Black people in prison/death row

[Sgt. Boomer]

isoFlux Wrote:You do not choose to live a life of crime, poverty, and inadequate education.

Yes they do choose it. They choose not to pay attention in class, not to study, or to skip classes. I understand it’s more difficult to concentrate when you’re depressed, or malnourished, or dealing with an abusive home-life, or have a lousy teacher. But not everyone with a difficult childhood becomes a criminal, or turns to substance abuse.

They (criminals of all colours) choose to become drug dealers instead of learning a trade, or taking a job at Macdonalds. A recent book, Freakonomics, showed that the majority of drug dealers make less than minimum wage. They become drug dealers because it’s easier, because it’s exciting. Getting a job at Macdonalds takes effort, it takes humility and delayed gratification. It’s easier to cave in to peer pressure and hang out with the cool kids in a gang. It’s easier to not plan for the future and just live for the moment.

Sure it’s more difficult to do the right thing when you’re poor, and you know you don’t have the brains or talent to become a doctor or lawyer or athlete or something other than a blue-collar worker your whole life, but most people (black and white) in that position don’t turn to a life of crime. It’s not inevitable or unavoidable. It is a choice.

isoFlux Wrote:a list of peer-reviewed articles

The Communist Manafesto. Reviewed by many socialists. Widely admired. Tried in an eighty year experiment. Proved to be utter crap. Still widely admired by people who refuse to accept reality.

I apologize for the heavy handed sarcasm, you’re obviously well versed in your beliefs. But one of the greatest fallacies of liberalism is that you have to feel like doing the right thing before you can act that way. That’s rubbish. If the Allies waited to start D-Day until every soldier felt like charging the beaches under a hail of murderous machine gun fire we’d still be waiting. People aren’t animals doomed to follow their instincts. We have the ability to weigh the consequences of our actions, and to choose to do the difficult thing now in order to get the results we want further down the road (delayed gratification).

It’s not just poor people in jail. There are lots of wealthy people who decided they wanted what they wanted when they wanted it and didn’t care if they broke the law to get it. Circumstances make the choice easier or harder, but it’s still a choice.