Restoring Civility
by
, 04-06-2019 at 07:19 PM (3553 Views)
During most of my life so far I lived in rather safe areas, places where the general populace was well-behaved, and there was a local police force that was adequate. Unfortunately, the place where I presently live is becoming progressively less safe. Eight years ago, I moved back to Amherst; unfortunately, Amherst has gone from being a pleasant and friendly place to a place where people are in fear of violent crime, and with good reason, a significant part of the town’s population has become unreliable, unstable, or something along those lines. This area has long been known for having drug traffickers and other actors in non-violent crime, and I have been acquainted with some of those. Alas, more recently, there have been people who re drunks or mentally ill who may act strangely at any moment.
Until a few years ago, I had not been a victim of any crime, but I have been physically attacked several times in the last few years, twice this year alone, and one of the assailants is certainly mentally ill, but I don’t know anything about the other.
The fundamental cause for such events is that the mental hospitals were closed decades ago, and the mentally ill have no place to go and many receive no treatment. When the state mental hospitals were closed here, starting in the early 1970’s, the politicians claimed that there were community facilities for all of the people, and no one would end up on the streets. Within two weeks that was shown to be a lie, and the state has decreased spending for the mentally ill, so more of them are on the streets. The mental hospitals could be replaced, and the lessons learned in the past should result in better treatment for the patients.
A decade before the state hospitals were closed, the town farms and poor houses were closed, and that was where people who couldn’t find work, women on their own and other people in need could find a place to sleep and eat. They were required to work, and drunks were banned, but back then the only people without homes were drunks who couldn’t hold down a job, and most of the drunks did have jobs. For hundreds of years there was no problem with homeless people, because everyone was taken care of, one way or another, and there were jobs of almost anyone who wanted to have one, because manufacturing hadn't been sent to other countries.
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Correcting the situation will take years, and there are several major steps that need to be taken, and the first step is to reform Federal tax laws, so that it won't be cheaper to sent manufacturing to China and other low wage countries. That will also require careful review of the regulations on manufacturing, because some of the regulations eliminate jobs without making the work safer. There are many regulations that need review, and there are some industries that are so inherently dangerous that no amount of regulation would make the workers safe, but if the workers are aware of that and accept the risk, then that might be adequate. Recreating the jobs will provide a backstop, but it will also be necessary to provide local and regional services.
We can start by providing local town farms for the housing and feeding of those who can't find work. Those can be paid for from the payments to contractors and landlords who have been taking advantage of some marginal people. These local facilities would have to deal with some of the mentally retarded who are capable of living on their own.
Simultaneously, the system of contractors who are supposed to be caring for and treating the mentally ill should be converted back to the mental hospitals of a few decades ago, but with some of the people being sent to subsidized apartments. There are problems with large institutions of that sort, but it will be easier to see the problems than it would be with many, small group homes.
And maybe after we become accustomed to having the mentally ill in hospitals instead of trying to hold down normal jobs we will notice some of the people who presently go on to commit mass murders and other unacceptable behavior.
This is just one step toward recreating a civil society, but doing something about the kind of people who engage in random acts of violence is very important. Other steps include getting people to drive safely. After we get things straightened out in this country, we might be in a position to go to other parts of the world and clean things up, but until then we should save money for projects that might possibly get done.