HOPELESSNESS, HAPLESSNESS CAUSES PEOPLE TO “DESTROY THEIR OWN COMMUNITIES”
|| By FITSNEWS || In keeping with the provocative comments made earlier this week in response to the Baltimore riots by hometown baseball executive John Angelos, along comes U.S. Senator Tim Scott with his view of the situation.
Scott – the only black “Republican” in the U.S. Senate – grew up in poverty. And according to him, the key to stemming future violence isn’t so much dealing with police mistreatment of black men – but rather Congress addressing the “systemic nature of poverty.”
“I won’t say I can understand [the looters] specifically,” Scott told The Daily Beast. “But generically, I certainly understand what a hapless, hopeless person does. You create chaos because you’re living in chaos … if you’re hopeless you do things that seem absolutely inconsistent with logic. You destroy your own communities.”
Scott added that “hapless and hopeless people seem to reside in areas of high unemployment, low educational performances, and steeped in poverty.”
Hmmm …
Last time we checked (which was earlier this week, incidentally), government’s “war on poverty” had been an unmitigated disaster. In fact it had done absolutely nothing to stop poverty, but plenty to incentivize dependency.
We’re not saying Scott doesn’t have a point about “hopelessness and haplessness,” but we’re hopeful his solution isn’t for Congress to throw more taxpayer money and more government programs at the problem.
One: They haven’t worked. And two: We can’t afford them.
92 comments
Why the quotes around Republican?
you must be new here. republicans are all “republicans” or RINOs.
True Republicans are Libertarians. Wait, what?
Only those who have been born again through the saving grace of Ron Paul will enter the kingdom of the Republican Party.
ha ha…there are only two…the other one is a Democrat and radical Muslim from Minnesota that supports CAIR.
Will Folks says he is not a Republican, but feels qualified to determine who is a real Republican. Generally if you do not agree with him on anything your designation as Republican is at risk. Even though he says he is not a Republican. Now is that clear enough for you.
If you label all Republicans as “Republicans” the Republican party remains a just and infallible creature. Only the two or three Republicans you deem worthy can go sans quotes.
But he still claims to not be in their club. That’s the part that’s hard to figure out. It’s like “I admire this guy for being a true Republican, but I’m not a fucking Republican myself.” I make no bones about admiring some things about Sic, but this, plus his support for eminent domain by governments to build that goddamned pipeline, no can love that.
It always makes me think of Dr. Evil.
And which corporations have stepped in to improve living conditions in which their workers live? Why isn’t FITS howling for the free market to improve life for its own people? Why? Because the free market is the reason people live in poverty. Survival of the fittest and all that other Ann Rand bullshit
We are by no means living is a nation where the free market rules. Not even close to it. From top to bottom, the federal and other governments assure that they get to choose winners and losers in the marketplace. Nothing free about that. Nothing free about the various trade agreements, either. So the “free market” remains nothing but a theoretical construct. Much like the perfect socialist or communist state.
That is about the dumbest thing you have ever posted…comparing our ‘free market’ system too socialist/communist countries…
Drive up and down the Grand Strand and spew that bullshit to the local business owners and watch em laugh you out of MB…oh I forgot…they already did?
Someone once said Capitalism destroyed Socialism. Having done so, Capitalism has turned its sights on Democracy.
You must have eaten ALL the paint chips as a child.
Anyone with any active and well-functioning brain cells at all would realized that what I meant is this: There ARE no perfect socialist or communist states, because the ideals they espouse never come to fruition. They always bog down in a state of dictatorship and total oppression of the people. A point Rush Limbaugh has made thousands of times. It’s like his best repeating “broken clock” thing.
It is similar with the so-called “free market.” It keeps getting tangled up with the government in a way that makes it anything but free. This is actually a conservative position, fool. That government picking winners and losers in the marketplace is wrong, and is the opposite of a free market.
This includes a state government giving massive incentives to some businesses they want to bring in — which is preferential treatment. Also a form of social engineering, as applied in the economic sector. It’s one of the reasons a great many in the tea party movement feel betrayed by Nikki Haley. She’s all about that shit.
