Every behavior has a consequence. If we find that consequence pleasurable, we are likely to repeat that behavior. If we experience an unpleasant consequence, we are likely to avoid that behavior.
Simple human and animal nature.
Simple or natural stops when outside forces mess with nature.
Liberals seem to have in their political DNA the belief that life should be fair and equal, and if a person is a minority life should even be more fair and equal. Since life is not F and E, life must be artificially messed with.
If a woman chooses to drop out of high school, join the boyfriend of the month club, have six children all with different last names and perfect the speech and dress of the streets, those choices have consequences. Logic would dictate those consequences would not be good. But hold on, not so fast. The woman who follows Economist Walter Williams' blueprint for a successful life, "Complete high school; get a job, any kind of a job; get married before having children; and be a law-abiding citizen," will have the opportunity to have some of her hard-earned money taken and given to Bad-Choice woman. Good-Choice woman gets to display the behavior of working with the consequence of having her money taken. Bad-Choice woman gets to practice the behavior of staying home and experiencing the consequence of being given some of Good-Choice woman's money. That's messing with life artificially.
Let's not feel too badly for Bad-Choice woman. While probably she is technically living in "poverty," it's U.S. poverty. She will most likely have a car, air conditioning, color TV with cable, DVD player, kids with XBox or PlayStation, refrigerator, oven, stove, microwave and a cell phone. All paid for by some 80 plus government programs for the poor funded by the folks who never took the easy way out. Not too bad consequences for someone who lived a life time of self-indulgent behavior.
Sure, there are those who, through bad luck, need the help of others, and they should have it, but because of the size of the federal government, the need of politicians to buy votes, and unfortunate number of the population who believe giving is helping, often actions do not generate the consequences needed to change those unproductive behaviors. I work, I get money. I don't work, I get money. Those consequences are likely to drive what behavior?
What brought the behavior/consequences thought to mind was the recent story of a South Carolina Sheriff's deputy vs a nameless 16-year-old girl (I'll call the Little Princess), which has been in the news and big on Facebook. The LP was told twice, once by her teacher and then by a school administrator, to put down her cell phone and leave the class. Apparently nobody was going to tell her what to do and all the "negations" and techniques taught in teacher school were not achieving the desired results, so the school authorities called in the next in line. Deputy Ben Fields, a decorated School Resource officer for seven years was asked to do what the teachers couldn’t, or didn't want, to do. It would seem talking was not getting the job done. The LP's behavior was to remain sitting and to refuse to follow the teacher’s directive to leave the class. Deputy Fields asked her again to leave the classroom, she again refused. At this point, he could have handed her a strongly written note or he could have given her a set of keys and ask her to lock up when she leaves after school thus avoiding any unpleasantness, but it didn't go that way. He was a resource to the teachers and he did his job. I guess Deputy Fields could have been a bit more "delicate," and for that he is paying with his job, thanks to an apparently spineless, PC-infused Sheriff Leon Lott, who will never win a Profiles in Courage award. The Deputy is fired while the teacher and administrator go about their business. The student, probably wearing a neck brace, claiming racial discrimination, will walk away with thousands of dollars in hush money.
The Little Princess's behavior--disobeying authority; consequence-- authority gets fired. What do we think will happen a few year from now when LP gets pulled over on a traffic stop, and the policeman asks for her license and registration? What has she learned from her behavior? What did everyone aware of this occurrence learn? What did the police resource officers learn?
Ask a teacher in a public school today what consequences a student would receive if he or she were to swear at the teacher. Facebook had a video posting recently of a substitute teacher in a Chicago south side high school classroom. It was beyond believable. These students were past the point of a resource officer, their "behavior" was at National Guard level. This is where our liberal educational approach causes day by day, classroom by classroom, the decline of a once powerful country. These kids are our future and because they are minorities we are afraid to provide them with the appropriate consequences to their actions. Black lives do matter and this PC BS is doing more to kill current and subsequent generations of black lives than all the guns on the streets. Time to stick PC where it belongs and provide, no impose, strict guidance and direction. If the "adults" don't provide strict consequences now on anti-social behaviors, we're looking at more and more "Cop Shoots....." headlines.
What does a person learn when he or she drops out of school and with no skills gets a job paying $15 per hour? When it is learned they suck at this thing called work they could get as much as 99 weeks of unemployment. There are about ten websites from the Department of Labor telling the unemployed how to get free money. What does a person learn about putting an effort into holding a job? If this person happens to be minority she might not even be able to be fired without a Supreme court hearing.
Do the names Michael Brown or Eric Garner mean anything to you? They died while disobeying the lawful orders of a policeman who was hired and authorized by us to keep us safe. If you haven't heard of Michael or Eric, if you haven't seen them held up by certain segments of our society as, at the least victims, and the most, heroes, you must have been in a cave on Mindanao for the last year. How about the names Jason Dunham and Ross McGinnis? Michael and Eric, for their unlawful behavior, were killed and highly publicized. Jason and Ross were also killed for the "behavior" of fighting for the United States military, were each awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously, and promptly forgotten. What does a person learn about the consequence of defending or offending society?
What do we see modeled from our leaders? Do their behaviors generate the appropriate consequences? The last politician who seemed to suffer negative consequences from his actions was President Bush the Elder. "Read my lips, no new taxes." There were new taxes; he was defeated. From that point on, we have, "I did not have sex with that woman." This lie resulted in minimum political fallout but did help Bill's stud numbers. WMDs harmed George Bush's legacy but not much else. "You can keep your plan/doctor" and "Benghazi was the result of a video" were two outright lies told to the American people by President Obama and his staff. As a consequence of these lies, the President was reelected. The latest Quinnipiac poll shows Hillary hit an all-time low in trustworthiness, favorability and honesty and yet it's believed 40 plus percent of people will vote for her even if she is in jail on inauguration day. Any chance politicians will lie any less in the future? There appears to be no downside.
The riots (behaviors) in Ferguson MO. you would have thought would have received presidential condemnation (consequences) but the president said the police need more training. Does it seem that putting the pressure on the police will get the rioters to tone down their destruction?
A series of bad choices on a hookup? There is always abortion. Choose to sell drugs? Good chance you can be among the 6600 drug dealers being given an early release by the administration. How about choosing not to perform your job for religious reasons? If you are a Christian, you can be fined. If you are a Muslim you can sue and collect a settlement. This behavior/consequences thing is tricky.
As I said, there is a segment of our society that would like everything to be fair and equal. Yes, "all men are created equal," but the minute we are carried out of the hospital things start to change faster than our diapers. All the important things we know, we learned through failure. When we get to that part of our lives when somebody takes the failure away from us, we're done. When an unpleasant consequence occurs, and somebody reduces or eliminates it under the guise of helping us, we never learn the true outcome of a potentially bad behavior and we continue the destructive behavior, why not? We cannot, as a society, make everybody whole. We shouldn't even want to. We, as humans, learn from our mistakes, but we have to be allowed to make them.
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