What is racism and is this it"

[Ernie S.]

I'm wondering if this sounds like a racist statement to people here. Is it more rich white guy hate speech or a sane and logical statement of fact?

Those who regard government "entitlement" programs as sacrosanct, and regard those who want to cut them back as calloused or cruel, picture a world very different from the world of reality.

To listen to some of the defenders of entitlement programs, which are at the heart of the present financial crisis, you might think that anything the government fails to provide is something that people will be deprived of.

In other words, if you cut spending on school lunches, children will go hungry. If you fail to subsidize housing, people will be homeless. If you fail to subsidize prescription drugs, old people will have to eat dog food in order to be able to afford their meds.

This is the vision promoted by many politicians and much of the media. But, in the world of reality, it is not even true for most people who are living below the official poverty line.

 

[Wiseacre]

There's nothing whatsoever to do with racism in that quote.

 

[Zoom-boing]

Not even remotely racist.

 

[Zona]

Greatest thread ever.

 

[Grace]

I didn't see anything racist. Who said it? Where? Why? To whom?

 

[Epsilon Delta]

There's nothing racist about it, yet there's nothing sane and logical about it either.

 

[Epsilon Delta]

I didn't see anything racist. Who said it? Where? Why? To whom?

Dependency and Votes - Thomas Sowell - National Review Online

Thomas Sowell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Hint: He's black)

 

[Ernie S.]

It seems that the liberal race baiters here read Sowell or are skilled with Google. I've seen so many here cry racist when a Conservative advocates cutting entitlements.

Epsilon Delta, perhaps you could explain to the unenlightened just what about the couple paragraphs I quoted is not sane and logical.

 

[JBeukema]

The op is a fucking racist who wants black and brown babies to starve

 

[Epsilon Delta]

It seems that the liberal race baiters here read Sowell or are skilled with Google. I've seen so many here cry racist when a Conservative advocates cutting entitlements.

Epsilon Delta, perhaps you could explain to the unenlightened just what about the couple paragraphs I quoted is not sane and logical.

Well, I haven't read the whole article, mind you, but, for starters, the claim that somehow welfare is at the "heart" of the current economic crisis is simply unfounded. Then there's the claim cutting subsidies on school lunches, housing, and meds would not result in people going without school lunches, housing, and meds - this is simply not logical and furthermore goes entirely against elementary economic theory.

A subsidy on any normal good allows more people access to it: if oil is subsidized, more people can afford to buy more oil, if the subsidy ends less people can afford to do so. Eliminating the subsidy may not have much societal significance if the good in question is comic books or cookies, but when the good in question is housing or medicine there are human consequences. Now, it is perfectly reasonable for someone to question whether the subsidy is worth it, or whether it is 'good' or 'bad' or whatever - that's all perfectly debatable. What isn't debatable is that the end of subsidies on things like school lunches, housing, and medicine will necessarily make at least some people go hungry, homeless, and med-less. Again, whether this is acceptable or not is debatable, that it would occur is not.

In the American context, it's safe to say that the majority of the poor would not be hungry or homeless (maybe med-less) - they would just shift consumption to cheaper alternatives like McDonald's Dollar Menu items, city-limits shanties, and subsidized medicines from Mexico and Canada (as millions already do). After all, it's not like everyone is homeless and starving in welfare-less countries like Honduras and the Central African Republic - people definitely get by, just... not as well, and not as many.

 

[luckystrike]

The op is a fucking racist who wants black and brown babies to starve

Have you ever seen a skinny Mexican????? It is the Latin American that doesn't give a shit if the rest of the world starves.

 

[Warrior102]

I'm wondering if this sounds like a racist statement to people here. Is it more rich white guy hate speech or a sane and logical statement of fact?

Those who regard government "entitlement" programs as sacrosanct, and regard those who want to cut them back as calloused or cruel, picture a world very different from the world of reality.

To listen to some of the defenders of entitlement programs, which are at the heart of the present financial crisis, you might think that anything the government fails to provide is something that people will be deprived of.

In other words, if you cut spending on school lunches, children will go hungry. If you fail to subsidize housing, people will be homeless. If you fail to subsidize prescription drugs, old people will have to eat dog food in order to be able to afford their meds.

