Re: Following Dally's Lead...

On Sat, 03 Sep 2005 10:50:27 -0400, Dally <Dally@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>Dopey *** wrote:
>
>> In article <3ns2q1F32cukU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
>> Dally <Dally@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>>
>>>Dopey *** wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>There is nothing stopping anybody
>>>>from bettering themselves in the USA. True: One may start from a
>>>>deficit, compared to others, but that's the way life is.
>>>
>>>Obviously quite a few things stop people from bettering their lives in
>>>the USA, or else everyone would do it.
>>
>>
>> Some people simply aren't motivated to improve themselves, for one
>> reason or another. My feeling is that one of those reasons is
>> perceived lack of need to.
>
>You may have a point. It must really steam you that some people are
>content to live in the gutter with only the barest substistance
>lifestyle. I know these people exist. They typically suffer from
>mental illness, mental retardation, alcoholism, drug addiction or some
>other mental defect that makes them be lazy SOBs. They're not nice people.
>
>Got anyone like that in your family? Any low-functioning drunks? Any
>mentally retarded kids? Any heroin addicts?
>
>When that happens, what do you do? Most people would come up with a
>multi-pronged attack on it. Get them treatment. Let them suffer. But
>at some level you provide humane assistance, if only for the sake of the
>children. You open homeless shelters, staff food kitchens, provide ESL
>classes, workforce training, drug treatment centers, mental health
>services. This is not to ENABLE them to stay poor, this is to enable
>them to work through the rough spot and make their way back out of it.
>The fact that some people use it to enable them to live a pretty crappy
>life is absolutely true. But you've still got to do it.
>
>
>> After all: If somebody will feed and
>> shelter you for nothing in return, why bother?
>
>Because you want more from life than day-old cheese and the same
>impoverished life for your kids. Lots of people are on welfare just
>when the babies are little and work their way out of it.
>
>>>>You want to know what keeps the poor down?
>>>
>>>Children born before they've completed their education?
>>
>>
>> I'll reply to what I think you meant, rather than what you wrote ;).
>
>Thank you for that courtesy. :-)
>
>> That is a choice, Dally. Tell me: Why should I be forced to pay for
>> another individual's poor choices? Maybe if we stopped paying these
>> people to have babies, they'd stop doing it? Or at least slow down.
>
>I'm absolutely serious in asking you this: did you have premarital sex?
> What stopped YOU from having a child to support before you had the
>skills to do it?
>
>When I was in high school a neighbor boy murdered a girl on my cross
>country team. Turned out she had gotten pregnant and he didn't want the
>child.
>
>I'm sure your next step is to tell me that they can all murder their
>fetuses - but that isn't as normal and reasonable an option to a lot of
>people for perfectly respectable reasons. For example, the hormones
>flooding a woman make her attached to the fetus. Amazingly enough, some
>religions frown on infanticide and consider a fetus to be a child. Some
>people have incredibly limited access to abortion services. Some people
>don't know they're pregnant until it's too late. (We're not talking
>about very bright people here.)
>
>I'm telling you: once you have sex your options get a lot more limited.
> So. Did you have sex before you were ready to support a child? What
>kept YOU from not reproducing? Your superior knowledge, or your sheer luck?
>
>>>Children left without parental support?
>>
>> Eh? How does that prevent said child from getting an education and
>> making something of his or her life?
>
>Many ways. Role models that show you how to study. Lack of
>infrastructure as simple as a desk and a quiet place to do your
>homework. Lack of ability to navigate bureaucracy involved with
>registering for classes and applying for financial aid.
>
>I know a kid who was thrown out of the house by his father's new
>girlfriend when he was 16 that never got his driver's license. He is 30
>now and doesn't have a license, nor does he drive registered and insured
>cars. He just missed that step.
>
>He's got a felony conviction behind him now - stealing car radios in
>sufficient number to reach the right dollar amount - so he at least got
>his G.E.D. in jail.
>
>This kid is bright, happy, mostly honest, just was cast adrift as a
>child in such a way as he never got sent out on the right path. This
>sort of throw-away kid is incredibly common, and most of them have their
>roots in a story involving a parent's new love interest blowing them out
>of the nest too early. (Or in the case of girls, their mother's new
>love interest raping them. The stats on run-away girls being raped at
>home are shocking.)
>
>>>Lack of an education so you can't get a good paying job?
>>
>> Choice.
>
>You don't know what you're talking about, or you're using "choice" in
>the same way as people do when they say, "the people in NO chose to stay
>there." People who manage to get a good education despite a ghetto
>background are nearly heroic in their achievement. Choosing to be a
>hero is a good thing and I'm all for it, but pretending that the ones
>who didn't make it didn't make it by "choice" is ridiculous.
>
>>>Lack of childcare so you can't hold a good paying job?
>>
>> Choice (to have children).
>
>A sex drive is a basic aspect of being human. Almost everyone is
>sexually active before they've completed their education. This is
>another one of those false choices.
>
>I know some people actually DID choose to have children inadvisedly
>rather than having them by accident. It's the welfare cycle
>perpetuating itself because it's the only role model the girls know.
>The way out of that is education. Teach them another model.
>
>
>>>Illness that leaves you incapable of working?
>>
>>
>> Valid point. In fact: Plenty of previously hard-working, tax-paying
>> citizens are left penniless due to exactly such a situation.
>> Ironically, much of their taxes went to providing welfare to
>> crack-baby baby factories that never contributed one positive thing