Dude…you were teetering toward normalcy over the past few weeks, but have now fallen off of the wagon. This is just nonsense. Of course no market is purely free (except in anarchy, of course), just as we’re not a true democracy either. In both cases, though, we’re about as close as you can get mechanically and logistically. The gov’t picks the winners and losers? Come on, amigo…
“… teetering toward normalcy …”
I like that. But I stand by what I said. Special incentives for businesses, whether they be in “green industries”, for the fed g, or in whatever for the state g’s, always amounts to crony corporatism. It’s like having the government say “You are special, so you get treated better than all the others, you get huge tax breaks, plus other perks that they can never possibly get.” Not free market. I’m not even arguing that it’s a bad practice, in all cases. I’m just saying it’s not in keeping with the classic definition of what constitutes freedom in the marketplace, which is more like an even playing field.
You just made my point. The only absolutely free market is anarchy, which don’t have (and don’t want). Of course we have some gov’t regulation and incentive, that’s the small-d democratic process intruding on the free market ideal. here’s where your theory crashes, though- those incentives aren’t designed to aid individuals, but regions and economic / market sectors. Anyone with the nuts to jump into that business can get their piece. This is even true at a certain level when the big boys get tax packages to relocate to a state – corporations which employ thousands of people have a big bargaining chip in their pocket…that’s called the real world.
If I am making your point, you are also making mine. I, too, realize that the ideal of a “free market”, as expressed by strict Libertarian dogma, simply does not exist. Precisely why I compared this to the notion of a perfect communist state.
I don’t object to some degree of having the government grease the wheels of commerce. But when it is done to the detriment of a state, county or city, I object to it. My first concern is with local interests. The chamber of commerce actually goes against it’s own members in many ways, by decisions and allocations of funds and other resources going to the richest among them. And the chamber is far too much tied in with government at the local and state level. To some degree, even under an administration which is seemingly hostile to their interests, this is true on the national level as well.
The MB Area Chamber is a 5-Star Affiliate of the US Chamber of Commerce. It is well-known for contributing to political dirty tricks, done by people like the bottom-feeding “consultants” in Lexington SC who take a scorched-earth approach to politics. Which include doing their best to hurt the bottom line of businesses owned by “trouble-makers.”
If the chambers are so unfair in the ways certain members are empowered by it to employ unfair trade practices and political dirty tricks against their own dues-paying members, how badly do they fuck over businesses that do not choose to join the chamber, and which oppose them, openly, on certain issues? Answer: They deal with them quite harshly. In some cases, To the point of seeking and employing legal and quasi-legal means to shut them down.
That’s the level of unfree trade that concerns me most.
The free market is the reason you have typed this comment from the comfort of your home or office on the this wonderful thing called the internet. Unreasonable market controls, trade restrictions, and tariffs do a very good job of helping one group of people — at the expense of everyone else.
Actually the Internet is a government creation,originally for military uses.
We all know Al Gore would like to take credit for it, but I think it was DARPA?
I’m calling Al Gore, you lying piece of shit!
I knew this response would come. It’s a government invention — paid for by *largely* free-market dollars, by the way — that was expanded into everyone’s home by the private sector.
If you want to compare innovations in the US compared to, say, communist China or the former USSR, I’d love to see that list.
The cream will always rise to the top.
And the cheese stands alone.
And so does a turd in a pool!
So, then, I would suppose that there was no poverty under the Soviets? Chicoms? The various and sundry Central and South American Communist Utopian experiments? Cuba? There will *always* be poverty, in whatever system you can devise. Ask any economist, and they will explain it.
Quite correct. The Chinese have their elites, while the masses live in poverty. There are elites in Cuba and Venezuela as well. Also in North Korea, even though it is thought be such an outlier by most people. Elites in society, with much disposable capital, always existed in the Soviet Union. In all cases, these elites are most loyal to the existing system, even when they are, to the outside world, shining examples of people who thrive by going against, or going around, the system in their respective nations.
It just doesn’t work that way. For better or worse, in communist nations, the wealthy class — in the case of China today, the mega-wealthy — are extremely loyal to regime in power. That’s how they are allowed to even take their money out of the country. This doesn’t mean they have fell intent, where and when they invest their money in other nations. It just means people should be aware that they remain part of a generally repressive system.
The free market is the only system that allows those who are willing to work advance in life. Senator Scott is a great example.
His thoughts are on the right track — for a beginning, but if he wants to improve conditions then he must speak and act accordingly…
“hopelessness and haplessness” — coming to bumper stickers near you
“No hope, no change”
Obama’s legacy.
“His thoughts are on the right track”
That Mom who was filmed slapping her son upside of the head a few times was on the right track – and she wasn’t just thinking but doing something!
