We may have different opinions without disagreeing. We may disagree without criticizing others. We may criticize without being confrontational. But if we confront, let us not retaliate afterwards. Then only the government can retaliate with imprisonment in accordance with the law. Understanding our differences and abiding by rules of ethics will improve our quality of life.
Ray could be very wise at times, such as when he said later one Sunday after lunch, while we were sitting on the shade of a mesquite tree, holding to a cold can of beer, looking at a beautiful desert willow surrounded by ocotillos close to the river basin, and jumping from topic to topic as usual. “I don’t see such a critical difference between the behaviors of the Latinos or Hispanics and that of the Anglos, both have pluses and minuses. I do see cultural differences, but after all, there are differences within any family. Why not within any culture or between cultures? What is wrong with that?”
“You are right. Not easy to detach yourself from having preferences, which are based on differences.” I was careful to answer, “And just like in a family, parents must choose when to interfere among sibling rivalry or when to let them work out their differences themselves. Can we use similar wisdom? Preferences and differences do not mean you have to exclude others.”
“Well, most parents fail at doing a good job when they show preference of one child over another. Worst for government.” While rubbing his left ear, Ray continued. “Who would you suggest does the choosing of sides? You, the City, Washington D.C., Democrats, or Republicans?”
“Don’t pick favorites. We are all equipped with a sense of justice if we learn to use it. Often, we think we do learn, but not always do.”
“Do you think that just because a person is a long-term resident of this neighborhood, he or she deserves special treatment or consideration?” asked Ray, trying to put words in my mouth.
“No. Nobody here deserves special treatment. A referee does not give special treatment, and the game gets played. All we want to do is level the playing field for the game. Nor benefiting the privileged or choosing who the privileged ought to be. But if you want to complain that the Europeans took the land away from the Indians, then you understand what leveling the playing field in the Barrio means.”
“I am not sure I see the difference.” Ray was not convinced. “HUD has given preferential treatment to low-and-moderate-income people, and there are lots of things the kids you are working with have done that are inexcusable, like peeing on the walls. Why promote them to stay here?”
I loved when people questioned what I was doing. I liked the disagreement, as it challenged me to think harder. Rubbing my chin, I said, “Not every kid is the same. You must be able to tell the changeable from the non-changeable in people, and the misguided from the criminal. For example, the story I told you of the kids in the back of the pick-up making obscene gestures to a lady was a rude childish prank, not a crime. Confront without retaliation. On the other hand, every culture, including ours, suffers from having a few people involved in rape and murder, which are crimes, but we don’t condemn the entire culture. We control harmful behavior through equal law and order.
“But we don’t have equal justice. That is the problem.”
“We have a tool, the court, to help remedy the problem. If done right, it works more than 91% of the time. With the kids in the Barrio, use the help of the good 20% to provide leadership for the 60%, and protect everyone from the bad 20%. Outside the Barrio, there can be bad cases, such as the 20% of attorneys and judges who cross the line into criminality, sidestepping our checks and balances. Do not incriminate the entire justice system. Except there are judges who think they can interpret the law according to their own personal beliefs, violating separation of power, violating social justice, distorting the playing field.”
“But what if the law offends the judge’s sense of morality?” argued Ray. “Even our laws leave room for improvement. In Eugene, Oregon, where we both came from, the City had, and maybe still has, a law that reads, “No blacks after sundown”. Should a judge uphold such law?” He looked at me kind of funny. “Would you?” Then he went on. “Well…, change the law! There are more Hispanics and blacks in jail. ‘Change what law’?”
“What if there were more blacks and Hispanics committing crimes as well? Is it because of the law, the judges, injustice, or themselves?” A valid question.
“Are they treated differently by the justice system?”
“Of course, they are. Minorities in numbers will always be treated unevenly everywhere, but is how they are treated a good excuse for committing more crimes? Or for letting the criminal free? Widespread injustice can lead to a revolution, but a criminal revolutionary will continue been a criminal after the revolution, zero gain on that one. The answer is in early education in childhood before it gets to the justice system; for the judges and the delinquents. Unequal treatment may be a reason for anger and reprisal, but not for criminality”
“You may have a point there,” said Ray. “Minorities can become majorities. But are crime rates the same with Asians as with blacks? The answer is ‘No’ and the treatment of them may not be any better.”
