Posted by Jack
Entitlement #5768.3
Some day I hope to have a new iPhone like the girl in front of me at the grocery checkout with the food stamps.
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Does Chico still have payphones? No such animal down here.
So for a lot of us impoverished employed, and, I mean, you gotta have a phone to stay employed, it’s got to be a cell. I cut the land line years ago.
I think you’re being irrationally resentful again.
Not very many pay phones that I know of Libby. However, there are payphones. Most are in the downtown area. Not being resentful at all, just being an observer and reporting what I see.
Some day I hope nosy busy-bodies stop expressing their unwanted judgments about what strangers in front of them at the grocery lines are allowed to possess and enjoy.
I’m curious, Jack, if you saw this article I linked to the other day about a woman driving to the food stamp office in her Mercedes. It may surprise you.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/07/08/this-is-what-happened-when-i-drove-my-mercedes-to-pick-up-food-stamps/
Chris, the end of that story you linked was, “But what I learned there will never leave me. We didn’t deserve to be poor, any more than we deserved to be rich. Poverty is a circumstance, not a value judgment. I still have to remind myself sometimes that I was my harshest critic. That the judgment of the disadvantaged comes not just from conservative politicians and Internet trolls. It came from me, even as I was living it.” Poverty can be a circumstance, however there is an assumption by far too many liberals that it’s always a circumstance. None of the people I have encountered come remotely close to this example and more often than not it was a combination of many bad character traits that caused them to go on and stay on the road, begging their way around the country and taking advantage of soft spots like Chico whenever they can. But, I’ve lived a long time, saw a lot of life as a cop and therefore my opinion based on my reality may be quite different from yours. In such cases you would be prudent to accept my version at least until you have clear evidence that I’m wrong…but I’m not.
RE: #1, A true Liberal mindset, don’t live within basic means while on assistance, live larger than those tax payers that support your life style of Government welfare, cradle to grave!
Can you think Track Phone!
What a very touching and heartfelt message from Clint Eastwood.
He made my day!
If you realize each day is a gift, you may be near my age.
My Twilight Years ~ Clint Eastwood
As I enjoy my twilight years, I am often struck by the inevitability that the party must end. There will be a clear, cold morning when there isn’t any “more.” No more hugs, no more special moments to celebrate together, no more phone calls just to chat.
It seems to me that one of the important things to do before that morning comes, is to let every one of your family and friends know that you care for them by finding simple ways to let them know your heartfelt beliefs and the guiding principles of your life so they can always say, “He was my friend, and I know where he stood.”
So, just in case I’m gone tomorrow, please know this: I voted against that incompetent, lying, flip-flopping, insincere, double-talking, radical socialist, terrorist excusing, bleeding heart, narcissistic, scientific and economic moron currently in the White House!
Participating in a gun buy-back program because you think that criminals have too many guns is like having yourself castrated because you think your neighbors have too many kids.
Regards,
Clint
This is fiction according to TruthorFiction, but it was just too good to not share.
Maybe the iPhone was a gift. Maybe she had it before she had to go on food stamps. The point is, Jack, unless you actually know what’s going on in this stranger’s life, you are in no position to judge them. I am so sick of hearing people complain about what others in the grocery store line are buying and wearing and driving. It is ignorant nonsense.
Jack is not “judging” the individual. Jack is pointing to a too common occurrence that is the result of lavish redistribution. I’ve known poor people. Poor people lived on powdered milk, beans and rice. If they had a car it was an old junker. A radio was a luxury. Their kids got a single pair of shoes and set of clothing for the school year as long as the car didn’t break down and the kids stayed healthy. Mom washed and ironed every night so those clothes would be clean. Kids slept five and six to a bed.
Many people on assistance today don’t have a clue about what it is to be poor…nor how to work to get themselves back into the mainstream of life. They don’t know because they are trained to be victims and to think they deserve help because they are “disadvantaged”. Every kid in America gets a free high school diploma. All he has to do is show up, pay attention, and do the homework. There is no excuse for the high numbers of welfare an assistance recipients. I don’t judge o blame them. I judge and blame the social and governmental changes that have bred dependency, single motherhood, and crime.
Chris if you didn’t take this issue so personally you could probably better understand that Jack is actually being supportive. A society that breeds dependency and victimhood will not long stand.
The woman in the grocer store is a symbol of a sickness in our society and the wrong direction in our government. The issue is what that woman represents…a breakdown of the social and moral fabric and an embrace of Marx over Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, et al.
“is the result of lavish redistribution.”
