<p>“Statistically, the south has the highest crime rates and the worst schools, actually”</p>
<p>I buy the worst school argument. Unless you have data that shows that per capita crime rate in PHI, DC, CHI… is lower than the the ‘south’, it is hot air.</p>
<p>[South’s</a> high murder rate is key factor in why U.S. homicide rate is so high | Jet | Find Articles at BNET](<a href=“http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_n12_v94/ai_21020057]South’s”>http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_n12_v94/ai_21020057)</p>
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<p>I will also say that the half-dozen or so school districts I am referring to, in addition to being overwhelmingly conservative, are very affluent… One of the area is the favorite stop of all POTUS candidates, republican and democrat alike. This is the chicken and the egg question. Are the schools good because the parents have the money or because the parents with the money migrate to good schools districts keeping them good. We pay unholy property tax rates (compared to surrounding communities with lesser schools) that fund the schools to the standard we expect. </p>
<p>I know in my community it wasn’t always as affluent as it was. It was mostly very blue-collar years ago (post-war suburb) and as the mass exodus from the City of Cincinnati and it’s crumbling school system occurred the affluent went to where the best schools were. I believe, at least in the case of my school district, the money followed the good school and the safe neighborhoods (1 homocide in the last 40 years or something like that, petty crime kind of stuff…yes, it is a homogenous community, high 90-something percent white). I don’t think you can overstate the importance of parents who demand their children get a good education. We moved here (we are on the very poor end of the scale…worst house in the best neighborhood kind of thing…) to ensure the best opportunities at education. I’ll be bold and say that our kids would have learned wherever they went because it wasn’t an option but we always try to give the best advantage you can. That being said nothing would have stopped us from getting our kids out of a poor school district. It wasn’t an option.</p>
<p>As to why the south has historically bad school systems… I go back to the importance of education to the parents. Any parents who reside in the Cincinnati Public School District who really are concerned about their kids’ education either do whatever it takes to get them into a magnet school or send them to parochial or costly private Day schools (there are vouchers btw). I feel sorry for the kids whose parents won’t demand that their kids learn… I’m a K-8 product of the crappy Cincinnati Public Schools by the way…</p>
<p>Liberals and conservatives alike are much better at being self-interested than in legitimately helping others. Involvement in one’s children’s school, in one’s church . . . everyone with the time, the money, and the intelligence to care does that. But it’s doing for yourself, or for your friends (who you can reasonably expect will do back for you). It’s not altruism, and it’s not making much of a dent in the world’s misery (which tends not to be so apparent in affluent suburban school districts in North America).</p>
<p>Believe me, if you lived in an area with affluent, liberal parents – there are many such areas where I live – you would think that only liberals had community involvement, and conservatives were grumpy, antisocial skinflints only out for #1.</p>
<p>Built any low-income housing in your neighborhood recently, so that the less fortunate can get in on the good deal that a functioning civic community offers? Me neither.</p>
<p>First off I prefaced it with I can only talk about my experience so I’ll take you at your word about the affuent liberal parents. No reason to not believe you. The liberal parents around here, in our community, are very involved. I never meant to imply they weren’t. Just that it is overwhelmingly a conservative town. They just formed a Democrats Club in the last few years when they finally figured out they weren’t he only ones! lol :)</p>
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<p>I agree with you there. No argument from me. As they say, you have to start at home…</p>
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<p>No. For starters our community is absolutely land-locked. They are tearing down houses that sit on an acre and slamming 4 or 5, 750K McMansions in there. We do, oddly enough, have a trailer park right in the middle of the city. It is actually quite surreal so there is some affordable, albeit aluminum, housing. It’s the only area of town keeping our street from being considered the poor street. The guy that owns it makes a fortune. More slum-lording…</p>
<p>Secondly, whether liberal or conservative, no one wants low-income housing built anywhere that it can affect their property values. Sorry…it’s the truth.</p>
<p>I’ve often wondered why those who are so concerned about the plight of the poor don’t sell their suburban houses and move to the inner-city, send their kids to the local public school and try to affect change from within (there are some that do that but they are few and far between)? They can keep their fine cars and likely live in the nicest digs there. Bottom line though…we want to throw money at the situation and then forget about it. Myself included. We will help as much as we can until it either inconveniences us or gets “too real” for us to handle.</p>
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<p>Cynicism aside, one such endeavor has been understaken in Cincinnati. There is subsidized housing incorporated with full paying residents in newly developed Brownstone housing along with developing retail. The verdict is still out as to how the social engineering project is working out. Past history has been argued that the results are mixed at best. As BO alluded to in his campaigning, and I’m paraphrasing here, that no program or amount of money is going to effect lasting change without a significant change in attitudes amongst the poor and the AA community. To what extend the government can bring about that paradign shift in mindset is debatable.</p>
