I'm a firm believer in individual rights, freedoms, and responsibility. However, the sad fact is that the majority of the poor in the United States are actually children. The average age of the poor in Indianapolis is around 9 years old. There are actually people in shelters working two jobs - both part time with no benefits and still they fail to make a living wage. The primary reason for this is lack of education but there are educated people without work as well. Unless we take away our freedom of choice, you cannot force someone to go to school. Even if higher education was free not everyone would attend. Some don't catch on to how important an education is until they worked for a couple of years after high school without one. There has to be a driving force to make everyone WANT to achieve a higher education. Also, it is very difficult to attend school to acquire a higher education once you have passed a couple of years outside of high school unless you are military or make a decent wage to be able to finance it or pay a course at a time while still earning a living.


>>>I don't know about that. Have you ever seen who goes to Harvard and other Ivy league schools? The student body list is so full of foreign names.
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>>Is a foreign name a "minority"? And I think the issue is about minorities at home, not foreigners. ... Does it follow that a foreign named person is a poor person? I just don't see the logic here.
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>You may have a point. But there are ways to go to college if you want to go.
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>And you don't have to go to an Ivy league to break the poverty cycle. I know a several people that started out by going to a two year college and tranfered to a university.
>Believe me, if I can graduate from a University, any one can.
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>But maybe it should all start at the lower level like in high school. Too many kids don't\won't even finish high school. Why?
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>>>>IMO, there's no way out of having the poor, as long as we have a lessez-faire capitalism and unrestrained corporations. The powers that be will always need certain level of unemployment (6% unemployment is good for the economy, they say), or else they'd have to deal with employees' demands, and start paying them properly and give them benefits and even, maybe even, decrease their profit rate because of that.
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>>>Interesting theory.
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>>It's more than a theory. Or at the least it's an important part of making capitalism work "well". "Well" being defined as 'for the corporation's benefit'.
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>Note to self: Learn the theory behind this. :)
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>>>>Charity and/or throwing money at the poor will not work in the long run because it doesn't address the cause. And the cause is the corporate need for a certain level of unemployment... which is something that's been out there for a few centuries now.
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>>>I think people like NAACP, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton needs them more.
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>>That's what the media (big corporate, don't ever forget) wants you to believe. Making the poor, and those who try to do something about it, into "the enemy" lets corporations take more and more. Look at what they've done to the reputation of unions over the last 20 years or so!
>Corporations now run under the objective of more $$$ and more $$$ and more $$$ and we have been thoroughly conditioned by the media and schooling that more $$$ is THE essence of life. Too bad for those who just can't hack it.
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>I guess one can make excuses for not being able to help yourself, but most the blame should go to the individual.