... i am speachless...

That's a false dichotomy. A reasonable person who was unable to walk away from the table would call the person out on their cheating.

As to the rest of the issues you mentioned, I agree with all but the first two. My disgust with the system, and especially with those who run it, is why I wish to minimize my entanglement with the system.

 

I agree with you. I don’t agree on the causes though. More social programs aren’t the answer.

 

I agree and disagree at the same time

Civitan, elks, moose lodge, vfw, churches

Those are all social programs with lower membership than ever before.

The difference in funding (members vs govt) doesnt make them NOT social programs.

They were all community based, actual community based, but no one managed to impress on those organizations that in order to survive, they needed younger membership, the members didnt bring their children or prove the utility to their children.

Union membership is a ghost of what it was, it too was a community based organization, but it too lost its way, focusing on forcing its membership for dues, not on what its members wanted.

But these were always middle class institutions, and that middle class has been squeezed, and the disposability of that income is smaller yet

 

Those are social clubs not government funded social programs.

 

In 2021 the violent crime rate per capita was 121% higher in urban areas versus rural areas. Property crimes were 3 times the rate. So it appears that it’s not BS.

 

thats REPORTED. Real crime rate is far higher in poor rural areas than that by a long shot.

Domestic abuse is constantly swept under the rug by the community itself


And as for your contention that social clubs arent "programs"... well, werent you just talking about the demise of community? Why differentiate total social outreach based on if it is from a club or from the government? Sure the govt based programs are mostly crap and dont really help, but they werent needed as much when those social clubs filled that niche.

 

Because I said so is not evidence. All we can go on is statistics. Reported figures. And those figures say rural crime is much lower than urban crime.

 

I’d say the social clubs demise came about after the government social programs began to get bloated. Not the other way around.

The demise of the community is a direct result of the demise of the nuclear family. Government programs have facilitated and promoted this.

As far as REPORTED crime… well that’s really all the rest of us have to go on. It’s kind of silly to act like you know what crime goes unreported. Unreported crimes by nature are UNREPORTED!

 

Yeah, that was a pretty dumb ### argument he made there.

 

I guess rural people know snitches get stitches… smh