GOP Rep booed for blaming single parents for mass shootings

grasping the after wind said:

Good point. I have often thought that human beings were not meant to live in cities at all and certainly not in conditions that resemble sardine cans.

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...until some social safety net policies are put in place that allow people the opportunity to get out of those sardine cans, that's not an option.

The kids born in the inner city to parents with a combined income of 20k (or less) don't really have the same number of feasible options with regards to education and job skill attainment as, say, a middle or upper middle class kid born in the suburbs coming from a 75k-125k household.

ThatRobGuy said:

...until some social safety net policies are put in place that allow people the opportunity to get out of those sardine cans, that's not an option.

The kids born in the inner city to parents with a combined income of 20k (or less) don't really have the same number of feasible options with regards to education and job skill attainment as, say, a middle or upper middle class kid born in the suburbs coming from a 75k-125k household.

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I must agree that if someone is waiting for outside assistance from a social safety net program to turn them into an upper middle class kid from a 75K household they most likely will not have many options.

ThatRobGuy said:

...until some social safety net policies are put in place that allow people the opportunity to get out of those sardine cans, that's not an option.

The kids born in the inner city to parents with a combined income of 20k (or less) don't really have the same number of feasible options with regards to education and job skill attainment as, say, a middle or upper middle class kid born in the suburbs coming from a 75k-125k household.

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I must agree that if someone is waiting for outside assistance from a social safety net program to turn them into an upper middle class kid from a 75K household they most likely will not have many options.

grasping the after wind said:

Illinois is not equivalent to Chicago. All Chicago is in Illinois but all Illinois is not in Chicago. Don't conflate the state with a city inside the state. Further, firearms deaths and firearms murders are also two different things.

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Chicago does not exist in a vacuum. Treating it like some sort of isolated lab test is to ignore the reality in which its gun violence exists.

grasping the after wind said:

Good point. I have often thought that human beings were not meant to live in cities at all and certainly not in conditions that resemble sardine cans.

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...to each his own. If you want to be a hunter/gatherer, there's plenty of space in America for you to do so.

btw, the population of American cities pales in comparison to Asian cities. Then again, maybe Americans do require more personal space to live without violence (?).

grasping the after wind said:

I must agree that if someone is waiting for outside assistance from a social safety net program to turn them into an upper middle class kid from a 75K household they most likely will not have many options.

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Doesn't have to be a check in the mail....

We just have to provide a better playing field than:
"C+ student with mediocre work ethic, but with rich parents gets to go to college, but if student in inner city wants to go, they'd better hope they were fortunate enough to be athletically gifted or one of the rare geniuses who gets an academic full ride"

...because that's what we have today and it's not working.


This really all stems back to the flaws in the GOP mindset. People who were born in fortunate circumstances, wearing blinders and convincing themselves that everyone else's problems are simply "because they aren't working/trying hard enough"

You look at the talking points from a lot of these GOP candidates, and then compare that with their policy prescriptions...and it's basically a mindset of "We're going to drastically limit a persons options for getting out of poverty, but when they fail to do so, we'll demonize them for being poor and not trying hard enough"

Scholastica said:

Chicago does not exist in a vacuum. Treating it like some sort of isolated lab test is to ignore the reality in which its gun violence exists.

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Ignoring reality is at epidemic proportions. Ignoring the ineffectiveness of stricter gun legislation within the city limits of Chicago on gun violence in Chicago among the many realities being ignored.

wing2000 said:

...to each his own. If you want to be a hunter/gatherer, there's plenty of space in America for you to do so.

btw, the population of American cities pales in comparison to Asian cities. Then again, maybe Americans do require more personal space to live without violence (?).

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False dichotomy. There are more than one alternative to living in a sardine can.

ThatRobGuy said:

Doesn't have to be a check in the mail....

We just have to provide a better playing field than:
"C+ student with mediocre work ethic, but with rich parents gets to go to college, but if student in inner city wants to go, they'd better hope they were fortunate enough to be athletically gifted or one of the rare geniuses who gets an academic full ride"

...because that's what we have today and it's not working.


This really all stems back to the flaws in the GOP mindset. People who were born in fortunate circumstances, wearing blinders and convincing themselves that everyone else's problems are simply "because they aren't working/trying hard enough"

You look at the talking points from a lot of these GOP candidates, and then compare that with their policy prescriptions...and it's basically a mindset of "We're going to drastically limit a persons options for getting out of poverty, but when they fail to do so, we'll demonize them for being poor and not trying hard enough"

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I never mentioned a check.

I also do not completely agree with your assessment of the current educational opportunities. Certainly the rich and even more so the politically connected can game the system in college entrance. But you are ignoring the already in place social policies that favor low income minority candidates for admission to colleges and the grants and scholarships only available to low income or minority candidates for admission.

I also would ask you to consider that there can be more than one way to succeed in life and that attending a college is only one way and is becoming less and less reliable in that regard.

