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[motherbatherick]

Hey guys check this out,
I've been slowly trying to inject some libertarian ideas into my college papers and on the message boards.  Trying to get my fellow students to think and/or keep from being brainwashed, you know.  Anyway, I could use a little critique on this paper I'm about to hand in.  Input is greatly appreciated, but bear in mind that I am trying to erase the need for government from their wee minds gradually, hence there's still a little government in my essays.  Anyway here it is:

Bowers Park     1

CLEANING UP BOWERS PARK
     The situation is this.  I have been hired by the city council to turn around the deteriorating socioeconomic situation in Bowers Park.  One of the biggest concerns is for the future of the youth of that area, who are in danger of turning to lives of crime.  We have an unlimited budget and a receptive community.
     One of the first things to do will be to determine how to provide the area’s youth with a better chance in life.  Using the differential opportunity theory, we have learned from Cloward and Ohlin (1960:145) that just because youth fail to perceive legitimate opportunities does not mean that they can automatically become successful at or even find illegitimate opportunities.  So, with that in mind, we will develop more legitimate opportunities for them in the way of youth centers for both play and study, mentoring programs such as Big Brothers/Big Sisters, scholarship programs, youth sports leagues taught by qualified coaches and whenever possible, sports professionals acting as volunteers, and the introduction of programs such as the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.  Even though we have an unlimited budget, we will try to create these programs through charity as much as possible to keep the tax rate low.  We will also involve the parents as much as possible by encouraging programs such as a school voucher system and home-schooling.  After all, what better teacher and mentor than a parent?  We can further

Bowers Park     2
encourage this by giving the parents tax breaks for the purchase of textbooks and other supplies. 
     The next program we will implement will be one closely related to ecological theory particularly that of Oscar Newman in his works Defensible Space (1972).  Using Newman’s ideas for the Five Oaks neighborhood of Dayton, Ohio in the early nineties, we will try to divide the Bowers Park area into several different mini-communities.  Each will be gated and well lit, with good areas of natural surveillance, and in addition to this, we will introduce our third and probably most controversial idea.
     Every adult resident without a criminal record will be encouraged to be armed and to take instruction in the safe use of firearms, and to apply for a concealed carry permit.  Criminals are less likely to attack or rob someone if they cannot be certain of a person’s or household’s armed status, hence the adage, “an armed society is a polite society.�  I realize that this is a controversial idea, however, consider the statistical evidence.  According to Burton Collins (2003), “Firearms are a proven deterrent in criminal behavior. In Switzerland, the government assigns all able-bodied males between the ages of 20 and 50 military weapons. Virtually no gun crime takes place there, unlike the United States (Gazori 16). 
     A study done by Dr. James W. Wright (1986), funded by the Department of Justice, shows that criminals victimize unarmed people and avoid those who arm themselves or whom they believe to be armed. Gun control encourages crime by taking the citizens’ form of protection. Eighty-Eight percent of the criminals interviewed in Wright’s study agree that anti gun laws only take guns away from the law-abiding citizen. The study also
Bowers Park     3
shows that criminals who want a gun can easily get one through the black market(Blackman).
     A study done in the town of Kennesaw, Georgia produces some interesting results. Seventeen violent crimes and fifty-five residential burglaries took place in Kennesaw during 1981. The town then required all town residents to keep and maintain a firearm. Crime dropped in 1982 to one violent crime and nineteen residential burglaries.�
     The idea of smaller, well defended neighborhoods is coordinated quite nicely with our fourth idea, that of community policing.  This idea is based loosely on the study in Great Britain by Sampson and Groves (1989), in which it was found that “communities in Great Britain with few friendship networks, unsupervised teenage groups, and low organizational participation had disproportionately high crime and delinquency rates�  With that in mind, we will encourage the development of neighborhood organizations emphasizing self-governance.  We will encourage people to get to know their neighbors, to take care of one another.  The city can provide classes in ethics, Robert’s Rules of Order, basic government.  If people have a greater stake in how their neighborhood is run, they will take greater pride in it.  The neighborhood will  eventually become both self sufficient and a vital part of the greater city. 
Community policing is another idea that can be used to great effect.  Working closely with the police can help to dispel the “us against them� mentality that is so prevalent among both members of the community and police. Store-front police substations and encouraging officers to walk a beat will make it easier for the police and community to

Bowers Park     4
get to know one another better as well.   Neighborhood watches are also a good idea, tying in with the idea of neighborhood autonomy. 
     Our fifth and final idea revolves around the general strain theory put forth by Robert Agnew (1985, 1992) in which one of the definitions of strain is that of the disjunction between expectations and actual achievements.  To that end we will try to narrow the gap between the two, at least in the socioeconomic sense.  I propose that to encourage economic growth in the community of Bowers Park, we remove all governmental obstacles to starting a new small business, while using existing programs such as the Small Business Administration to teach business basics and provide low interest loans to those who wish to start their own business.  To further encourage this growth, I propose that a five year tax moratorium be enacted in which no starting business will be required to pay any city or state taxes in an effort to give them a good foothold in the community.  These small businesses will grow at an exponential rate, providing the community with a sense of pride, badly needed employment opportunities, and greater overall prosperity.