“The flaws in the justice system are due to the treatment we give to both victim and victimizer, but what if it comes from much before, in the growing up? With freedom comes responsibility. We need to teach both more effectively. Strange as it may sound, the key to valuable equality comes from liberty, for you can be equally enslaved. Only once you are free, and freedom is in your mind, are you equal to all others who are free. However, with freedom comes personal responsibilities, or you can lose both. Freedom is in your mind, responsibility is in your behavior. If you are not responsible, you are not free. If you are not free, you are not equal to someone who is free. Your mind is key.”
Easy to say, harder to resolve. Ergo, not responsible, not free. Ray shook his head, not convinced. If an intelligent friend of mine was having a hard time assimilating this obscure point of freedom and responsibility and justice as part of our education early on, it would be more difficult to explain it to a stranger, even he had previously stated that social justice starts at childhood. Therefore, I tried again. Power is in self-sufficiency for everyone, the basic is individual freedom.
“We must improve both sides of the equation, on the one hand we have an overloaded justice system from so many crimes, and on the other sometimes we have an unfair system. But to truly deal with the unfair result, at the onset of the child’s journey, you must level the playing field. Is our education equal? Are all our family structures protected? Are we successfully promoting self-sufficiency and good moral judgement across the board? ARE WE? I experienced, and carefully saw the food stamps and welfare system, supported by an extension of unemployment, and noticed that the system can be manipulated to encourage women to have children without a father to get their hands on more support money. This will destroy any culture, especially the Black culture that has had strong family tradition. Some slave owners separated black families for economics. Today our social programs, by Democrats in the government, welfare packages are the one doing so for craving and votes. Children with no fathers are not growing up on a level field. No way!
“Sooner or later, someone will declare fatherless families the norm, to be protected. Follow the money. This part of the Government Deplorable Cycle is another case of “sublimation of goals.” Like Alinsky said: “Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety, and uncertainty.” Hidings below the surface, make the guilty into an “end-victim,” a hero for just being a victim, muddy the solutions and make irresponsibility acceptable. This is a clearer culprit of the increasing level of crime in areas where the Government Deplorable Cycle is more successful and prevalent than a real intent to eliminate poverty, or the call for a false social justice. What do cities with high crime rates have in common? A few people support this with the intent to increase poverty and justify their own income while destroying the family.”
“Why do you think someone wants to destroy the family or promote poverty, if I may ask?”
“To control society, offer handouts, grind down its strengths. Once you give free stuff, the outcome is more votes for you, or they can lose their perks. Few politicians will undo a social program. This form of blind blackmailing of voters is characteristic of tyrannies and is growing right in your backyard.”
“Why do I get the impression that you think diluting of family will not happen to the Hispanic culture?”
“It will. It has, but it will take longer. Hispanics in America are too strong, too religious, too family oriented. Look at this Barrio, look at the way the fabric of the place is held together by family connectivity, but they will suffer in the long run. It is a silent death sentence with politicians promoting its demise. Prevalent officials keep trying to bulldoze these Barrios or they keep gentrifying them. They keep destroying the family unit, intentionally eroding their community and culture. Next will come doing it to the country. Letting in illegal immigration from failing countries accelerates this deterioration. Communism intends to destroy the family as part of taking control of any country. It intends to destroy religion and family unity. We can feel it here with the weakening of the predominant Barrio culture. But sooner or later the attack will be on what they will call the predominant white culture”
Ray changed hands as he changed the ear he was scratching. Then he asked, “We? The prevalent culture? Are you implying this is a communist effort?”
“No, yes, not all, or not exclusively, I am comparing the similarity of results. The Communist Party, and political parties specially the Democrats, and even the leadership of minority groups, all piggy-back on each other’s efforts when it comes to gaining control, but they don’t have the same final objective in mind other than the similarity in ‘control’. They will argue later but cooperate while trying to get there.”
Working harder at getting the elusive wax out of his ear, Ray suggested, “I have noticed how the city is changing. As you said before, “lying at length becomes habitual.” Staff lies to the commissioners, the media lies to the public, organizers lie to their group. We are all lacking in ethics.”
