a hard time thinking objectively (which appears to be the problem here). They hold a strong position on some issue, so they choose to ignore or deny some concept related to that issue if it might challenge their position. If they know that I'm arguing "X -> Y", and Y counters their position, they'll deny X for that reason, and not actually look at X.

That's what you're doing. You're putting your cart before your horse. I'm asking you to stop thinking in terms of race. Just think in terms of choices. But even when I remove all references to race you can't help but insert it back in. I'm not talking about race. I'm talking about the effect of welfare on people's employment choices. All people. Not just black people. All people. It's not about race. The effect exists for anyone presented with it.


Edited, Apr 13th 2015 7:58pm by gbaji

Yep: Disposable or replaceable.

Equally so though.

Anyone not a photocopy isn't a person, so they don't count.

Most welfare recipients have a job

Gonna put the context back in, because you keep stripping it out, and I suspect it confuses you.



Notice that you still failed to actually respond to what I said though. How about instead of asking me to go look somewhere else for your response, you actually do something amazing like respond?



It's not. Not even remotely.



Yes it is. In the same way that if I say something like "red dye number 5 is toxic and should be banned" and you respond by saying that ******* and cyanide are both toxic too. I mean, that's great and all, but that doesn't really address the issue about whether red dye number 5 should be banned.

In case you are really really slow, I'm not just arguing that welfare perpetuates poverty as some kind of esoteric mental exercise. I'm arguing that we should be looking at eliminating it so as to help those people that are currently poor to be less likely to not be poor in the future (or at the very least give their children a better shot at not being poor). This isn't a game of "lets just list off things that are semi-related". I'm actually arguing for a course of action. And in the specific context of this topic, I'm arguing that if you really want to fix the disproportionate crime stats that blacks in the US currently suffer, the best way to do this is to end the existing system of welfare that keeps them disproportionately poor and thus disproportionately more likely to live in neighborhoods with high crime rates.

When you respond to that argument by bringing up lists of other things you don't like, while refusing to even discuss welfare, that's you avoiding me.



Yes. I understand it perfectly. That's an avoidance response. Instead of addressing the problem I'm talking about you spin off on tangents talking about other problems. I'm honestly not sure what you think you're accomplishing here, other than mildly amusing me.

Edited, Apr 14th 2015 5:06pm by gbaji

They weren't removed. They were ruled unconstitutional. That's an entirely different thing. And those provisions were removed precisely because they were the basis for blocking voter ID in several states. Despite the ridiculous rhetoric claiming that section 4 of the VRA was somehow the "heart of the act", I'd argue that the parts that prohibit voting tests and race based discrimination are much more important. Section 4 was always intended to be temporary and adjusted over time as conditions changed, but not one ever bothered to do so. This resulted in unfair restrictions on just some states based on conditions that hadn't been re-evaluated for over 40 years.

The relevance to voter ID was that every state was allowed to implement it as they wished *except* for a small list for which special restrictions were applied. That list was never modified and never updated. That's why it was struck down. Yes. I'm well aware of the issues involving the law, but when you simplify it down to "the GOP gutted the VRA" it shows me that you're acting more on emotion driven rhetoric than any actual assessment of the event in question.



Which does not include private schools. So when you say you're opposed to privatizing public services, bu then say "that includes private schools", I have an issue because private schools are not schools that used to be public, but have since been privatized. I'm "confused" because you keep insisting you're talking about one thing, but then also insisting that it includes something that is entirely different. It's like saying "I'm don't like raw food, such as fruit", and I ask if this includes applies and pears, and you say "Yes, it includes steak". Um... what?



Sure. Which is why I asked for clarification that you were talking about charter schools, and why I questioned why you say that black people oppose them. But instead of answering my question, you went off on a tangent about actual private schools.



What's hard for me to understand is why you keep introducing new elements to the conversation that have no relevance. I'm asking you why black people oppose charter schools. That's the question. And your answer was "we also dislike private schools because of segregation". Can you see how that doesn't in any way answer the question?

You keep doing this. You make a statement. I respond to that statement, often including a question or challenge to what you said, complete with an argument of my own but being very specific to the exact thing you just said. You respond to me by ignoring what I said and changing the subject to something else. It's strange. Do you actually think this is how conversation works? So you say that you think it's going to rain, I say that it probably wont and include some meteorological reasons why, and you respond by saying that "I like fish". Um... What?



Except that charter schools don't cost money to attend. Again, this is why I'm having problems with what you're saying. You're blending the aspects of two completely different things. If you're talking about actual private schools, those cost money and can therefore be priced out of reach of some people. However, they are not examples of public services that were privatized. Charter schools, on the other hand can be said to be a public service that has been privatized, but they do not charge tuition to attend.

So when you say that it's the privatization of public services you have a problem with, but your reason why is because they charge tuition, it makes me assume you have no freaking clue what you are talking about.

Want to try again? Why do you think that black people oppose charter schools? I don't want to hear about private schools. I don't want to hear about tuition. I want you to explain what it is about charter schools that you think black people should oppose as a group. Can you do that? Sheesh!


I'm not even going to respond to the second part of your post because it's just another example of you dredging up something I said 3 pages ago so as to change the subject (again). WTF? Nothing you're talking about matters in this context. You may as well just write random characters on the screen, it would have just as much relevance to what I'm writing.



Again. My argument is that welfare perpetuates poverty among those who are already poor. I further argue that since most of our welfare system was instituted at a time when blacks were disproportionately poor, welfare has had the effect of keeping blacks disproportionately poor. I further argue that since poor neighborhoods tend to also be high crime neighborhoods, this also creates a disproportionately high crime and victimization rate among blacks (including negative interactions with police). I further argue that a whole list of social ills can also be connected to this same disproportionate poverty rate.

I therefore question the logic of black people continuing to vote for and support the political party that continues to fight to maintain and even expand welfare programs. I believe that if you really want to improve the condition of blacks in America, and eliminate the disproportionate rates of events like Ferguson, or any of the large list of symptoms of that poverty discrepancy that you have mentioned in this thread, you'd be better off fighting to end the welfare state. What baffles me is that there seems to be this tendency, which you exhibit as well, of just wanting to complain about the problems, but not wanting to actually fix them (or even discuss how to do so). You keep meandering from one complaint to the next, but I've yet to hear you propose anything remotely resembling a solution.


That's my argument. Do you agree, or disagree, and why? And if you disagree, then what do you think is the root problem, and what do you think we should do about it? Join another pity party? Because that's all I'm seeing you do.