That mom who slapped her kid stated later in the day she was afraid for her son, afraid he would end up another victim. I need to find the article, but I agree – if it were my son, I would have been trying to get him the hell away from that too.
“”That’s my only son and at the end of the day I don’t want him to be a Freddie Gray,”Toya Graham told CBS News, referencing the 25-year-old man who had died while in police custody earlier in April.”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/04/28/baltimore-mom-slaps-son-riot-freddie-gray/26505237/
I personally think the government is directly responsible for this situation. The government alone has destroyed moral standards and regardless of what folks say these were dictated by Christianity. Now the Supreme Court is going to further undermine society.But in actuality Society has condoned and enabled the situation.Each person must be held accountable for their situation. Single mothers in most cases are their own fault. You do not have five or six children unintentionally.The government makes certain people pay support others they disregard. Government creates more problems than they solve.
We all know what group of people act like this, I mean just look at the damage; burning houses, private property destroyed, people shot. Its time to use live ammo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZn-dQ9z5G8
I still support the use of “Diarrhea Tear Gas”
Maybe you should be shitty henry
haw-haw- that’s pretty good, but use caps — Shitty Henry
You got it, Dude.
There’s a majority of conservative on the Supreme Court, and still you whine.
Single mothers in most cases their own fault? I agree you don’t have 5 or 6 children unintentionally, but it takes two people to make a baby. Not one, but two.
Maybe some of the men need to learn to wrap it? Or they can get a vasectomy?
I like Senator Scott, I voted for him.
But he has to understand, government funded Haplessness and Hopelessness will bring about more high employment, more low educational performance, and more poverty. Since the sixties, we have thrown trillions of dollars at this problem and it still persists. And needless to say, rioting and burning down your neighborhood, makes it hard for them to establish any moral high ground for complaining about their self-inflicted wounds.
BINGO!!! The Democrat Party and civil rights race hustlers have enslaved generations of black families into perpetual welfare and poverty and for what???
A vote…
I like Senator Scott. He is not a bad guy for a black man; and I voted for him, so that means I am not a racist. He just needs to understand that black people are different from white people. White people don’t do this kind of thing.
BINGO!!! Glad you are on board.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
What’s your point?
True that
Sen. Scott knows that the solution is to (1) cut food stamps further and (2) employ the universal republican solution to everything, reduce the top income tax rates of 39.6% and 35% to 33%. Scott could also advocate for defaulting on the U.S. debt for a hat trick.
Maybe all states should adopt the Maine program. All able bodied food stamp recipients are required to attend some for of job training for at least 20 hours a week for 6 weeks. If after undergoing training, the individuals are unable to find jobs, they are required to do at least 20 hours per week in order to stay on food stamps. This program reduced “enrollment” by nearly 90%. Time to do this in SC!
Recipients are required to do at least 20 hours of community service in order to stay of food stamps.
Even when they’re working full time at Wal*Mart?
Why is that a problem? Since Obamacare full time is 29 hours a week at Wal Mart. Why can’t they work 49 hours a week for FREE steak and shrimp?
Since Obamacare, companies are hiring more part-time. I know because I have a young family member that works for a company, but make sure to keep the hours below benefits.
Uhh, that has been going on for many years pre-ACA. LOTS of years before. Got any data?
They are not going to publish that data. They just try to keep employee hours low and it is discussed internally among employees.
I can only speculate it would be against the law for large companies to come out and say, you can only work X amount of hours per week, because we don’t to pay for benefits.
The X seems to equate to 25 hours per week, on occasion more, but only occasion.
Since you’re sharing’ the love today, how much would you have the Social Security beneficiaries and the disabled work? Free steak and shrimp? Big whistle there, fc. Don’t forget that Cadillac. BTW, the SNAP bennies are income related, so for working folks, well, I guess it won’t be TOO much lobster and filet. Right?
Did you maybe conveniently forget to mention the SNAP recipients who ARE working full time, who are elderly (over 23% on Social Security, not SSI) or disabled, or whose children are too young to leave by themselves. This addresses ONLY the unemployed–who are not representative of the majority of recipients.
“Program reduced enrollment by 90%”? That is a well-crafted, dog whistle lie of the 4 Pinocchio variety.
Do you mean “reduced unemployed, able-bodied recipients by 90%?–which is a very different statement
How can we spend public money on poor people when the Haliburton bill is due and rich people need tax cuts so they can create more jobs overseas?