There is nothing freakin’ “lavish” about a phone! You don’t accomplish nothing in this society without a phone.
And YOU just don’t make any sense at all.
“There is nothing freakin’ “lavish” about a phone!
BS Libby. I agree with Chris that this woman may have had the phone before she found herself in need BUT it is also true that a lot of people on assistance use their handouts to buy fun stuff for themselves instead of a better life for themselves and their kids…and YOU know it!
It’s morally indecent to encourage people to be dependent on others…to establish what amounts to just another lifestyle in their minds. That’s what your progressivism has done…created an entire caste of dependent people who accept that condition as their lot without question. Disgusting!
You make perfect sense…in the old Soviet Union…or Cuba, or Venezuela….
O geez! We’ve all forgotten…the phones are also “free”
.
What I do not understand is why she was using food stamps. Isn’t there a smartphone app for that?
Why yes, there is!
Free government cell phones program expanding into internet smartphones
http://www.freegovernmentcellphones.net/free-government-cell-phones-expanding-into-internet-smartphones
Perfect!
Tina: “I’ve known poor people. Poor people lived on powdered milk, beans and rice. If they had a car it was an old junker. A radio was a luxury. Their kids got a single pair of shoes and set of clothing for the school year as long as the car didn’t break down and the kids stayed healthy. Mom washed and ironed every night so those clothes would be clean. Kids slept five and six to a bed.”
Ah, the good old days!
Sorry, Tina, but this is the 21st century. You can’t directly compare poverty now to poverty back in your day. They have two different meanings.
If you want people to rise up and meet their fully potential, they have to have the basic tools to get by in our modern society. A phone is a requirement, not a luxury.
“The woman in the grocer store is a symbol of a sickness in our society and the wrong direction in our government. The issue is what that woman represents…a breakdown of the social and moral fabric and an embrace of Marx over Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, et al.”
This is the problem: you look at people like this and you don’t see people, you see “symbols” that justify your own preconceived notions. This woman is not a symbol, she is an individual whom you know nothing about.
And you call me the collectivist.
Good one, Chris. Tina lives in a world that ceased to exist 50 years ago. Poor woman.
Heck, I have lived on beans and rice most of my life. Good stuff. I still do. Yum!
I treat meat as a condiment except when I start up the barbecue. Then it is every carnivore for himself. Today it was a paella with some bits of chicken and fish. (No saffron, to dang expensive, and no bomba, just good ol’ short grain brown.) Served along side a dark and satisfying refrito of left over black beans and pintos. There is plenty to spare for Sunday breakfast.
Those garbanzos are my favorite and are quite cheap when purchased dry in 50 pound sacks. Don’t care for milk, though. Powdered or wet. It is only good if making something with it.
I shared a bed with my younger brother until I was 12 when my folks could afford to get a bunk bed. They didn’t have no smartphone neither. It was a party line.
Chris: “You can’t directly compare poverty now to poverty back in your day”
I wasn’t comparing them. I was demonstrating the point that what you consider poverty is actually a middle class living being served up from the tax payers to able bodied people capable of serving up their own living.
“If you want people to rise up and meet their fully potential, they have to have the basic tools to get by in our modern society.”
Typical liberal blather. people come here every year with only the clothes on their backs and without looking to the government pull themselves into the middle class. They do it by working, scrimping, saving, and in many instances they don’t even have good English skills.
“A phone is a requirement, not a luxury.”
Another cute little liberal talking point. A phone makes the process easier but it is not impossible to get work without a phone. A phone is a luxury.
“…you look at people like this and you don’t see people, you see “symbols”
You don’t have a cue what I see. But I could easily say, using this example, that you look at people and you see victims.
As I before said the woman in question, since none of us knows her, represents something wrong in our nation. It is not healthy for the people or for the nation that we encourage dependency…making sure that every basic need, and more, is provided does not give people a reason to bust their humps.
“This woman is not a symbol, she is an individual whom you know nothing about.”
Nor do you! You cannot say for certain that she is some poor little thing starving and struggling but you sure assume as much. So take your mug little pity party act on the road, kiddo, it ain’t selling around here.
Poverty: the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support; condition of being poor. Synonyms: privation, neediness, destitution, indigence, pauperism, penury.
If you had the ability to think, rather than emote, you might be able to tell the truth about those people who have been ill-served by a government that has blunted whatever potential they might have had through the enticing lure of the permanent safety net and accompanied by schools in which teachers unions protect bad teachers.
