RESPONSE - Olson

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Forwarded message:
>From stecher Sun Oct 23 23:41:06 1994
From: Jack Stecher <stecher>
Message-Id: <199410240441.XAA14997@quality.ais.umn.edu>
Subject: RESPONSE - Olson
To: aikens@Free-Net.Mpls-StPaul.MN.US (G Scott Aikens)
Date: Sun, 23 Oct 1994 23:41:05 -0500 (CDT)
Cc: stecher (Jack Stecher), stecher@atlas.socsci.umn.edu
In-Reply-To: <199410240054.TAA14019@quality.ais.umn.edu> from "G Scott Aikens" at Oct 23, 94 07:51:56 pm
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha3]
Content-Type: text
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Civic values and community spirit do not grow or decay in a vacuum.  Whether
the communities in Minnesota flourish is intertwined with what presumptions
about our citizenry guide policy.

Specifically, we need to assure all individuals in Minnesota that their
actions matter.  We cannot sustain policies where the state maintains
control of individuals' decisions, yet hope that the citizenry will
cheerfully go about life as if actions had consequences.  As our communities
grow more diverse, centrally-imposed policies become increasingly infeasible.
Different communities will have different values; our policies ought to
allow pluralism.

Instead, policy ought to focus on increasing personal autonomy and individual
responsibility.  We must recognize that individuals will prosper when they
are responsible for their own actions, and when they are rewarded for making
wise decisions.  For too long, our elected officials have shamelessly
promised to tax and regulate our problems away.  These promises invariably
turn out to be nothing more than artful self-promotion.

Every election cycle, we see evidence of the social breakdown the lack of
individual responsibility has brought about.  Candidates inevitably discuss
violent crime and the need to reverse disturbing trends.  Yet so long as
crime continues to pay, we will continue to see high rates of violence.
The typical rapist in Minnesota's prison system is a third time recidivist;
this should tell us something.  Why should a criminal exercise self-control,
or respect the rights of others, when the penalties for brutality are so
lax?  When we cease to hold people responsible for their actions, we create
an environment in which crime and social deterioration thrive.

Ignoring the role of the individual while formulating policies has caused
or aggravated other social problems.  Our welfare system has, despite the
level of benefits, served to harm the poor within every community.  Hennepin
County now has the second-worst poverty rating for African-Americans in
the country.  Our Asian-American and Native American communities are
economically worse-off than African-Americans.  Minneapolis and St. Paul
have the highest percentage of impoverished minorities of the top 25
urban areas.  The problem afflicts the white community as well:  there are
more poor whites in the Twin Cities than all communities of color.

The reason for such high poverty and welfare dependency rates is that our
government has not focused on individual empowerment.  Instead of creating
new welfare bureaucracies, we ought to be encouraging economic growth and
creating jobs.  Instead of having the state run charity, we should be
returning control to neighborhoods, churches, and community groups--to those
who have the ability to help individuals within their community.  Instead
of state-run Outcomes Based Education, we need to return to parents the
decisions on how their children will be educated.  We need to allow for
different alternatives in education, including vouchers and tuition tax
credits, expansion of the charter school system, and support for home
schooling and open enrollment.

The most important theme is that control be devolved from the state to the
local and individual levels.  Accordingly, I ask my opponents the following
question:

	What effect would your policies on crime, welfare, and education
	have on individual autonomy and individual responsibility--would
	your policies foster self-reliance and accountability, or would
	they divorce people from the consequences of their actions?

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