Feds Looking To Socially Engineer American Communities...
Rational Nation USA
Purveyor of Truth
As Obama and the federal government eye regulations to socially engineer communities to conform to the governments broad plan to make everything and everybody equal. Yeah right. Utopia Rising.
Damn, just got so ill Ill simply leave ya THE LINK to the rest.
Via: Memeorabdum
Purveyor of Truth
As Obama and the federal government eye regulations to socially engineer communities to conform to the governments broad plan to make everything and everybody equal. Yeah right. Utopia Rising.
THE HILL - The Obama administration is moving forward with regulations designed to help diversify America’s wealthier neighborhoods, drawing fire from critics who decry the proposal as executive overreach in search of an “unrealistic utopia.”
A final Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) rule due out this month is aimed at ending decades of deep-rooted segregation around the country.
The regulations would use grant money as an incentive for communities to build affordable housing in more affluent areas while also taking steps to upgrade poorer areas with better schools, parks, libraries, grocery stores and transportation routes as part of a gentrification of those communities.
“HUD is working with communities across the country to fulfill the promise of equal opportunity for all,” a HUD spokeswoman said. “The proposed policy seeks to break down barriers to access to opportunity in communities supported by HUD funds.”
It’s a tough sell for some conservatives. Among them is Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), who argued that the administration “shouldn’t be holding hostage grant monies aimed at community improvement based on its unrealistic utopian ideas of what every community should resemble.”
“American citizens and communities should be free to choose where they would like to live and not be subject to federal neighborhood engineering at the behest of an overreaching federal government,” said Gosar, who is leading an effort in the House to block the regulations.
Damn, just got so ill Ill simply leave ya THE LINK to the rest.
Via: Memeorabdum
If a wealthy neighborhood wants federal money to develop, they should at least put some affordable housing nearby to benefit the support it will require. At least. Otherwise, they cam spend their own money on their own neighborhoods.
ReplyDeleteJMJ
If a wealthy neighborhood wants federal money to develop, Jersey, they should be slapped in the face by the feds. The whole "no welfare for the rich" idea
ReplyDeleteAgreed dmarks.
ReplyDeleteWell, that's what's happening here. No one is forcing anyone to do anything.
ReplyDeleteJMJ
Did you read the same article we did Jersey?
ReplyDeleteI am familiar with the subject. HUD grants only go to those who ask.
DeleteJMJ
I wonder if it includes requirements for a certain skin color proportion in the utopian communities. That would surely be racist, as with any such goal/quota program, it would mean that individuals would be shut out simply for having the wrong skin color.
ReplyDeleteI read the article, and what stood out were the words "...to fulfill the promise of equal opportunity for all,” a HUD spokeswoman said..." Those words are very American, and have nothing to do with social engineering.
ReplyDeleteIf you study the history of "social engineering" that kept minorities from escaping the inner cities, you'd learn that government policies created inner city ghettos from which many minorities had no hope of escaping:
The GI Bill (1944)
At the end of World War II, the GI Bill furthered segregation practices by keeping African Americans out of European American neighborhoods, showing another side to African American housing discrimination. When millions of GIs returned home from overseas, they took advantage of the “Servicemen’s Readjustment Act,” or the GI Bill. This important document was signed in 1944 by Franklin D. Roosevelt, and gave veterans education and training opportunities, guaranteed loans for home, farm, or business, job finding assistance, and unemployment pay of $20 a week for up to 52 weeks if a veteran could not find a job.[20] This law allowed millions of U.S. soldiers to purchase their first homes with inexpensive mortgages, which meant the huge growth of suburbs and the birth of the ideal of a suburban lifestyle.
African Americans were met with discrimination when trying to purchase a home in the overwhelmingly European American neighborhoods. The realtors would not show these houses to African Americans, and when they did, they would try and talk them out of buying the home. This discrimination was based on the fact that realtors believed they would be losing future business by dealing or listing with African Americans, and that it would be unethical to sell a house in a European American neighborhood to African Americans because it would drive the property values of the surrounding houses down.
