Liberal NYC is supposed to be a melting pot, it’s supposed to have a generous safety net and it’s supposed to be tolerant. But underpinning that are unspoken premises that, although there’s criminals in every social group, no social group makes flouting laws a virtue and that, although there are disadvantaged members of every group, no social group will actively work to make poverty inevitable. How are the rest of us supposed to feel when a group breaks those social contracts?
***********************
I did my graduate work in Utah and the same thing happened with the FLDS there. Warren Jeffs’ whole goal was to keep families in thrall to him, thus children were illiterate, girls married extremely young, and boys who showed the slightest hint of “mouthiness” were cast out to try and make it in a world they didn’t understand–not realizing that the entire point of the system was to raise them up in a world they couldn’t understand so they either had to comply, or end up homeless, suicidal, and completely unskilled.