First in a series

“It is not material poverty that causes crime but poor character. Values, not economics, determine moral behavior” – leading American thinker, radio host, global orator Dennis Prager, Jewish Journal, Nov. 14

In the days since the Ferguson grand jury returned its verdict on hulking bad guy Mike Brown, aggrieved liberals have engaged so industriously in hand-wringing in their desperate search for a culprit not named Brown, they have not had time to cleanse their 10 digits.

They contend that Mr. Brown is not at fault. Sure, he robbed a store.  Sure, he terrorized a young cop 50 percent his size. But he is blameless.  He grew up poor and black in a poor black community. Poverty, baby, is the villain’s name.

How can the eternal American political circle that contends poverty directly causes crime be broken?

Do you believe Ron Brownstein, Washington-based liberal essayist for the Los Angeles Titanic?
Looking past Mr. Brown’s abhorrent behavior last Aug. 9, granting him stain-free absolution, Mr. Brownstein argued that poor-and-black is an endemic, blameless condition, an impossible-to-overcome plight that led to the young man’s violent death. 

Government is the answer, says Mr. Brownstein. LBJ’s War on Poverty 50 years ago has been one of the largest failures in Washington history. Data shows a marked increase over the poverty that existed in the mid-1960s.

How Not to Make a Difference

After investing $22 trillion in taxpayer money to support anti-poverty programs since 1965, “a significant portion of the population is now less capable of self-sufficiency than it was when the War on Poverty began,” the conservative Heritage Foundation reports. All U.S. wars since the Revolution have cost less. After five years of the War on Poverty, the 1950 poverty rate of 32 percent had been slashed almost in half, 17 percent. In the past 45 years, though spending has been astronomical, a world record, the percent has not budged.

The panacea, Mr. Brown wrote this morning, that “improving  coordination among the array of government programs – housing, education, job training, public safety – already serving low-income neighborhoods” is one magnetic solution.

Mr. Brownstein’s smartest concession was this: “Resources behind public programs, though, won’t ever match the level of need.”
Poetically, he concludes (without further problem-solving attempts) that “America works best when it transcends its divides.”

Well, harrumph, that makes me feel better and richer. How about you?

Next, Dennis Prager, one of the world’s most respected conservative thinkers, will seek to show that the impoverished are not so impoverished, and their economic status is unrelated to their propensity for committing crimes.

(To be continued)