The Maelstrom of Violence

[Classic-Xer]

(09-24-2017, 08:01 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(09-23-2017, 01:13 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(09-23-2017, 12:26 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Kinser

I’m not into striped posts.  I really shouldn’t break into other’s people’s striped exchanges.  Pbrower is doing fine his own way.

But you have called his councilor unqualified, himself a liar-predator, and maligned the motives of politicians.  To a great degree, you have done so without real evidence.  For the most part, you are running off stereotypes that come from your world view.  Rather than listen to the person who is at the center of the discussion, you assert your stereotypes as fact.  Your stereotypes become true because you assert them to be?

Well, I can’t tell you not to say bad things about politician motivations.  I suspect part of it was to attract voters who would benefit from welfare.  I certainly won’t claim welfare as implemented today is ideal.  Some need a short period of help to get back in the game.  Some are fully and permanently disabled.  They can’t and won’t ever be in the game again.  With the latter sort of exception, welfare shouldn’t be a predator centered permanent way of life.  There is a definite difference between welfare providing a safety net, and a dole allowing lazy predators to live off others.  If I could make it so, promote the former, end the latter, I would.

But it seems wrong for you to feed your vile stereotype to one who lives otherwise.  You just can not and will not listen.  You will instead just keep feeding your stereotype to somebody you think must live it.  It must be so.  Your prejudice says so.

Yes.  He has had a different life experience than you.  Yes.  He sees how the world works differently from you.  No, disagreeing with you does not make him stupid, or you.  He has lived in a different world and seeks different solutions to different problems.

We now return to our regularly scheduled stripes.

What's your opinion of PB? Who is PB? This may surprise you, I didn't form my opinion/view of PB. The Republicans didn't form them of PB or you or any other blue poster for that matter. PB formed my opinion of him and my feelings toward him. PB and I are different people who handle situations/things and approach things differently. You are pretty loose with your use/understanding/view of vile stereotype, world views and values to explain/define our differences and opinions of each other.

I am PB.

You have formed opinions of me. You could not fail to do so. Asperger's syndrome without diagnosis has practically made a stereotype out of me. I have had to cope despite having abilities that should have allowed me to thrive.

The paradox is that this nearly-merciless society (and it is that) at the least recognizes handicaps as things to deal with instead of as excuses for shutting people out of life. America accommodates deafness, blindness, and wheelchair use well enough because those are obvious. Mental illness? Most of it is connected to drug abuse and alcoholism, so it is suspect. Asperger's? At least I am not crazy, stupid, deluded, or evil.

I haven't ruled out (you haven't convinced me that you're not ) that you're crazy, stupid (after all, stupid is what stupid does) or deluded at this point.

[Bob Butler 54]

(09-26-2017, 11:25 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(09-24-2017, 08:01 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: I am PB.

You have formed opinions of me. You could not fail to do so. Asperger's syndrome without diagnosis has practically made a stereotype out of me. I have had to cope despite having abilities that should have allowed me to thrive.

The paradox is that this nearly-merciless society (and it is that) at the least recognizes handicaps as things to deal with instead of as excuses for shutting people out of life. America accommodates deafness, blindness, and wheelchair use well enough because those are obvious. Mental illness? Most of it is connected to drug abuse and alcoholism, so it is suspect. Asperger's? At least I am not crazy, stupid, deluded, or evil.

I haven't ruled out (you haven't convinced me that you're not ) that you're crazy, stupid (after all, stupid is what stupid does) or deluded at this point.

The problem being, too many of the red and blue have similar doubts.

In welfare, there are victims and cheaters.  You’d like to think most would agree that both exist.  The proper thing to do is help the victims and frustrate the cheaters.  Alas, once you buy deeply into one of the two world views, you tend to see either victims or cheaters.

In Pbrower’s case, I’m seeing a victim, but there are more than enough cheaters.

On one side, there are those those who see lots of cheaters, few victims, who might be seen as cynical economically centered misers.  Then are those who see lots of victims, no cheaters, who can be seen as economically ignorant bleeding hearts who should know better.  It isn’t hard to find imbalance.

Then there are those who want to help those who need help, but spend their money wisely.  I'd prefer to be in that camp.

Do we want to force fit an individual into an ideal example of what is wrong with America?  I’m dubious that we want to juggle a guy’s reputation for a political ends.  Yet, that is where we are.

[pbrower2a]

(09-26-2017, 11:25 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(09-24-2017, 08:01 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: The paradox is that this nearly-merciless society (and it is that) at the least recognizes handicaps as things to deal with instead of as excuses for shutting people out of life. America accommodates deafness, blindness, and wheelchair use well enough because those are obvious. Mental illness? Most of it is connected to drug abuse and alcoholism, so it is suspect. Asperger's? At least I am not crazy, stupid, deluded, or evil.

I haven't ruled out (you haven't convinced me that you're not ) that you're crazy, stupid (after all, stupid is what stupid does) or deluded at this point.

Your opinion of my intelligence and sanity is yours alone. I know myself better than you do, and I am unlikely to convince you of the reality. That is your problem and not mine.

Had my parents or the educational system handled me properly, then I might have had the appropriate and necessary means of coping. It was generally understood that if one had the intellectual power one could achieve whatever one wished. Asperger's throws invisible barriers to achievement and can shatter the confidence that one needs for achieving anything. So of course do criminality, perversion, and lunacy as well as idiocy.

Can a person of low-normal intelligence lead a happy life? Sure -- with depressed expectations and a good work ethic. 



http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/occupations.aspx

Contrary to myth, many successful people are not particularly brilliant. "Janitors and sextons" may on the average have an IQ of about 92, and physicians may have an average IQ around 120 -- but 10% of "janitors and sextons" are smarter than  about 20% of all physicians. Now try figuring how someone with an IQ of 105 got into and through med school and into medical practice  and how someone with an IQ around 110 couldn't find a more dignified way to make a living than as a janitor. Didn't apply oneself effectively when such was possible and appropriate?

Now, what is success? If all that one dislikes about one's job is low pay, then things are not too bad. If all that one likes is the paycheck, then one is in a very poor fit of a job.

[David Horn]

(09-27-2017, 03:05 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: In welfare, there are victims and cheaters.  You’d like to think most would agree that both exist.  The proper thing to do is help the victims and frustrate the cheaters.  Alas, once you buy deeply into one of the two world views, you tend to see either victims or cheaters...

There is a movement afoot to eliminate the status issues entirely.  For example, Medicaid provides good care at no cost to the poor (and near poor in expansion states).  Individuals just outside the eligibility window may or may not get subsidies (based on expansion or not), but they definitely pay more for care with higher deductibles.  This creates resentment for obvious reasons.  One solution: allow others to buy into Medicaid.  The details are TBD, but the idea has merit, and it's more or less non-partisan.

[Eric the Green]

(09-27-2017, 09:03 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(09-26-2017, 11:25 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(09-24-2017, 08:01 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: The paradox is that this nearly-merciless society (and it is that) at the least recognizes handicaps as things to deal with instead of as excuses for shutting people out of life. America accommodates deafness, blindness, and wheelchair use well enough because those are obvious. Mental illness? Most of it is connected to drug abuse and alcoholism, so it is suspect. Asperger's? At least I am not crazy, stupid, deluded, or evil.

I haven't ruled out (you haven't convinced me that you're not ) that you're crazy, stupid (after all, stupid is what stupid does) or deluded at this point.

Your opinion of my intelligence and sanity is yours alone. I know myself better than you do, and I am unlikely to convince you of the reality. That is your problem and not mine.