Once again the real objection isn’t with people born to poverty or circumstantially finding themselves in poverty. The objection is to a broken system that entices and then ultimately imprisons way too many people in our society. The big experiment has failed and it is time to take a look at better ways to deal with not only the problem of poverty but everything else that flows from it.
You have no interest in that discussion, obviously.
It is you that has no compassion. You see people as being incapable and needy.
Re: “You see people as being incapable and needy.”
Which, given the social and economic policies of the past 40 odd years, is precisely where the Democratic Party wants to keep these voters.
Tina: “Typical liberal blather. people come here every year with only the clothes on their backs and without looking to the government pull themselves into the middle class. They do it by working, scrimping, saving, and in many instances they don’t even have good English skills.”
Yes, and those people are called “exceptional,” Tina. Do you know what “exceptional” means? It means they are not the norm. Your “bootstraps” rhetoric just isn’t practical for most people.
“Nor do you! You cannot say for certain that she is some poor little thing starving and struggling but you sure assume as much.”
Look, I know you have a near-physical addiction to strawman arguments, but either try and overcome it or give up the practice of arguing with people on the Internet. I never assumed a single thing about this woman; you are simply making that up.
“Your “bootstraps” rhetoric just isn’t practical for most people.”
In the larger scheme of things you’ve been on the planet for about eight minutes! That so-called boot strap “rhetoric” built this nation! It’s unfortunate you don’t have even the slightest experience of that nor appreciation for it. You have become a slug in the dependence mire. When you have successfully propagandized everyone to your theory of what works who among your fellows will strive or work to pay for all that dependency and need?
” I know you have a near-physical addiction to strawman arguments”
No more so than you do.
“try and overcome it or give up the practice of arguing with people on the Internet.”
The minute you are called on your own stuff you pull this crap. Maybe it’s you who should give up arguing on the internet!
“I never assumed a single thing about this woman; you are simply making that up.”
You were as guilty as anyone else of making assumptions about the woman at the check out counter. As I pointed out you don’t know any more than anyone else how upstanding the woman was. You took the position that Jack (we) should be ashamed for “judging her.” Jack took the position that someone who had a cell phone probably doesn’t have any real need to receive food stamps. No one was talking about an actual person since none of us knows her…she was symbolic of a problem or situation..that is all.
We are all products of our childhood. Those of us who were raised by parents who lived through the Great Depression have a much better understanding of what it’s like to be really poor compared to generations raised by parents who were raising children during the economic booming years of the 80s and 90s.
There is no way the younger generations can imagine what it was like to only be able to afford one pair of shoes for a whole school year when they were lined up at 2am to pay over $100 for the latest Michael Jordan sneakers to add to their collection.
We all wanted a better life for our kids so we worked hard to provide it for them. What we failed to understand is by doing so we instilled in them the idea that the poverty level is now based on want instead of need. Inexpensive basics like rice, beans, potatoes that would feed a family for a long time has been replaced by ready-made stick in the microwave for three minutes.
Does it make since to have Michelle Obama’s war on obesity and at the same time the most people on food stamps ever in this country who are overweight? Of course not. One would think instead of trying to control what kids are served at school they would also remove junk food and convenience foods from food stamp purchases. Compare the overweight population of today to the weight of the population during the depression and the answer is obvious. Soda, ice cream and cookies are not necessities.
Millennials and Generation Xers can’t understand real need when for the most part they never experienced it. And for those of us who did or were raised by parents who did need to understand it’s like describing a sunset to a blind person. Both are impossible since neither were experienced.
Jim, time will tell, but I think it’s going to have to get well beyond those two states first. I think in the beginning those states are going to reap a bonanza in profits from pot and life is going to look pretty rosey. It when we introduce legalized pot into 15 or more states that we should begin to see the effects on society.
“You were as guilty as anyone else of making assumptions about the woman at the check out counter.”
Show me EXACTLY where I made an assumption about the woman, Tina. Quote my exact words where I made an assumption about her. You can’t, because that never happened, and you know it. You are simply accusing me of your own behavior, which you always do.
I explicitly said that we DON’T know anything about her. That is the exact opposite of making assumptions. I laid out a range of plausible scenarios for why she might have a smartphone and still need assistance, but I never said that I knew those circumstances for a fact or that I knew she was a victim or an upstanding person. You put those words in my mouth, because you can’t counter my actual argument.
“You took the position that Jack (we) should be ashamed for “judging her.””
Yes, because judging people based on things like this when you know nothing about them is wrong, and shameful.
“Jack took the position that someone who had a cell phone probably doesn’t have any real need to receive food stamps.”