>> to society. Now that those (prior) contributors to society are made
>> non-contributors through no fault of their own, who will take care of
>> them?
>
>Capitalism is based on the concept that everyone will advocate
>aggressively in their own best interests. If a worker doesn't want to
>work for a given pay then he can walk and go work elsewhere. Employers
>pay as little as they can get away with, employees get as much as the
>market will bear. Everyone settles into the spot they're comfortable in.
>
>But... some people just can't be in that system. It's not just "those"
>people, it's you after you're in a car accident, it's your disabled
>child, it's your father with emphysema (that he got from a life of bad
>habits) and it's your brother-in-law who's a mean drunk. And this week
>it's a bunch of people on the gulf coast who just got ass-whooped by a
>storm.
>
>A humane nation has a safety net to catch the people who just can't
>manage the capitalist whirl at the moment, for whatever reason. Yes, we
>abhor the ones who abuse it. But not everyone is abusing it - far from
>it. Lots of people go on unemployment and then find a job. Lots of
>people get a community college education while on welfare and then get a
>job. Lots of people get Earned Income Credit while the kids are little
>and they can only hold a part-time job and then are able to raise their
>kids out of the cycle.
>
>And there really isn't all that much welfare for able-bodied people.
>Social Security Disability requires that you have worked and paid into
>the system. Almost all the assistance available for young parents
>phases out as the children grow away. Most assistance is transitional
>or geared to the disabled.
>
>>>Poor funding of inner-city schools so the education is cut-rate?
>>
>> And whose fault is that?
>
>Yours. You figure you don't need to be involved in the schools because
>you don't have a kid there, so the only one left involved in the schools
>are the parents who don't have a good work ethic or respect for education.
>
>>>Violence that makes you scared to go outside?
>>
>> Choice. Communities tolerate it. They don't have to.
>
>You have a funny idea of what "choice" means. I thought you were
>talking individual choice. If you're not willing to walk to the Library
>after school in the winter (when it's dark out) and you don't feel safe
>working a part-time job as a 7-11 clerk on week-ends... how exactly are
>YOU going to get ahead?
>
>>>Lack of money to move to a better location?
>>
>> Why not make better the place you are?
>
>Sure, why not. Work to improve the school system. Set up a
>neighborhood watch. Be a feminist in the 16th century. Rah rah rah.
>
>Again, are we talking "personal choice" here or is this just
>hard-hearted hand-waving about "those people"? I thought the topic was
>what holds you down if you're poor. The environment DOES hold you down.
> It's one of the strikes against you. Yes, some people overcome it.
>But it's one more thing in a long list of things to overcome.
>
> >>>What keeps the poor down
>>>>is people like you, Dally.
>>>
>>>That was going to be my next guess.
>>
>> If you weren't so dammed blinkered, it would've been your first
>> guess.
>
>I just left this snippet in because I find it so amusing.
>
>> Do you have any idea how much of my taxes go toward supporting people
>> who have not, and likely never will, contribute nothing but creating
>> more leeches on society and criminals?
>
>Yes. Do you?
>
>http://www.irs.gov/app/understandingTaxes/pdf/whys/theme1/lesson1/T1L1assp_ans.pdf
>
>Have you any idea how much of the Federal budget goes to providing you
>with a safe place to live and work, access to a workplace (roads,
>internet, secure trade), an educated population of consumers and
>employees, access to outstanding medical care (including research) and
>cheap access to fuel and goods?
>
>This is where we can talk about the benefit to you of the space program
>if you're up for it.
>
>Now go look at what portion of the budget goes to social services. Are
>you so sure you're not GETTING any of those social services? Did you
>have subsidized student loans? A Pell grant? A HUD mortgage? In our
>town they provide a free lunch to children all summer at a local park
>(not the adults, just the kids.) There's a new bike path that we got
>Federal money for, and a few years ago we got Federal money for a
>"streetscape" program that meant we got to tear down some slums and put
>in some greenways and improve the environment. (Wait, didn't you just
>advocate for that above?)
>
>> Meanwhile, it's quite
>> possible the promised social security net I've been paying into my
>> entire working life will have disintegrated by the time I need it.
>> If I were to suddenly become so ill I couldn't work anymore, my 13+
>> year investment in my home, and all I have saved all these years,
>> would probably be gone. Meanwhile, the roads are going to hell, the
>> police are under-staffed, the educational system grows more pathetic
>> almost day-by-day... the list is endless.
>
>Good thing you're not one of the whiners.
>
>> But crack-baby mommas get a free ride on my damn taxes.
>
>And so would your down's syndrome kid. Misfortune hits everywhere.
>
>> Don't you *even* *consider* whinging at me about how much better
>> a citizen you are when I'm being forced at gun-point to support
>> the dregs of society.
>
>I'm a better citizen because I don't have to be forced at gunpoint to do
>my part. It's a representational democracy. We did this to ourselves,
>for ourselves, because of ourselves. You are THEM. You just don't get it.
>
>> Goddam liberals. The various Churches may have their evils, but at
>> least they're not forcing me to tithe at gunpoint.
>
>I'm wondering just how fast you'd turn to the public teet if you needed
>it. Pretty damn fast, is my guess.
>
>Your entire diatribe is the hatred spewing from lucky people who got
>theirs. It's nothing new. It's rooted in fear, hatred,
>small-mindedness and racism.
>
>Reasonable people can disagree on how best to help people. Only
>unreasonable people think it's unnecessary to help them at all.

Can there be any remaining doubts that this woman is a raving loony?

Have a great weekend folks - you will know I am!! ;o)
.

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