Hello:

An editorial in the NY Times today, says that the MISTAKE we made by prosecuting children as adults IS now becoming clear...

Huh??

I thought that's why we HAD juvenile courts in the FIRST place, because that lesson had ALREADY been LEARNED. No? How many times do we have to learn something?

I don't mean this post to be about juvenile justice, but about the lessens we seem to have learn over and over again. Particularly, I'm talking about the social safety net that's being dismantled as we speak. It WAS put in place due to a need. Uhhh, the need hasn't gone away. Do we pretend that it has, or do we no longer care? Do we forget? Are we lied to?

excon

PS> If and when you say it's about money, my preemptive response is, Bwa, ha ha ha ha.

I know it's not about money. Spending on poverty programs increased greatly in the last decade ,and still poverty is not eradicated . What we get instead is ever greater participation in the safety net programs from people who by all logic should be self reliant ,or for people who are not poor by the government standard of the word (below the poverty line).

All this has resulted in multi-generational dependency on the government hand-out ,creating a class of people who will not take care of themselves.
If you say that is what is being chipped away at then I am all for it.

Hello tom:

As you suggest, poverty programs that intend to wipe out poverty are failures... Social engineering doesn't work. But, those aren't the programs I'm talking about...

The programs I'm talking about are the ones that feed the hungry, house the poor, and provide access to health care for the elderly...

Nobody believes these programs are intended to eliminate poverty. To use the fact that they DON'T, as the reason WHY they should be eliminated, is disingenuous, at best.

excon

I'll stand by my contention that if they are creating a permanent class of dependency then those programs need to be scrapped and /or reformed .

I'll use the words of the most socialist President we've had( until recently ).

"Continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fibre. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit.”
(Franklin Roosevelt )

Since the 1960s, the U.S. has spent $16 trillion on welfare. Over the next 10 years, welfare spending is projected to cost$10.3 trillion. Chip away ? That's where the Bwaa ha ha is needed.