Had my parents or the educational system handled me properly, then I might have had the appropriate and necessary means of coping. It was generally understood that if one had the intellectual power one could achieve whatever one wished. Asperger's throws invisible barriers to achievement and can shatter the confidence that one needs for achieving anything. So of course do criminality, perversion, and lunacy as well as idiocy.

Can a person of low-normal intelligence lead a happy life? Sure -- with depressed expectations and a good work ethic. 



http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/occupations.aspx

Contrary to myth, many successful people are not particularly brilliant. "Janitors and sextons" may on the average have an IQ of about 92, and physicians may have an average IQ around 120 -- but 10% of "janitors and sextons" are smarter than  about 20% of all physicians. Now try figuring how someone with an IQ of 105 got into and through med school and into medical practice  and how someone with an IQ around 110 couldn't find a more dignified way to make a living than as a janitor. Didn't apply oneself effectively when such was possible and appropriate?

Now, what is success? If all that one dislikes about one's job is low pay, then things are not too bad. If all that one likes is the paycheck, then one is in a very poor fit of a job.

Some caveats to this scheme. First of all, some people may work as janitors or other such low-paying jobs while they study to be doctors, or while they develop or supplement their career in a field that requires more intelligence but doesn't pay well, such as an artist or musician, or else is working to get a business going.

Second, it is assumed that IQ is genetic, and/or that it stays the same and is inherently fixed throughout life. But it's all dependent on an IQ test. That the test is skewed toward white people is well known. The test itself may change over time too. Aside from this, the IQ test result can change, first as one matures in childhood (I know that mine went up), or it can go down with age (I think that has happened to me too), or abuse of the body and brain (drug users and addicts, alcoholism, depression, etc.)

Third, the IQ test is assumed to measure intelligence, but many aspects of intelligence are not measured, or not measurable, such as emotional, social, physical kinds of intelligence. Western society has overemphasized the clerical, intellectual kinds of intelligence. That was to my personal advantage on such tests, but did they accurately measure my "intelligence"? I don't think so.

[pbrower2a]

(09-27-2017, 10:09 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(09-27-2017, 09:03 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Can a person of low-normal intelligence lead a happy life? Sure -- with depressed expectations and a good work ethic. 



http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/occupations.aspx

Contrary to myth, many successful people are not particularly brilliant. "Janitors and sextons" may on the average have an IQ of about 92, and physicians may have an average IQ around 120 -- but 10% of "janitors and sextons" are smarter than  about 20% of all physicians. Now try figuring how someone with an IQ of 105 got into and through med school and into medical practice  and how someone with an IQ around 110 couldn't find a more dignified way to make a living than as a janitor. Didn't apply oneself effectively when such was possible and appropriate?

Now, what is success? If all that one dislikes about one's job is low pay, then things are not too bad. If all that one likes is the paycheck, then one is in a very poor fit of a job.

Some caveats to this scheme. First of all, some people may work as janitors or other such low-paying jobs while they study to be doctors, or while they develop or supplement their career in a field that requires more intelligence but doesn't pay well, such as an artist or musician, or else is working to get a business going.

Second, it is assumed that IQ is genetic, and/or that it stays the same and is inherently fixed throughout life. But it's all dependent on an IQ test. That the test is skewed toward white people is well known. The test itself may change over time too. Aside from this, the IQ test result can change, first as one matures in childhood (I know that mine went up), or it can go down with age (I think that has happened to me too), or abuse of the body and brain (drug users and addicts, alcoholism, depression, etc.)

Third, the IQ test is assumed to measure intelligence, but many aspects of intelligence are not measured, or not measurable, such as emotional, social, physical kinds of intelligence. Western society has overemphasized the clerical, intellectual kinds of intelligence. That was to my personal advantage on such tests, but did they accurately measure my "intelligence"? I don't think so.

True. One could be a 'janitor or sexton' because after being fired for embezzlement as an accountant or being driven out of a professional occupation for a felony conviction (let us say for DUI or drugs), that might be all that is available. Someone might have found carpentry supremely satisfying despite having an IQ well above the average (95) for the occupation. Note also that occupations in which there are huge numbers of people (as in "elementary school/kindergarten teachers") has a 10th percentile near 85 and a 90th percentile around 122. It can be a rush to influence a child in a positive way, which may explain why many successful people like to be involved in Scouting, 4-H, FFA, Boys' and Girls' clubs, etc., so someone who thought of teaching as a stopgap until saving enough funds for law school remains a teacher. But that does not explain the rather narrow range for "clerical work and supervision", which has huge numbers of people, in which the 10th percentile is around 91 and the 90th percentile is around 117. There is a clear hierarchy of intellectual difficulty in clerical work. Categories can also change. "Computer occupations" once included data-entry people who needed not be especially bright, so that category has shifted to the right from where it might have been in the 1980s.

No occupation has more than 10% of its members with an IQ at 140 or higher -- not even attorneys, natural scientists/mathematicians, college professors, electrical engineers, or physicians. There simply aren't that many people with IQs much above 135.

[Warren Dew]

(09-27-2017, 09:03 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Now try figuring how someone with an IQ of 105 got into and through med school and into medical practice  and how someone with an IQ around 110 couldn't find a more dignified way to make a living than as a janitor.

What's undignified about being a janitor?

(09-27-2017, 10:09 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Second, it is assumed that IQ is genetic, and/or that it stays the same and is inherently fixed throughout life.

Assumed by whom?

[Bob Butler 54]

(09-27-2017, 12:33 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(09-27-2017, 09:03 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Now try figuring how someone with an IQ of 105 got into and through med school and into medical practice  and how someone with an IQ around 110 couldn't find a more dignified way to make a living than as a janitor.

What's undignified about being a janitor?

I did have a tool making cousin in Akron Ohio while the tire companies were still a force in the area.  It was a highly technical high paying job that left the midwest.  He is now a janitor for a school system where he used to be chairman of the school committee.

I'm told he gets more job satisfaction now, mostly from being near the kids.  I am not sure one should count on that in a vanilla janitor job.

[Classic-Xer]

(09-27-2017, 03:05 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(09-26-2017, 11:25 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(09-24-2017, 08:01 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: I am PB.

You have formed opinions of me. You could not fail to do so. Asperger's syndrome without diagnosis has practically made a stereotype out of me. I have had to cope despite having abilities that should have allowed me to thrive.

The paradox is that this nearly-merciless society (and it is that) at the least recognizes handicaps as things to deal with instead of as excuses for shutting people out of life. America accommodates deafness, blindness, and wheelchair use well enough because those are obvious. Mental illness? Most of it is connected to drug abuse and alcoholism, so it is suspect. Asperger's? At least I am not crazy, stupid, deluded, or evil.

I haven't ruled out (you haven't convinced me that you're not ) that you're crazy, stupid (after all, stupid is what stupid does) or deluded at this point.

The problem being, too many of the red and blue have similar doubts.

In welfare, there are victims and cheaters.  You’d like to think most would agree that both exist.  The proper thing to do is help the victims and frustrate the cheaters.  Alas, once you buy deeply into one of the two world views, you tend to see either victims or cheaters.

In Pbrower’s case, I’m seeing a victim, but there are more than enough cheaters.

On one side, there are those those who see lots of cheaters, few victims, who might be seen as cynical economically centered misers.  Then are those who see lots of victims, no cheaters, who can be seen as economically ignorant bleeding hearts who should know better.  It isn’t hard to find imbalance.

Then there are those who want to help those who need help, but spend their money wisely.  I'd prefer to be in that camp.

Do we want to force fit an individual into an ideal example of what is wrong with America?  I’m dubious that we want to juggle a guy’s reputation for a political ends.  Yet, that is where we are.