“I agree. Valid disagreements require ethics.”
“But you lost me somewhere in there! Why do you use the words ‘destroy the family’? How is family strength eroded, and what strength are you talking about?”
I had to think about this for a while and pull from what had I seen from experience. What were my own feelings when I had been tempted to take the easy way and get Food Stamps? Or now when planning our programs at a board meeting, so as not to behave the same as the government programs[xxxix]. Our TBA programs had to support the positive and counteract the negative; two sides of the same coin. We emphasized Family, Pride, and Hands. We opposed anything that takes the power away from the individual to give it to another, and we wanted people to protect their Barrio and respect all others. Power is based on accepting self-sufficiency for everyone, not just your own. So, I replied:
“When a weak person gets more money from social programs than from a paycheck, why should they work? A culture of poverty pimps is then created by keeping others dependent making them victims, while convincing themselves of their superiority. If you could get an entire neighborhood in welfare conditions, you would be feeding both teams in the beast in perpetuity, the dependents, and the case workers. No end in sight. This will continue if employees in government social programs don’t get as much from ‘solving’ the issues, as they can get from protecting their own job security with program justification. This is the Government Deplorable Cycle. It will destroy the family and their desire to solve their problems by luring them to depend on the government. All based in buying the vote. Thus, paving way for more control.”
“Can you give me an example?” asked Ray.
“Yes, progressive programs. Before, Hispanic families out of pride would not acknowledge poverty even if to get benefits. Now a few are beginning to flaunt poverty to get more. Social workers promote it, so do the minority community advocates who enshrine victimization, instead of promoting them to move up economically. People in this Barrio feel that pressure”
I had not been immune to the Government Deplorable Cycle money myself, so I said, “Could I be looking for a salaried position within the TBA as motivation, misleading people towards government funding?”
“In your case, you exaggerate.”
“Some, maybe, I am trying to make a point. Here a difference in opinion leads to disagreement, criticism, confrontation, and a desire to retaliate.”
Ray scratched his ear some more. Then by his next question, I knew he was understanding as very few people ever did.
“Do you see the City’s Department of Human and Community Development weakening the social fabric by what they do?”
“Yes. Of course. If you pay attention to their subtle conniving way, yes. Although they are more sophisticated than others, they want to use a government department to solve people’s problems, by using other people’s money, Federal tax, and HUD money. Their purpose in fixing homes for example, depends on people not being capable of resolving their own problems, so they do it for them. Why would they want to solve the real problem, as TBA does, and thus lose their employment in that Department? I also need to do my own ethical introspection here, but I have set up a limit of three years of funding, and no more if possible.”
“Not you.” Ray said. “You are not solving their problems. You are making it possible for them to solve their own problems, but why so much emphasis on family in this Barrio?
“Notice, as I said before, that the open spaces and proximity of family members is one important element favoring this culture. If you destroy the family, you injure the Barrio. If you destroy the Barrio, you injure the family. Displacement destroys the Barrio. It injures those who live here. Once more, imagine a future world where politicians succeed at giving hand-outs to more than 51% of the population. Who would want to vote them out? That is how you destroy a whole community and not just the family, and not just the Barrio. Remember Jefferson’s words and change the word ‘tell’ to ‘accept’. “He who permits himself to accept a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time till at length it becomes habitual,” resulting in accepting a Government Deplorable Cycle as a new part of the system. He is not talking about disagreeing; he’s talking about lying.”
“I never thought of it that way. What about unemployment compensation?”
“NO. You paid for that. Therefore, is your money. Same is the case with Social Security. Although a politician can misuse that money, and they do, while it sits in the bank, they can scare the population into thinking that politicians who do not like social programs will do away with Social Security and unemployment compensation. And don’t confuse the value of a program with the value of how they are being administered. When poorly administered, a good program is a bad program. Notice how politicians are slowly trying to make you believe that tax money is their money and not yours. They think you need to work to pay for them.”
Ray was trying hard. His face was getting red. “How is what the City does different from what communists try to do?”