Anyone who can’t see clearly enough through their rose colored lens to assertain that entitlement programs have fostered a culture of poverty, are themselves a large part of the problem. Compound that with the typical ghetto mouthpieces like Sharpton delivering the victimhood message to generation after generation, and you have what’s going on in Baltimore.
Last time we checked (which was earlier this week, incidentally), government’s “war on poverty” had been an unmitigated disaster. In fact it had done absolutely nothing to stop poverty, but plenty to incentivize dependency.
I guess it depends on where and what you checked. BTW, when you talk about this dependency, what programs are you referring to specifically? (I never seem to get an answer to this except for the sound of crickets chirping)
One thing I’m curious with the whole $15 an hour debate is how does Washington plan on adjusting the maximum dollar amount you can make to qualify for assistance. I’ve not heard any talk about this so please link if anyone has the source. I predict that if minimum wage is raised to $15 an hour, and the income cap is not adjusted, that just means that the have-nots will be able to work 50% fewer hours to “earn” the maximum to still qualify for assistance.
I predict if they raise the minimum wage to $15/hr – prices will soar and businesses will close.
What evidence do you have?
It’s my prediction – I don’t need evidence to make an educated guess.
An educated guess would require relevant education. The Republican Party and Fox News, are not sources of education.
I am a little pressed for time right now, but if they raise minimum wage to $15/hr. The cost of living must go up to accommodate the wage increase. Companies who are using cheaper labor, also typically have cheaper prices.
What will happen to those on a fixed income, are they going to get a raise too? What about start up businesses, wonder what impact a minimum wage of $15/hr might have? What about your building employees? A lot of these companies, in this climate are barely surviving.
These are just a few thoughts off the top of my head.
There will be business closures, increases in cost of things, decreases in interest of said things due to the increases in cost and loss of jobs as small business scale payroll back. Small mom and pop restaurants will suffer the most. Restaurants operate on thin margins, with average profits of 4% or less, and the business is highly competitive.
A lot of your builders, landscapers and others, are also working on slim margins right now. I am sure some states could handle a $15/hr. minimum wage increase, but not SC. IMO
So?
Let em close.
Someone else will take their place.
They won’t of course.
EVERYTIME somebody proposes raising people’s pay ,you Republicans start down this road.
I remember Barry Goldwater spouting off this shit over Fifty years ago.
Hey OT – I really don’t give a shit if they raise it or not. I am in a better financial position to weather this storm than many are. It might even be good for my children. I am giving my opinion – I think it would be a horrible move to raise minimum wage to $15/hr. $10? Well, that is more reasonable.
So we can’t afford to pay people the same thing they were being paid in 1960? This mentality is why people in SC are poor. They let people convince them, they don’t deserver reasonable pay.
On an inflation adjusted basis, a bag boy working at the local grocery store was making almost twice what a bag boy working for the same or a similar grocery store makes today.
I worked in FL very early 20’s. The cost of living in my area was cheap and no income taxes. Wages were also low. At $10/hr. in my early 20’s I was making more than those with degree. I also worked as a teenager when minimum wage was $2.65/hr. (maybe as low as $2.35?) and yet I made average of $5.25/hr – it was piece meal work.
I didn’t grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth, nor the idea that the government was going to take care of me. I grew up with the idea if I didn’t make it on my own – there was no one to do it for me. No one had the means.
I understand your argument and I’m not going to fight it either way, other than to express my opinion. Heck, if minimum wage was higher in both climates described above, my pay would have been higher, but I strongly believe my expenses would have exceeded pay and my lifestyle would have been less.
Who the hell said anything about the government taking care of anyone. People who get minimum wage work. So you can stop regurgitating GOP claptrap about living off the government. The rest of what you said does not even make any sense.
On an inflation adjusted basis, minimum wage began falling in 1968. It fell slowly at first, but it went into a precipitous decline in the 1980s with the implementation of trickle down economic policies. and has been rapidly falling ever sense. It is not coincidental that the income of the average American during that same time matched that fall.. The reverse Robin Hood policies implemented in the 1980s resulted in both a lower average income and a lower minimum wage. Most people are poorer today than they have been in decades.
I am talking off the cuff Ted, no research to back anything I am or have said. My opinions are my own and for the sake of full disclosure, I shred everything I get from the GOP – they pissed me off last election and I’m not over it just yet.
Let’s assume we do raise minimum wage to $15 per hour (as you suggested earlier, but the article stated $10.10). Let me share personal experiences with you v. what you might read in the media.