Welfare attracts all kinds of folks. A portion are lazy. A portion are complete idiots who are incapable of providing for themselves. A portion just don't give a shit about themselves, their kids and their quality of life in general. A portion actually need it (no other option) and are using it to get through a major setback (loss of a job, illness, divorce, death of a spouse, ect.) of some sort. A portion use/abuse the system because it's a relatively easy system to become accustomed to once you're in the system. Based on my real life knowledge and experience with welfare's, the portion who need it/ use it as intended are the minority group. You're so-called liberal worldview is way too black (victims) and white (cheaters) for my taste. PB has issues (lots of issues). I have issues. I bet you (Mr. Cozy Blue) even have a few issues from time to time. Americans in general have their own issues to attend to or address on a regular basis. I don't view PB as a victim. He's to old to seriously view him/accept him as a victim.

[pbrower2a]

(09-27-2017, 08:17 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(09-27-2017, 03:05 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: The problem being, too many of the red and blue have similar doubts.

In welfare, there are victims and cheaters.  You’d like to think most would agree that both exist.  The proper thing to do is help the victims and frustrate the cheaters.  Alas, once you buy deeply into one of the two world views, you tend to see either victims or cheaters.

In Pbrower’s case, I’m seeing a victim, but there are more than enough cheaters.

On one side, there are those those who see lots of cheaters, few victims, who might be seen as cynical economically centered misers.  Then are those who see lots of victims, no cheaters, who can be seen as economically ignorant bleeding hearts who should know better.  It isn’t hard to find imbalance.

Then there are those who want to help those who need help, but spend their money wisely.  I'd prefer to be in that camp.

Do we want to force fit an individual into an ideal example of what is wrong with America?  I’m dubious that we want to juggle a guy’s reputation for a political ends.  Yet, that is where we are.

Welfare attracts all kinds of folks. A portion are lazy. A portion are complete idiots who are incapable of providing for themselves. A portion just don't give a shit about themselves, their kids and their quality of life in general. A portion actually need it (no other option) and are using it to get through a major setback (loss of a job, illness, divorce, death of a spouse, ect.) of some sort. A portion use/abuse the system because it's a relatively easy system to become accustomed to once you're in the system. Based on my real life knowledge and experience with welfare's, the portion who need it/ use it as intended are the minority group. You're so-called liberal worldview is way too black (victims) and white (cheaters) for my taste. PB has issues (lots of issues). I have issues. I bet you (Mr. Cozy Blue) even have a few issues from time to time. Americans in general have their own issues to attend to or address on a regular basis. I don't view PB as a victim. He's to old to seriously view him/accept him as a victim.

In my case it will be disability. I have plenty of things wrong with me. But I can live cheap. The community in which I exist (it is not living!) is relatively cheap and safe. It is also an easy place in which to run out of experiences.

I took care of two dying parents with degenerative diseases in three years. Let's put it this way -- having seen my mother dying of Parkinsonism and my father dying of senile dementia. I have become poor in a country that treats the poor as objects of exploitation and abuse, people obliged to smile through their suffering. I wouldn't wish what I went through on anyone; that character-building experience has brought me personal ruin. I have contemplated suicide after I lost my life savings in trying to keep a house up in case of a miracle.

Unemployment, alimony, child support, and pensions are not welfare. Neither is disability. Issues?

Sure, I have talent. At 61, 'talent' is worthless.

Spending the rest of my life as a retail sales clerk in a community that I despise? That Kafkaesque prospect night as well be a prison term. Poverty in America is a prison.

[Eric the Green]

(09-27-2017, 11:01 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(09-27-2017, 08:17 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(09-27-2017, 03:05 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: The problem being, too many of the red and blue have similar doubts.

In welfare, there are victims and cheaters.  You’d like to think most would agree that both exist.  The proper thing to do is help the victims and frustrate the cheaters.  Alas, once you buy deeply into one of the two world views, you tend to see either victims or cheaters.

In Pbrower’s case, I’m seeing a victim, but there are more than enough cheaters.

On one side, there are those those who see lots of cheaters, few victims, who might be seen as cynical economically centered misers.  Then are those who see lots of victims, no cheaters, who can be seen as economically ignorant bleeding hearts who should know better.  It isn’t hard to find imbalance.

Then there are those who want to help those who need help, but spend their money wisely.  I'd prefer to be in that camp.

Do we want to force fit an individual into an ideal example of what is wrong with America?  I’m dubious that we want to juggle a guy’s reputation for a political ends.  Yet, that is where we are.

Welfare attracts all kinds of folks. A portion are lazy. A portion are complete idiots who are incapable of providing for themselves. A portion just don't give a shit about themselves, their kids and their quality of life in general. A portion actually need it (no other option) and are using it to get through a major setback (loss of a job, illness, divorce, death of a spouse, ect.) of some sort. A portion use/abuse the system because it's a relatively easy system to become accustomed to once you're in the system. Based on my real life knowledge and experience with welfare, the portion who need it/ use it as intended are the minority group. You're so-called liberal worldview is way too black (victims) and white (cheaters) for my taste. PB has issues (lots of issues). I have issues. I bet you (Mr. Cozy Blue) even have a few issues from time to time. Americans in general have their own issues to attend to or address on a regular basis. I don't view PB as a victim. He's to old to seriously view him/accept him as a victim.

In my case it will be disability. I have plenty of things wrong with me. But I can live cheap. The community in which I exist (it is not living!) is relatively cheap and safe. It is also an easy place in which to run out of experiences.

I took care of two dying parents with degenerative diseases in three years. Let's put it this way -- having seen my mother dying of Parkinsonism and my father dying of senile dementia. I have become poor in a country that treats the poor as objects of exploitation and abuse, people obliged to smile through their suffering. I wouldn't wish what I went through on anyone; that character-building experience has brought me personal ruin. I have contemplated suicide after I lost my life savings in trying to keep a house up in case of a miracle.

Unemployment, alimony, child support, and pensions are not welfare. Neither is disability. Issues?

Sure, I have talent. At 61, 'talent' is worthless.

Spending the rest of my life as a retail sales clerk in a community that I despise? That Kafkaesque prospect night as well be a prison term. Poverty in America is a prison.

Good hard-workin' folks like Classic Xer, who support this system accurately described as one "that treats the poor as objects of exploitation and abuse," call those who can not find work or can't work "lazy" and "idiots," but there are a fair number of such "lazy, idiotic" people, especially in a system that does not provide enough jobs (due to automation, free trade, and bosses that don't care and will fire people for little or no reason). Liberals don't look upon welfare recipients as either victims or cheaters; most are neither. Welfare is just a small item in the federal budget, and of varying sizes in state budgets, that provides a little bit of protection of the kind all of us might need. Many of us aren't even eligible for welfare in that case anyway. Time limits on welfare are abusive punishment, since depressions and recessions are frequent, job losses continual, and various kinds of suffering and disability can happen at any time on more than one occasion to any one of us. Finding a good job has never been easy, and calling people who can't find work "idiots" just blames the people for the troubles which the selfish bosses alone give us.

Welfare is the main scapegoat that impels people like Classic Xer (which includes perhaps 40% of America or more; he's not alone at all) to vote Republican and support the trickle-down theory, which says give breaks to the bosses instead of the people, and then the "job creater" bosses will provide jobs for us. Not only does trickle-down NOT trickle, but the reason that 40% of the good people like Classic Xer and Warren Dew support trickle-down economics, is because they blame welfare recipients and liberal politicians for their high taxes. But blaming welfare has nothing to do with their high taxes, which are not that high to begin with. The government wastes money on wars, weapons, and subsidies to the rich corporations, and by not taxing the wealthy enough-- due to the trickle-down theory.

