Many of the unmedicated homeless are out there because of early 70's
law suits by the ACLU that got them declared personally "soverign"
and then released from institutions that could deal with their schizophrenia.
Our welfare system does not provide a safety net the same as Germany's.
But then again we're not taxed to support such a bureaucracy, either.
The view that many of us would maintain is that the dignity of success
and the dignity of failure should be reserved to the person and not the
state.
Concerning the quantity in prison, we have, for the most part, continued
with the Calvinistic perspective of free moral agency and moral responsibility.
(There are some innocent in prison. We all wish law enforcement was perfect.
But that's a really tiny percentage.)
The definition of "poor" is such a political football that it's ridiculous to
even try to discuss it. Rather, looking at the truely destitute, there's
enough gov't and private resouces to help them. For some reason it just
doesn't get on the news or into the newspapers.
jmho,
Collin
At 10:15 PM 1/16/01 -0500, you wrote:
>Paal,
>
>Don't let some of those statistics fool you. Lots of our prison population
>has to do with which drugs are legal in the USA and how we choose to deal/or
>not deal with it.
>
>Homeless populations are another matter. ....
>
>There are homeless families in the US. ...
>
>...
>
>Regards, Bob S.
***************
"The accumulation of all powers legislative,
executive and judiciary in the same hands . . .
may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."
--James Madison, Federalist 47
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