I am one that will farm out to companies wherever I can, IF the price is right. A lot of this work I can do myself, but spread thin and so if the price is right, I’ll farm it out to a company.
If they raise prices for say landscaping – I’ll do my own. If they raise prices for building, I wait the economy out, until the price is right for me. I’ve done it both ways, I know.
You if you are looking to get a slice of the rich man’s pie, the only way to get there is hard work. Period.
They can raise minimum wage and as you pointed out in your scenarios above, they have but inflation outgrew it. Do you think it will change this one time?
Let me ask you another question. When the Government starts setting the wages, are they not making the pretense of “taking care of” people?
There is no evidence of that actually occurring The cities and states that have increased minimum wage have seen their economy improve. It results in increased spending.
You are just repeating political talking points that have no basis in reality.
Just one of the articles I’ve read to formulate my opinion of the wage hike… You should try doing research for yourself instead of listening to Rachel Maddow and parroting warm and fuzzy liberal logic. http://www.forbes.com/sites/williamdunkelberg/2012/12/31/why-raising-the-minimum-wage-kills-jobs/
That is not an article it is an editorial by lobbyist. Read his bio, he works for a the National Federation of Independent Businesses. That is a right wing lobbyist group. Of course he is opposed to an increase in the minimum wage, his lobbying group opposes an increase in the Minimum wage, and he spouts all the standard right wing talking points, that have all proven to be untrue.
The truth is the minimum wage is lower today than it was 50 years ago. The decrease in the minimum wage is part of the reason most Americans are not prospering while the mega-wealthy are richer than they have been in 100 + years. We can easily afford to at least return the minimum wage to where it was in 1960. When America’s middle class was prospering. In fact I believe we could afford more and the economy would improve because of it. Republicans like nothing better than to scare the population. That is what they have been doing for 50 years.
Yea, I pretty muched guessed Republican talking points were your source.
http://www.dol.gov/minwage/mythbuster.htm
Ted, do you live in CA or SC? If you notice much of that data is based on CA, where it is much higher cost of living. The data also does not support a minimum wage increase of $15/hr.
“A review of 64 studies on minimum wage increases found no discernable effect on employment. Additionally, more than 600 economists, seven of them Nobel Prize winners in economics, have signed onto a letter in support of raising the minimum wage to $10.10 by 2016”
Actually very little is based on CA. There were only a couple of CA examples. As for not being able to afford it; if the minimum wage was raised to $11 tomorrow, it would be exactly the same after inflation as it was in 1960s. SC’s economy was better in the 1960s than it is today, despite the significantly higher minimum wage.
You are just drinking the GOP kool aid. They are lying to you. Over the last three decades there has been a huge shift in the income and wealth of Americans from the middle class to the very wealthy. Slashing the minimum wage to less than it was 50 years ago is partially to blame for that shift. .
I stopped drinking the Kool Aid last election, try another wedge issue. We weren’t discussing a $10.10 minimum wage – we were talking $15 and that is a HUGE difference.
Only a couple out of a very limited bulleted list that is obviously biased.
Scott said ” “But generically, I certainly understand what a hapless, hopeless person does. You create chaos because you’re living in chaos … if you’re hopeless you do things that seem absolutely inconsistent with logic. You destroy your own communities.”
He SPECIFICALLY and EXACTLY referred to who and what FITS, his minions here and the Democrat Party are?????
You ignore REALITY, in deference to your mythology (see economy, Ferguson, Baltimore)…which is an affront to logic and leads to chaos…And you CONSTANTLY bash – destroy – SC – your community…
All due respect to the money hungry dude, but he is full of shit.
Your op/ed is riveting.
I am sure he is losing some Tea Party support with his comment, however, we need people speak up right now. Those people in Baltimore want to know that they are being heard.
It is interesting, I haven’t scoured news sites, not enough time, but just today there are two articles delivered to my inbox of note:
http://www.foxcarolina.com/story/28930445/spartanburg-co-detention-officer-fired-charged-after-incident-at-jail
http://www.foxcarolina.com/story/28932247/honea-path-officers-accused-of-using-excessive-force-fired
Hmmm…..wonder why now?
Uh…yaah…there’s “common ground” if you look around and gosh
I know I must be right
Because I, too, only serve folk who are black like me and—if
they send big money—whites !!!
All hail Nikki-for-Mitt’s-Money-Haley’s-Tim Scott who thinks
he’s cool and that it’s funny
That he ONLY represents OTHER blacks and of course white
folk who are sending him money !!!