> What do you do in a case of a culture like the Gypsies (at least the ones I
> see), in which the whole source of income is beggary and petty crime? What
> bothers me so much is not that they do this -- beggary and petty criminality
> aren't peculiar to Gypsies -- but that the children are given no other
> choice of lifestyle. They're not put in school. They are kept drugged half
> the time. They don't learn anything but how to beg. Should the culture be
> respected, or should these kids be forced to attend school? This is not a
> rhetorical question, I really do not know the answer.
I don't know, but my guess would be: First you want to have a really good look at the matter and make sure that is indeed what is going on with the Gypsies. Then you might ask if this behaviour is not related to things for which the Gypsies have little fault, like the generally dismal society they live in. Also racism. I don't know about Russia, but I have heard some awful stories about Rumania and Hungary. At the same time you address these issues, you would want to help the Gypsies self-organise and persuade them there is a better way of going about the world. Above all there has to be a better way. Then, if after fifty years of doing this honestly, you try again, and if it doesn't work, maybe there is some justification for removing children.
But I should also say that I might end up siding with the Gypsies on this one. Street kids in Rio sniff glue all day and are the sneakiest thieves you have ever seen. they are also overwhelmingly black. Given the context, more power to them! I hope they thieve every last one of my relatives, who are even greater thieves, though hardly ever seen thieving.
I have a hard time sometimes looking at the United States and not seeing a bunch of fat morons who are utterly irresponsible. It would be a bad way to deal with this problem to take rich WASP children away from their parents and give them to relatively more compassionate black families, even though there is an element of ethnic cohesion to the US ruling class. Without sounding too sycophantic, the reason I have this tendency is the same reason I seek out to find as much about the US left as I can. You can get really hung up on the nasty stuff people do, and not see the possibilities for change. Who knows, maybe there is something Gypsies can teach us. I know they have awesome music.
Thiago