This is the vision promoted by many politicians and much of the media. But, in the world of reality, it is not even true for most people who are living below the official poverty line.

You mention he's rich.
How do you know this?
At one point is one rich?

 

[Ernie S.]

It seems that the liberal race baiters here read Sowell or are skilled with Google. I've seen so many here cry racist when a Conservative advocates cutting entitlements.

Epsilon Delta, perhaps you could explain to the unenlightened just what about the couple paragraphs I quoted is not sane and logical.

Well, I haven't read the whole article, mind you, but, for starters, the claim that somehow welfare is at the "heart" of the current economic crisis is simply unfounded. Then there's the claim cutting subsidies on school lunches, housing, and meds would not result in people going without school lunches, housing, and meds - this is simply not logical and furthermore goes entirely against elementary economic theory.

A subsidy on any normal good allows more people access to it: if oil is subsidized, more people can afford to buy more oil, if the subsidy ends less people can afford to do so. Eliminating the subsidy may not have much societal significance if the good in question is comic books or cookies, but when the good in question is housing or medicine there are human consequences. Now, it is perfectly reasonable for someone to question whether the subsidy is worth it, or whether it is 'good' or 'bad' or whatever - that's all perfectly debatable. What isn't debatable is that the end of subsidies on things like school lunches, housing, and medicine will necessarily make at least some people go hungry, homeless, and med-less. Again, whether this is acceptable or not is debatable, that it would occur is not.

In the American context, it's safe to say that the majority of the poor would not be hungry or homeless (maybe med-less) - they would just shift consumption to cheaper alternatives like McDonald's Dollar Menu items, city-limits shanties, and subsidized medicines from Mexico and Canada (as millions already do). After all, it's not like everyone is homeless and starving in welfare-less countries like Honduras and the Central African Republic - people definitely get by, just... not as well, and not as many.

Thank you for your well thought out response.
While I have no problem with government providing a safety net for those who have fallen on hard times, our welfare system tends to make people dependent on government handouts and removes incentive people need to pull themselves out of the hole they find themselves in.
It's the old "give a man a fish" parable. We have passed out free fish for so long, we've created a voting block that demands more fishes but hasn't the incentive to learn to fish for themselves.
The "poor" get enough assistance that they can afford nice cars, flat screen tv's, cell phones for their kids and $100 plus sneakers. Why?
People should not be "comfortable" of welfare. They should not live as well as the blue collar working stiff who's saving up to buy a house and is paying for their fish with his taxes.

 

[Ernie S.]

I'm wondering if this sounds like a racist statement to people here. Is it more rich white guy hate speech or a sane and logical statement of fact?

Those who regard government "entitlement" programs as sacrosanct, and regard those who want to cut them back as calloused or cruel, picture a world very different from the world of reality.

To listen to some of the defenders of entitlement programs, which are at the heart of the present financial crisis, you might think that anything the government fails to provide is something that people will be deprived of.

In other words, if you cut spending on school lunches, children will go hungry. If you fail to subsidize housing, people will be homeless. If you fail to subsidize prescription drugs, old people will have to eat dog food in order to be able to afford their meds.

This is the vision promoted by many politicians and much of the media. But, in the world of reality, it is not even true for most people who are living below the official poverty line.

You mention he's rich.
How do you know this?
At one point is one rich?

1. Dr Sowell is well off I guess. He's an economics professor, has written several books, has syndicated weekly columns. I'd imagine he is in that over 250 grand/year income group that obama loves to vilify. By the way, in case you haven't read the entire thread, here's a photo of Dr. Sowell:

2. I know this because I read his columns and some biographical material.
3. I'll let you know when I get there.

 

[Sallow]

It seems that the liberal race baiters here read Sowell or are skilled with Google. I've seen so many here cry racist when a Conservative advocates cutting entitlements.

Epsilon Delta, perhaps you could explain to the unenlightened just what about the couple paragraphs I quoted is not sane and logical.

Well, I haven't read the whole article, mind you, but, for starters, the claim that somehow welfare is at the "heart" of the current economic crisis is simply unfounded. Then there's the claim cutting subsidies on school lunches, housing, and meds would not result in people going without school lunches, housing, and meds - this is simply not logical and furthermore goes entirely against elementary economic theory.

