The success of liberal social welfare programs

[Slim]

I'm not surprised this story has been kept quiet both here in the media and here on this board....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051103/wl_afp/franceriots

[PalmFrond]

Why are you not surprised? (i.e. why do you think it has been "kept quiet"?) It's been in the news a bit over here, but then problems with impoverished immigrants who live in ghettos are nothing new.

[annacattiva]

I echo PalmFrond's confusion. I don't follow your point.

Anna

[sabreur]

And the problems of the satellite cities around Paris have been well-known for years--the riots aren't an example of the failure of social welfare programs, they are an example of what happens when you maintain a significant population in a disenfranchised, unemployed and essentially hopeless state.

The riots and looting that break out any time the mechanisms of social control fail in the U.S. are very much of the same ilk.

[YankeeRebel]

I'm not surprised this story has been kept quiet both here in the media and here on this board....

I'm not surprised either . . . the American media does a lousy job covering the news here, let alone civil unrest in France. The Canadian media, on the hand, covered it pretty extensively.

[esskreemr]

Once again a brilliant politically motivated deduction based on logical thinking Slim.

Here's how the entire article read in Slim's eye's

PARIS (AFP) - Fresh rioting broke out on the outskirts of Paris overnight blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah a blatant failure of successive governments to address the problems of low-income, high-immigration suburbs dominated by grim public housing estates, some of them little more than ghettos where crime and gangs run rampant.

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Poor people suck.

I've been following the story for quite a while. I didn't just pick it up from Rush's "Talking Point for People with One Track Minds".

• The riots started when two youths were electrocuted while attempting to hide in and electrical sub-station. They were attempting to avoid a police identity check.
• The riots were initially occurring in predominantly Muslim neighborhoods during the month of Ramadan.
• Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy had vowed a "war without mercy" on crime and rebellious youths in the suburbs just before the rampages erupted.
• The areas in which the riots are occurring are areas of high-rise housing, unemployment at twice the national rate of 10 percent and per capita incomes 40 percent below the national average.

Seems like there are quite a few other factors involved.

[Slim]

Once again a brilliant politically motivated deduction based on logical thinking Slim.

Here's how the entire article read in Slim's eye's



I've been following the story for quite a while. I didn't just pick it up from Rush's "Talking Point for People with One Track Minds".

• The riots started when two youths were electrocuted while attempting to hide in and electrical sub-station. They were attempting to avoid a police identity check.
• The riots were initially occurring in predominantly Muslim neighborhoods during the month of Ramadan.
• Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy had vowed a "war without mercy" on crime and rebellious youths in the suburbs just before the rampages erupted.
• The areas in which the riots are occurring are areas of high-rise housing, unemployment at twice the national rate of 10 percent and per capita incomes 40 percent below the national average.

Seems like there are quite a few other factors involved.

Ah, that didnt take too long, did it? I see the resident apologist-for-bad-behavior has once again decided to chime in on this one. I'm reassured you've "been following this one for quite a while".

• The riots started when two youths were electrocuted while attempting to hide in and electrical sub-station. They were attempting to avoid a police identity check.

Why were they running away?

• The riots were initially occurring in predominantly Muslim neighborhoods during the month of Ramadan.

Yes, the peaceful season of the Muslim faith.

• Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy had vowed a "war without mercy" on crime and rebellious youths in the suburbs just before the rampages erupted.

Crime is something to be tolerated according to you?

• The areas in which the riots are occurring are areas of high-rise housing, unemployment at twice the national rate of 10 percent and per capita incomes 40 percent below the national average.

Then that explains everything. I'm poor and need a job, so I can burn your car.

You forgot your usual gratuitous slam on some aspect of Christianity. Maybe next time?

[YankeeRebel]

Crime is something to be tolerated according to you?

I don't think esskreemr in any way excused or condoned the violence in his post. I think the point of his post was to say that there may be more reasons for this violence than France simply being social democracy.

[esskreemr]

Ah, that didnt take too long, did it? I see the resident apologist-for-bad-behavior has once again decided to chime in on this one. I'm reassured you've "been following this one for quite a while".

• The riots started when two youths were electrocuted while attempting to hide in and electrical sub-station. They were attempting to avoid a police identity check.

Why were they running away?

• The riots were initially occurring in predominantly Muslim neighborhoods during the month of Ramadan.

Yes, the peaceful season of the Muslim faith.

• Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy had vowed a "war without mercy" on crime and rebellious youths in the suburbs just before the rampages erupted.

Crime is something to be tolerated according to you?

• The areas in which the riots are occurring are areas of high-rise housing, unemployment at twice the national rate of 10 percent and per capita incomes 40 percent below the national average.

Then that explains everything. I'm poor and need a job, so I can burn your car.

1) They were avoiding the police identity check. Try reading it better next time.
2) Yes.
3) No.
4) No.

As YR stated, I wasn't condoning the violence or crime. I was just pointing out that there are many more ancilliaries to the situation than your 'Social Welfare' panacea for all violent behavior.

Many would deem this situation as 'civil unrest'. It has occurred MANY MANY times in history. Thousands of years before the 'Welfare State' was created.

You forgot your usual gratuitous slam on some aspect of Christianity. Maybe next time?