“It is, but it is not. The City doesn’t go that far. The Communist Party encourages all efforts by the City, or anyone else, to destroy the family and weaken the community fabric, as one step in a long-range series of strategies. Many, including local and federal government programs, even the leadership of the so-called minorities, fall for this by allowing the dilution of the family strength. As you know, they are called ‘useful idiots’, a favorite phrase within the Communist Party.”
Ray was perturbed. “Darn it, my friend, you leave very little hope. Do you think that good education, employment opportunity, and family culture alone can cure poverty?”
“That is a good start. Mental attitude, through self-imposed justice and responsibility, a moral compass, work ethics, ethics in general, a healthy approach to competition, promoting healthy family, knowledge in economics which avoids permissiveness, fake rewards, dishonesty, corruption, and promoting diversity...”
“Diversity? Why is that?”
I think we were reversing roles.
“Diversity in general terms also means the same as dilution, contamination, erosion, watering down the most valuable, making incompetence, the mundane and the mediocre, acceptable. Pay attention! Diversity can be excellent, but is only good when you have competition, and when you have freedom of choice, and when it is within the umbrella of a powerful unifying factor. Diversity without competition creates a declining mediocrity.”
I don’t think I had had a chance to talk to Ray about this interpretation of diversity in depth before. A complex word had been simplified into a connotation with only one meaning.
“But you have been advocating cultural diversity by claiming that the Hispanic culture is worth preserving for many reasons.”
“I think you misunderstand what I meant. The strong and valuable points of the Hispanic, Indian, or Japanese cultures can survive and thrive within the American culture. They will help strengthen the entire American culture through competition and choice, except for those who intent to use one to destroy the other. For diversity to be a driving force, it must be under a unifying factor. Otherwise, it dilutes. Again, understanding this is understanding why the diversified native American tribes did not flourish, while the so-called Anglos, as Americans, also diversified into many nationalities did.”
“Are you equating culture with racism?”
“I did not say racism. If you are treated with racism, realize it is a flaw in the other person’s character, not yours. Never become a victim. So no, I am not equating one with the other.” You find yourself having to defend from an attack. “If you talk about racism all the time, even if your words try to denounce it, your words and behavior incriminate you in talking about it all the time.”
“Not me. We are both talking about it.”
He started it. Ray was trying to get my goat, so I inverted it.
"Where did I fail? Telling you to decrease discrimination in your own soul?”
I could see that that got to him, so I continued, “All human beings and cultures have some level of racism in them, me and you included. Those who talk about it the most are often the most racist of all.”
“But if we are talking about it now, how can you defend yourself against racism?”
“By never considering yourself a victim.”
That took a while to sink in.
“A victim? You mean you don’t think the gap between the rich and the poor keeps getting bigger? Isn’t this a proof we are all victims as well?”
This jumping from one issue to another, turning disagreement into confrontation, was becoming typical, but I fell for it. I had heard this falsehood so many times that it was getting monotonous.
“Remember I said before how illustrating a midstream example could be a form of deception? Two hundred years ago in the United States, over 25% of the population either died from hunger or suffered hunger at least more than six consecutive months of the year. Today, no one dies from hunger in this country except for drug addiction or mental illness. Look at the whole picture. There are thousands of volunteer organizations ready to prevent death by hunger. The definition of ‘poverty’ is not what it used to be. Now, people have been doing what should be called ‘trickling up’ by the millions instead of by the handful and that is why so many people, rich and poor, want to come to the United States. The higher the rich trickles up the better, the more room, freedom, wealth, and opportunity they make for those that come behind them. The numbers of the very rich keeps increasing, we want more and more of them, not less, if it is honest wealth!
“The middle class keeps increasing. While death by hunger keeps decreasing, although hunger hurts much more now because it is more rare and so unnecessary. Also, notice that the stability of the middle class is stronger than the instability of the very rich, who often risk more and lose more. No one mentions that. You’ll be surprised how often rich people lose their wealth, even if many works hard at recovering it. For 200 years, the ‘increasing gap’ between the rich and the poor has been filled up with an increasing population explosion of a healthy middle class and many more rich people! So don’t give me no crap.”
“Then why, if you look at the statistics, do we have today as many poor people and as many in the middle class as in years before?”
