South Tulsa is considered the upscale region of Tulsa. But within South Tulsa are pockets of neighborhoods well known for its crime, prostitution, homicides. I work by such a neighborhood. As you drive through the neighborhoods--you see young men with the pants at the knees, gold chains (coming out of section 8 housing??), women at the corners shopping their wares---and sad scenes like young men in wheel chairs trying to cross the street (gun shot victims) Homicides are so common, we expect it. On Monday four women were tied up and murdered execution style in one such section 8 apartment complex. The killer left--leaving an unhurt yet traumatized 3 year old with the bodies. I was only a block away while this happened. Section 8 neighborhoods demonstrate what irresponsibility, selfishness and the lack of morals can do to society. Interestingly enough---people are blaming the property owners for this rot. When the stink comes from the poor, who are poor, because they are low class, depraved individuals---who take our tax dollars and are FREE to be as depraved and irresponsible as they please. Yes--not all are the baddies. But frankly the ones that aren't that depraved are currently refusing to talk to police about the killings---so my sympathy factor is low. And then we come a non-section 8, privately run "widows" colony---run through the generosity of a filthy rich oil man who wanted to give back. Charles Page created this in the early 1900's. It is still funded by his trust fund today. http://www.sandspringshome.com/pages/Charles_Page_Family_Village A beautiful place, no crime, no problems to the community. What is the difference?? The residents in the Charles Page family village are expected to have standards. They don't have the "right" to live any way they want to live on some one else's dime! They mess up the neighborhood---they are out of there! And that is my vent for the day.
I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer. There is no country in the world where so many provisions are established for them; so many hospitals to receive them when they are sick or lame, founded and maintained by voluntary charities; so many alms-houses for the aged of both sexes, together with a solemn general law made by the rich to subject their estates to a heavy tax for the support of the poor. Under all these obligations, are our poor modest, humble, and thankful; and do they use their best endeavors to maintain themselves, and lighten our shoulders of this burthen? On the contrary, I affirm that there is no country in the world in which the poor are more idle, dissolute, drunken, and insolent. The day you passed that act, you took away from before their eyes the greatest of all inducements to industry, frugality, and sobriety, by giving them a dependence on somewhat else than a careful accumulation during youth and health, for support in age or sickness. In short, you offered a premium for the encouragement of idleness, and you should not now wonder that it has had its effect in the increase of poverty. --Benjamin Franklin http://www.founding.com/founders_library/pageID.2146/default.asp
