Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, December 26, 2005 at about 11pm CST - Segment 2
Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, December 26, 2005 at about 11pm CST
Segment 2
Every human alive today is descended from about 3000 humans who lived about 50000 years ago on the east coast of Africa. In a book called "The Seven Daughters of Eve", the author looks at mitochondrial DNA. You probably never heard of that. It seems that cells in our bodies have a set of DNA that is passed from mother to child unaltered, kind of. Mitochondrial DNA mutates at a standard rate of time, so it is possible to figure out when two people had a common ancestor. It turns out that there are only 22 females who have descendants still alive today. From this guy's research, he also determined that the Neanderthals in Europe had no descendants. I know, I know, you think your father-in-law looks like a Neanderthal so obviously they had some descendants, but that does not look to be the case.
Now, another guy did a book where he studies the X-chromosome from males and discovered that he could go back 70000 years. The first woman with descendants did not live at the same time as the first guy with descendants. His conclusion was that there are some guys who have LOTS of kids and some who have none. The majority of us are descended from a small number of guys who figured out how to corner the market in females.
A bit a humor there.
What that means to me is that we are all related to each other somewhere in time. To say otherwise is silly to me. There are no other branches of the human species that have survived to the present day.
We should, if we are honorable, be willing to help each other to have what it takes to have a good life. The leadership of the Left wishes to use the coercive forces of the government to help. What that entails is that taxes are taken from everyone and redistributed to the poor. In addition, we have charity which helps the poor. And on and on. Yet, the economic failure rate of our country is about 20%. Percentages mean nothing. People are in trouble and someone needs to do something about the social ills in this country. The problem arises as to the question of "How do you do that?"
The leadership of the Right has failed to answer that question effectively, because they believe that people can take care of themselves if the government simply gets out of the way. It appears obvious to the Right that charities would take up the slack, if government got out of the social welfare business. Too many people outside the leadership on the Left AND the Right cannot believe that. It defies logic.
How do you prove the premise that the government is NOT the best tool to use for effective social change? The answer is that you cannot, because you cannot logically prove a negative.
For some reason we seem destined to try to convince each other that there is only One True Path. Lately I have come to the conclusion that the debate is incorrectly stated. I do not believe that social problems are caused by society. That statement seems on its face to be silly, but I believe that individuals are the problem, not the society we live in. If that IS the case, then the one-size-fits-all model is a stupid idea. Here is the kicker, the government cannot provide anything BUT one-size-fits-all programs. If the government was going to cure some of the social ills, I would have expected to see some type of improvement in poverty and other social ills in this country over the last seventy years.
I don't.
The income redistribution model has failed. The government sponsored job training programs have failed. The leadership of the Left says that if we just have a bigger government that taxes more and gives more to the poor, then all the social ills of the world will be handled. If the government has failed in the efforts it has undertaken so far, why reward it with more money? Why does that make sense? Nowhere in the world where there are large central governments have the people of that country prospered at the level we have. You can learn from your own mistakes or other people's mistakes. It's stupid to learn from neither and that is what is happening right now. We continue to support government social programs, because it looks like there is no alternative. I say there is.
We as a people have become very wealthy. At no time in history has there been a nation like the United States. We as citizens can no longer be conscripted to do much of anything. Only the government can do that by taxing us. We are being forced to do charity without any results to show for it.
Individuals have to fix their own problems. The government cannot do it, because the government has to follow a one-size-fits-all model. What is needed is a program where each individual who has a problem is tested and an inventory is done on their skill base and their other resources. Each individual would then have to decide what they wanted to accomplish. They would have to set goals for themselves.
Then they have to be convinced that they CAN better themselves. If you can do that, then you've won half the battle. Too many poor people have given up and just want to get by. They have such a poor self image that they cannot conceive of things getting better.
For an individual to succeed, they have to set some goals for themselves and their families. Each individual would have to come up with a set of goals they want to achieve.
Think about it. Instead of an individual guessing which government program will help them, they would have a way of measuring their weaknesses and how well they would probably respond to each of the programs available. Each individual would then be given a list of what they need to do to achieve their goals. The individual would have to volunteer to fix their own problems by participating in programs that best fit them. Here's the kicker. Not everybody responds to a given program. What if the test was mistaken? Big deal. Move to the second possibility available. Each individual would then work through an individualized program set up for them until they reached their goal. This program I am talking about would then see what infrastructure needed to be help people get to their goals. Too many single parents need daycare before they even consider bettering themselves. I say, do it. Provide the daycare. Provide the transportation. BUT only on the condition that the people involved commit themselves to reaching milestones along the path to a better life.
