From the Churchillhouse site that ZZZ posted, telling us why people are homeless. This is one clipping which ZZZ must have a hard time with. Problems, which are sometimes short term, but more commonly full of vexing and entrenched issues and behaviour.
I think most of that is good advice, and you probably followed all the good advice your elders gave you when you were a teenage with hormones raging through your body. Mental illness is just laziness, right? Care to make a guess what a brain scan would show on a lot of the homeless folks out there? http://www.brainmattersinc.com/ http://braininspect.com/ http://www.enotalone.com/article/4993.html Really, science is just beginning to understand the nature of the brain and its impact on mental illness, and how that impacts the lives of people. I know you want to say people are just lazy boozers and drug addicts, but it is a bit like saying people who have ADHD are just lacking self control...
"full of vexing and entrenched issues and behaviour" Indeed, and behavior is a result of brain activity. Ask some scientists in the field of neurology, or neuropsychology, etc. if the condition of the brain and/or brain chemistry can produce ""full of vexing and entrenched issues and behaviour."
Ok, I will try to clear this up. I do not think that a real mental illness is "just laziness". I have an uncle who has a variety of mental health problems, all of which have caused him to live a pretty hard life. That said, a person who is homeless has the help available to them in most cases to leave that life behind if they choose to accept the help being offered to them by so many people and religious mental health, good semaritan and other organizations out there.
You assume someone with a mental illness will take advantage of any and all help that is offered. Clearly, I think you don't really understand the nature and condition of many of the homeless out there. We have a lot of veterans of wars who are homeless, and I predict we will have a lot more of them following the war in Iraq when soldiers return, who will also become homeless. They are just boozers and drug addicts too, who aren't taking advantage of the help that is available? I am surprised Brandon, I thought you were too smart to have such a backward perspective, and be arguing with what science is discovering about the brain. So, you are the expert on real mental illness, by just being honest and opening your eyes? You remind me of Bill Frist who made his diagnosis of Terri Schiavo by looking at a video tape. http://thinkprogress.org/2005/06/15/schiavo-was-blind/ Unfortunately for Frist, science proved him wrong when the autopsy was done. It is this type of prejudice based on ignorance of science that you are displaying that keeps so many people stuck in mental illness, rather than just understanding that even a simple mental illness can produce symptoms which combined with certain life situations can render even a "normal" person homeless and in a downward spiral that is not so easily recovered from by an act of "willpower" or positive thinking.
Geez, i thought i had problems, you are a- right- knob. Ignore. To everyone else, i told ya rudi was gonna run......heh heh........uh-oh. Religious mental health........
The irony is that Rudy did nothing except juke the stats and give the police an open license to abuse low income neighborhoods so that arrests & convictions would rise significantly. He is a total fascist & racist. Do you even realize how many low income black teenagers were locked up for years at Rikers on trumped up charges? Or for minute possession? Rudy's Gestapo raped those neighborhoods, and they were practically allowed to shoot "suspects" for pulling out wallets. When police was sticking broom handles up immigrant's orifices, Rudy was defending them, no matter how obviously wrong they were. Did you even know that most of the efforts to bring up police efforts were actually started by Dinkins toward the end of his term? Except that he was honest with his stats. Last I checked, Dinkins jumped right into the heart of the Crack Epidemic. A thourough research on urban crime at ALL major US cities during those times will point out that actions by law enforcement did little, the crime due to the Crack Epidemic had its own forces & dynamics, which the police nor FBI could do or can do little to change. Sh*t, you had CIA supplying a major portion of the coke, and even having major urban drug dealers as pawns. And NYC becoming a nice place to live, yeah like Rudy had much to do with that short of being in the right place at the right time. NYC real estate was popping off a bottom and it was the developers, not the mayor who were the force. Dinkins started the efforts, Rudy continued them, but the true forces behind it had little to do with the mayor. Hey but who really wants to know the truth? The image is a better sell and easier to accept. That's the beauty of democracy in this country. You have a fascist & racist being labeled as a cool Republican.
I never have understood the "hero" status. I think the country just needed somebody to be a hero and Rudy happened to be in the right place at the right time. I mean, wtf did he do that was actually heroic? As for cleaning up NY, he can also be blamed for Disneyfying Times Square. I preferred the whores and con-artists. H
Yeah, that was my argument way back when, in a thread i cant find. "Guiliani for prez", something like that. Point being, i believed he could make it on the campaign of " i was there" or similar, doesn't actually matter he is a cowardly fascist, worthless opportunist, or lousy hypocrite. Trust me, that WILL be, in basic terms, the thrust of his efforts................. "I was their, remember 9/11? I was the brave, stoic, mayor, saying brave re-assuring words to a camera, in a time of crisis", and people are so friggin stupid, they will vote for him , en masse. Hm, who was it who cast doubt on Giuliani even running? Pabst, and others maybe....... Hey, didn't i offer a bet on that? My memory sucks. But my words, "Giuliani is a shoe in " is kinda poignant, no? Try "swift -boating", " I was the freakin mayor, at 9/11, what were YOU doin, huh????" You know what i mean.
Obviously, I am not a Rudy supporter. I do give him credit for cleaning up NYC however. No doubt there were excesses, but his insistence on prosecuting quality of life crimes made a huge difference in the city. Anyone who lived there will confirm that. No more squeegee thugs, etc. On the other hand, his record is full of troubling incidents where he abused his power for one reason or another. As US Attorney, remember he had investment bankers arrested and put in cuffs in the middle of the trading floor. As mayor, he proposed a plan for drunk drivers' cars to be forfeited. And let's not forget his police commissioner, the infamous Bernie Kercik. As I recall, he was tough on turnstyle jumpers, but didn't have a problem with mobbed up construction companies doing free work on his house. The more you survey the field of candidates on both sides, the better Mitt Romney looks.