Both redlining and discrimination through the GI Bill relegated most African Americans to a concentrated area within the city, so the declining property values and the higher crime rates could be kept in a contained area. The relegation of African Americans to the neighborhoods that were receiving no support due to redlining practices was a self-fulfilling prophecy that created the high crime slums that the city was afraid of.
On a personal note, my sister's family lived in the same Boston suburb where Boston Celtic legend, Bill Russell lived during the height of his career. He and his family were subjected to nasty racism for having moved into this white suburban area. My sister's children were friends with the Russell children and could never understand why white people were upset with this very middle class family living among them (in those days, sports stars didn't make gazillions of dollars).
Government social engineering is ultimately doomed to failure. Inner city ghettos (created by government policy) were indeed a failure on all fronts and government attempting to engineer equality (or fairness as some like to say) into community housing based on some government artifact or standard will fail as well.
DeleteWhat will create equality (or that subjective word fairness) is when the middle class in on a growth path and opportunity for good paying and relatively secure (based on individual performance measured against objective standards) jobs exist. Opportunity will naturally flow to those who are qualified and motivated with a great desire to be successful, all other thing being equal.
Our nation has laws, both federal and state, that make discrimination based on race, age, sex, disabilities, etc. illegal and these laws are (or should be) enough to monitor and control the institutionalized racism that you speak to. However, individuals who chose to be racist such as we see on the internet and in pockets of society will continue to be racist irrespective of government policy and there is not a damn thing the state can do about it until they break the law. The government attempting to socially engineer communities will not solve this problem.
Enforce all nondiscrimination laws,strengthen the middle class by increase opportunity for all who want it and are willing to work for it, improve educational opportunities, scholastic performance, and HS graduation %'s across the nation, and make higher education for affordable for all who want and deserve it.
These things will go a lot further to accomplishing the goal of the Utopiatarians that the bureaucratic regulations Obama and the feds are touting.
That's my view Shaw, keep picking away at it.
Here's more from Wikipedia on how Bill Russell was treated by the white community when he and his family moved to a Boston suburb:
ReplyDeleteBasketball player Bill Russell lived in Reading in the 1960s next to a gas station on Main Street, but later moved to Haverhill Street. Vandals broke into the basketball player's home and damaged his property, leaving racial epithets in their wake. Russell left Reading after retiring as coach of the Boston Celtics in 1969.
If one reads the history of how the majority whites, with the help of government agencies, kept minorities from naturally integrating, one would understand that those policies and attitudes seeded the growth of suspicion and fear in the white communities, and created hopleessness and UNequal opportunity for those minority families who had the means to leave the inner city, but were denied that opportunity because of America's deep seated racist attitudes.
There are no simple solutions to a problem that goes all the way back to The Great Migration, when African Americans left Jim Crow south and came to northern cities, only to find a different sort of bigotry. Separate but equal was not encoded in the law in the northern cities, but A.A.s nevertheless faced discrimination and resistance to the American dream of equal opportunity.
You can read more about it HERE.
The behavior of prejudiced and racist people is disgraceful, and the treatment of Bill Russell and his family was terrible. But please explain, other than prosecuting vandals for property damage, disgusting graffiti, what else the government can do. You cannot legislate ethical or moral behavior. You can only punish those who defy the laws put in place to protect civil society Shaw.
DeleteHow will the Utopian goals of these regulations alter the behaviors of bigoted, prejudiced, and racist individuals in any way?
RN: I'm pretty much agreeing with every word here. You are punishing actual crimes, encouraging policies that mean success.... without draconian social engineering or punishing anyone for being the wrong skin color.
DeleteWe can begin to understand how we arrived at this point by reading the history of redlining:
ReplyDeleteFrom Wikipedia: "During the heyday of redlining, the areas most frequently discriminated against were black inner city neighborhoods. For example, in Atlanta in the 1980s, a Pulitzer Prize-winning series of articles by investigative-reporter Bill Dedman showed that banks would often lend to lower-income whites but not to middle- or upper-income blacks. The use of blacklists is a related mechanism also used by redliners to keep track of groups, areas, and people that the discriminating party feels should be denied business or aid or other transactions. In the academic literature, redlining falls under the broader category of credit rationing.