And as I made clear, Jack has no way of knowing that.
“No one was talking about an actual person since none of us knows her…”
And that’s exactly the problem, not just in this discussion, but in nearly every piece of rhetoric about social welfare from the right. You admit that you don’t see people on government assistance as “actual persons,” but as symbols that fit neatly into your Randian narrative of makers and takers. When the possible complexities of actual human beings’ lives come up, you act like that’s totally irrelevant to the conversation. It’s like arguing with ideologically programmed robots.
Chris: “Show me EXACTLY where I made an assumption about the woman”
Gee Chris since you took a defensive position, attacking Jack in the process, the assumption is pretty clear for anyone with a brain. The point being none of us know her so none of us can judge her one way or another. Your words:
“Some day I hope nosy busy-bodies stop expressing their unwanted judgments about what strangers in front of them at the grocery lines are allowed to possess and enjoy.”
…not only defend a “stranger” you don’t know (requiring a judgement of innocence on your part) but suggest people who do “judge” her don’t have that right.
People judge all day long every day. Some of us even acknowledge it.
” I laid out a range of plausible scenarios f”
Demonstrating that you too judge, you just choose to fall on the side of sympathy rather than criticize…so what? It’s still a judgement based on your feelings and ideals…you don’t know the character of the woman. for all you know she is a big time fraudster.
The posturing is designed to make you look like a better person. You’re not; get over it.
“Yes, because judging people based on things like this when you know nothing about them is wrong, and shameful.”
It would be IF the woman was real and somehow damaged by the observation…harrassed on facebook or attacked in the parking lot. NOTHING in this…:
…indicates that there even was a real person or real “girl” involved or that anything was said. It doesn not indicate a face was made or a sound uttered. It’s an illustration that you have made “real” in your imagination so you could shame people…a colossal act of judging.
Newsflash! The human brain’s job is to evaluate and judge situations and things all day long to report to you.
“You admit that you don’t see people on government assistance as “actual persons”
That’s a bunch of BS.
It is true that liberals refuse to discuss the problems associated with the welfare state without injecting emotional shaming to avoid the discussion.
“Randian narrative of makers and takers”
Ever hear of the 1% Chris. How about all of the left rhetoric about Republicans wanting to starve children and give tax breaks to the rich? Your party wrote the book on makers and takers and use it liberally to try to discredit any policy that might threaten to end the welfare state (Not the programs; the condition)
“When the possible complexities of actual human beings’ lives come up, you act like that’s totally irrelevant to the conversation”
Did it ever occur to you that it’s because we have begun with nothing and survived to make something of ourselves or watched others do it? Does it ever occur to you that the reason is we KNOW that most of the people stuck in the welfare state are capable of much more than they give themselves credit for (or others are willing to admit)?
You are robotically convinced that without help these people wouldn’t make it and that just is not true! But the people that have been convinced that they are lesser and are poorly served by a system of education and welfare that doesn’t support families, believes it too.
Peggy I agree with you with one caveat. Human beings have the ability to understand in general terms when others explain things, illustrate and give examples, and cite people from the left persuasion, all of which we have done ad nauseum.
Chris’s position has not moved. I don’t buy it that he can’t understand or acknowledge the massive numbers of people on welfare who remain there through generations and the need to change that OR the difference between real hunger and need and people who now can live a lower middle class existence without doing a damn thing to earn it when they are perfectly capable.
I believe Chris is willfully ignorant and willing to remain so and can only guess at the motivation.
Tina, you are right and I stand corrected. There ARE those who choose not to see or understand because their ideology is more important to them than the truth.
” … illustrate and give examples, ….”
Not on this blog. We ask you, over and over, for examples of this idyllic conservative paradise that once existed … and we don’t get ’em. We just get more fervent insistence … without proof, or even details, even.
Take a look at this for instance:
“… not only defend a “stranger” you don’t know (requiring a judgement of innocence on your part) but suggest people who do “judge” her don’t have that right.”
Do you have that right? One thing we do get a fair bit of on this blog is pious pronouncements of the Christian sort.
Jack’s resentment of the cell phone is just more of this “all the poor folk should live in misery” that he’s been going on with lately. It don’t sound Christian to me.
Or we could go Calvinist. The woman and her cell phone are absolutely none of Jack’s business. She’s saved or she isn’t, cell phone notwithstanding, and there’s nothing she or Jack can do about it. So he, secure in his salvation, should be able to look on her, her cell, and her food stamps with equanimity.
