Zones of Negative Opportunity

So I went out and did a thing. The circumstances and details leading up to it are unimportant for the time being, but I’ve ended up as the Chair of the Minneapolis Republican Party. This is the part where protocol demands that I say that anything presented here is solely my own, and not as an officer in the Mpls GOP, an organizing unit within the MNGOP. This venue of thought and expression is mine as an individual alone.

                That said, the role is forcing me to think in a somewhat different manner. It provides the opportunity and cause to think of the issues that contribute to poverty at large from a public policy and electoral level as well as the individual. The position and responsibilities provide an abundance of mental lubricant. It’s a wonderful opportunity to bring the concept of situational and environmental zones of opportunity into the conversation. The role is a wonderful dovetail joint, because I will always maintain that a critical element to my personal recovery was a return to and reinforcement of what are commonly called Conservative Principles. That when I observe and participate in the environments of the subculture of dysfunction, I see environments of negative opportunity created by poor public policy. The inverse would be called “Opportunity Zones,” if we were to be speaking in terms of urban development, whereas what we are contending with is urban decay. Zones of opportunity in malfeasance created by a lack of enforcement and prosecution, poorly administered and directed harm reduction programs, and poorly administered, expansive social services programs. There are plenty of secondary and tertiary factors, but I see those as the drivers of the urban environmental degradation.

                The current conditions on the Light Rail are a living, breathing example of this. A rolling example of the conditions created by a zone of opportunity. Violence, prostitution, narcotic use, congregation of the homeless. I watch humans who are at various stages of degeneration reverting to chemically induced primal behavior. Picking insects and debris from each other’s hair. Crouched and foraging the floor for narcotics or food. Animated conversations with the air. Sleeping under the seats with weapons because there is just that much more protection under there. These conditions exist because they are allowed to exist. This is “tolerance” personified. This is what the bastardization of concepts like social justice, restorative justice, harm reduction, and equity looks like. This is what accessibility without limits, universal healthcare, the “do something, do anything” approach looks like. This is what blanket “solutions” look like. This is what it looks like when a collection of progressive, collectivist policies come together in practice.

                A common reaction to observing those in that degraded state is that they did that to themselves, they made the choice. While there is an element of hard truth to that, it’s simultaneously an oversimplification that refuses to follow itself along a timeline. I always maintain and always will, that the addict has to first decide to change and initiate that change themselves. It’s just not realistic to consider the reality that at some point the substances physiologically take over, that a line is crossed where assistance is required. To break the cycle, because they physically cannot resist, the ability is indeed gone – that individual must be denied both the opportunity to use, AND the environments of opportunity. Tolerating the environments of opportunity ensures that the opportunity will most often be seized upon, and does nothing but perpetuate the dysfunction.

                This is where poverty need be approached on both the personal and policy level.