Reverse redlining occurs when a lender or insurer targets minority consumers, not to deny them loans or insurance, but rather to charge them more than could be charged to a comparable majority consumer whose business is more sought after.
In the United States, the Fair Housing Act of 1968 was passed to fight the practice. It prohibited redlining when the criteria are based on race, religion, sex, familial status, disability, or ethnic origin.
The Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity was tasked with administering and enforcing this law. Anyone who suspects that their neighborhood has been redlined is able to file a housing discrimination complaint. The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 further required banks to apply the same lending criteria in all communities.[18] Although open redlining was made illegal in the 70s through community reinvestment legislation, the practice may have continued in less overt ways."
I think that what President Obama is attempting is not to set up a utopia, but to address decades of unfair and unlawful practices that created inner city ghettos and prevented upward mobility for minorities that were thriving but the opportunity to live in a neighborhood of their choice.
I don't see this as legislating ethical or moral behavior. I see it as enforcing a law that discourages covert discrimination against people trying to improve their lives.
You accurately pointed out institutionalized prejudice (racism) that did exist in American business practices at one and it was both ethically and morally wrong. Addressing this effectively will not be accomplished by the government "engineering affordable housing" (shoehorning) into wealthy neighborhoods across America. it is a nice Utopian ideal, but as all Utopian ideals go it is unrealistic and ultimately won't work. You don't change peoples attitudes by forcing federal regulations on these communities, but you might create resentment that feeds into the very situation the regulations presumably are designed to correct.
DeleteMy earlier comment stated the avenues that I believe should be taken. Education facilitates better opportunity, a strong middle class breaks down economic barriers, and a more enlightened and diversified culture breaks down prejudices. All things government at best can only assist by legislating laws that punish unethical, immoral, and socially undesirable or destructive behaviors.
Not sure what is meant by " I see it as enforcing a law that discourages covert discrimination against people trying to improve their lives.", but perhaps you are referring to the "less overt" redlining which you mentioned earlier.
DeleteIf there is indeed redlining occuring, perhaps this is a problem of enforcement of an existing law.
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RN: I have a problem with the government telling people where they can or can't live. This neighborhood engineering effort sure does look like that. Your approach is best.... instead of putting people into ritzy housing they don't belong in (because they can't afford it otherwise), expanded opportunity so they can pay for such housing the proper way, with money they earn.
I notice Shaw refers to redlining, which, as I recall, someone who comments here said is (partially?) to blame for the financial crash... Or, specifically, the law prohibiting redlining was to blame. I assumed this unnamed individual said this because he agrees with at least some of the reasoning Shaw mentioned in her comment... Racist thinking concerning most Black people being poor and unable to pay back loans.
DeleteThe only way to change this is legislatively. Those lunch counters were not desegregated until they were required to by law. Banks won't loan to African Americans. There was a case of discriminatory lending and a settlement just recently.
As for "punishing" people for having the wrong skin color, if those people are Whites who are concerned about their property values going down if the wrong sort of people move into their neighborhoods... Well, there is some logic here, but in the interest of integration, I support this "punishing". Those lunch counter owners might have been worried about losing White customers if they served Blacks, yet few people today think the White owners should not have been "punished" by forcing them to serve Blacks.
I support the Obama administration in this. Which is not an attempt to create a "utopia", BTW. And, while you can't legislate ethics, you can legislate integration, which, when done, will cause many people to reevaluate their prejudices. The government has done social engineering like this for a long time. If you wish we could go back to "separate but equal" you'll be opposed. Holding grant money hostage is exactly the right way to go about this.
Neither discriminatory or predatory lending is ethical or moral and there should be strict laws against it, violators should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law(s).
DeleteBTW, many will no doubt strongly disagree with you Dervish. This is an attempt by the federal government to socially engineer communities based on constructs put in place by some bureaucrat(s). Misguided, ineffective, and doomed to failure.