Or, Jack could think seriously about where all this is coming from. It’s been going on for some time now.
And Tina … with her “the world is RUINED.” The world is no more ruined than it ever was. The global economy is modestly improving. Assorted “bad actors” are being confined and subdued. And no one is telling you what you can and cannot put up on your blog.
You know, that used to happen. One of my ancestors was in the newspaper business in the late 19th century, and the state government put his paper out of business (pro-slavery). We can point it out, your abhorrent racism, but we can’t shut you down. This is progress (theoretically).
Even … I was telling Pie about the industrial hemp …
Today, we got Rupert, and we got Fox News, and the mischief they make is not inconsequential. But Rupert (or Ayles) cannot pull the kind of … stuff … that Hearst used to. They tried hard, but they could not get Romney into the White House.
But Hearst really did start that Mexican War … and, having his money in trees, he set about a campaign to stop hemp (cheaper, faster cellulose) production, which was a vast success.
A hundred years later, we may just manage to undo the damage. And somebody should bust up Rupert’s media empire, just in case.
Libby can the sanctimonious drivel. Number one, no one but you (and maybe Chris) has ever claimed the past was perfect. Two, we have attempted to float the unremarkable idea that a society where more people work and take care of their own needs, with few who need assistance, is a healthier society. We propose the means to move in that direction. We show how policies in the past under both Democrat and Republican leadership has set us on that path. We have given statistics to support it. We have created illustrations to make it more easily understood. We have challenged YOU to tell us exactly HOW leftist polices would ever lead to more prosperity for more Americans and so far you have failed to reply. The only thing you do is make smart a$$ed retorts and ridiculous accusations.
You can also take that ” pious pronouncements of the Christian sort” BS and cram it. There is nothing more ridiculously pious than a liberal acting as if polices that keep the poor poor are wonderful and should be expanded.
You also cannot say with a straight face that our nation or the world is better off after five years, certainly the stability achieved in Iraq has been ruined.
(The rest of your comment is rambling…)
I repeat, The issue is what that woman represents…a breakdown of the social and moral fabric and an embrace of Marx over Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, et al.
Isn’t it always.
Just to clear up any confusion amongst the pot heads, I was facetiously playing ignorance about industrial hemp to make a point (in another thread).
It was a form of Blame The Victim baiting.
Libby shudders at the thought of a competitive business taking greater market share as “empire” and yet embraces wholeheartedly the notion of government control of all business and people through a socialist “empire”.
As if those government people were somehow angelic and trustworthy.
What a dope!
“The issue is what that woman represents…a breakdown of the social and moral fabric and an embrace of Marx over Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, et al.”
Tina, this is just more of your insistence. You still have not told us, explicitly, what Valerie has done. Exactly, what tear in the social fabric has she rent?
Here, Jack, this will make you feel better:
Maggots In Food Among New Prison Food Complaints
Andrew Welsh-Huggins, Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Maggots in food, staffing shortages and reports of running out of foods are among new complaints facing the vendor that won the contract to feed Ohio inmates.
Reports obtained by The Associated Press through records requests found numerous problems reported since April, when the state took the rare step of fining the vendor because of contract failures.
The records show 65 instances where Philadelphia-based Aramark Correctional Services failed to provide food or ran out of it — usually the main course, such as hamburgers or chicken patties — while serving inmates, leading to delays and in some cases security concerns as inmates grew frustrated. Substitute items were provided in most cases.
On May 28, guards stopped breakfast “to preclude a mass demonstration” at Warren Correctional Institution in southwest Ohio by inmates upset at being served only white bread and peanut butter after the supply truck was apparently late.
The records also show several days when Aramark employees simply failed to show up and cases of unauthorized relationships between inmates and Aramark workers. Reports allege sexual activity between some inmates and workers.
Records also show five reports of maggots since January in food or the preparation process. Last month, for example, an Aramark employee notified a prison guard at Trumbull Correctional Institution that “one of the two serving lines had maggots falling out of the warming tray.”
A report by the local health department called the incident isolated and said the Aramark supervisor followed necessary steps to ensure food safety.
At issue is a bigger national debate over privatizing prison services — from food preparation to the running of entire facilities — to save money at a time of squeezed state budgets. Proponents say private industry can often do the job more efficiently and more cheaply, unencumbered by union and administrative rules, while opponents say a focus on the bottom line leads to cutting corners that creates danger for inmates and employees.
Aramark called the complaints “an ongoing political and media circus about anti-privatization” of prisons, saying it had never had such claims about its operations in more than 500 correctional facilities.