Bowers Park     5
Citations
Cloward, R., & Ohlin, L. (1960). Delinquency and opportunity: a theory of delinquent gangs. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
Newman, O. (1972). Defensible space. New York: Macmillan.
Collins, B. (2003). Gun control, good or bad. Retrieved Oct. 16, 2005, from CWOC Owl Web site: http://web.cwoc.ufl.edu/owl/archives/2004_01_01/messages/1909.html.
Sampson, R. J., & Groves, W. B. (1989). Community structure and crime: testing social disorganization theory. American Journal of Sociology, 94, 774-802.
Agnew, R. (1985). A revised strain theory of delinquency. Social Forces, 64, 151-162.
Agnew, R. (1992). Foundation for a general strain theory of crime and delinquency. Criminology, 30, 47-87.
 
     
     

[rockchucker]

Good on ya, MB, for injecting some freedom thinking into the life of the 'droids.

No real critique from me, but I hope you're prepared for the onslaught re. guns and crime and statistics.

If you haven't looked at it  yet, you might want to check out Armed by Gary Kleck and Don (?) Kates. Chock full of debunking of the "conventional wisdom" re. guns and crime.

[weskipschool]

You might want to consider the cons of school vouchers and homeschooling tax credits.

[motherbatherick]

You guys are both right.  However, when I got 'woke up', it was kinda like shell shock to me.  There was no gradual awakening.  It's kinda hard to deal with the fact that you've been brainwashed all these years all at once, and the Alex Jones video didn't help very much in that respect.  I'mjust trying to gradually deprogram my fellow students so that they don't go through the sleepless nights that I did.
BTW, my grade just got posted.  100.  I think my prof is a closet libertarian.  She's kinda hot too.  Mole-on-mole indeed.

[NorthernLights]

While I find it reasonable that all the ideas you propose will improve the situation somewhat, I can't help but think some of them re-enforce the idea that government sanctioned meddling is a viable solution to the problems society faces.  It is precisely the notion that a bad neighborhood is bad for any reason other than the people residing it it that leads to the type of government social engineering that has served to only waste money and accelerate the very decay it set out to stop.

To your first point about providing healthy extra-curricular activities, while this is an admirable goal, beneath the surface of it is the unstated assertion that in the absence of these programs that kids will turn to delinquent activities.  I offer as an example the problem of youths joining street gangs and engaging in illegal activities such as drug dealing and assaulting rival gangs.  Your approach suggests that the problem is related to not providing enough legitimate and healthy outlets for youth, thus they join the gangs. 

I assert that the problem is that there are gangs for them to join in the first place and the real problem is the culture of criminality that exists and is readily accessable in many poor communities.  Crime is a disease, left unchecked it will spread to other members of the community, regardless of the amount of social programs and other outlets you provide, some people will invariably be drawn to it.  Since most crime is comitted by repeat offenders, the simpliest way to reduce crime is to remove the repeat offenders from society. 

Further, I don't think you adequately address an issue I like to call "Predestined Poverty", which basically says that if you want to know where poverty will be in the future, look at where it is today.  The current gernation of poor will bring about ever increasing numbers.  Poverty rarely emerges from prosperity (although in cases of drought or civil war is sometimes does), mostly it is inheritezed through the generations, as the poor adults of today breed tomorrows ever larger generation of poor.  There is never a reason for this inherited poverty to exist beyond the current generation, but yet foolish and irresponsible people ensure that it always will be.  Even in America the poverty that exists has little to do with the amount of jobs available or the average pay of those jobs, and lots to do with people having children that they have no buisness having and burdening the rest of society with their care.  Any government effort that does not address that as the root cause of poverty will fail.  Tax breaks, loans, community development are all innefective so long as people have children they can't afford to have.

Unfortunately, how to actually address this is problematic.  While the libertarian approach would probably be to eliminate government subsidies of these types of unsustainable lifestyles (eliminating/reforming welfare), it will ultimately fail.  One needs only to look at Africa to realize even in the absense of any form of government subsidy for having children you can't afford, people will still make bad choices and the current generation of poor will bring forth the next generation of it.

[motherbatherick]

Northern,
Yes, I agree with you.  However, I had a bunch of stupid parameters that I had to work within, and this is the product of said parameters.  I don't much like it either, but it's a start.  Yes, I know crime happens as does poverty.  The trick, in real life, of course is to prevent either from happening to you.  That said, with respect to the poor starving Africans and others who tend to only breed more poor starving Africans and others, my response is, and has always been, "Not my life, not my kids, not my problem."

[Not a TMM member]

 

[PSimon23]

I sent you in pm