Let me tell you a story. About five years ago, I was involved in a project run by the State of Texas. The Council of Governments was the local agency that was attempting to implement it. The name of the project was One Stop Shopping. The idea was that no matter where the poor person entered the system, the entire system would have their information. Instead of the poor person having to move from one agency to the next and fill out a new set of paperwork at each stop, the paperwork would be done in one fell swoop. The poor person would then show up at the various agencies and get helped. The problem was that at the State level, a turf war broke out. Different agencies did not want to share their clients, nor their clients' information. The project got cancelled.
I want to revive that project, but with a twist. Instead of just using State of Texas resources, I want every single charity, church and nongovernmental organization involved. I want an inventory of all the programs locally that COULD help and what their successful clients look like.
I have had for the past year given the project the working title of The Hiring Hall Association. That does not seem to be appropriate, but it would set the tone for the project by saying to each individual: your goal should be to become a productive member of our society by getting the skills necessary to get a job. If that is NOT the goal of the individual, then you HAVE to find out what their goal IS. For the project to work, each individual would have to volunteer to better themselves. If they were not interested in doing that, then you have to live with that and help them reach a place where they are not in real need.
I also want to involve businesses who hire entry level people. By having businesses involved, the Hiring Hall could tell each of the clients what skill set would lead to a job. The goal would be to find a skill set that the client would be interested in AND where they could get a job. It would be kind of stupid to train someone for a profession where they could not get hired. On the other hand, why not have someone train for a stopgap job, so they have an income? In short, ask them to come back for more training as time permits. Any job is better than no job. Unemployment saps your will to help yourself. A stopgap job is just that... a stopgap.
I also think that psychological testing has to be in there somewhere. Psychological testing has been around for over a century. If you knew the type of person who was helped by each program, then you could tailor the program to the individual instead forcing the individual to accept a program that would not likely help them.
Our Founding Fathers made the point that we cannot expect people to be Good. We have to accept people as they ARE, not how we want them to be. We have to make the alternative to being Good carry a high cost.
On the other hand, what if a person just does not want to better themselves? What if they really do want to live off of society? What do we have to do about that? We can't just abandon them to their own destruction. Doing that sets a bad example in the community.
Let's not talk about the extremes right now. The goal would be to fit the help to the individual, not the individual to the help available. That approach has failed. If you do not understand that approach has failed, then I think you may be crazy.
Segment 2
Every human alive today is descended from about 3000 humans who lived about 50000 years ago on the east coast of Africa. In a book called "The Seven Daughters of Eve", the author looks at mitochondrial DNA. You probably never heard of that. It seems that cells in our bodies have a set of DNA that is passed from mother to child unaltered, kind of. Mitochondrial DNA mutates at a standard rate of time, so it is possible to figure out when two people had a common ancestor. It turns out that there are only 22 females who have descendants still alive today. From this guy's research, he also determined that the Neanderthals in Europe had no descendants. I know, I know, you think your father-in-law looks like a Neanderthal so obviously they had some descendants, but that does not look to be the case.
Now, another guy did a book where he studies the X-chromosome from males and discovered that he could go back 70000 years. The first woman with descendants did not live at the same time as the first guy with descendants. His conclusion was that there are some guys who have LOTS of kids and some who have none. The majority of us are descended from a small number of guys who figured out how to corner the market in females.
A bit a humor there.
What that means to me is that we are all related to each other somewhere in time. To say otherwise is silly to me. There are no other branches of the human species that have survived to the present day.
We should, if we are honorable, be willing to help each other to have what it takes to have a good life. The leadership of the Left wishes to use the coercive forces of the government to help. What that entails is that taxes are taken from everyone and redistributed to the poor. In addition, we have charity which helps the poor. And on and on. Yet, the economic failure rate of our country is about 20%. Percentages mean nothing. People are in trouble and someone needs to do something about the social ills in this country. The problem arises as to the question of "How do you do that?"
The leadership of the Right has failed to answer that question effectively, because they believe that people can take care of themselves if the government simply gets out of the way. It appears obvious to the Right that charities would take up the slack, if government got out of the social welfare business. Too many people outside the leadership on the Left AND the Right cannot believe that. It defies logic.
How do you prove the premise that the government is NOT the best tool to use for effective social change? The answer is that you cannot, because you cannot logically prove a negative.
For some reason we seem destined to try to convince each other that there is only One True Path. Lately I have come to the conclusion that the debate is incorrectly stated. I do not believe that social problems are caused by society. That statement seems on its face to be silly, but I believe that individuals are the problem, not the society we live in. If that IS the case, then the one-size-fits-all model is a stupid idea. Here is the kicker, the government cannot provide anything BUT one-size-fits-all programs. If the government was going to cure some of the social ills, I would have expected to see some type of improvement in poverty and other social ills in this country over the last seventy years.