To be clear, the quote refers to the woman at the counter not Valerie Jarret.
Explicitly Valerie Jarret has embraced Marx over Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, meaning that all of the administrations policies, greatly influence d by Jarret, are based on”From each according to hos means to each according to their need…redistribution.
Independent Sentinel:
None of this was attributed to Valerie Jarret alone. The tear in the social fabric and the growing welfare state have been pushed for many years by the feminized and radical Marxist left.
We have illustrated, explained and spoken of this often Libby, so please eighty-six the dumb act!
And kindly explain to me how the Obama economic policies are leading to economic prosperity and growth…still waiting on that one.
Tina: “Gee Chris since you took a defensive position, attacking Jack in the process, the assumption is pretty clear for anyone with a brain.”
You misspelled “No, Chris, I can’t point to any specific quote where you made an assumption about this woman, because you never did that, and I was wrong to falsely claim you did. I’m sorry.”
“…not only defend a “stranger” you don’t know (requiring a judgement of innocence on your part)”
A defense does not require a “judgement” of innocence, it requires a presumption of innocence.
“but suggest people who do “judge” her don’t have that right.”
Of course you have the “right.” The right to be a jerk is protected by the Constitution. As is my right to call you a jerk for exercising that right.
“People judge all day long every day. Some of us even acknowledge it.”
Yes, but there are valid, rational judgments, and there are invalid, irrational judgments. The classist bullshit in this post falls into the latter category.
“Demonstrating that you too judge, you just choose to fall on the side of sympathy rather than criticize…”
Falling on the side of sympathy is the moral, Christian thing to do, Tina.
“The posturing is designed to make you look like a better person.”
Your own words make me look like a better person.
“It would be IF the woman was real and somehow damaged by the observation…harrassed on facebook or attacked in the parking lot. NOTHING in this…:
Entitlement #5768.3
Some day I hope to have a new iPhone like the girl in front of me at the grocery checkout with the food stamps.
…indicates that there even was a real person or real “girl” involved or that anything was said.”
….
….What?
Your argument is now officially too dumb for words. So now this woman is a figment of Jack’s imagination? And…that’s supposed to make it BETTER? What the actual f*ck?
You’re literally saying that conservatives are right to be outraged over imaginary food stamp recipients with imaginary smartphones. And that I’m in the wrong for pointing out how stupid this is.
Bravo, Tina–you’ve managed to find a new rhetorical low.
“It’s an illustration that you have made “real” in your imagination so you could shame people…a colossal act of judging.”
And yet, Jack making up an imaginary woman to shame and judge is…what? Perfectly rational?
“Newsflash! The human brain’s job is to evaluate and judge situations and things all day long to report to you.”
And yours is doing a terrible job of it.
Me: “You admit that you don’t see people on government assistance as “actual persons””
Tina: “That’s a bunch of BS.”
No, that’s what you said:
“It is true that liberals refuse to discuss the problems associated with the welfare state without injecting emotional shaming to avoid the discussion.”
Jack brought up emotional shaming in the pithy statement about the (possibly imaginary) woman in this post. You’re totally fine with that, because you have no problem emotionally shaming poor people, but you do have a problem emotionally shaming people who want to emotionally shame poor people. Because you’re an irrational hypocrite who couldn’t critically think her way out of a paper bag.
Yes, indeedy. This block we have been round numerous times.
Each time, I ask you to tell us who’s going to provide for the impoverished if the government does not.
Each time, you tell us private charities, as in the past.
Each time, I point out to you the historical inadequacy and/or outright failure of such endeavors.
And there it ends.
You seem to think that people consigned to disease and hunger somehow, mysteriously, attain the wherewithal to … start a business. This is utter BS. They simply starve and die … or did … until progressive socialism really took hold in this country.
And it really would seem that the reasons this pains you so much are 1) you loath the people who are helped: you really do believe they should suffer and die; and 2) you are forced to pay for this, and that you REALLY cannot abide.
Tough.
The fact is that before the government stepped in and implemented the Great Society programs, the poverty rate was higher than it ever has been since. Poverty has never returned to pre-1964 levels. Republicans cannot change this fact, no matter how hard they try. There is no evidence for the right’s claims that welfare programs have made poverty worse. There is certainly room for reform, but the ideological anti-welfare stance on the right is unsupported by real world evidence, and thus is based on emotion.
Re: #20 Peggy
“We are all products of our childhood.”
Indeed. Some interesting observations here—
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2014/07/the-betrayal-of-solitude-by-richard-sale.html