But hey, I ain't gonna lose sleep over it. I'll no doubt be dead before I'l have to live with the consequences of this any any form.
It doesn't matter what "someone who comments" said elsewhere on unrelated subjects, unless one does nothing but crunch old bones, and yet again attempts to change the subject from a big national issue into a petty and penny-ante personal grudge match instead.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to stick with this big national issue, as I have been, and Shaw and RN have been.
IMO this is an attempt by the federal government to socially engineer communities based on the idea that integration is an integral component in combating racism. Common sense guided, effective, and destined for success.
ReplyDeleteMany who strongly disagree do so because of their racism. I'm not saying that RN is a racist, but I do believe that racism is behind many Libertarian ideas... Both the libertarian opposition to the minimum wage and support for free trade are due to racism. Or the effect of these ideas is very racist, at least. Even if the true-believing libertarians don't realize this.
BTW, what about an attempt by the private sector to socially engineer communities based on constructs put in place by some bureaucrat(s). Would such a private sector effort by misguided, ineffective, and doomed to failure?
George Lucas to build affordable housing in one of the richest parts of America.
No Dervish, you ARE saying I'm racist. Why not have the balls of your conviction to just come out and say it?
DeleteTo you Dervish damn near everybody who doesn't share your beliefs in full is either irrational, a racist, an idiot, stupid or some other derogatory identifier.
You may be more educated, a better talker and writer than than some at the Smut Hut but in some ways ain't much different IMO. And I have the balls to say it.
It looks like George Lucas is doing what he wants with his own land, and his own money ($150 million of it), and in complete accordance with the law. Whether or not his effort is "misguided, ineffective, and doomed to failure" compared to the very different authoritarian control measures being discussed in the parent post will be up to Mr. Lucas and his customers.
DeleteI have never known of anyone who supported free trade, or opposed the minimum wage, to do so out of any racist reasons whatsoever. No indication of any belief in differences between the different so-called races, nor any recommendation for punishing/rewarding individuals based on "race", nor any of the other hallmarks of racism (segregation, "separate but equal", hatred for mixed-raced families as per MSNBC, Jim Crow, affirmative action "goals", redlining, etc). There is simply nothing racial in these two policy stands.
DeleteAside from the lack of race in these views, and the way proponents of them argue, my personal stances (which are similar to the "the libertarian opposition to the minimum wage and support for free trade" stated by Mr. Sanders) have absolutely nothing to do with any racial aspect of any kind whatsoever. Nada. Zero. Zilch.
This being said, it seems to be an odd thing to "go after" Rational Nation USA (Les) for. He frequently expresses support for some kind of minimum wage, and I'm pretty sure he opposes most free trade pacts. My apologies in advance, Les, if I am incorrectly summarizing your views on these broad issues. Nothing antagonistic is intended. We might after all be dealing with careless 'fit on a postage stamp' summary of these complicated issues, and perhaps I should not have continued the "Jun 12, 02:16:00 PM EDT" comment which simplified things this way.
Minimum wage laws will not have an appreciable impact on business. Lack of demand will.
DeleteTrade to be free must be regulated; otherwise monopolies will be the result.
This is off topic but since I allowed Dervish's comment yours is fair.
I can't do justice to the complexities of the above on a postage stamp comment.
Libertarian and rational self sufficient views are racist only in Lord Dervish's mind.
The subject seems very well covered.
DeleteYes, however the thread remains open for relevant comments that have the purpose of facilitating honest dialogue. Comments that amount to innuendos that are made for the purpose of intentionally distracting from honest dialogue or demean other commentators will not be published.
DeleteI was "going after" Libertarianism in general. I stated my view in regards to Libertarianism and NOT to Les (who has actually written a number of comments that, while I found odd coming from a fiscal conservative, I agreed with strongly). If he chooses to personalize the "going after" that is his decision. I had the "balls" to speak my mind on the matter and I stand by what I wrote (including it not applying to Les). Many Libertarians simply do not realize the racist effects the polices they favor have. Strong disagreement from dmarks not withstanding, my opinion remains the same. As for Libertarian and rational self sufficient views being racist only in "Lord Dervish's mind"... This is a position I arrived at gradually. What finally convinced me of the truth of this position was some commentary from progressive talker Thom Hartman (follow the link in my prior comment if you want to know what Thom said). When I heard the commentary I said to myself "yes, I agree". And I felt my slowly solidifying view on Libertarianism was validated (given my respect for Mr. Hartman).
