Freddie Gray never really had a chance.
 
I don’t mean the day he died. I mean all the other days of his life. The deck was pretty much stacked against this guy from the beginning.
 
Don’t get me wrong, he made a lot of bad choices along the way, but young Gray was born 25 years ago in a town that’s been run by Democrats for six decades.
 
Progressive philosophy holds that there are just some among us who are simply incapable of looking after themselves. These unfortunate souls, so the thinking goes, require a big fat nanny state to look after their every need from cradle-to-grave. Subsequently, most progressives treat the poor and disadvantaged as children, incapable of ever growing up, becoming accountable and assuming responsibility for their own lives.
 
Derek Hunter, a Baltimore resident for 13 years, paints a grim picture of how the Democrats’ progressive worldview impacted Gray’s life ~

Freddie Gray was raised in poverty, educated in failing schools, thrust out into an economy choked by regulation and taxes, and offered only drugs as a way to earn money.
 
Baltimore has been controlled by Democrats since the 1960s. The economy, the education system, the business environment and climate of criminality are all pieces of what they built – a machine that churns out Freddie Grays en masse on an annual basis.
 
Freddie Gray was pushed through the failed Baltimore education system, learning nothing of practical use and not being prepared for college or a trade. He was thrown into an economy hemorrhaging jobs and businesses because taxes and regulations disincentivize the retention and creation of businesses. The only growth industry hiring was drugs.

Nothing but poverty and pessimism, despite the fact that millions of public and private funds were “invested” in Gray’s neighborhood: Lack of ‘Investment’ Is Not the Problem in Baltimore ~

Insanity, it is said, is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. Taxpayers have invested heavily in Baltimore, and in Sandtown-Winchester, for decades, and it has availed them little. Perhaps it is time to try something different[…]
 
 
The Abell Foundation, which targets problems in low-income communities in Baltimore City, estimates that $130 million (private and public) was pumped into Sandtown-Winchester in the 90’s.

Like neglectful, permissive parents, progressives just keep throwing money at the “kids,” without ever requiring accountability. When the youngsters turn into “thugs” like they have been in Baltimore, we just get excuses. Not only do Democrats refuse to act like adults, and apply some tough love – astoundingly, they further indulge the delinquents.
 
Sadly, as Hunter concludes,

(The big government) machine has churned out many of the people who took to the streets of Baltimore to riot on Monday. Many of them will suffer the same fate as Freddie Gray, though at the hands of their peers, not the police.

 
Unless we dump the destructive policies of progressives, and help the disadvantaged grow up and become accountable, they’ll have a difficult time ever escaping the endless cycle of poverty – and thuggery.
 
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Related:

Dear Rev. Willcox ~ Several years ago I wrote to “compassionate” liberal minister about progressives’ uncompassionate treatment of the poor.

Progressive Plundering
Update: added 5-3-15 ~ Dear Baltimore Family and Friends: Y’all Bein’ Played! ~ Lloyd Marcus with a message for his fellow blacks ~

… guess who has controlled Maryland politics for the past 50 years? Liberal Democrats. And yet, they still keep playin’ blacks with their standard lie — vote for us and we’ll fix everything with our programs and block racist Republicans from keepin’ y’all down and lynching you.
 
Meanwhile, there hasn’t been one Republican in sight in Maryland for 50 years in a position to affect anything.