A subsidy on any normal good allows more people access to it: if oil is subsidized, more people can afford to buy more oil, if the subsidy ends less people can afford to do so. Eliminating the subsidy may not have much societal significance if the good in question is comic books or cookies, but when the good in question is housing or medicine there are human consequences. Now, it is perfectly reasonable for someone to question whether the subsidy is worth it, or whether it is 'good' or 'bad' or whatever - that's all perfectly debatable. What isn't debatable is that the end of subsidies on things like school lunches, housing, and medicine will necessarily make at least some people go hungry, homeless, and med-less. Again, whether this is acceptable or not is debatable, that it would occur is not.

In the American context, it's safe to say that the majority of the poor would not be hungry or homeless (maybe med-less) - they would just shift consumption to cheaper alternatives like McDonald's Dollar Menu items, city-limits shanties, and subsidized medicines from Mexico and Canada (as millions already do). After all, it's not like everyone is homeless and starving in welfare-less countries like Honduras and the Central African Republic - people definitely get by, just... not as well, and not as many.

Thank you for your well thought out response.
While I have no problem with government providing a safety net for those who have fallen on hard times, our welfare system tends to make people dependent on government handouts and removes incentive people need to pull themselves out of the hole they find themselves in.
It's the old "give a man a fish" parable. We have passed out free fish for so long, we've created a voting block that demands more fishes but hasn't the incentive to learn to fish for themselves.
The "poor" get enough assistance that they can afford nice cars, flat screen tv's, cell phones for their kids and $100 plus sneakers. Why?
People should not be "comfortable" of welfare. They should not live as well as the blue collar working stiff who's saving up to buy a house and is paying for their fish with his taxes.

That, for the most part, is incorrect and part of the myth. And a good number of people that are pointing out that this plays into racism..are correct. Because it does. The people that perpetuate this myth may not be racists themselves..but they know how to play to them.

If you compare the social programs with other countries on par with the United States, around the world..the US is pretty stingy with it's poor.

 

[editec]

I'm wondering if this sounds like a racist statement to people here. Is it more rich white guy hate speech or a sane and logical statement of fact?

Those who regard government "entitlement" programs as sacrosanct, and regard those who want to cut them back as calloused or cruel, picture a world very different from the world of reality.

To listen to some of the defenders of entitlement programs, which are at the heart of the present financial crisis, you might think that anything the government fails to provide is something that people will be deprived of.

In other words, if you cut spending on school lunches, children will go hungry. If you fail to subsidize housing, people will be homeless. If you fail to subsidize prescription drugs, old people will have to eat dog food in order to be able to afford their meds.

This is the vision promoted by many politicians and much of the media. But, in the world of reality, it is not even true for most people who are living below the official poverty line.

No, it's not racist.

I don't actually know what it is since it isn't really a complete POV, is it?

 

[luckystrike]

Racism is what Latinos call the fair and just treatment of Mexicans by Americans.

 

[Ernie S.]

I'm wondering if this sounds like a racist statement to people here. Is it more rich white guy hate speech or a sane and logical statement of fact?

Those who regard government "entitlement" programs as sacrosanct, and regard those who want to cut them back as calloused or cruel, picture a world very different from the world of reality.

To listen to some of the defenders of entitlement programs, which are at the heart of the present financial crisis, you might think that anything the government fails to provide is something that people will be deprived of.

In other words, if you cut spending on school lunches, children will go hungry. If you fail to subsidize housing, people will be homeless. If you fail to subsidize prescription drugs, old people will have to eat dog food in order to be able to afford their meds.

This is the vision promoted by many politicians and much of the media. But, in the world of reality, it is not even true for most people who are living below the official poverty line.

No, it's not racist.

I don't actually know what it is since it isn't really a complete POV, is it?

Epsilon Delta provided a link to the entire column in post #7. If you want the complete POV, you can read it.
I did not provide a link in the OP because I expected more responses like Sallows and intended to link to the article once the thread developed.

 

[Epsilon Delta]

It seems that the liberal race baiters here read Sowell or are skilled with Google. I've seen so many here cry racist when a Conservative advocates cutting entitlements.

Epsilon Delta, perhaps you could explain to the unenlightened just what about the couple paragraphs I quoted is not sane and logical.