There may be some welfare cheaters, but we are all victims in a sense; victims of the decision of the people to vote Republican. So a lot of us are responsible for the troubles we all experience living in this system. And that's not even to mention a campaign finance system instituted by Republican Supreme Court justices that favors the rich, gerrymandering that favors Republican legislators since 2010, and voter suppression now underway in many Republican-controlled states. Oh, and I almost forgot: an election system called the electoral college set up to protect slavery, and still doing that job by, among other things, putting into office without majority voter approval the only Republican presidents of the 21st century.

"Unemployment, alimony, child support, and pensions are not welfare. Neither is disability." And neither are social security and medicare, which recipients have paid for and which protect us all, not just a few cheaters. And there's medicaid and Obamacare subsidies; arguably that's welfare, but not welfare per se. And not if healthcare is in fact a right, as liberals proclaim. A right implied in the Declaration of Independence, which announces our right to life.

The veneration of work and the condemnation of those who don't work by conservatives may be obsolete, in an economy that does not provide work, and which could very well save labor for all of us by turning it over to machines, if the bosses were stripped of their current exclusively-given rights to their benefits. We are going to need to be less dogmatic about the economic system into which we are moving, and adapt to the new situation.

And another wrinkle in the conservative myth is veneration of the rich, as people who worked to get ahead and thus deserve their rewards, as opposed to most of us who may aspire to be rich, in the good old American dream, but are not. But the rich do not earn their rewards; that is the myth. The Reaganoid political and economic system we live under provides rewards for them, by allowing them to pay most workers a pittance while they rack up 300 times what their workers get through high salaries and financial games that ruin the economy for everyone but themselves, while meanwhile the workers are no longer protected by adequate minimum wages, low tariffs or declining unions and are often deprived of the education they needed in the first place.

[Bob Butler 54]

There is where you aren't paying attention to science.  The Europeans have something called the hard on accelerator.  Huge thing.  Miles around.  If you smash two conservatives together, it is theoretically possible that a good idea will fall out.  Of course, there is the problem detecting the good idea...

[Eric the Green]

Well, at least they seem sometimes to fall out of line, in the case of McCain, Collins, Murkowski et.al, after being thrashed around by the Trump DE-Ccelerator.

I'm still waiting for a new bi-partisan majority to form between Democrats and a few Republicans that might accomplish a few things..... nothing really great could be expected, but a little bit is better than nothing where things like health care are concerned....

[pbrower2a]

(09-28-2017, 10:26 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Good hard-workin' folks like Classic Xer, who support this system accurately described as one "that treats the poor as objects of exploitation and abuse," call those who can not find work or can't work "lazy" and "idiots," but there are a fair number of such "lazy, idiotic" people, especially in a system that does not provide enough jobs (due to automation, free trade, and bosses that don't care and will fire people for little or no reason). Liberals don't look upon welfare recipients as either victims or cheaters; most are neither. Welfare is just a small item in the federal budget, and of varying sizes in state budgets, that provides a little bit of protection of the kind all of us might need. Many of us aren't even eligible for welfare in that case anyway. Time limits on welfare are abusive punishment, since depressions and recessions are frequent, job losses continual, and various kinds of suffering and disability can happen at any time on more than one occasion to any one of us. Finding a good job has never been easy, and calling people who can't find work "idiots" just blames the people for the troubles which the selfish bosses alone give us.

...People like Classic X'er and Warren Dew may not recognize how precarious one's qualification as a 'hard-working person' is. We are all but one accident away from no longer being able to work hard. We are also mostly one paycheck to ten away from being destitute. Whether we keep our jobs or not may depend upon an employer having a government contract -- or the choice of some tycoon on which plant gets shut down or which product line is terminated.

Most of us are at much more risk from the arbitrary decisions of our masters than we are from  any tendency to go lazy. Work ethic? Like skill, it must be cultivated. A good system rewards it; a  bad system exacts toil with the threat of brutality, as on a plantation, a KZ-Lager, or a Gulag. 

Quote:Welfare is the main scapegoat that impels people like Classic Xer (which includes perhaps 40% of America or more; he's not alone at all) to vote Republican and support the trickle-down theory, which says give breaks to the bosses instead of the people, and then the "job creator" bosses will provide jobs for us. Not only does trickle-down NOT trickle, but the reason that 40% of the good people like Classic Xer and Warren Dew support trickle-down economics, is because they blame welfare recipients and liberal politicians for their high taxes. But blaming welfare has nothing to do with their high taxes, which are not that high to begin with. The government wastes money on wars, weapons, and subsidies to the rich corporations, and by not taxing the wealthy enough-- due to the trickle-down theory.

I remember a business guru telling people that the net growth of employment at Fortune-500 companies over fifty years (this was about 1990) was negative.  Most of those companies have been profitable. If companies can find more profitable solutions to productivity than labor, then those companies will whittle away at their workforce. Maybe people have to create their own jobs with startup businesses or resort to such employment as domestic help...

Quote:There may be some welfare cheaters, but we are all victims in a sense; victims of the decision of the people to vote Republican. So a lot of us are responsible for the troubles we all experience living in this system. And that's not even to mention a campaign finance system instituted by Republican Supreme Court justices that favors the rich, gerrymandering that favors Republican legislators since 2010, and voter suppression now underway in many Republican-controlled states. Oh, and I almost forgot: an election system called the electoral college set up to protect slavery, and still doing that job by, among other things, putting into office without majority voter approval the only Republican presidents of the 21st century.

Our economic system works very well for (1) financiers and tycoons, (2) business executives, (3) big landowners, (3) well-connected professionals such as corporate attorneys, lobbyists, and investment bankers, and (4) organized crime. With his connections to organized crime, Donald Trump exemplifies American capitalism at its worst.

In the area in which I live, there are huge numbers of Old Order Amish. Few of us would like to live as they do... leaving school at age sixteen is the worst of it, something that makes their rejection of electronic entertainments a minor inconvenience by contrast. This is not praise of a simple life -- no 'behold the lilies of the field, for they toil not'. Theirs are lives of toil. But at least they have some security as small farmers, and they seem to have no parasitical elite of bureaucracy among them. Of course that means that they have no white-collar work except perhaps for the preacher or the teacher... 

Is that what it takes?

Quote:"Unemployment, alimony, child support, and pensions are not welfare. Neither is disability." And neither are social security and medicare, which recipients have paid for and which protect us all, not just a few cheaters. And there's medicaid and Obamacare subsidies; arguably that's welfare, but not welfare per se. And not if healthcare is in fact a right, as liberals proclaim. A right implied in the Declaration of Independence, which announces our right to life.

The Hard Right has practically devolved to the idea that we all owe all to the economic elites from whom all blessings flow -- of course, at the will of those elites, who know that if the flow is 'too strong', then people might not fear those elites enough. Having worked at jobs in which suffering was a certainty but smiling was a necessity, I see such as a fraud.

Quote:The veneration of work and the condemnation of those who don't work by conservatives may be obsolete, in an economy that does not provide work, and which could very well save labor for all of us by turning it over to machines, if the bosses were stripped of their current exclusively-given rights to their benefits. We are going to need to be less dogmatic about the economic system into which we are moving, and adapt to the new situation.

If capitalism can produce far more than all human needs, then it must also offer the means of buying the fruit of the production. before people get complacent about the potential for capitalist tyranny, then consider how things go in Nineteen Eighty-Four: although productivity is high, far outstripping all human need, the workers keep finding their lives increasingly debased. Sure, the system calls itself "socialist", but the "socialism" is with no humanistic values, and in view of the linguistic fraud that is the basis of communication, one can doubt whether the system is socialist. It looks like an every-man-for-himself order. Or maybe it is 'socialism' only for the Party bureaucracy, with everyone else being obliged to take entrepreneurial risks for slave-like compensation and treatment. Let us hope that when someone speaks of free enterprise it is of competitive markets and personal choice instead of enterprises free to do to people all sorts of evil at the behest of owners and managers.

