Solid answer. The always reliable "cheerleader." I just asked a clarifying question regarding what your point was listing dead kids other than the obvious dead people are dead.
Libs, give me a real world example of someone who cannot achieve the American dream
- Thread starter HighStickHarry
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If you have reached the point of adulthood is what I'm saying. That used to be 18, but now it's about thirty. im looking for examples of someone who busted their butt, made all the right choices but is somehow being drug into poverty by some invisible hand. find me someone who does not have cable, does not smoke or drink, has had no kids without a permanent partner. Where is this person?
Geezus man, who pissed in your post toasties? A question was asked, all be it a stupid question, according to you. You start calling people dumbass and the thread turns into the typical shit show that is the 24/7 board. Congratulations.
Ya'll need to go sit through a few child welfare dockets and then come back and tell me everyone has a shot at the American dream. Very naive points of view here.
Someone taught you to work. Someone taught you to get up in the morning. Go to school. Learn vowels and multiplication. Don't lie. Be on time. Don't weigh 400 lbs and find self esteem in having your first kid at 15. There are kids of white trash that can't even dig ditches, because they've never had very basic values instilled in them. Oh, one out of a thousand can bust out of it, but most don't have a shot as a practical matter. It's a lot harder out there for lots of people that you guys acknowledge. You hit adulthood without any discipline, values, skills or self esteem and it's gonna be a hard slog.
There's also some kids that have been abused. They're too fvcked up to have a real shot. Some people are also just cray cray or so stupid they can't really get there, at least not by my standards.
Someone taught you to work. Someone taught you to get up in the morning. Go to school. Learn vowels and multiplication. Don't lie. Be on time. Don't weigh 400 lbs and find self esteem in having your first kid at 15. There are kids of white trash that can't even dig ditches, because they've never had very basic values instilled in them. Oh, one out of a thousand can bust out of it, but most don't have a shot as a practical matter. It's a lot harder out there for lots of people that you guys acknowledge. You hit adulthood without any discipline, values, skills or self esteem and it's gonna be a hard slog.
There's also some kids that have been abused. They're too fvcked up to have a real shot. Some people are also just cray cray or so stupid they can't really get there, at least not by my standards.
My wife is a 3rd grade teacher in a very poor elementary school. All those life skills are being taught... just not at home. Go read 'Bridges out of Poverty' or a 'Framework for Understanding Poverty'. Those are the concepts my wife teaches her kids on top of reading, math, and social studies.
11 of her class of 20 are seeing outside counseling. 7 are English as a 2nd language. And 3 have been committed for serious mental issues. She's gotten all but 1 of them past the big 3rd grade test.
Don't tell me those kids have NO chance. They do. Thanks to people who do extra for them because they care.
11 of her class of 20 are seeing outside counseling. 7 are English as a 2nd language. And 3 have been committed for serious mental issues. She's gotten all but 1 of them past the big 3rd grade test.
Don't tell me those kids have NO chance. They do. Thanks to people who do extra for them because they care.
And as you posted on the other thread, the likelihood of him or a few of these other posters doing that is about 69,864,899,689 to 1.
Is the point whether they have any chance? Since when is that the relevant inquiry? But a lottery ticket, because there's a chance you can win. Since when is having a chance something we analyze? What's the point of that inquiry? The issue with smart people is probabilities, not whether there's a remote, mathematical chance. The very question/premise poses an irrelevant standard to me. OK, there's a chance. Is that what we're shooting for? A mathematical possibility? The slums of mumbai offer a chance for success, if just having a chance is what you want. Shouldn't we focus on a higher standard?
I appreciate your wife, but that's not really addressing my point -- I'm not talking about kids in school with teachers -- address the kids whose parents don't send them to school. There are kids in their teens in these dockets that haven't been to school and have been diddled by men. No foster home can handle them, they don't do what they're told or go where they're told. They're living with other kids and their "families", having sex and kids and can't read. They're humans in their natural state, man, right here in Oklahoma. It's not an opinion. Some of them have the ability to break out I guess. Most don't.
For the sake of argument let's agree there is a significant portion of the population for whom achieving the American Dream is not possible. What, precisely, do you recommend be done about it? You have said that kids are not being taught any of life's skills. Short of compulsory efforts to force parents to teach their children, what do you want to see happen?
Boy I dont know Dan. I'm all ears though. Everything is in the table from mandatory sterilization to faith-based solutions. I'm still in the "no bad ideas" stage.
