Social Responsibility Rant

ArgumentI’m taking an exit requirement course with the general topic of equality in schools and the workplace. It’s my 3rd of its kind since meeting exit requirements for my A.A., so it’s getting pretty boring by this point. Anyway, I thought it might be some good conversation.

I think the first steps to reforming racism is to begin radical social reform in the form of slashing federal and state programs that encourage social delinquency. Here are three of the top social programs that are holding back the progress minorities are looking to achieve but are actually slaves to the system that created the programs. I say this as a former recipient of assistance for the extreme expenses associated with having cystic fibrosis. I’d never choose to limit myself to $1,000/mo income again just for that lousy assistance.

Welfare: gone – if you can’t work, then move in with family – if you had 4 kids with no mom or dad around to help, then you can’t afford to have had them in the first place. If you don’t pay for the car you bought or don’t pay for the insurance on the car you were given, they take it from you, and kids are more valuable than a car.

Social Security: completely broken. I’ve already paid more into it than I’ll ever get out and it sets people up with a false sense of security and entitlement that the gov’t will take care of them just because they worked or got injured. Retirement’s not a right and neither is gov’t spoon-feeding.

Bussing is racist in its purest form. Let me translate what the legislatures and school administrators are saying with a veil of compassion: “those kids are too poor, have too many issues at home, and are possibly too stupid to excel as a group, so if there are some shining stars, lets’ get them out of there to a ‘good school'” How about you hire the same caliber of teachers, pay them the same, fund them the same, and treat those kids like the other schools treat their kids? That’s the racism going on in school!

Weekend at Bernie’s Returns to Manhattan

The defendantsPolice arrested two men, David J. Dalaia and James O’Hare, Wednesday attempting to cash their dead friend’s $355 Social Security check. I’m sure this happens all of the time, but these guys brought the corpse with them… on an office chair. NYP and onlookers originally assumed the body awkwardly sitting on the chair was a mannequin. How wrong they were!

These two geniuses tried to cash the check, but they were told by the clerk at the check-cashing store that Virgilio Cintron had to be present to cash his check. Undeterred, they went back to the apartment they shared with Bernie… I mean Cintron… and dressed his naked body and began wheeling him to the store on the office chair. Having him there but sitting outside wasn’t good enough for the clerk, only when they went to wheel in (stop and think now – dead man sitting on a chair outside a store in Manhattan in broad daylight) their closest friend in the world, the cops were there.

They told them to step away from the body and the paramedics arriving on scene declared Cintron dead.

“Oh my God, he’s gone?” came the reply to that obviously shocking announcement. They are scheduled for court.

What is an appropriate punishment for this vile of a petty crime?

[story from the Miami Herald]