Quote:And another wrinkle in the conservative myth is veneration of the rich, as people who worked to get ahead and thus deserve their rewards, as opposed to most of us who may aspire to be rich, in the good old American dream, but are not. But the rich do not earn their rewards; that is the myth. The Reaganoid political and economic system we live under provides rewards for them, by allowing them to pay most workers a pittance while they rack up 300 times what their workers get through high salaries and financial games that ruin the economy for everyone but themselves, while meanwhile the workers are no longer protected by adequate minimum wages, low tariffs or declining unions and are often deprived of the education they needed in the first place.

The easiest way to get rich is to be born into a rich family. The second easiest is to marry into money. The third easiest is to do crime. The fourth is to invest or innovate.

[beechnut79]

(09-28-2017, 05:27 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(09-28-2017, 10:26 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Good hard-workin' folks like Classic Xer, who support this system accurately described as one "that treats the poor as objects of exploitation and abuse," call those who can not find work or can't work "lazy" and "idiots," but there are a fair number of such "lazy, idiotic" people, especially in a system that does not provide enough jobs (due to automation, free trade, and bosses that don't care and will fire people for little or no reason). Liberals don't look upon welfare recipients as either victims or cheaters; most are neither. Welfare is just a small item in the federal budget, and of varying sizes in state budgets, that provides a little bit of protection of the kind all of us might need. Many of us aren't even eligible for welfare in that case anyway. Time limits on welfare are abusive punishment, since depressions and recessions are frequent, job losses continual, and various kinds of suffering and disability can happen at any time on more than one occasion to any one of us. Finding a good job has never been easy, and calling people who can't find work "idiots" just blames the people for the troubles which the selfish bosses alone give us.

...People like Classic X'er and Warren Dew may not recognize how precarious one's qualification as a 'hard-working person' is. We are all but one accident away from no longer being able to work hard. We are also mostly one paycheck to ten away from being destitute. Whether we keep our jobs or not may depend upon an employer having a government contract -- or the choice of some tycoon on which plant gets shut down or which product line is terminated.

Most of us are at much more risk from the arbitrary decisions of our masters than we are from  any tendency to go lazy. Work ethic? Like skill, it must be cultivated. A good system rewards it; a  bad system exacts toil with the threat of brutality, as on a plantation, a KZ-Lager, or a Gulag. 

Quote:Welfare is the main scapegoat that impels people like Classic Xer (which includes perhaps 40% of America or more; he's not alone at all) to vote Republican and support the trickle-down theory, which says give breaks to the bosses instead of the people, and then the "job creator" bosses will provide jobs for us. Not only does trickle-down NOT trickle, but the reason that 40% of the good people like Classic Xer and Warren Dew support trickle-down economics, is because they blame welfare recipients and liberal politicians for their high taxes. But blaming welfare has nothing to do with their high taxes, which are not that high to begin with. The government wastes money on wars, weapons, and subsidies to the rich corporations, and by not taxing the wealthy enough-- due to the trickle-down theory.

I remember a business guru telling people that the net growth of employment at Fortune-500 companies over fifty years (this was about 1990) was negative.  Most of those companies have been profitable. If companies can find more profitable solutions to productivity than labor, then those companies will whittle away at their workforce. Maybe people have to create their own jobs with startup businesses or resort to such employment as domestic help...

Quote:There may be some welfare cheaters, but we are all victims in a sense; victims of the decision of the people to vote Republican. So a lot of us are responsible for the troubles we all experience living in this system. And that's not even to mention a campaign finance system instituted by Republican Supreme Court justices that favors the rich, gerrymandering that favors Republican legislators since 2010, and voter suppression now underway in many Republican-controlled states. Oh, and I almost forgot: an election system called the electoral college set up to protect slavery, and still doing that job by, among other things, putting into office without majority voter approval the only Republican presidents of the 21st century.

Our economic system works very well for (1) financiers and tycoons, (2) business executives, (3) big landowners, (3) well-connected professionals such as corporate attorneys, lobbyists, and investment bankers, and (4) organized crime. With his connections to organized crime, Donald Trump exemplifies American capitalism at its worst.

In the area in which I live, there are huge numbers of Old Order Amish. Few of us would like to live as they do... leaving school at age sixteen is the worst of it, something that makes their rejection of electronic entertainments a minor inconvenience by contrast. This is not praise of a simple life -- no 'behold the lilies of the field, for they toil not'. Theirs are lives of toil. But at least they have some security as small farmers, and they seem to have no parasitical elite of bureaucracy among them. Of course that means that they have no white-collar work except perhaps for the preacher or the teacher... 

Is that what it takes?

Quote:"Unemployment, alimony, child support, and pensions are not welfare. Neither is disability." And neither are social security and medicare, which recipients have paid for and which protect us all, not just a few cheaters. And there's medicaid and Obamacare subsidies; arguably that's welfare, but not welfare per se. And not if healthcare is in fact a right, as liberals proclaim. A right implied in the Declaration of Independence, which announces our right to life.

The Hard Right has practically devolved to the idea that we all owe all to the economic elites from whom all blessings flow -- of course, at the will of those elites, who know that if the flow is 'too strong', then people might not fear those elites enough. Having worked at jobs in which suffering was a certainty but smiling was a necessity, I see such as a fraud.  

Quote:The veneration of work and the condemnation of those who don't work by conservatives may be obsolete, in an economy that does not provide work, and which could very well save labor for all of us by turning it over to machines, if the bosses were stripped of their current exclusively-given rights to their benefits. We are going to need to be less dogmatic about the economic system into which we are moving, and adapt to the new situation.

If capitalism can produce far more than all human needs, then it must also offer the means of buying the fruit of the production. before people get complacent about the potential for capitalist tyranny, then consider how things go in Nineteen Eighty-Four: although productivity is high, far outstripping all human need, the workers keep finding their lives increasingly debased. Sure, the system calls itself "socialist", but the "socialism" is with no humanistic values, and in view of the linguistic fraud that is the basis of communication, one can doubt whether the system is socialist. It looks like an every-man-for-himself order. Or maybe it is 'socialism' only for the Party bureaucracy, with everyone else being obliged to take entrepreneurial risks for slave-like compensation and treatment. Let us hope that when someone speaks of free enterprise it is of competitive markets and personal choice instead of enterprises free to do to people all sorts of evil at the behest of owners and managers.

Quote:And another wrinkle in the conservative myth is veneration of the rich, as people who worked to get ahead and thus deserve their rewards, as opposed to most of us who may aspire to be rich, in the good old American dream, but are not. But the rich do not earn their rewards; that is the myth. The Reaganoid political and economic system we live under provides rewards for them, by allowing them to pay most workers a pittance while they rack up 300 times what their workers get through high salaries and financial games that ruin the economy for everyone but themselves, while meanwhile the workers are no longer protected by adequate minimum wages, low tariffs or declining unions and are often deprived of the education they needed in the first place.

The easiest way to get rich is to be born into a rich family. The second easiest is to marry into money. The third easiest is to do crime. The fourth is to invest or innovate.

Where Item #2 is concerned, the marrying into money no longer comes from huge lavish debutante balls, which in many ways were the forerunners of some of today's dating services, many of which are priced out of reach of "average" singles. Many felt that such snobbery was no longer needed once "nice" girls ended up going off to college, getting good jobs, etc.