I don't.
The income redistribution model has failed. The government sponsored job training programs have failed. The leadership of the Left says that if we just have a bigger government that taxes more and gives more to the poor, then all the social ills of the world will be handled. If the government has failed in the efforts it has undertaken so far, why reward it with more money? Why does that make sense? Nowhere in the world where there are large central governments have the people of that country prospered at the level we have. You can learn from your own mistakes or other people's mistakes. It's stupid to learn from neither and that is what is happening right now. We continue to support government social programs, because it looks like there is no alternative. I say there is.
We as a people have become very wealthy. At no time in history has there been a nation like the United States. We as citizens can no longer be conscripted to do much of anything. Only the government can do that by taxing us. We are being forced to do charity without any results to show for it.
Individuals have to fix their own problems. The government cannot do it, because the government has to follow a one-size-fits-all model. What is needed is a program where each individual who has a problem is tested and an inventory is done on their skill base and their other resources. Each individual would then have to decide what they wanted to accomplish. They would have to set goals for themselves.
Then they have to be convinced that they CAN better themselves. If you can do that, then you've won half the battle. Too many poor people have given up and just want to get by. They have such a poor self image that they cannot conceive of things getting better.
For an individual to succeed, they have to set some goals for themselves and their families. Each individual would have to come up with a set of goals they want to achieve.
Think about it. Instead of an individual guessing which government program will help them, they would have a way of measuring their weaknesses and how well they would probably respond to each of the programs available. Each individual would then be given a list of what they need to do to achieve their goals. The individual would have to volunteer to fix their own problems by participating in programs that best fit them. Here's the kicker. Not everybody responds to a given program. What if the test was mistaken? Big deal. Move to the second possibility available. Each individual would then work through an individualized program set up for them until they reached their goal. This program I am talking about would then see what infrastructure needed to be help people get to their goals. Too many single parents need daycare before they even consider bettering themselves. I say, do it. Provide the daycare. Provide the transportation. BUT only on the condition that the people involved commit themselves to reaching milestones along the path to a better life.
Let me tell you a story. About five years ago, I was involved in a project run by the State of Texas. The Council of Governments was the local agency that was attempting to implement it. The name of the project was One Stop Shopping. The idea was that no matter where the poor person entered the system, the entire system would have their information. Instead of the poor person having to move from one agency to the next and fill out a new set of paperwork at each stop, the paperwork would be done in one fell swoop. The poor person would then show up at the various agencies and get helped. The problem was that at the State level, a turf war broke out. Different agencies did not want to share their clients, nor their clients' information. The project got cancelled.
I want to revive that project, but with a twist. Instead of just using State of Texas resources, I want every single charity, church and nongovernmental organization involved. I want an inventory of all the programs locally that COULD help and what their successful clients look like.
I have had for the past year given the project the working title of The Hiring Hall Association. That does not seem to be appropriate, but it would set the tone for the project by saying to each individual: your goal should be to become a productive member of our society by getting the skills necessary to get a job. If that is NOT the goal of the individual, then you HAVE to find out what their goal IS. For the project to work, each individual would have to volunteer to better themselves. If they were not interested in doing that, then you have to live with that and help them reach a place where they are not in real need.
I also want to involve businesses who hire entry level people. By having businesses involved, the Hiring Hall could tell each of the clients what skill set would lead to a job. The goal would be to find a skill set that the client would be interested in AND where they could get a job. It would be kind of stupid to train someone for a profession where they could not get hired. On the other hand, why not have someone train for a stopgap job, so they have an income? In short, ask them to come back for more training as time permits. Any job is better than no job. Unemployment saps your will to help yourself. A stopgap job is just that... a stopgap.
I also think that psychological testing has to be in there somewhere. Psychological testing has been around for over a century. If you knew the type of person who was helped by each program, then you could tailor the program to the individual instead forcing the individual to accept a program that would not likely help them.
Our Founding Fathers made the point that we cannot expect people to be Good. We have to accept people as they ARE, not how we want them to be. We have to make the alternative to being Good carry a high cost.
On the other hand, what if a person just does not want to better themselves? What if they really do want to live off of society? What do we have to do about that? We can't just abandon them to their own destruction. Doing that sets a bad example in the community.
Let's not talk about the extremes right now. The goal would be to fit the help to the individual, not the individual to the help available. That approach has failed. If you do not understand that approach has failed, then I think you may be crazy.
posted by aRandomTexan at
11:25 AM
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