Murder in the City that Care Forgot
There was a Second Line procession for Wendy Byrne on Saturday, where thousands joined in with a Jazz band to celebrate her life. It was a very touching experience to witness. Both E.Shrew and I agreed that we wouldn't mind going out in style like this when our time has come.
The scary part is that E.Shrew and I could have been the victims. The scene of the crime was right where we typically walk to go anywhere in the French Quarter. (this photo was taken from E.Shrew's balcony) We were in Miami on the fateful night Wendy was murdered in a robbery attempt.
What is the mentality of people who commit violent crimes?
Take Vanessa Johnson, the worst Mother in America. After her son Clarence lost a fistfight to a 17 year old, she gave him a handgun with instructions to kill the other boy. He did and is now serving life without parole. Miss Johnson is supposed to go on trial today in New Orleans for providing a firearm to a juvenile and second degree murder. (Update: DA's office decided to delay trial)
So what is society's solution? Every city cannot simply demolish their breeding grounds for high crime. These people have to go somewhere. We can't turn a blind eye and hope they just kill each other off. Or ship them to Australia.
It is sad to say that there may not be a solution. We may have to accept that humans are not far removed from the animal kingdom. We have the capacity for love and kindness, but we also kill each other too. As our human society is not perfect, we just have to co-exist and hope for the best.
posted by Brettcajun at Monday, January 26, 2009
9 Comments:
There is a solution but it isn't a one-size fits all sort of answer.
We live in a capitalistic society. And while there are many benefits to that, there also the cons. We become obsessed with the accumulation of wealth. When we allow whole sections of our population to live below the poverty level out of indifference, greed and selfishness, is it any wonder so many turn to crime?
Until we learn to look beyond the end of our own nose and our wallets, this problem is only going to get worse.
Why not sterilize the working classes? A crop-spraying plane flown over the ghettos would do.
Seriously, and I know this is going to open a whole can of worms, but the lack of moral education and the influence of violent TV, movies and video games has more to do with it tnat poverty.
We've had a capitalistic society for the entire history of our country, Moby, and England, from whom this country inherited much of its culture and legal system, was a capitalist country before that. If anything, obsession with money was as strong, or stronger, during the Gilded Age, the Roaring Twenties and the fabulous Fifties.
Far larger sections of our population lived in far worse conditions in 1920 than today. It's interesting to note that official government poverty statistics - which define who is "poor" - ignore *all* non-cash transfers (including food stamps, subsidized housing, Medicaid, etc.) in determining who is poor. If you took my income, knocked off 10% for food and 80% of what I spend on rent, I'd probably be considered poor, too. Assuming you have a job where part of your insurance is paid by your employer, if that were subtracted from your income on top of that, you'd probably be "poor" as well.
The problem isn't indifference, greed, or selfishness, except insofar as those traits lead us to allow public school systems to fall apart and to reward "families" for not teaching girls to keep their legs closed until they can afford to raise the children they produce. (I point at the parents, not at the girls - my view is that if girls stuck together and refused to put out for the thug boys who infest public housing, we'd have a shot at breaking the cycle. The boys certainly have no interest in changing the status quo, so blaming them is pointless - they aren't stuck with the consequences of their bad decisions the way girls are. Unfair? Sure. But it's life.)
Staying in school, and not getting pregnant before you're able to support a child - those two things have been shown, time and time again, in study after study, to be the two single most important factors in breaking the poverty cycle. Not feel-good handouts, not increasing welfare payments, not additional subsidized housing.
" .....ship them off to Australia. "
I can't even BEGIN to fathom what THAT means.
Open the can of worms, British Bear. Yours is a very apt and intelligent take on the situation.
Dickspot:
That's what the British did to all their criminals... sent them to Australia. You never read about this?
... And then the Australians got their revenge by flooding Britain with a whole load of bad TV soaps.
Given that America was the first dumping ground of the religious nutters and the poor of England and subsequently Europe, perhaps one expects too much?
Really Brett, you might as well come out and say it: you're a Republican.
British Bear - Eugenics is so last century, and the NSDAP is really not something most of us with any conscience aspire to belong to.
Sorry, copp3rred, I forgot you guys don't do irony.
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