[Classic-Xer]

(09-28-2017, 10:26 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(09-27-2017, 11:01 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(09-27-2017, 08:17 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(09-27-2017, 03:05 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: The problem being, too many of the red and blue have similar doubts.

In welfare, there are victims and cheaters.  You’d like to think most would agree that both exist.  The proper thing to do is help the victims and frustrate the cheaters.  Alas, once you buy deeply into one of the two world views, you tend to see either victims or cheaters.

In Pbrower’s case, I’m seeing a victim, but there are more than enough cheaters.

On one side, there are those those who see lots of cheaters, few victims, who might be seen as cynical economically centered misers.  Then are those who see lots of victims, no cheaters, who can be seen as economically ignorant bleeding hearts who should know better.  It isn’t hard to find imbalance.

Then there are those who want to help those who need help, but spend their money wisely.  I'd prefer to be in that camp.

Do we want to force fit an individual into an ideal example of what is wrong with America?  I’m dubious that we want to juggle a guy’s reputation for a political ends.  Yet, that is where we are.

Welfare attracts all kinds of folks. A portion are lazy. A portion are complete idiots who are incapable of providing for themselves. A portion just don't give a shit about themselves, their kids and their quality of life in general. A portion actually need it (no other option) and are using it to get through a major setback (loss of a job, illness, divorce, death of a spouse, ect.) of some sort. A portion use/abuse the system because it's a relatively easy system to become accustomed to once you're in the system. Based on my real life knowledge and experience with welfare, the portion who need it/ use it as intended are the minority group. You're so-called liberal worldview is way too black (victims) and white (cheaters) for my taste. PB has issues (lots of issues). I have issues. I bet you (Mr. Cozy Blue) even have a few issues from time to time. Americans in general have their own issues to attend to or address on a regular basis. I don't view PB as a victim. He's to old to seriously view him/accept him as a victim.

In my case it will be disability. I have plenty of things wrong with me. But I can live cheap. The community in which I exist (it is not living!) is relatively cheap and safe. It is also an easy place in which to run out of experiences.

I took care of two dying parents with degenerative diseases in three years. Let's put it this way -- having seen my mother dying of Parkinsonism and my father dying of senile dementia. I have become poor in a country that treats the poor as objects of exploitation and abuse, people obliged to smile through their suffering. I wouldn't wish what I went through on anyone; that character-building experience has brought me personal ruin. I have contemplated suicide after I lost my life savings in trying to keep a house up in case of a miracle.

Unemployment, alimony, child support, and pensions are not welfare. Neither is disability. Issues?

Sure, I have talent. At 61, 'talent' is worthless.

Spending the rest of my life as a retail sales clerk in a community that I despise? That Kafkaesque prospect night as well be a prison term. Poverty in America is a prison.

Good hard-workin' folks like Classic Xer, who support this system accurately described as one "that treats the poor as objects of exploitation and abuse," call those who can not find work or can't work "lazy" and "idiots," but there are a fair number of such "lazy, idiotic" people, especially in a system that does not provide enough jobs (due to automation, free trade, and bosses that don't care and will fire people for little or no reason). Liberals don't look upon welfare recipients as either victims or cheaters; most are neither. Welfare is just a small item in the federal budget, and of varying sizes in state budgets, that provides a little bit of protection of the kind all of us might need. Many of us aren't even eligible for welfare in that case anyway. Time limits on welfare are abusive punishment, since depressions and recessions are frequent, job losses continual, and various kinds of suffering and disability can happen at any time on more than one occasion to any one of us. Finding a good job has never been easy, and calling people who can't find work "idiots" just blames the people for the troubles which the selfish bosses alone give us.

Welfare is the main scapegoat that impels people like Classic Xer (which includes perhaps 40% of America or more; he's not alone at all) to vote Republican and support the trickle-down theory, which says give breaks to the bosses instead of the people, and then the "job creater" bosses will provide jobs for us. Not only does trickle-down NOT trickle, but the reason that 40% of the good people like Classic Xer and Warren Dew support trickle-down economics, is because they blame welfare recipients and liberal politicians for their high taxes. But blaming welfare has nothing to do with their high taxes, which are not that high to begin with. The government wastes money on wars, weapons, and subsidies to the rich corporations, and by not taxing the wealthy enough-- due to the trickle-down theory.

There may be some welfare cheaters, but we are all victims in a sense; victims of the decision of the people to vote Republican. So a lot of us are responsible for the troubles we all experience living in this system. And that's not even to mention a campaign finance system instituted by Republican Supreme Court justices that favors the rich, gerrymandering that favors Republican legislators since 2010, and voter suppression now underway in many Republican-controlled states. Oh, and I almost forgot: an election system called the electoral college set up to protect slavery, and still doing that job by, among other things, putting into office without majority voter approval the only Republican presidents of the 21st century.

"Unemployment, alimony, child support, and pensions are not welfare. Neither is disability." And neither are social security and medicare, which recipients have paid for and which protect us all, not just a few cheaters. And there's medicaid and Obamacare subsidies; arguably that's welfare, but not welfare per se. And not if healthcare is in fact a right, as liberals proclaim. A right implied in the Declaration of Independence, which announces our right to life.

The veneration of work and the condemnation of those who don't work by conservatives may be obsolete, in an economy that does not provide work, and which could very well save labor for all of us by turning it over to machines, if the bosses were stripped of their current exclusively-given rights to their benefits. We are going to need to be less dogmatic about the economic system into which we are moving, and adapt to the new situation.

And another wrinkle in the conservative myth is veneration of the rich, as people who worked to get ahead and thus deserve their rewards, as opposed to most of us who may aspire to be rich, in the good old American dream, but are not. But the rich do not earn their rewards; that is the myth. The Reaganoid political and economic system we live under provides rewards for them, by allowing them to pay most workers a pittance while they rack up 300 times what their workers get through high salaries and financial games that ruin the economy for everyone but themselves, while meanwhile the workers are no longer protected by adequate minimum wages, low tariffs or declining unions and are often deprived of the education they needed in the first place.

How far do you have to travel to see/meet/bump into a welfare recipient of some sort/type these days? Welfare recipients are much more common then they were 30 years ago. Welfare recipients are also more expensive and more demanding than they were 30 years ago as well. Which group of welfare recipients would you like to discuss with me? I'm probably familiar with all of them. I should inform you that I grew up with the working class that was around while you were out doing blue Hippie shit. I was going school with there kids, playing sports with their kids, flirting with their daughters and competing with their sons. BTW, the majority of them including the American raised Mexicans and the working women are no longer Democratic voters.

[pbrower2a]

(09-28-2017, 07:36 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(09-28-2017, 10:26 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(09-27-2017, 11:01 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(09-27-2017, 08:17 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(09-27-2017, 03:05 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: The problem being, too many of the red and blue have similar doubts.

In welfare, there are victims and cheaters.  You’d like to think most would agree that both exist.  The proper thing to do is help the victims and frustrate the cheaters.  Alas, once you buy deeply into one of the two world views, you tend to see either victims or cheaters.

In Pbrower’s case, I’m seeing a victim, but there are more than enough cheaters.

On one side, there are those those who see lots of cheaters, few victims, who might be seen as cynical economically centered misers.  Then are those who see lots of victims, no cheaters, who can be seen as economically ignorant bleeding hearts who should know better.  It isn’t hard to find imbalance.

Then there are those who want to help those who need help, but spend their money wisely.  I'd prefer to be in that camp.

Do we want to force fit an individual into an ideal example of what is wrong with America?  I’m dubious that we want to juggle a guy’s reputation for a political ends.  Yet, that is where we are.

