Crime- "drug use causes it" RW: "Job Shortage", LW says

[oscar111]

The RW loves to blame individuals, never social structures like the Job Shortage {14 million}.

Often they say " the individual free choice to use drugs is the cause of street crime".
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A good LW reply is .. " the Job Shortage leads people to seek drugs for relief from joblessness's depression. And for a job selling drugs: no other job exists for 14 million".

In short, the Job Shortage leads into the drug culture two ways:

1. better mood through drugs
2. a job selling drugs.

BOTTOM LINE: street crime is really due to the Job Shortage, not drugs.

footnotes -
1. i am speaking of street crime, not white collar crime. White collar crime is usually due to greed by those who are not desperate.

2. Some drug use, by those with jobs and good income , is due to a desire not to raise mood up from a painful level, but rather to raise mood from good to ecstatic.

So half the drug culture is not due to the Job Shortage. These good-income drug users tend to white-collar crime when they need money for drugs.
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But to end the worst sort of crime, street crime, we must look at the Job Shortage and what it often leads to -- the other, lower half of the drug culture.

[neuvocat]

1. Indeed.

Its easier to scapegoat someone than to take responsibility for their overall failures. Guilt is a bitch to deal with.

[Mnemosyne]

2. How longs it been since YOU were so totally desperate

with NOWHERE to turn?
Just asking.

[neuvocat]

3. Well let's see...

During the Bush I era I was laid off without very much job experience and had to retrain for a new career. That took about a year or better but even then I had to settle for bottom-of-the-barrell temp jobs where if the breeze blew the wrong way, you could end up getting fired.

During that time I was on unemployment and made only around 4000 bucks that year. If that wasn't bad enough in Southern Califorinia there was also my lazy, sorry-ass fat brother who wouldn't look for a job but still managed to live off of my income as well as his wife's. That's where I learned what starvation actually was, especially since both of them never shared anything in terms of food or utilities (like electricity and cable) with me because I was unable to pay for hardly anything more than my share of the rent.

That's also when all the shit with the family values campaign had hit, so you can imagine what it was like for an ordinary white guy who never committed a crime being treated like an outcast because he doesn't have a girlfriend or at least someone to date (and no girl in her right mind would have anything to do with a guy that is in such dire financial straits when she's got her own bills to pay and may not have a job tommorrow herself).

Oh and also during that time my car died and being in Southern California, you can't really get around well enough to get a job that would last more than a week. And then of course my sole means of income, that being my unemployment, did not get extended in Congress. That's when I was kicked out by my fat brother and his fat wife (he got a job by then but of course those "family values" overcame their compassion for me when they said that they wanted to have a baby. How convenient.)

After that I found an aunt who was kind enough to let me stay at her place so I wouldn't be homeless and hungry. My parents then loaned me some money to get a car and shortly thereafter I was able to get a job (and you can imagine I paid a great deal of money to my dear old aunt more out of sheer gratitude than anything else).

Soon afterwards however I had to move out of town and take care of my folks. My dad died and I had to look after my mother who decided that she was entitled to mistreat everyone around her and I had to bear the brunt of verbal abuse and if I didn't like it she would threaten to call the cops and have me thrown out on the street.

Family values.

Anyways, I had all that I could stand at that point and that's when I decided that I had to get the hell out of there myself. I moved into the dorms to start life at a university and to be honest with you I've done a lot better on my own. I wish there were more people like my aunt but this isn't a fair world.

[oscar111]

4. The guilt belongs on the Job Shortage, not you

You should have been offered a choice of jobs in your field the day you first needed one.

There's no excuse for having a Job Shortage. WPA could provide more jobs than people looking. Imagine the stress that would remove.

N-cat, your story is all too common. Stress, stress, stress, all of it unreported in the MSM.
You were "borderline homeless", a term for those living with others in a precarious situation.
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The RW loves to "blame shift" from huge social structures {which the RW creates} onto the tiny individual victim.

We of the LW must learn how to quickly refute that blame shifting. I hope the OP helps.

The government has the resources to provide jobs for all. The individual jobless person does not - obviously.
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The number of jobs is controlled by the Federal Reserve policies. Seldom if ever mentioned in the MSM.

Learn how to bring the WPA back.. see the jobs for all site in my sig... advised by
Galbraith of Harvard, the

archbishop of Milwaukee,

2 Nobel Prize winners and

dozens of professors.

This is a serious, reputable site.

[Mnemosyne]

5. I am so sorry you had such a bad time neuvocat.

The problem is that there are many that have no one to help them ever.
I could tell you some horror stories of those I know that have suffered immeasurably due to the job shortage, but that solves nothing.

I do believe that people should be held responsible for their own actions, but when our government corporations make it almost impossible to find work which allows people to survive, THEY are even more responsible for "street crime".

I know of those that would never have considered selling drugs when they could feed their families that now sell pot to survive. They hate doing something illegal, but when they have families needing food and no way to obtain it, who can blame them?

I've heard folks, that have been "law abiding" citizens their entire lives, speak jokingly of robbing banks they are getting so desperate to survive. I doubt they ever would actually take such action, but it speaks volumes about the desperation growing each day in this country.

Yes, people need to take personal responsibility, but our government must take it's responsibility for helping to place ordinary citizens into extraordinary circumstances which create the desperation that may cause them to commit crimes that would never have been committed IF there was employment available to feed their families.

It is good to hear that you are doing better, but please consider what lengths you may have had to go to if your aunt had not been there to help you. Many are not so fortunate.

Peace to you,

V