Whatever. You jumped all over someone for using bad language about Palin, asking does not everyone deserve respect, which is just plain hypocritical, considering the crap you shoveled in my direction. Live by the sword, dle by the sword.
Are children responsible for their miserable conditions? And others, the parents? At any time, they can get off their asses and what? Just change everything about themselves, their backgrounds, their teeth, appearance? You think it's just so easy. I bet that you are white, come from a nice middle class background, and so on. I bet your teeth look just fine, are not corroded from years of neglect. You're reasonably well spoken and educated.
Am I responsible for their condition? Any one with half a brain will honestly state that I am not. Though, I supposed I ought to laugh at your petty attempts to stereotype.
Actually, my teeth are fucked up from years of neglect, but I'm not going to say that some one else needs to pay to have them corrected, or that the government should fix them. I don't want government to help me, I want government to get off my back, so I can take care of myself.
You are also completely lacking in any way of empathy: the ability to try to imagine what things feel like for others. That's a very dangerous way to go through life. In fact, if you go check out the DSM-IV and look at some of the AXIS TWO disorders . . .. I'll let you figure that one out. Empathy is what allows human beings to be more than just beasts, scraping up every single little bit of meat for themselves and watching others die. It's also how some animal groups die out, as well as human beings. Recall the Ik people I told you about. Empathy is dead with them, and they will probably not survive.
Still stereotyping? You don't have the foggiest clue about who, or what kind of person I really am, and yet, because I disagree with your idiotic world view, you feel the need to stereotype me, and try hammering me into some round hole. Maybe I was correct to compare you to Hitler, because the NAZIs did the same exact thing to the Jews.
Your use of the word stupidity here reveals you for what you are. You think all poverty is caused by stupidity. Is the color of one's skin and one's parents caused by stupidity?
Are their parents my fault? I don't recall holding a gun at any one and telling them that they had to procreate. One of the few things that I can agree with religion on, is that people shouldn't have kids outside of marriage. I've also always been of the opinion that people should make sure that they are financially stable before having kids. Of course, that is a little hard with the economy going in the direction it is going, but nonetheless it is true. Though, speaking of people being separate from animals, don't you think that it is just as bad for people to act like animals by having children with out any thought to the kind of conditions those children will be in?
Who said I want you, personally, to pay for others, anyway? I think a few of us on this thread have been pretty vocal that the spending on utterly nonsensical things could go a long way toward getting those who can be saved out of poverty, so they too are CONTRIBUTING to society.
Obviously the tax dollars that are coming out of my pocket, are going to pay for these things, thus I am paying for them.
What is stupid, imo, is that there are so many who refuse to even acknowledge that helping people out of poverty will only enhance the culture as a whole. You like living near poverty? YOu probalby don't, and I know it's hard for someone who lacks empathy, but try to imagine what it might feel like to live near a poverty-stricken area. Imagine the crime. Think you'd enjoy that? Where there is poverty, there are lacking resources, and where you have that, you will have crime. So, the plot thickens: reduce poverty, reduce crime.
If that's the case about poverty reducing crime how do you explain the accounting frauds and other white color criminals? Excuse me for shooting a gaping hole in your theory about poverty being the root cause of crime.
There might be possible that it contributes, especially in cases where through stupidity, such as NAFTA, GATT, WTO and other trade agreements that screw over the industrial sector of this country, and thus the country at large there are no jobs so the only choice people have is to do whatever they need to do to survive.
You can't ameliorate poverty by educating some one, because unless there is a job for them, then they are still going to be poor. Perhaps, more ideal would be to ensure that there are jobs first. Of course, such a thing is highly unlikely, because minimum wage has been shown to destroy entry level positions which hurts both the poor, and the middle class, especially people that are trying to save for college, and for people that are finding it necessary to work to pay for college.
You cannot change human nature. Where there is poverty, there will be crime.
That's debatable, it is more a matter of crime paying better than honest work. Which will be the case regardless of minimum wage increases, because people will always seek to differentiate themselves through having better "things", and thus there will always be a group of people that can be perceived as being impoverished.
You can, however, be part of the solution and that is doing all we can rid ourselves of such a huge underclass, the poverty stricken. It will only HELP all of us.
Once again, I must state that there will always be poverty. Now, perhaps a better way to go about removing it would be to cut farm subsidies that pay farmers for not growing food, and thus push food prices up artificially. Cut ethanol subsides which also distort food prices.
Government regulation is both good, and bad, but when it is bad it is disasterous, just look at what stupid legislation such as CRA has done to this country when combined with inept bureaucrats who refused to strengthen the oversight of the GSEs and loosened other regulations.
One, I'm not an idiot, nor are my thoughts idiotic. You might disagree, but do it RESPECTFULLY, just like you insisted upon regarding Ms. Palin.
Why should I extend you any respect at all, when you are unwilling to show me any courtesy, and resort to stereotyping and trying to accuse me of not having empathy. Et Tu Brute?
Why would this mean that everyone is equally poor? Just how did you arrive at this conclusion. You answer that, and I'll answer you. But for me to answer this question as you've worded it, would only make it appear that I am tacitly condoning your insinuating that I am idiotic and that everyone will be poor if we make more of an effort to rid ourselves of poverty.
If minimum wages are increased, then the cost of living increases (maybe not as fast, but it will increase) thus once again people like you will cry for the need to raise minimum wages again. The circle is repetitive.
One more note--not for Brutal, though.
I do believe that we've got a huge number of people, who due to the gleeful hatred of the last eight years--that fascism--actually like knowing that there are poverty stricken people out there. THey like knowing that someone else has it harder than they do. My gut feeling is that as long as someone else has it rougher and "we" can pile on the recriminations (they're stupid and make the same mistakes over and over again, etc, etc, ad nauseum), "we" can feel so much better about ourselves. IOW, these folks derive happiness and esteem out of knowing how hard life is for others. A very sad state of affairs, indeed.