Welfare attracts all kinds of folks. A portion are lazy. A portion are complete idiots who are incapable of providing for themselves. A portion just don't give a shit about themselves, their kids and their quality of life in general. A portion actually need it (no other option) and are using it to get through a major setback (loss of a job, illness, divorce, death of a spouse, ect.) of some sort. A portion use/abuse the system because it's a relatively easy system to become accustomed to once you're in the system. Based on my real life knowledge and experience with welfare, the portion who need it/ use it as intended are the minority group. You're so-called liberal worldview is way too black (victims) and white (cheaters) for my taste. PB has issues (lots of issues). I have issues. I bet you (Mr. Cozy Blue) even have a few issues from time to time. Americans in general have their own issues to attend to or address on a regular basis. I don't view PB as a victim. He's to old to seriously view him/accept him as a victim.

In my case it will be disability. I have plenty of things wrong with me. But I can live cheap. The community in which I exist (it is not living!) is relatively cheap and safe. It is also an easy place in which to run out of experiences.

I took care of two dying parents with degenerative diseases in three years. Let's put it this way -- having seen my mother dying of Parkinsonism and my father dying of senile dementia. I have become poor in a country that treats the poor as objects of exploitation and abuse, people obliged to smile through their suffering. I wouldn't wish what I went through on anyone; that character-building experience has brought me personal ruin. I have contemplated suicide after I lost my life savings in trying to keep a house up in case of a miracle.

Unemployment, alimony, child support, and pensions are not welfare. Neither is disability. Issues?

Sure, I have talent. At 61, 'talent' is worthless.

Spending the rest of my life as a retail sales clerk in a community that I despise? That Kafkaesque prospect night as well be a prison term. Poverty in America is a prison.

Good hard-workin' folks like Classic Xer, who support this system accurately described as one "that treats the poor as objects of exploitation and abuse," call those who can not find work or can't work "lazy" and "idiots," but there are a fair number of such "lazy, idiotic" people, especially in a system that does not provide enough jobs (due to automation, free trade, and bosses that don't care and will fire people for little or no reason). Liberals don't look upon welfare recipients as either victims or cheaters; most are neither. Welfare is just a small item in the federal budget, and of varying sizes in state budgets, that provides a little bit of protection of the kind all of us might need. Many of us aren't even eligible for welfare in that case anyway. Time limits on welfare are abusive punishment, since depressions and recessions are frequent, job losses continual, and various kinds of suffering and disability can happen at any time on more than one occasion to any one of us. Finding a good job has never been easy, and calling people who can't find work "idiots" just blames the people for the troubles which the selfish bosses alone give us.

Welfare is the main scapegoat that impels people like Classic Xer (which includes perhaps 40% of America or more; he's not alone at all) to vote Republican and support the trickle-down theory, which says give breaks to the bosses instead of the people, and then the "job creater" bosses will provide jobs for us. Not only does trickle-down NOT trickle, but the reason that 40% of the good people like Classic Xer and Warren Dew support trickle-down economics, is because they blame welfare recipients and liberal politicians for their high taxes. But blaming welfare has nothing to do with their high taxes, which are not that high to begin with. The government wastes money on wars, weapons, and subsidies to the rich corporations, and by not taxing the wealthy enough-- due to the trickle-down theory.

There may be some welfare cheaters, but we are all victims in a sense; victims of the decision of the people to vote Republican. So a lot of us are responsible for the troubles we all experience living in this system. And that's not even to mention a campaign finance system instituted by Republican Supreme Court justices that favors the rich, gerrymandering that favors Republican legislators since 2010, and voter suppression now underway in many Republican-controlled states. Oh, and I almost forgot: an election system called the electoral college set up to protect slavery, and still doing that job by, among other things, putting into office without majority voter approval the only Republican presidents of the 21st century.

"Unemployment, alimony, child support, and pensions are not welfare. Neither is disability." And neither are social security and medicare, which recipients have paid for and which protect us all, not just a few cheaters. And there's medicaid and Obamacare subsidies; arguably that's welfare, but not welfare per se. And not if healthcare is in fact a right, as liberals proclaim. A right implied in the Declaration of Independence, which announces our right to life.

The veneration of work and the condemnation of those who don't work by conservatives may be obsolete, in an economy that does not provide work, and which could very well save labor for all of us by turning it over to machines, if the bosses were stripped of their current exclusively-given rights to their benefits. We are going to need to be less dogmatic about the economic system into which we are moving, and adapt to the new situation.

And another wrinkle in the conservative myth is veneration of the rich, as people who worked to get ahead and thus deserve their rewards, as opposed to most of us who may aspire to be rich, in the good old American dream, but are not. But the rich do not earn their rewards; that is the myth. The Reaganoid political and economic system we live under provides rewards for them, by allowing them to pay most workers a pittance while they rack up 300 times what their workers get through high salaries and financial games that ruin the economy for everyone but themselves, while meanwhile the workers are no longer protected by adequate minimum wages, low tariffs or declining unions and are often deprived of the education they needed in the first place.

How far do you have to travel to see/meet/bump into a welfare recipient of some sort/type these days? Welfare recipients are much more common then they were 30 years ago. Welfare recipients are also more expensive and more demanding than they were 30 years ago as well. Which group of welfare recipients would you like to discuss with me? I'm probably familiar with all of them. I should inform you that I grew up with the working class that was around while you were out doing blue Hippie shit. I was going school with there kids, playing sports with their kids, flirting with their daughters and competing with their sons. BTW, the majority of them including the American raised Mexicans and the working women are no longer Democratic voters.

You are dealing in stereotypes instead of reality. I know at least one welfare recipient (teenager who bore a couple cute cash cows). If welfare recipients are more expensive than they used to be, then so is about everything not in the cost-cutting curve of high-tech objects.  I have not sought out poor people, but I have seen them. Most of the poverty that I have seen recently is temporary bad luck or being 'working poor' -- doing real work but getting a travesty of a paycheck. 

I have never gone through a hippie phase. My casual clothing has been typical for a golf course. I was a virgin well into my twenties. I am ferociously anti-drug, as you can see from my posts when the topic comes up. But that is fairly typical of people with Asperger's. I can be the most judgmental a$$hole that you have ever met. But what excuse does anyone have for being an alcoholic or an addict?

Many of the working-class kids did not like me because I seemed like the "Little Professor" who paid attention to school books instead of cars. When I was in high school in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1972 to 1974 I got along badly with the white low-achievers, but got along very well with Asian-Americans and people that I mistook for German-Americans because of their surnames (get it?). Surprising for someone who thought that he would come off as a hayseed?

Although white working-class people voted heavily for Trump, the majority of Mexican-Americans in the Twin Cities area , who are much more politically astute than under-educated white people, still vote heavily Democratic .

[Classic-Xer]

(09-27-2017, 11:01 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(09-27-2017, 08:17 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(09-27-2017, 03:05 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: The problem being, too many of the red and blue have similar doubts.

In welfare, there are victims and cheaters.  You’d like to think most would agree that both exist.  The proper thing to do is help the victims and frustrate the cheaters.  Alas, once you buy deeply into one of the two world views, you tend to see either victims or cheaters.

In Pbrower’s case, I’m seeing a victim, but there are more than enough cheaters.

On one side, there are those those who see lots of cheaters, few victims, who might be seen as cynical economically centered misers.  Then are those who see lots of victims, no cheaters, who can be seen as economically ignorant bleeding hearts who should know better.  It isn’t hard to find imbalance.

Then there are those who want to help those who need help, but spend their money wisely.  I'd prefer to be in that camp.

Do we want to force fit an individual into an ideal example of what is wrong with America?  I’m dubious that we want to juggle a guy’s reputation for a political ends.  Yet, that is where we are.