Oh i agree. But the question sets the bar too low. Theres a chance that an orphan in the slums of mumbai can have the american dream. So?
This country does more, spends more than anyone for a chance. Immigrants have said this for generations. There are hand outs and hands up. We have low expectations for kids that go through awful childhoods. Adults however make a choice. Blame their parents or decide you are going to be a success. It's a choice in this country. It's not some lid that is closed upon them that no matter what they do they are just stuck.
DA, are there built in advantages? Their probably are some, mostly for the 1%ers. Its much easier to get into Harvard if your daddy was an alum. And both Rs and Ds like to pad their bills with advantages for their donors. But for the remaining 99%ers, the vast majority of their differences are the result of their (and their parents) life choices. Yes, the kid born out of wedlock to a 15 year-old is going to have it much harder than the kid who has both parents married and living at home. But that disadvantage is the direct result of a life choice, and not government or societal deficiency. Fact is, I know of too many examples where individuals who work hard (and sacrifice some free/social time as a result) have raised their status to think that the playing field is tilted against them. The real issue is that today's snowflake society simply refuses to work hard in order to achieve their dreams. They expect it to be handed to them with no more effort than downloading an app.
Built in advantages doesn't equate to not having equal opportunity. It makes the rad a bit easier. But the same opportunity is there.
I know there are exceptions to the rule, but the valedictorian at my high school the graduating year behind me, I think was an orphan and was shit on a lot in life. Dude was crazy smart and busted his ass. He now works for the DoD I think doing ethical hacking and intrusion defense.
Yes, but it was not a result of a life choice that the 15 year-old made. He or she didn't choose to be born out of wedlock, or born into poverty, or born into a crime infested community, or born to parents addicted to drugs, or born to a family unit where the father is in jail and the only male influence is the local street gang, etc.
It is quite shocking that a number of posters on this board fail to admit (or understand) the reality that so many Americans face today. Can some overcome their environment? Yes, definitely and they often do, btw, with the assistance of governmental programs that some conservatives often oppose.
Our goal as a society should be to (1) remove even more barriers that limit one from achieving the American dream and (2) to effectively address the underlying causes of poverty. Will people still make bad choices? Yes. That doesn't mean though we just stop trying.
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You libs have this down to an art.....choice versus lack of choice. Truly and art.
It's like you've evolved to have a mouth orifice on both sides of your face.
You're a fuqing imbecile.
Broad strokes - you're good at them.
Listening - a skill you should really leave off your resume.
I have a hypothesis that goes like this:
You libs prevent progress by striving to remove true hardship.
You rightly described the poverty cycle in a way that makes it similar to those living a substance abuse/Alcoholic condition.
What you libs strive to remove from the equation for the poor, or any other area where you strive to "help," is removing "rock bottom."
That's a sad thing, because it is specifically at "rock bottom," self realization, where context within a person's mind shifts, and the framework for productive decision-making can ultimately begin to have a foundation and take shape.
......
But everything you said above....is essentially assuming the role of an enabling husband, wife, mom, friend saying...."you're doing alright" "things aren't that bad" "you're a good man/woman" "I would change nothing about you."
What are you basing this assessment on "more than anyone"? Arguably the US is in the top quartile, but not at all clear that we "spends more than anyone".
I liked your post - agree with the spirit, but trust me the advantages extend well beyond the 1%ers. My younger kids go to the best public school in the state, a school that regularly has 100% college bound graduating classes. We bit the bullet and bought a 7 figure house (cheapest we could find) and stomach $18k a year in property taxes to fund it on top of a recommended donation of $10k per year to the education foundation. That is an advantage I was not able to give to my older kids.
In any case, what you make of what you got is the determiner of success. To the extent we can keep hitting rock bottom from being literally or figuratively fatal, I think we can/should. The arguments that this creates a sense of entitlement, or weakness, may be to some extent true - but I think the data shows that those who benefit vastly outweigh those content to live a life on public dole.
Take a look at the data from the Mothers Pension Program. I found it interesting.
What is that opportunity - the "American Dream" is so nebulous as to be almost meaningless...
What that school needs is some Syrian refugees to even out the test scores with the rest of the state!
So far we have established zero reasons an able bodied mentally competent person cannot get out of poverty. We have established that David Allen will do anything to keep his kids away from poor kids.