<p>As Thomas Sowell has noted:</p>
<p>“One of the implications of universalism is that those who are more fortunate need not be any more deserving than those in misery. For some, this suggests an imperative for redistribution of wealth, while for some others it may suggest a sharing of the knowledge and the development of the habits, priorities, and values that would enable others to create wealth for themselves. For those of us that believe the latter, simply giving people things is counterproductive from the standpoint of getting them to become productive themselves. Nor is what is given likely to equal what the recipients could have created for themselves if the sources of productivity had been shared, rather than the fruits.”</p>
<p>I agree.</p>
<p>I don’t know if this is on or off topic. But what has struck me for quite some time now, with regard to white liberals of both genders who will vote for Hillary but not Barack, is that there’s a lot of language implying that he, well, ‘doesn’t know his station,’ ‘needs to wait his turn.’ There was an article about that this week in the MSM, I believe. Someone will find the source. And apologies if I’m duplicating any identical discussion of this. But personally, this is what I myself observe in white liberals who are making every excuse in the book not to vote for Barack and magnifying, exaggerating, sensationalizing even legitimate changes in position brought out from longer consideration on the part of a candidate. I want a candidate to be flexible, not some rigid ideologue parroting what’s PC or what the party expects him to.</p>
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<p>Ever noted where the greatest opposition to the CityLink project came from? It certainly had it’s fair share of inner city upscale liberals envisioning a rebuilding of downtown and Over the Rhine. As some allude to in various posts, about liberalism, it’s ok to tackle poverty and the other trappings of the poor as long as the battle is fought from afar and doesn’t encroach on their potential prosperity.</p>
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<p>Your observations are not in a vacuum.</p>
<p>Someone else noted similar trends after BO defeated Hillary in the primaries</p>
<p>[Your</a> Whiteness is Showing](<a href=“http://www.lipmagazine.org/~timwise/WhitenessShowing.html]Your”>http://www.lipmagazine.org/~timwise/WhitenessShowing.html)</p>
<p>We still have a ways to go…</p>
<p>while am still young, i will remain a democrat.
when am older and wealthy, i will become a republican.
the cycle of life continues on.</p>
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<p>They are also talking about putting Section 8 housing in the new development on the river so the poor don’t feel left out of the most expensive land in the city. I don’t know if that has all been resolved or not but wow… </p>
<p>As far as “whiteness” most of the points in that piece could be made about the christian right. They were making the same threats about jumping over McCain to the democrats or not voting. Nothing racial in that one…</p>
<p>Madville, I’m guessing you are from Maddieville? lol</p>
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<p>So true…with the exception that if you are raised republican you don’t tend to switch as you grow older. You just grow more intolerant… (I was raised as a republican and find myself growing less tolerant of stupidity as I grow older… Grumpy Old Man).</p>
<p>JHS:
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<p>Why is this? Do the liberals frighten the conservatives, so that they are afraid to participate in the community?</p>
<p>epiphany #47 - I have noticed that Obama seems somewhat flexible, although the cynical side of me thinks it is probably just to get elected. Politicians are like that. Nonetheless, if he is elected (although he will not have my vote), and if he is genuinely flexible, I will be happy about it.</p>
<p>In my community, I’ve worked side-by-side with rich and poor, young and old, liberal and conservative, black, white, and purple folks, building Habitat houses and at the local literacy center. We steer clear of discussions on politics and religion, and everyone’s happy. :)</p>
<p>Spidey–I think Mr. Darcy is both flexible AND politically motivated. I’ve been irked when he’s tacked to the middle on certain issues in recent weeks, but in the final analysis, that’s probably not a bad thing. Whoever our next president is–Mr. Darcy or Mr. Wickham–he’d better be a master of compromise.</p>
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<p>:rolleyes: Gang of 14, McCain-Kennedy…</p>
<p>I think both Mr. Darcy and McCain would be good at this. In fact, if Mr. Darcy becomes any more compromising, I fear he’ll mutate into a Republican. :)</p>
<p>madville provided a link to:</p>
<p>[Your</a> Whiteness is Showing](<a href=“http://www.lipmagazine.org/~timwise/WhitenessShowing.html]Your”>http://www.lipmagazine.org/~timwise/WhitenessShowing.html)</p>
<p>This is written by typical Obama supporters. You supported Clinton and now you don’t support The One because you are white racist.</p>
<p>The One and his supporters are very quick to play the race card and play on people’s guilt whenever it suits their purpose.</p>
<p>I’m probably fairly “typical,” and never for a minute have I thought that Hillary fans who don’t support Mr. Darcy are racist. They do puzzle me though, since they’ll be voting against their own political interests if they vote for McCain. That would make about as much sense as an ardent Romney supporter flying into a rage and voting for the Democrat. If issues are at all important to them, Hillary folks will transfer their support, however grudgingly, to the person who most represents them politically, that being Mr. Darcy. :)</p>
<p>By that logic if Hillary had won the primary wouldn’t all of the Obama supporters who didn’t vote for Hillary be misogynists? How ludicrous is that statement?</p>
<p>Since most Hillary supporters are undoubtedly not racists, why would Mr. Darcy’s supporters be misogynists? I don’t follow your line of thinking, pmrl.</p>