Christine:
First I should correct my post about the constitution:
Message 3017577
The officer who beat Rodney King was not Marc Fuhrman (of OJ Simpson case fame): the twice-tried officers were Stacy Koon and Laurence Powell. My argument is still OK, I think. I agree with you that any incident of police brutality is sickening, but it's a complex subject and involves police frustration and maybe some hint of the wrong people going into police work for the wrong reasons. This was chillingly portrayed in Burgess's book and Kubrick's film A Clockwork Orange, by the way.
You say you are one of those liberal people who believe in better parenting. I'm not sure what I am politically. Actually I'm pretty disgusted with politics in general and with both parties in particular, but if I had to categorize myself it would be "liberal in heart, conservative in brain", paraphrasing that old saw: "If you're 25 and not a liberal, you have no heart. If you're 45 and still a liberal, you have no brain." I try to keep up with both sides of the spectrum by reading disparate opinions: WSJ, American Spectator, National Review on the right, and New Republic and The Nation on the left. Also lots of supposedly apolitical stuff like Harpers and Atlantic. Reading is suffering lately because of SI!
We indeed have social pathologies which do not seem to respond to remedies of either political ideology, i.e., either "throw money at 'em" liberals or "crush 'em" conservatives. It seems clear to me, however, that no education or other correction of the problems of the underclass is possible without some (I hate to use the word) enforced discipline and some (perhaps coerced or encouraged) birth control -- both very politiclly unpopular. I like conservative solutions to liberal ideas. One example: Give a yearly bonus to every female of childbearing age on welfare if she has not become pregnant or given birth during the preceding year. This, unfortunately, contains the politically unspeakable premise that people on welfare, who by definition cannot provide for themselves, have no business having children.
With regard to the health care situation, I do indeed have some strong opinions, based on 30 or more years "in the trenches", and I will try to make that the subject of the next post.
Where do you get the time to do all of your posting? I enjoy reading them.
Jack |
