Riots & Looting Are The Predictable Result Of An Impoverished Urban Population
When you sow a crop of weeds you lose your right to complain about the thorns.
By David Grace (www.DavidGraceAuthor.com)
Take Responsibility For The Society Your Policies Have Created
The same people who willfully sowed the toxic seeds of no job training, off-shoring manufacturing jobs, eliminating affordable access to medical care, and establishing and maintaining food-stamp minimum wages are now the ones most loudly complaining about the terrible crop of weeds that their policies have yielded.
My message to them is:
As you sow, so shall you reap.
Your Policies Have Impoverished The Bottom 20% Of The Population
The same people who are most angrily excoriating the rioters and looters and the lawless crowds are the ones who regularly demand the repeal of the minimum wage, lower wages, no job training, no affordable access to medical care, and the reduction or abolition of food stamps.
The same people who are blasting the rioters and looters and lawless crowds are the very ones whose mantra was:
- If their minimum-wage job doesn’t provide any medical insurance, it’s not my problem. Let them get sick and die.
- If their minimum-wage job doesn’t pay enough to feed their families, it’s not my problem. Let them starve.
The same Republicans who’ve been calling for a reduction in food stamps because “those people” don’t deserve free food are shouting the loudest about the terrible looters.
The same Republicans who’ve been calling for a reduction in school-lunch programs because “those people’s” children don’t deserve free food are shouting the loudest about the terrible rioters.
You impoverish twenty percent of the population to the point that full-time workers cannot feed, house and get medical care for their families, and then you complain that they aren’t acting like good citizens? Duh!
You
- isolate twenty percent of the population from jobs that will pay them enough to care for their families,
- deny them training that might allow them to get a job that will pay enough to care for their families,
- make sure they know, they absolutely know, that not only do they have no future, but that their children have no future as well,
and you wonder why they’re angry and primed to take to the streets?
This Is A Great Country For Other People, Not For You
Every day, television and social media show them pictures of people living in nice houses, eating good food, driving nice cars, getting great medical treatment and then you tell them, “You can’t have any of that and your kids can’t either because you’re a bunch of lazy losers who don’t deserve more than $9 an hour” and you wonder why they’re ready to join a mob or throw rocks at the police?
You build a society that has no place for people who work hard full time, a society that lets them know every day that there is no future in it for them or their kids, and then you wonder why they have no loyalty to or respect for the society your policies have created?
You set up a system where people who work hard full time, who are willing to work hard, have no chance to earn enough money to support their family or provide a decent future for their children and you wonder why they’re angry and willing to join a mob?
You know who doesn’t join a mob or participate in a riot or throw rocks?
- People who have something to lose.
You know who works really hard to do a good job?
- People who are paid well enough that they really, really don’t want to lose that job.
You promote a philosophy, a policy, of grinding down wages as far as possible, of employers grinding down their employees as far as possible, and you wonder why those bottom-of-the-barrel employees don’t work very hard, why they don’t care very much if the boss is unhappy with their work?
How stupid are you?
The Number 1 Component Of Success Is The Family You Were Born Into
The same people whose parents
- fed, clothed, and housed them for the first twenty-plus years of their lives,
- gave them good medical care into their twenties,
- had good dentists fix their teeth,
- bought them a car and a computer and a cell phone,
- sent them off on ski trips with their friends and Spring Break getaways,
- paid their tuition, their books, their dorm room, their meals, their car insurance,
- paid for grad school, for a masters degree, a law degree,
- got them job interviews with their friends’ companies,
- got them letters of recommendation from their friends,
are now complaining about those terrible rioters.
Born On Third Base, Advanced On A Wild Pitch, & Claims He Hit A Home Run
Those same people whose parents did everything for them for the first twenty-five years of their lives, are now out there earning a good living and complaining that “those people” don’t deserve food or medical care because they aren’t willing to work hard the way they did.
They’re claiming that they are a success because of how smart they are and how hard they worked, conveniently forgetting that everything they have was funded by their parents, and that without all the money that their parents spent on getting them through school and into their first post-college good job, right now they’d be lined up for a minimum wage stint at the local Walmart.
They’re like the guy whose parents
- bought a piece of land,
- paid to have it graded,
- paid to have a foundation dug and poured,
- paid to have utilities brought to the property,
- paid to have the framing erected,
- paid to have the roof installed, and then turned over the job site to him.
After all that, the kid put in the plumbing and wiring, nailed on the sheet rock, painted the walls and then had the balls to tell everyone that
- HE built the house and
- anyone who was willing to work hard like HE did, could have a nice house like that, and
- the reason other people don’t have a nice house like his is that they’re lazy and don’t want to work hard like HE did.
Then he tells everyone that
- if only the minimum-wage losers had been as smart as HE was and
- had worked as hard as HE did, that
- they would have gotten themselves born into a family that would have provided them with a half-built house like HIS family did, and then they would have a nice house too.
But, no, they were too stupid and too lazy to get themselves born into a family like the one he picked so they deserve to be living in a crap apartment with bugs and one barely-working toilet and no training for any kind of a decent job, and how dare they not love America like he does, and how dare they be angry and take to the streets and throw rocks!
When You Create A System Where People On The Bottom Have No Path Up You Lose The Right To Complain About How Badly They Act
When
- You set up a system that does not pay full-time workers enough to have a decent life,
- You ship the jobs that used to pay enough that workers could have a decent life to foreign countries so that the wealthy executives and shareholders can get even richer,
- You do everything you can to keep wages as low as possible
- You do everything you can to prevent the bottom 20% of the country from having affordable access to medical care
- You do everything you can to cut affordable access to food
- Essentially, when you do everything you can to implement the policies of the Republican party,
you don’t get to complain about the terrible people who are rioting and looting because you created them, you fueled them, they are the illegitimate offspring that you want to disown, that you wish would just evaporate and disappear, but who won’t.
You Don’t Get To Complain About The Damage Your Policies Created
Guess what? By willfully, deliberately, creating the conditions that spawned them you lost the right to complain about them.
When you sow a crop of weeds you don’t get to complain about the thorns.
If you put an alligator into the pool just before your big party, you don’t get to complain when one of your guests ends the evening with the nickname “Stumpy.”
— David Grace (www.DavidGraceAuthor.com)
