"This is a social catastrophe"

Actually, it's my wife. I just watch it as one of those "husband-wife compromise show" things.

It's better than Super Sweet 16, and it's ridiculous manufactured drama when some girl who the birthday girl doesn't like tries to invade the party.

 

STOP BACKING UP DICK WHITMAN'S POINT ON THE OTHER THREAD!

 

It's interesting. You can always preach personal responsibility and that's fine. But, you know if you add poverty to the mix, then the rate of behavior one might call "responsible" will decline.

So improved conditions and personal responsibility go hand-in-hand. One might say with better personal responsibility comes better conditions, but one can just as easily say with better conditions comes better personal responsibility.

I tend to lean toward the latter. If your approach is to address "personal responsibility," then it's like catching water in a net. If you address conditions that correlate to a decline in personal responsibility, then you can wrap your arms around the issue.

 

Well, there goes my shutout.

 

The vast, vast, vast majority of the "girl has baby in high school and everything turns out hunky-dory" stories have one or both of the following huge gorillas-in-the-room:

1) The girl has young school-age-or-younger siblings and the family is still in young-child-rearing mode, usually including stay-at-home Mom, who is willing and able to take care of the kid while Teen Mom goes back to school, as well as Dad being able to foot the bills;

2) Either the girl's family, or the father's family, are rich as hell (this also covers almost all of the celebrity teen-mom-success-stories).

 

I use the crime analogy. A criminal should always be held responsible for his behavior. But one can predict more criminal behavior from impoverished areas. That's not at all implying that a criminal from an impoverished background should be excused. But reducing poverty WILL reduce crime.

With those thoughts in mind, I would say that any attempt at "solving" high crime through greater police presence is misguided.