DeleteYou personalized it when YOU created the site LLIN. It remains personal as long as the site remains up.
DeleteThe decision rest with you Dervish. I have no more to say.
First of all, my comment (the one you took offense to even though no offense was intended... Which I specifically stated) has nothing to with the blog you refer to. Secondly, that blog was put up as a response to me being banned from RNUSA. If you agree that the banning is over I will try not to antagonize you or dmarks in the future. If this blog really bothers you THAT much I will remove it. Thirdly, how about you cut it out with your insults directed at me (which sounds reasonable). Fourthly, I say I will TRY not to antagonize you in the future, but that is something I already thought I was doing... Yet you still seem to get antagonized anyway. This I can't do anything about because it's a complete surprise to me when it happens. I will wait for your response and remove the blog if it is positive (your response).
DeleteYou have been allowed to post here.
DeleteYou will be allowed to continue as long as you abide by blog rules.
I do not bargain. Therefore, the decision rests solely with you and you alone. Do the right thing or not. I really do NOT give a f*ck.
I, too, would be much more likely to answer Mr. Sanders' questions here if the LLIN-type blogs were all gone. As an expression of good will, and a new, better, non-personal attitude. I, too, do not bargain, however.
DeleteCourtesy and common decency breeds such.
If you can remember back just a few years the success of the house for everyone campaign and how well it worked in bringing down our financial system.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the law, you cannot discriminate when selling a house so if someone can afford it they can buy it. The 60's are gone for some of us and we live in a new era. Most inner city communities started out with a utopian setting that was brought down by lack of employment, crime and gangs.
The land of opportunity still exists but you have to work for it.
Your first sentence is a word salad skudrunner but I'll attempt a response.
Delete1) The financial crises was exacerbated by the predatory lending practices of mortgage brokerage firms and the practices were and are unethical and immoral.
2) It is not against the law to deny a mortgage to ANYONE who fails to qualify for a mortgage under established standards.
3) I assume you are referring to Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac guaranteed government loans and the governments over zealous desire to create greater home ownership, something the building industry no doubt welcomed. On this I agree with your observation. Freddy Mac and Fanny Mae were part of the greater problem.
4) Yes the 60's are gone and what relevance that comment has to today's discussion is found in the growth of the middle class until the early 1970's when the growth of the middle class started to take a downturn.
5) Your last point is pure rightwing boilerplate. Yes, one must educate themselves to keep pace with evolving technology, yes one must be motivated and self directed to seek employment, yes one must follow the rules of society and stay clear of crime and drugs to succeed. However your implication that everyone that doesn't have a job that supports them and their family and that they are lazy and no count simply defies economic realities. It is rightwing boilerplate, largely untrue, and every bit as offensive as leftwing boilerplate that that would have us believing that Utopia is really just around the corner and all we need is Hope and Change that is based on unrealistic assumption about the nature of humankind or as some say human nature.
dmarks: "Not sure what is meant by 'I see it as enforcing a law that discourages covert discrimination against people trying to improve their lives.' "
ReplyDeletecovert means not openly acknowledged or displayed. Redlining was a practice used by lending institutions and banks without the minorities who tried to obtain mortgages to buy housing knowing that those institutions colluded in this discriminatory practice. Thus "covert discrimination." The minorities seeking financial help didn't know this was a practice.
INVESTOPEDIA EXPLAINS 'Redlining'
In some cases of redlining, financial institutions would literally draw a red line on a map around the neighborhoods in which they did not want to offer financial services, giving the term its name. Although the Community Reinvestment Act was passed in 1977 to put an end to all redlining practices, critics say the discrimination still occurs.
Shaw: I knew what it meant, and the history of redlining. Just wondering about redlining today.
Delete