Question: Did you make sacrifices so you could achieve these advantages? Or were you just given them because your local senator thought...hmm, DA is white, lets help him? That's the difference. Yes, some school districts are better than others. And your kids are advantaged by your life decisions. You chose to get a degree in something that can provide you a good enough income to take care of yourself. Should you be punished because others make different life choices and thus aren't as well off as you are? Should there be consequences for poor decisions? Should there be rewards for smart ones? I believe so in both cases. In many cases, the rewards aren't instantaneous either. But I do believe that I'm in the position I'm in today, simply due to the life choices I've made. Had I gotten a girl pregnant in high school, then my life would be different, I'd be much poorer and certainly not in the advantaged position I have today. But I wasn't lucky to not get a girl pregnant. It was a conscious decision. Other life decisions: I didn't go out drinking every Friday night in college (I was usually working). I worked all through school so as to keep my debt down. These conscious decisions are what give me my advantages I have today.
What you are proposing is basically telling people like me: "Thanks for skipping the fun and crazy parts of high school & college while making responsible adult decisions, but now I expect you to pay for those idiots who didn't."
Lot to parse here... Couple of points:
Not asking you to do anything different than me.
Creating a more just, verdant and peaceful world (NPR on the brain) isn't a punishment to anyone, certainly not me. It is in my self interest to do so.
On a per capita basis it's $4 a day. Cheap in my mind.
I completely agree with this. The issue I have is the dependency circle that takes funds away from the truly needy. Wouldn't it be better to provide a better safety net to those folks than continue wasting those limited funds on able bodied folks? Even if the waste and fraud is only 10% (I don't know the actual estimated number of the top of my head), that 10% would go a long way to better serve those who really need it.
I'd be willing to pay more in taxes to fund social safety nets if I could count on those dollars being used for the most need. As it stands now, I'll continue bitching about the waste of taxpayer dollars on the slugs and continue giving directly to charities that I know are filling actual needs.
I disagree entirely. You are asking me to subsidize those who make poor decisions via the means I gained by making wise ones. Now you may subject yourself to the same standard, and you are welcome to donate your excess to those charities that support those who make poor decisions or who are truly disadvantaged. But that's not your ask. Your ask is to support candidates that mandate that funding via government action and taxation.
As for a just, verdant and peaceful world, I'm sorry, but your definition of just and mine are apprantly different. Just means getting rewards and suffering consequences for your actions and decisions. Simply washing away every bad decision by throwing resources at it, enables those poor decision makers to continue to make bad decisions and thus require more resources. It is a cycle that can only be broken by the individual. No amount of government resourcing can actually overcome poor individual decision making.
$4/day, not sure where this comes from or what this is a measure of. And to a guy who has a 7-figure house, $1400 per year may be cheap. But that $1400 to me effectively means you are asking me to work an extra year of my life prior to retirement in order to fund these poor decision makers. I have a BIG problem with that.
Exactly. People who really have disabilities and our elderly live on paupers wages while money scammed by people who are poor because they choose to be gets burned. Again the liberal logic to protect tge latter group at the expense of the former is mind blowing.
Couple more thoughts:
Not asking, rather society is telling you. We have generally agreed as a society to provide a safety net.
The $4 per day is regressively funded (and should be) - those who have worked hard and benefitted the most can and should shoulder more of the burden to assist those who haven't. You pay less. I will pay more.
I would suggest you are over indexing on the choice aspect. Education, role modelling, requiring something (say public service) for access to welfare benefits provide mechanisms and incentives to get off the system or at least offset the costs with some benefits.
And here we are back at square one.... @HighStickHarry 's question.
@cableok Very pertinent and overlooked point in your post about the expansiveness of the safety net working against the growth of sounder decisions by those who have made poor ones.
I submitted that the ever continuing push to expand a safety net, at this point, only serves to enable more poor decisions. Poor decision makers have no incentive to ask and answer (honestly) the life-changing question: Do I have a problem?
The disadvantaged in this country don't have the latest iphone, premium cable channels, granite counter tops, and stainless steel appliances..... rough.
If someone is satisfied with what food stamps and section 8 provide then c'est la vie. For every one of those, you have dozens if not hundreds (IMO - I got no data here) who do or will want for more.
This is where we split. No ci la vestie. You can't just choose to suck tit. At a minimum there needs to be a community service requirement. I see some vertical gardening in metro areas that could really expand with some manpower.
As Harry has asked, for those that "want for more," what is not in place needed for them to succeed?
