{"id":59571,"date":"2016-07-14T11:30:26","date_gmt":"2016-07-14T16:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=59571"},"modified":"2017-06-21T15:53:14","modified_gmt":"2017-06-21T20:53:14","slug":"putting-on-squalid-airs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=59571","title":{"rendered":"Putting On Squalid Airs"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the aphorisms that I’ve always used to guide my life is an old Hungarian saying; “the best way to become wealthy is to appear as if you already are”. \u00a0It’s not just about money; Dennis Prager notes a similar principle when it comes to happiness. \u00a0 Prager and others note that when all else fails, the best way to bring love back to a loveless relationship is to act as if you are\u00a0<\/em>still very much in love. \u00a0More mundane? \u00a0Innumerable business books advise young would-be up-and-comers to dress for the position they want, not the one they’re in.<\/p>\n

Ameircan slang also renders the saying as “fake it ’til you make it”.<\/p>\n

And it’s not bad advice; the best way out of poverty is to stop acting poor.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, government is spending a lot of (your) money to promote the idea that acting poor is good for you.<\/p>\n

Along these lines, a friend of the blog writes:<\/p>\n

\n

Last week, before Philando Castile was shot, a friend of mine, who is black, and I were discussing racism in Minnesota. He was shaking his head, wondering why black people are told to act, dress, and talk a certain way when he sees Somalis “getting a pass.” “And they’re the ones trying to blow us up!” he says.<\/span><\/p>\n

What would he change? Well, when he was born, his parents lived in Cabrini Green. So, he has a good perspective. He would stop building subsidized housing for black people. He would stop forcing everyone to take the bus. “I’d never let my kids on those things.” He’s told me before that he’d told his family to do whatever they need to in order to afford a car- even if it means giving up a lot of other things. <\/span><\/p>\n

I have a feeling that many other black people feel the same way. And I think it is great that the protests are happening at the Governor’s mansion, because obviously Dayton is part of the problem in terms of what my friend would fix. But, it’s too bad that Black Lives Matter is just another activist group with no more intention of helping people than any other activist group- my friend’s message will never get heard over the special interests.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0It’s both symbolic and eminently practical; our government is trying to jam us into “high density” lifestyles, which is code (!) for “how poor people live”; \u00a0to live, work and travel crammed together like passive-aggressive sardines.<\/p>\n

We could have literally bought 140,000 late-model used cars for $10,000 a pop for the money we spent on the Green Death Machine. \u00a0That’s more than enough to equip every impoverished family in Saint Paul with a reliable vehicle – a portal to better jobs, to school choice, to opportunity.<\/p>\n

But no. \u00a0We spent $1.4 billion so they, and a lot of middle-class people, could be poor…on tracks.<\/p>\n

We sent the poor people to failing schools so they can be poor…with administrators with really great pensions.<\/p>\n

What’s wrong here?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the aphorisms that I’ve always used to guide my life is an old Hungarian saying; “the best way to become wealthy is to appear as if you already are”. \u00a0It’s not just about money; Dennis Prager notes a similar principle when it comes to happiness. \u00a0 Prager and others note that when all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[378],"class_list":["post-59571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ebony-and-ivory","tag-castile-case"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59571"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59574,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59571\/revisions\/59574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}