There has been a very measureable increase in suburban crime and decay. Social pathologies, adultery, divorce, suicide and despair have everywhere increased, and this, significantly. There was a time when people literally could sleep overnight under the stars in their neighborhoods and in the cities with their cars and homes unlocked. Small children could attend zoos and museums alone, trusting the general benevolence of society to chaperone them should they lose their way. This sort of thing is simply not wise today, and this lack of trust was not caused by guns and whatnot, but by a fragmentation of Americans along moral lines. We do not all hold to the same things concerning fundamental decency and principle.
I have lived in cities or suburbs all my life and have never known the urban world you describe. It's sad to think what has been lost. But one thing to consider: for some reason, the metropolitan areas of Europe, Japan and even nearby Canada, though not completely idyllic or safe, do not suffer from the advanced levels of social pathologies that afflict America. Why do you suppose that is? Why is it that I can walk just about any street in Berlin or Toronto or Tokyo at night and not have the same fears (or face even similar statistical probabilities of violence) that I have when walking my own neighborhood in Chicago? Is it that the Canadians, Germans, or Japanese have a better sense of decency than we do? Or is that there are simply no guns in Germany, Canada, or Japan? That better urban planning and more green space makes for less tension in densely populated urban areas? That social safety nets prevent people falling into the most desperate of circumstances? I don't pretend to know the answer to the question of whether a lack of decency or failed social policies contributed to so many examples of pathological extremes in America. I just see that concrete steps in improving common space--better public transportation, more parks, better schools--seem to bolster quality of life in urban and suburban areas. I'm a member of the YMCA. What a great institution! I see kids and adults from all walks of life in there exercising, shooting hoop, swimming, taking classes. There's an institution that contributes to the health and decency of anyone who can ante up the few bucks a month it takes to join.
Here's an idea to consider: the same licentiousness and sense of liberty that makes America the land of innovation contributes to its anarchic social atmosphere. They're two sides of the same coin.
But should the three whiteskins who hold to the same industrious values as the darkskins decide to live amongst the darkskins, then the darkskins would be quite illogical in determining out-of-hand that these three are by virtue of their skins unworthy to do so. One might expect some fear and initial discomfort, this is reasonable given the statistics involved; but after the hard work and decency of the three whiteskins is made evident, the darkskins will generally come around saying, "Hey, they are not like the bad whiteskins, they are like us".
I actually had a similar experience living in a African-American and Caribbean neighborhood in Brooklyn some years back. At first, the neighbors were suspicious and unfriendly. When they saw I got up, went to work, came home, and had a drink on the front stoop just like everybody else, they became more accepting. Within a few weeks, one neighbor invited me to his home for dinner with his family.
I posit that without decency and principle, one cannot acquire financial security, even were it handed to one on a silver platter. Honestly achieving and keeping financial security requires principle and decency (or an awful lot of good luck).
Some would argue the opposite: that getting rich requires you sacrifice some of your principles and decency, sell out some of your values, and stab a few people in the back on your way to the top.
The answer is simple to state, but in our now morally corrupt culture impossible to implement. We see the problem when we look at the evil that is adultery...
Here's a wonkish way to examine and address the problem you describe.
1) Recognize that marriage, primarily an economic social arrangement endowed with religious and spiritual significance, has lost much of its role as a social anchor now that women are no longer dependent on men for their material sustenance. The declining power of matrimony leads to increases in adultery, divorce, and dysfunctional behaviors associated with children coming from broken families of origin.
2) Since passing a law forbidding adultery would not be possible (except in my native Iran), come up with ways to increase the economic incentives for staying married, i.e. income tax credits, mortgage credits, tax credits to companies who offer special perks to married couples etc.
3) Come up with local, community, or even church-based structures supportive of children from broken homes. You may hate her, but Hillary's "It Takes a Village," argument rings true with a lot of people. Get the community more involved in the rearing of kids.
4) Better enforcement of dead-bat dad laws to protect divorced mothers raising kids alone, and far better and more equitable custody arrangements to protect divorced dads who want a role in raising their kids.
God. That hurt me more than anything you or anyone else here has said.
Believe me, that particularly statement when it came from that particular person hurt me more than it hurt you. :-)
And the gangs have simply moved to terrorize someone else's neighborhood….
There have been no net improvements under Clinton. There has been only a shift of resources from one sector of society to another. When a Republican gets into the presidency the same will occur under him. The same thing happens over and again.
LOL. Gosh, now YOU sound like a good old-fashioned leftie, Johannes! :-)
Nevetheless Joe will have to have the wherewithal to think for a few minutes that without those abstract principles his lovely park will soon be infested with crime and his lovely school system will continue to allow ignorance to go unfettered in his community.
Unfortunately, that few minutes of thought won't come about so easily. Not with the blare of "Seinfeld" reruns blocking out all thoughts not having to do with bodily functions.
I submit this was the case long before the civilizations of Mesopotamia. It has been the case for as long as humans have interacted with one another.
Not necessarily. There is strong anthropological evidence suggesting tribal and neolithic, i.e. pre-civilized men, at least treated people within their own clan with respect and honor. As for the people across river, well, maybe not so nicely. Only since the advent of civilization, i.e. urban society, have we had concepts such as corruption. Great civilizations commit the greatest crimes.
Nevertheless barbarism is a thing against which all social organizations, however rudimentary, must struggle. When a society invites barbarism within its gates, that society crumbles because barbarism is a beast that will not truck having a specific place. Its nature is to consume everything available to it. Certainly America struggles against barbarism just as have all other societies, but our law is the code by which we aim to keep it at bay. It is our law that strikes barbarism, beating it into submission. When we openly accept flagrant and repeated assaults upon our law, particularly at the hands of a democratically elected leader, then we merely open the door to invite barbarism to sup with us.
You make an interesting point. It reminds of what an old Russian History professor of mine used to argue: the structures and institutions that keep us from savagery are paper thin and very young. Only 200 generations ago, all of humanity lived by the rule of might and the sword. Sure, judeo-christian values and the Enlightenment, may have their flaws. But, basically those values and the institutions they spawned are the only things keeping us from murdering each other, as we used to, the late Ferenc Feher used to argue.
Lawyers are not the problem. It is the lack of principle and decency that is the problem. Many lawyers see an opportunity in a system that was designed for a moral people being used by a people who lack principle and decency.
Again, it's really tough, on a policy level, to inject principles and decency into society. Better to broaden the use of stiff fines for frivolous lawsuits and make the loser pay at least part of the litigation costs in civil cases.
I will have to decrease the time spent here, sparing you all my radical and insane views.
I think your views are fine. It's your rhetoric, your choice of words, that I've sometimes had problems with. I, for one, appreciate some of your views.
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