I have no objection to poor people. I have too frequently been poor to be able to judge someone just because they don't earn as much. Frequently I get along better with poor people than with people who are better off.
But unfortunately poor also means more crime. We live just on the border between middle class housing and poor housing. My son can't play on the playground because he gets beaten up. Until we got a big scary dog, we had a huge problem with vandalism in our yard. We still have a problem with vandalism at the end of the driveway where the school decided to put a busstop (far away from most of the kids, right in front of the home of the only home school kid for several blocks).
So to answer your question, I don't know. People who have the means move to richer areas where they can get away from some of the crime. And frequently lower class homes bring down the value of the middle class homes until lower and lower class people move in.
But I don't like discriminating against people because the are poor.
I don't know.

The only place I ever was where people were "put" into housing was in East Germany and most noticeably in East Berlin about 45 years ago.  But I don't think most Americans want that kind of government, although I sometimes wonder.  I understand it was and maybe still is thay way in Russia and other East European countries.  In West European countries some poor people are assigned housing when the government is paying for or subsidizing it.  It may be the case in the U.S., but I'm not aware of it.  

I don't believe that it is the government's duty to take care of all problems. As Kevin points out, there are many problems with racial desgregation. Especially when they were doing forced bussing to have the "proper" proportion of each race in each school.
The nanny state doesn't work because government is no smarter than you are. In fact, you can find some incredibly dumb people in government. There are smart people too, of course. But aside from their personal levels of intelligence, people in a group tend to make dumb decisions. There are various terms such as "mob mentality" and "groupthink" that come to mind.
There was a study linked to from slashdot.org recently (and if I wasn't incredibly lazy at the moment I'd find the link) saying that people aren't creative in meetings. You only get true creativity from individuals.
I think we'd be a lot better off in this country if people in general were inclined to solve their own problems, rather than look for someone to solve their problems for them.
BTW, Kevin, welcome and, if you are so inclined, please post in the Introductions area.

-- Edited by arbilad at 20:22, 2007-02-25

Those loft apartment buildings really do not address the issue of "integrating" economic classes though. They are essentially nothing more than high rise gated communities. Security at the doors to the buildings. I don't know about the Dallas / Ft. Worth area, but nearly every other place I've heard about these, they include private off-street underground parking with security, so the tenants never have to leave their bubble, unless they walk to work...

I live in a middle to lower middle class neighborhood and going down. When I moved here it was "naturally" intergrated racially with the population made up of home owners and a very few renters. The area was for all intents, crime free. Then the government decided to be helpful and brought in Section 8 and "Moving to Opportunity," the area is no longer crime free. We've even had a drive-by in the last year. I realize that all of these people aren't bad people. Having said that, ask any policeman or fireman where they run the overwhelming majority of their calls. Government solves very few problems and creates many. If people choose to live in an economicly mixed neighborhood of their own free will that is an entirely different matter.

I favor a voluntary form of communism called the United Order, yes.

--Ray 
 

-- Edited by rayb at 22:39, 2007-02-26

salesortonscom wrote:

---

The united order has little to do with communism other than the marketing slogan.

---

 A prophet (President Benson) has said pretty much the same thing, so I'd say you're safe in saying that, Jason.

People hear the word "communism" and immediately think "evil."  The "comm" part of the word means "together with" and is the same base as in commerce, common, commune (noun and verb), communion, and communication.  Today's linguistic lesson had been brought to you by the letter C and by the number 9.

Yay for communist witches!

Roper wrote:

---

arbilad wrote:

---

And for some reason people hear the word "witchcraft" and think evil. Maybe the reason for it is that they're evil? Communism, as it was written by Marx, as it has been practiced by every country that has done it, is evil.

And Ray, calling the United Order a voluntary form of communism is like calling the Lord's plan a voluntary version of the devil's plan.

---

The word "communism" is an example of how we have used a culturally-created meaning to override a linguistic definition.

My understanding is that Satan used communism to create a counterfeit of the Lord's plan. Linguistically we could call both communism and be correct, but the cultural implications make it seem abhorent to us. It's interesting that if we changed "ism" to "ion" or "ity" (resulting in identical meaning) and referred to the United Order as a "communion of saints" or a "community of saints" nobody would get upset.

---

 The problem, Roper, is that after a word gets attached to something that has such a powerful presence in the public consciousness it is nearly impossible to disconnect them. Before the Nazis, the swastika was a fairly innocent representation of the sun used in sun god religions. But anyone who wears a swastika anywhere on their person is immediately assumed to be a nazi.

You wouldn't name a daughter "Gay" anymore, even though earlier it was a perfectly acceptable name for girls. You wouldn't talk about throwing a faggot on the fire, because people would not realize that the original meaning of "faggot" was a piece of wood that you intended to use in the fire.

Great points all around, but I think I'll remain a voluntary communist, as a gentle reminder to all those who worship the dollar that there is another way out there...  

--Ray

Good point there about things not really being in common, Jason...

And, it is that very same point why too often the United Order did not work.  There were individuals within the various groups that could not get past the natural man of wanting to have more than they needed or who wanted to make sure they were one step ahead of the Joneses and so would not return any surplus to the Order...

I wonder what it will take for people to get beyond that.  How did the people in the Americas get to that point after Christ visited them, that they were all able to live in a way much like the United Order (as far as we understand) for more than two generations?

But are you or I wicked because we are of a capitalist mindset any more so than those who grew up in a communist mindset?  How do we get past the inherent economic flaws that can canker our souls from any political / economic / social ideology to where we are not envious of one another under The Lord's economy?

iirc, it wasn't the wicked who were killed at the destruction at the time of Christ's death, it was the "more wicked part of the people"...  so maybe then we are wicked because of the attitudes we take based on the political economic social ideology we are exposed to when it is not The Lord's...