Stooping

**reason** · July 28th, 2005, 02:04 PM

quote:
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Oh, I've never known the presence in a neighborhood of two dudes bumping uglies to cause drive-bys and other assorted street violence.
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Really?!? Funny, I seem to have heard of a minority, a very vocal and currently powerful minority, that believes that ?two dudes bumping uglies? will be the ruin of everything we hold dear and are acting as if this ?ugly bumping? is of the same order of threat to apple pie america as drug use and prostitution.
I would have thought you?d have heard about that. Rick Santorum, one of Pennsylvania?s finest, just wrote a book attacking them thar ?bumpers? under the guise of family values. He and his brethren would just as soon string you up as any other unclean law-breaker and would feel just fine bragging about it at Sunday service as a service to the neighborhood.

To them you are just as bad as the drug dealers and prostitutes and just as much of a problem. Aint perceptions grand?

So my point still stands: Two dudes bumping uglies does not cause street violence. That others may want to attack the two dudes is a different issue. The violence is out of the control of the two dudes.

**Piña** · July 28th, 2005, 02:19 PM

Originally posted by Gunslinger:
Ok, after reading this I have come to some conclusions:

1) Reason is absolutely correct in what he is doing. More people should be as involved in their neighborhoods and care about their surroundings as he and his neighbors do. Crime flourishes mainly due to indifference or fear and these people are showing that neither applies to them.

Yup, involvement is one of the requisites. It?s not the answer but without it change isn?t going to happen.

Crime does not flourish because of indifference and lack of fear. It flourishes because the people committing the crimes think it benefits them. Create an alternative that they understand and believe is attainable and they will leave crime behind.

2) Pina, you are an idiot. Come sit with me for a day at work and you will see how flawed your 'vision' is of how things work. It is houses like these that perpetuate the drug trade in this city.

(An aside: )GS, kiss my ass.(Back to the discussion)

Houses do not perpetuate crime. Crime creates the conditions that creates the degradation. You have put the horse before the cart and don?t see it.

3) Buildings that are boarded up or run down need to be gotten rid of. These are the houses that drug dealers turn into crack houses. They serve no useful purpose to society and need to be gotten rid of.

I agree that boarded up, uncared for properties need to be addressed. The problem is that it just aint gonna happen and you can howl at the moon as long as you want but it won?t change a thing. I strongly disagree that getting rid of them is going to affect the drug/prostitution trade. Just like the, oh-so-effective, ?war on drugs? the only thing that happens when you make it more expensive for the dealers is that the drugs become more expensive and the crimes committed to feed the addictions go up.

4) While the idea of getting rid of those houses, taking some kind of punitive measures against the absentee owners and turning streets either into dead ends or making them one way is the sensible thing to do it will never happen with the bozos we have on city council. Since y'all live in Northside and not Over the Rhine or Avondale you won't get any help. It's not "newsworthy" enough nor does it sell to the African American voter to help out a neighborhood that is mostly white.

The common thread in the above paragraph is that none of these things will work. That none of these things has ever worked to change the overall behaviors. The best that they have ever done is to make them relocate, temporarily, to some other neighborhood. To change the behaviors you need to make better alternatives not only available but more attractive to those whose behavior you wish to change.

Or you could just beat your head against the wall as we?ve been doing for damn near forever.

**travelinman** · July 28th, 2005, 02:31 PM

Has anyone else noticed that all pinhead does is rip apart what everyone else posts but never has any solutions of his own?

**Piña** · July 28th, 2005, 02:32 PM

Originally posted by Captain Whizbang:
So my point still stands: Two dudes bumping uglies does not cause street violence. That others may want to attack the two dudes is a different issue. The violence is out of the control of the two dudes.

Not really. The fact that your two friends are not actually ?causing? street violence by your lights takes nothing away from the fact that others see it quite differently and will act on their perceptions not yours.

You keep confusing what motivates people with reality. People don?t act on reality. They act on their interpretation of reality.

To that vocal, oh so holy, minority your ugly bumping buddies (wouldn?t that hurt by the way?) are seen as just as much of a cause of street violence as the drug dealers. Really.

The ?logic? goes something like this. Taint natural. Degrades the family. The family is the kernel that holds this country together. Without the kernel everything goes to anarchy. Anarchy begets violence. Six degrees of separation and you have homo?s cause drive-bys. Seems nuts to you and me but not to the die hards who would take their bibles and thump your ugly into oblivion. To them it makes perfect sense and how could anyone not see it????

My point is: They think it makes sense. It doesn?t. We need to be careful about the validity of our own deeply held beliefs and always need to whip a little critical thinking on ?em just to be on the safe side lest we let our preconceptions and wishes skew our observations and conclusions.

**Piña** · July 28th, 2005, 02:35 PM

Originally posted by travelinman:
Has anyone else noticed that all pinhead does is rip apart what everyone else posts but never has any solutions of his own?

Read my posts again. (Without moving your lips this time.)

If you try just a little you'll see that I am suggesting solutions. They're just not the freeper sound bites that your personal philosophy is founded on.