As I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the Republican Party, I can't take offence at your stereotyping of Republicans with the box you have placed them in of having what you refer to as a GOP mindset.

When is demonizing any group a good idea? Does demonizing Republicans or the rich do anyone any actual good anymore than demonizing the poor or any other group ? Does scapegoating ever lift someone up out of circumstances they do not like? IMO every second I would spend looking for someone to blame for my problems is a second I wasted when I could have used it to look for solutions to my problems that were within my own control. Blaming others may make one feel good but it doesn't change one's situation at all. Waiting for someone else to change one's situation for one is self defeating.

grasping the after wind said:

Live what way?

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In constant fear? Having to arm yourselves in order to defend yourselves against the other people who arm themselves? Going through metal detectors and backscatter machines every time you go to an airport, to school, to a concert, a sports event, or pretty much to go to the bathroom? Having to carry your personal stuff in transparent Ziploc bags, and having them and your own body searched all the time by people with guns?

variant said:

It would be refreshing to actually have a discussion about the social causes of mass killings ....

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Wouldn't fatherless households be a significant part of that discussion?

TheBear said:

Wouldn't fatherless households be a significant part of that discussion?

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Depends. Is there any data showing that mass shooters tend to come from broken homes?

grasping the after wind said:

False dichotomy. There are more than one alternative to living in a sardine can.

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Sure, and I pointed to one alternative.

TheBear said:

Wouldn't fatherless households be a significant part of that discussion?

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Maybe? That's the point. We should be discussing these things with data and detailed studies rather than just throwing it out there as an excuse.

Have you seen good data that I have missed on this issue? I can find a lot of "claims" about this idea and most of them seem pretty thin.

This blog does a review that helps see what the substance of these claims seems to be:
Maybe It’s The Missing Fathers? No, It’s Not. – Verily (retired)

The representative should cite their sources if they want to be taken seriously, and so should, apparently, right wing journalists with an axe to grind.

I would also like to see some good data on the availability of Guns and it's effect on mass shootings but the government has repeatedly stifled funding for research into gun violence because of the NRA.

How The NRA Worked To Stifle Gun Violence Research

So, what do I say to someone from a political party that expressly works to limit research into gun violence why trying to assert a narrative based upon flimsy claims from bad journalists?

BOOOOOOOOO!

grasping the after wind said:

But you are ignoring the already in place social policies that favor low income minority candidates for admission to colleges and the grants and scholarships only available to low income or minority candidates for admission.

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They exist, yes, but they require awareness of their existence on the part of prospective college students to actually be effective. Oftentimes low-performing schools don't have the best academic counseling services and/or counselors are primarily occupied with just making sure enough students pass so that the school can continue to receive funding. It turns into a case of academic triage - a single student wanting to go to college isn't going to be a primary concern to them because they have 100+ students who are on the verge of flunking out. There are certainly cases where a teacher or counselor is able to take the time to mentor a student and guide them through the process, but that's not going to be the case most of the time. That leaves the students on their own to figure things out, and most of the time, they're not going to find those resources without help.

grasping the after wind said:

Ignoring reality is at epidemic proportions. Ignoring the ineffectiveness of stricter gun legislation within the city limits of Chicago on gun violence in Chicago among the many realities being ignored.

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Nobody is ignoring it. It's still easy to get guns outside of Chicago.

Whether he's correct or incorrect about his assertion, he didn't blame "single parents". He blamed the fact that children are raised in single-parent households, and it is at best intellectually lazy to ignore that significant and important distinction.

Knee V said:

Whether he's correct or incorrect about his assertion, he didn't blame "single parents". He blamed the fact that children are raised in single-parent households, and it is at best intellectually lazy to ignore that significant and important distinction.

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A distinction without a difference.

Desk trauma said:

A distinction without a difference.

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Here's an example.

Let's say that his assertion were correct, that being raised in single-parent households directly contributes to the rate of mass shootings. And let's say that the predominate cause of there being single-parent households were fathers abandoning their families.

In that scenario, there is a huge difference between blaming single parents and blaming a situation that those single parents find themselves in.

We can assume that that congressman specifically means "it is the fault of single parents", but that is not what he said, and we don't know that that is what he meant.

There is both a distinction and a difference between those statements.

Knee V said:

Let's say that his assertion were correct, that being raised in single-parent households directly contributes to the rate of mass shootings. And let's say that the predominate cause of there being single-parent households were fathers abandoning their families.

In that scenario, there is a huge difference between blaming single parents and blaming a situation that those single parents find themselves in.

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Indeed, but, as far as I know, his assertion is not correct - or at least there isn't any data to back it up - so we're simply dealing with his opinion. And unless he's a sociologist who has studied the issue personally, his opinion on the matter is worthless and doesn't differentiate between blaming single parents and blaming the situation.