Randomness

[mortalveneer]

Were you saying level of misfortune, willingness to support, or percentage of people for whom one believes the safety net should be unnecessary, is debatable? PERCENTAGE

How the current system implements all these things is a whole other, massively more demoralizing, conversation. COULDN'T AGREE MORE

see above...

[Chant]

Believing that someone could voluntarily choose to live with almost nothing (and the US minimums are far away from the Eupopean wefare state aids) is the weirdest fantasy I've ever heard.
Wondering what these people, who think that the poor are lazy people stealing their own money, are suffering from to look with such an angerish envy at their neighbours' (empty) plates...

[mortalveneer]

Believing that someone could voluntarily choose to live with almost nothing

This is a bit of a strawman; believing that a set of voluntary decisions can in the aggregate lead one person to end up with much less than another person is a much more reasonable way of stating it.

[Faust]

Mortalveneer, my answer, as theetruscan's is an unequivocal yes. The lazy bastards are the social cost that democracy bears and is therefore unavoidable, just like the social costs of homelessness, drugs, prostitution, and other things that democracy bears.

[MJRH]

I live in Canada, where we have a welfare system. Like any part of our government there's too much red tape, and yes some people abuse it. Most of the people I know who are anti-welfare have been raised, like myself, in a comfortable middle-class family, and either misunderstand or outright deny the extent to which environment influences mindset. So, when they say something like "the very poor should just get a job and work their way out!", they are thinking that all of these poor people are capable of pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. Maybe some are, but as I see it it's incredibly difficult.

If you want a good counter-argument to the mindset above, the next time anybody tells you that the very poor, most of whom have never had say a decent union job or reliable income should "just get a job," inform them that everyone who makes less than seven figures a year is a failure in life. Lots of people become millionaires every year, it's not such a hard thing to do, and anybody who was born a millionaire will tell you it ain't that hard to maintain the lifestyle! So everyone who isn't a millionaire is nothing more than lazy and stupid.

---

Okay, I actually came here to respond to this this:

"Letting" people get arbitrarily fat results in substantial health costs. Do we assume people will either find insurance or die? Do we collectively decide that, to protect individual liberty, we will pay an unbounded amount to save people's lives once their own decisions have harmed them?

There is a little bit of evidence to the contrary, though! I wonder if anybody here who's a little more learned on the subject could explain if this is bollocks?

...the financially most attractive "villains" to health insurers are the smokers. The most expensive are always the goody-two-shoes healthy-living people. Somewhere in-between are the fat ones. In the model which assumed a yearly 1% increase in health care costs, the lifetime costs for an obese person amounted to € 399,000, compared to which the smoker comes at a 14% discount of € 341,000, but the healthy living person with a 17% premium at € 468,000.

Short explanation: smokers and the obese die in mid-life because of health conditions related to their smoking or obesity. Healthy people die late in life of health conditions that are more drawn-out, allegedly costing the health care system more money.

So I think what this suggests is that we should encourage the consumption of junk food in order to save on insurance costs?

[Faust]

Believing that someone could voluntarily choose to live with almost nothing (and the US minimums are far away from the Eupopean wefare state aids) is the weirdest fantasy I've ever heard.
Wondering what these people, who think that the poor are lazy people stealing their own money, are suffering from to look with such an angerish envy at their neighbours' (empty) plates...

The more I live here the more I realize that famous Tyutchev's words "One cannot understand Russia by one's mind" fits USA very well.

[Lane]

It's also entirely possible that Lane was just responding to my hyperbolic statement with one of his own.

yup!

its why I dont like politics, we all like to see things through our own lens, and the endless bickering accomplishes nothing since the same elite come out on top in the end.

[lowrey]

I live in Canada, where we have a welfare system. Like any part of our government there's too much red tape, and yes some people abuse it. Most of the people I know who are anti-welfare have been raised, like myself, in a comfortable middle-class family, and either misunderstand or outright deny the extent to which environment influences mindset. So, when they say something like "the very poor should just get a job and work their way out!", they are thinking that all of these poor people are capable of pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. Maybe some are, but as I see it it's incredibly difficult.

I think you just described 99.9% of republicans

[theetruscan]

I think you just described 99.9% of republicans

Shockingly, no. With the collapse of the middle class in the US, the composition of the republican party is not largely comfortable middle-class whites**. It's part of why the high-profile republican politicians are so aggressively vague about policy. The republicans rely, heavily, on having poorer voters vote against their own economic interests. The way this is done is to appeal to "tribal identity" politics. Basically, the politicians have found a stream of newer, more creative ways to say that your money will go to people who don't deserve it*. It's a large part of why, when you see large polls in the US, you get people who have no idea that medicare is a federal program, but are desperate to see "government stay away from medicare" and also see the government shrunk and stop helping deadbeats. A lot has been written about the impact of these politics, and I can't match the quality of that writing, but it's interesting.

** don't worry, it's still all white people.

* coded language for blacks, mexicans, women, you name it

[lowrey]

whoops, I mis-highlighted. I was referring the part about misunderstanding and denial.

[Faust]

yup!

its why I dont like politics, we all like to see things through our own lens, and the endless bickering accomplishes nothing since the same elite come out on top in the end.

It's not about liking politics - I mean, who the fuck likes politics? I've tried not to care too, but as a wise man once told me, you can quit politics, but politics don't quit you.

[zamb]

It's not about liking politics - I mean, who the fuck likes politics? I've tried not to care too, but as a wise man once told me, you can quit politics, but politics don't quit you.

it is difficult for anyone who cares about social justice and has a heart for the betterment of human beings to not care. It is not an easy exercise, I've tried to distance myself from it too, but cant. The worse part fro me is to Live in this country, and in new york in particular, that I love so much, and when I assess this whole thing none of the parties really offer the kind of strong leadership with respect and compassion that the country needs

Man is a political animal, but I am a tortured political animal

[zamb]

So Mary Kate and Asley Oslen won the CFDA award for Womenswear designer of the year..............in other news, they found the lock nest monster sucking a lollipop on a swing dangling from the empire state building...........

As Faust once said "fashion, I wonder why I bother"

[Faust]

CFDA is one big incest.

[cjbreed]

CFDA is one big incest.