**travelinman** · July 28th, 2005, 02:41 PM

What solutions?

Let?s see if you can actually post something that:

1. Does not include quotes cut from other member?s posts.
2. Actually provide possible solutions.

**Piña** · July 28th, 2005, 02:51 PM

Originally posted by travelinman:
What solutions?

Let?s see if you can actually post something that:

1. Does not include quotes cut from other member?s posts.

This is relevant, how?

2. Actually provide possible solutions.

I have. Sorry you either don't like them or just don't have the wit to dispute them. Probably both, actually.

[ July 28, 2005 11:53 AM: Message edited by: Pi?a ]

**travelinman** · July 28th, 2005, 02:55 PM

You just can't do it, can you?

**Gunslinger** · July 28th, 2005, 02:55 PM

Originally posted by Pi?a:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Gunslinger:
Ok, after reading this I have come to some conclusions:

1) Reason is absolutely correct in what he is doing. More people should be as involved in their neighborhoods and care about their surroundings as he and his neighbors do. Crime flourishes mainly due to indifference or fear and these people are showing that neither applies to them.

Yup, involvement is one of the requisites. It?s not the answer but without it change isn?t going to happen.

Crime does not flourish because of indifference and lack of fear. It flourishes because the people committing the crimes think it benefits them. Create an alternative that they understand and believe is attainable and they will leave crime behind.<hr /></blockquote>indifference and fear does help crime. Criminals (drug dealers, thieves, prostitutes, et al) know that if people don't care or are afraid of them they will not act, therefore they go out and do what they do with impunity. As for the alternatives, these kids aren't interested in the alternatives. Do you know how many kids I have talked to about working at McDonalds or Krogers to make their money instead of them dealing drugs or stealing? They aren't interested in working for $8.00 an hour when they know they can either peddle some crack for an hour and make $300.00 or just go into a store and take what they want for free. They also aren't interested in the programs that ARE out there b/c it's not the 'cool thing to do'.

2) Pina, you are an idiot. Come sit with me for a day at work and you will see how flawed your 'vision' is of how things work. It is houses like these that perpetuate the drug trade in this city.

(An aside: )GS, kiss my ass.(Back to the discussion)[/quote]

ok, idiot was too harsh a word. My mistake.

Houses do not perpetuate crime. Crime creates the conditions that creates the degradation. You have put the horse before the cart and don?t see it.

Empty houses DO perpetuate crime. As long as these houses stay empty the criminals know that they have a 'safe haven' as it were. YOu get rid of the 'safe havens', then where do they go to shoot up or whatever it is they do in those houses? If you take away there hiding place where can they go?

3) Buildings that are boarded up or run down need to be gotten rid of. These are the houses that drug dealers turn into crack houses. They serve no useful purpose to society and need to be gotten rid of.



I agree that boarded up, uncared for properties need to be addressed. The problem is that it just aint gonna happen and you can howl at the moon as long as you want but it won?t change a thing. I strongly disagree that getting rid of them is going to affect the drug/prostitution trade. Just like the, oh-so-effective, ?war on drugs? the only thing that happens when you make it more expensive for the dealers is that the drugs become more expensive and the crimes committed to feed the addictions go up.

See above. If you take their 'hidey hole' away what are they going to do?

4) While the idea of getting rid of those houses, taking some kind of punitive measures against the absentee owners and turning streets either into dead ends or making them one way is the sensible thing to do it will never happen with the bozos we have on city council. Since y'all live in Northside and not Over the Rhine or Avondale you won't get any help. It's not "newsworthy" enough nor does it sell to the African American voter to help out a neighborhood that is mostly white.



The common thread in the above paragraph is that none of these things will work. That none of these things has ever worked to change the overall behaviors. The best that they have ever done is to make them relocate, temporarily, to some other neighborhood. To change the behaviors you need to make better alternatives not only available but more attractive to those whose behavior you wish to change.

Like I said before, these kids aren't interested in the alternatives. They aren't interested in living a 'regular life'. They wanna be hard core gangstas. Working at Krogers bagging groceries and going to school and getting good grades don't fit that role. In order to change the behavior you have to show them that the way they are living now is unacceptable. You do that by hauling them off to jail and taking away the crack houses that shelter them from society. That is why the boarded up buildings must go. That is why City Council needs to stop hounding the police department and get out there in the community to show these kids that there is a better way. Yeah, I know, siding with the cops and making sure that buildings are either kept up to code or gotten rid of may not be 'headline grabbing', but these are a couple of the things that need to be done in order to start getting this city and some of its communities turned around.

Or you could just beat your head against the wall as we?ve been doing for damn near forever.

I do that enough at work. The only thing that should be beaten are some of the parents of the kids I see at work. They are a big part of the problem also.

[ July 28, 2005 12:01 PM: Message edited by: Gunslinger ]

**reason** · July 28th, 2005, 08:22 PM

.

[ July 29, 2005 07:47 AM: Message edited by: Captain Whizbang ]

Thread: Stooping

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