Welfare attracts all kinds of folks. A portion are lazy. A portion are complete idiots who are incapable of providing for themselves. A portion just don't give a shit about themselves, their kids and their quality of life in general. A portion actually need it (no other option) and are using it to get through a major setback (loss of a job, illness, divorce, death of a spouse, ect.) of some sort. A portion use/abuse the system because it's a relatively easy system to become accustomed to once you're in the system. Based on my real life knowledge and experience with welfare's, the portion who need it/ use it as intended are the minority group. You're so-called liberal worldview is way too black (victims) and white (cheaters) for my taste. PB has issues (lots of issues). I have issues. I bet you (Mr. Cozy Blue) even have a few issues from time to time. Americans in general have their own issues to attend to or address on a regular basis. I don't view PB as a victim. He's to old to seriously view him/accept him as a victim.

In my case it will be disability. I have plenty of things wrong with me. But I can live cheap. The community in which I exist (it is not living!) is relatively cheap and safe. It is also an easy place in which to run out of experiences.

I took care of two dying parents with degenerative diseases in three years. Let's put it this way -- having seen my mother dying of Parkinsonism and my father dying of senile dementia. I have become poor in a country that treats the poor as objects of exploitation and abuse, people obliged to smile through their suffering. I wouldn't wish what I went through on anyone; that character-building experience has brought me personal ruin. I have contemplated suicide after I lost my life savings in trying to keep a house up in case of a miracle.

Unemployment, alimony, child support, and pensions are not welfare. Neither is disability. Issues?

Sure, I have talent. At 61, 'talent' is worthless.

Spending the rest of my life as a retail sales clerk in a community that I despise? That Kafkaesque prospect night as well be a prison term. Poverty in America is a prison.

You shouldn't have been counting on receiving your parents money *inheritance*.  My mother died of Alzheimer's a few years ago. I helped take care of her for a year and witnessed her decline. I was in charge of managing her retirement funds. I never viewed her money as my money. My father was physically disabled by a severe heart attack that damn near killed. A year later, he suffered a major stroke which eventually killed him a month later. I witnessed it all and inherited a plate full of his responsibilities as a kid. His death pretty much ended my childhood and placed me in a similar situation as you until I was old to get a driver's license and begin to work for a living. So, I can relate to what you've been saying/feeling about your life. However, I can't relate to you/ your issues/ your views as a fellow older adult.

[Classic-Xer]

(09-28-2017, 08:46 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: You are dealing in stereotypes instead of reality. I know at least one welfare recipient (teenager who bore a couple cute cash cows). If welfare recipients are more expensive than they used to be, then so is about everything not in the cost-cutting curve of high-tech objects.  I have not sought out poor people, but I have seen them. Most of the poverty that I have seen recently is temporary bad luck or being 'working poor' -- doing real work but getting a travesty of a paycheck. 

I have never gone through a hippie phase. My casual clothing has been typical for a golf course. I was a virgin well into my twenties. I am ferociously anti-drug, as you can see from my posts when the topic comes up. But that is fairly typical of people with Asperger's. I can be the most judgmental a$$hole that you have ever met. But what excuse does anyone have for being an alcoholic or an addict?

Many of the working-class kids did not like me because I seemed like the "Little Professor" who paid attention to school books instead of cars. When I was in high school in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1972 to 1974 I got along badly with the white low-achievers, but got along very well with Asian-Americans and people that I mistook for German-Americans because of their surnames (get it?). Surprising for someone who thought that he would come off as a hayseed?

Although white working-class people voted heavily for Trump, the majority of Mexican-Americans in the Twin Cities area , who are much more politically astute than under-educated white people, still vote heavily Democratic .

I'm dealing in realities while your stuck on stereotypes. I don't do stereotypes. I tend to ignore them and judge for myself. I would've ran out of friends along time ago had I stuck to stereotypes. Lets see, I've seen the teenager a couple of cash as you said. BTW, I view her so-called cash cows as poverty anchors. BTW, I would classify the teenager with the cash cows as an idiot welfare recipient. 

How much does their healthcare for themselves and their children cost us? How much does the roof over their heads for them and their children cost us? These aren't small ticket items. How much does the education or at least the attempt to educate their children or themselves and all the other services available to them cost us? I'd really like to see a breakdown of the costs associated with entitlement programs.

[Bob Butler 54]

(09-28-2017, 10:51 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(09-28-2017, 08:46 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: You are dealing in stereotypes instead of reality. I know at least one welfare recipient (teenager who bore a couple cute cash cows). If welfare recipients are more expensive than they used to be, then so is about everything not in the cost-cutting curve of high-tech objects.  I have not sought out poor people, but I have seen them. Most of the poverty that I have seen recently is temporary bad luck or being 'working poor' -- doing real work but getting a travesty of a paycheck. 

I have never gone through a hippie phase. My casual clothing has been typical for a golf course. I was a virgin well into my twenties. I am ferociously anti-drug, as you can see from my posts when the topic comes up. But that is fairly typical of people with Asperger's. I can be the most judgmental a$$hole that you have ever met. But what excuse does anyone have for being an alcoholic or an addict?

Many of the working-class kids did not like me because I seemed like the "Little Professor" who paid attention to school books instead of cars. When I was in high school in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1972 to 1974 I got along badly with the white low-achievers, but got along very well with Asian-Americans and people that I mistook for German-Americans because of their surnames (get it?). Surprising for someone who thought that he would come off as a hayseed?

Although white working-class people voted heavily for Trump, the majority of Mexican-Americans in the Twin Cities area , who are much more politically astute than under-educated white people, still vote heavily Democratic .

I'm dealing in realities while your stuck on stereotypes. I don't do stereotypes. I tend to ignore them and judge for myself. I would've ran out of friends along time ago had I stuck to stereotypes. Lets see, I've seen the teenager a couple of cash as you said. BTW, I view her so-called cash cows as poverty anchors. BTW, I would classify the teenager with the cash cows as an idiot welfare recipient. 

How much does their healthcare for themselves and their children cost us? How much does the roof over their heads for them and their children cost us? These aren't small ticket items. How much does the education or at least the attempt to educate their children or themselves and all the other services available to them cost us? I'd really like to see a breakdown of the costs associated with entitlement programs.

Classic

You claim you are not stuck on stereotypes, then go with 'cash cow', 'poverty anchors' and 'idiot welfare recipient'. You follow up with variations of 'How much does it cost us...' This does, of course, pull one into one perspective.

The conflict between the two stripes does show the difference between focusing on helping the victim as opposed to economic values and pursuing the cheater. The question to a great extent is whether the cheating was real? Are we looking at someone in need or someone gaming the system for a free ride. It seems you are ready to perceive the cheater.

To a large extent this is a values question which people have to judge for themselves. Me, if people have real needs they should be satisfied, but there shouldn't be a free ride. This is a difficult balance between two values which can both be respected. It is a difficult question to hand over to a bureaucracy. They would too often prefer a clear place to whack their rubber stamps. Meanwhile, too many have seen things from one angle only, and perceive only one error or the other.

My perspective comes from a broken family. Two grandparents are doing what they can for a pair of grand kids. In the middle is a drug addicted mother who married a sexual predator. After all, a marriage between a sexual predator with some money and an addicted woman who makes money off sex with kids must be ideal, right? Then there are the kids who shouldn't fall into the usual traps, and a system prejudiced to put the kids with the natural mother, no matter the evidence. And, you know, if the middle people know more about gaming the system than the grandparents who have never used the system, and the system chooses which victim is labeled the good guys, you wind up with something chilling.

There are people with real needs. The people who are supposed to protect, don't always. The first level of stereotype is often not enough. A financially stable family with decent values can go bad real fast. And you know, the simplistic stereotypes are never fully illustrative.