> How do you explain the difference in rates if it's just choice?
Broken cultures and bad values. If it were really about money then violent crime that has nothing to do with money wouldn’t be higher as well.
Single motherhood is the leading cause and it’s endemic in poor communities. This value is not only tolerated but celebrated somehow by affluent liberals. It’s astonishing.
America is so incredibly boundless with opportunity that people wait years to move their lives here and others risk their life to come here illegally so they can take advantage of the opportunities and send money back home. Many of these people come from places that are actually poor (America doesn’t really have poverty compared to other places) and could probably be justified in stealing bread. But they don’t.
If that’s not clear evidence it’s a choice then I don’t know what is.
I think we'll just have to agree to disagree then.
We don't get to choose where or to whom we are born. If you are then born into "bad cultures and values", as you say, that has a huge influence on your "choices". If you drop the same kid randomly into a more affluent family, I highly doubt he makes the same choices.
I just don't think that the cause can be simply boiled down to choices, when environment clearly has an outsized effect.
An affluent person can certainly sustain themselves more easily where bad values are concerned like single motherhood, etc. So much they can actually promote it as a value which eventually gets picked up by middle and lower classes and is destructive there.
Poor communities had as a value the 2-parent family and their crime rates were far lower than today. As our social values have changed our crime rates have generally increased. We like to point out that since the 90’s they’ve gone down but not overall the last 100 years.
Broken cultures and bad values. If it were really about money then violent crime that has nothing to do with money wouldn’t be higher as well.
Single motherhood is the leading cause and it’s endemic in poor communities. This value is not only tolerated but celebrated somehow by affluent liberals. It’s astonishing.
America is so incredibly boundless with opportunity that people wait years to move their lives here and others risk their life to come here illegally so they can take advantage of the opportunities and send money back home. Many of these people come from places that are actually poor (America doesn’t really have poverty compared to other places) and could probably be justified in stealing bread. But they don’t.
If that’s not clear evidence it’s a choice then I don’t know what is.