“Statistics can be deceiving.” I said with patience, “The description to qualify as ‘poor’ keeps shifting up, the poor is now what used to be low middle, and many of the top middle are now rich. So, the statistical numbers remain the same, but the actual wealth level keeps trickling up and up. For example, a ‘poor’ person today may have a car, a working TV, refrigerator, running water to the toilet, sink and kitchen, hot stove or microwave, toilet paper, and two meals a day. The poor of yesterday may only have had a mango tree.”
I was losing my patience. Ray did get my goat! To soften him up, I said, “Don’t get me wrong, even if humanity in developed countries is better off today than 300 years ago, since the human brain is the same as 10,000 years ago, why the richer people keep getting rich at a faster rate in numbers than they ever did before? Probably because of our environment and experiences in economy. So, how can they share their efforts - not their wealth - and create an environment that allows others to move up as well? As mentors maybe?” Then I added, “A rich person for having made money buys a big boat that employed 500 people who would have had no work otherwise: in glass, plastic, doorknobs, toilets etc. A super-rich person buys a much bigger boat that employed 1,000 people. What is wrong with that, other than envy?
“That sounds fair to me, as you share your wealth by spending it, others above you must spend theirs for you to get your part.”
“Well said. Now that you mention it, if we look carefully at Alinsky’s stated radical goal, he wanted to do away with the middle class, intentionally, so prepare yourself as his ideology gathers momentum. It seeks to reduce and eliminate the growth of the middle class. But that will never happen.”
“Yes, it can.
“No, it can’t. Give me some examples as to how.”
We are now back to Ray telling me something new.
“Thinking of it. The key is ‘control’. Slowly you would tighten the loops around key economic and social factors by increasing control through regulations. Pretending to safeguard the population, but in fact, limits choice. Next comes more government decisions that limits what you can do, and tells you what you must do, like more government participation in your health care, offering you all kinds of incentives, little by little increasing it until all health care will be provided by the government, equals total control. Like Jefferson said, “He who permits himself to tell (accept) a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time until at length it becomes habitual.” Parallel to that is to control the banks ‘to keep them honest’, and ‘protect the consumer’, but in fact, they will end up with access and control to all your financial information. The list goes on. Gun control, birth control, distasteful information control, leading to speech control, and more. More control does not translate into more freedom. In demanding ‘free speech’ a funny thing will happen, at first; they will appear to be the defenders of free speech. They need it. Then they will turn against free speech as a social intruder, declaring fee speech an enemy of social justice. “He who permits himself to tell a lie once…””
Naively I said, “Who? Who? To be for gun control is to be anti-Republican. And yet, there are some very good, decent people in both parties. Today, when we get support in the Barrio, people don’t ask what party anyone belongs to. I don’t like the environmental movement because of the money-grabbing of many of their leaders, and the end result of global tax, however, the environmental group is full of very well-intended people who are truly concerned about the globe. Although they are looking at a future that will never happen, based on a big lie. Fifty years ago, they have been saying the end of the world will be in fifteen years. Artificial urgency. Not here yet, or ever. Their biggest complaint is simply that the rich keep getting richer.”
“They think it will happen. Republicans are falling asleep at the wheel. As an illustration in this false statement that the gap between rich and poor is getting bigger, and assuming it to be a bad thing, while the real thing in the ‘trickle up’ is that the number of poor people get smaller, even if the gap itself were to increase. Keep saying the negative half-truth, and you will make it happen. Democrats are smart, they start saying the gap keeps getting bigger as a negative attribute, then when they cause it to happen, (they keep getting richer, but have thrown the blame elsewhere,) they use the results to prove their point. Which reminds me of the lesson you gave me in driving while sliding on water. When your car begins to slide, you need to look at the point you want to go, not the one to avoid. What happens when others tell you where to look and they mislead you? You’ll end up there even if they pretend to tell you not to. To say, ‘the rich keep getting rich while the poor keeps getting poorer,’ is fake. They are the ones who keep getting richer at our expense. Look elsewhere.
Talking to myself I said, “I’ll keep more attention on the direction people want me to go when they repeat such slogans.”
“The big problem with Republicans, besides not cleaning the corruption in their tent, is lack of attention to how the economics is affecting the social fabric, and, in educating the population on it.”