No, I didn't forget it. It's about as relevant to the topic as your blaming the whole thing on social welfare so I didn't mention it.

[jessicasimpson]

The article said this was the goverment not addressing the needs of low income people, the title of this thread should be "liberal social welfare programs don't do enough"

[sabreur]

I'm not surprised this story has been kept quiet both here in the media and here on this board....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051103/wl_afp/franceriots

The Washington Post and NYT have had multiple stories on the subject since the riots first began--maybe you need to widen your sources of information to include the mainstream media.

[jessicasimpson]

The Washington Post and NYT have had multiple stories on the subject since the riots first began--maybe you need to widen your sources of information to include the mainstream media.

I read a study where people were observed geting their news. Three main catagories were observed.
1 People who got their news from Newspapers
2 People who got their news from TV
3 People who got their news from Talk Radio (prim. Rush Lindbaugh)
After six months, the study showed that people who got their news from talk radio knew the least about what was going on, but they thought they were the most informed

[sabreur]

I read a study where people were observed geting their news. Three main catagories were observed.
1 People who got their news from Newspapers
2 People who got their news from TV
3 People who got their news from Talk Radio (prim. Rush Lindbaugh)
After six months, the study showed that people who got their news from talk radio knew the least about what was going on, but they thought they were the most informed

There is also a considerable body of research that shows that people who get their information from sources like talk radio and "reality TV" programming (like Cops or America's Most Wanted) tend to overestimate the actual rates of criminality in their communities, be distrustful of and unlikely to help others, and prefer punitive (mandatory jail sentences, etc.) to rehabilitative measures in reaction to social ills.

[jessicasimpson]

I suggest that the nickname "dittoheads" be hensforth changed to "dittidiots"

[esskreemr]

I suggest that the nickname "dittoheads" be hensforth changed to "dittidiots"

I thought the terms were pretty much synonymous.

[jeff]

This story has been covered in the mainstream media - no better no worse than anything else that happens outside our borders. Page 3 in NYT today. For those that don't pay attention, I guess anything is a surprise.

For the content itself, I don't think this has anything to do with "liberal social welfare programs", which isn't even mentioned in the story Slim links to. He's picking something he dislikes and is attaching this problem to it.

Instead, this is a problem of France's failures in integrating their Middle East population into their society. The pretense is that once you're a French citizen, you're French and the same as all others (In Tahiti, elementary school textbooks have phrases like "Our French ancestors, the Gauls..."). Even French officials have commented on how Arab-Americans in communities like those in Detroit are much better integrated into US society than they've been able to accomplish.

Reminds me of Newark and Watts in 1968...

[Larrison]

I read a study where people were observed geting their news. Three main catagories were observed.
1 People who got their news from Newspapers
2 People who got their news from TV
3 People who got their news from Talk Radio (prim. Rush Lindbaugh)
After six months, the study showed that people who got their news from talk radio knew the least about what was going on, but they thought they were the most informed

That's interesting.. As a totally random aside, I wonder if you could compare those results to strictly a data stream model? That is bit rate in is proportional to information retained?

Eg, Talk radio is a very low bit rate to transmit data -- verbal only, and that's roughly equivalent to 60-100 words a minute or around 400-600 characters per minute.

TV is the same, plus you add in visual information, but not a high rate of new visual inputs.

Newspapers provide both written and visual information, and are limited to the reading speed of those reading. If you read more than 100 words per minut, then you're probably getting more information than radio or TV -- hence more information in, and more potential retention.

--- Totally a random comment, but I was just struck that those results might fit a data speed retention model.

[foilstud]

if people can't follow the laws of the land, then they need to be removed from society

[Slim]

For the content itself, I don't think this has anything to do with "liberal social welfare programs", which isn't even mentioned in the story Slim links to. He's picking something he dislikes and is attaching this problem to it.

I disagree. France has had extremely liberal immigration policies and social welfare programs to support these immigrants. A huge influx of people from North Africa until the 70s, coupled with a very high birth rate among this group of people and their failure to assimilate into the culture is now beginning to explode. France has sucessfully created a seperate class of people who are pissed off that they are treated as 2nd class citizens and have no opportunity for success.

Their "kindness", in retrospect, has not been too kind to these people.

[esskreemr]

I'm going take Slim's side in this argument, since he's obviously waiting for Rush to pass him his next point of discussion.
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The riots in Paris are a direct result of a liberal social welfare system. The riots are occurring amongst predominantly poor muslim youth in areas of socalled housing projects. These areas, established essentially to provide free or highly subsidized living space for the poor, have turned into concentrating lenses for the disenfranchised, chronically impoverished and unemployed/unemployable. The result is whole areas, often many thousands of acres of 'prime' real estate that serves as adumping ground for society's have nots. With no emphasis on ownership, the areas are often poorly maintained and virtually ensure that rampant crime, violence, alcohol/drug abuse will be an inherent part of every resident's daily life.

In addition, these housing projects become a negative cycle keeping individuals from finding gainful employment simply because their address comes from 'The Projects'. They also cordone off a fairly large section creating a revenue pit for the city.

These housing projects also create a situation that is essentially a dry tinderbox for incendiary social issues resulting in violent clashes during times of unrest.