Well, I haven't read the whole article, mind you, but, for starters, the claim that somehow welfare is at the "heart" of the current economic crisis is simply unfounded. Then there's the claim cutting subsidies on school lunches, housing, and meds would not result in people going without school lunches, housing, and meds - this is simply not logical and furthermore goes entirely against elementary economic theory.

A subsidy on any normal good allows more people access to it: if oil is subsidized, more people can afford to buy more oil, if the subsidy ends less people can afford to do so. Eliminating the subsidy may not have much societal significance if the good in question is comic books or cookies, but when the good in question is housing or medicine there are human consequences. Now, it is perfectly reasonable for someone to question whether the subsidy is worth it, or whether it is 'good' or 'bad' or whatever - that's all perfectly debatable. What isn't debatable is that the end of subsidies on things like school lunches, housing, and medicine will necessarily make at least some people go hungry, homeless, and med-less. Again, whether this is acceptable or not is debatable, that it would occur is not.

In the American context, it's safe to say that the majority of the poor would not be hungry or homeless (maybe med-less) - they would just shift consumption to cheaper alternatives like McDonald's Dollar Menu items, city-limits shanties, and subsidized medicines from Mexico and Canada (as millions already do). After all, it's not like everyone is homeless and starving in welfare-less countries like Honduras and the Central African Republic - people definitely get by, just... not as well, and not as many.

Thank you for your well thought out response.
While I have no problem with government providing a safety net for those who have fallen on hard times, our welfare system tends to make people dependent on government handouts and removes incentive people need to pull themselves out of the hole they find themselves in.
It's the old "give a man a fish" parable. We have passed out free fish for so long, we've created a voting block that demands more fishes but hasn't the incentive to learn to fish for themselves.
The "poor" get enough assistance that they can afford nice cars, flat screen tv's, cell phones for their kids and $100 plus sneakers. Why?
People should not be "comfortable" of welfare. They should not live as well as the blue collar working stiff who's saving up to buy a house and is paying for their fish with his taxes.

No problem !

I understand your point of view here, but what I'm not sure of is how closely it reflects reality. Strictly speaking, you are correct to a degree - For example, let's say you lose your job and you get unemployment benefits of, oh, I dunno, $10,000 a month (to put a high figure on it) - chances are this is a huge incentive to not work, because chances are you are not going to find a job that pays you better than your unemployment checks - ergo, you spend more time unemployed, feel no rush, and in fact you might want to stay on unemployment for as long as possible - the point being "welfare makes people lazy and keeps unemployment high." Let's pretend this is the "Euro" scenario.

Now let's go down south to say, Nicaragua. In Nicaragua there are no unemployment benefits. You lose your job, chances are you do not have enough saved to get you through the next month. You need to work immediately so you can keep feeding your family. If there is no equivalent work to be found immediately, chances are you [like a great deal of people in these types of countries] are going to have to sell oranges by the freeway or hang around street corners to "watch over" people's car [fun fact: we call these dudes "watchimans"] for a couple of cents. So what occurs? People flood into the low-productivity, low-wage, usually informal-sector jobs which are unregulated, underpaid, and untaxed. You do not have time or money to look or re-train for a better paying job (as you could if there was unemployment insurance), and you get stuck in a poverty trap of sorts - along with the rest of the family that you support (ie, sending your kids to school becomes prohibitive because you need their extra income now, for example)

So these are in effect two extremes - if welfare is too high, it does remove incentives to work, but if it is too low or non-existent, it can have another wide berth of bad side-effects at the macro-level. The trick is to get it to the appropriate level and this is where the philosophical questions begin about what is appropriate or not - and this is your following point, that welfare should not be enough for flatscreen TVs and $100 sneakers. The first problem with the claim is that we don't know if that is true, and the data is shoddy, we can't really know what the poor do with their welfare - whether it is squandered in $100 sneakers or utilized for productive ends like getting an education or whatever. The reality is probably a bit of both.

Even assuming that it is used for flatscreens, cell phones, and sneakers, it is important to keep in mind an important concept in development and poverty economics which is 'absolute vs relative' poverty. If you think think poverty is absolute then virtually no Americans are poor, even someone on the bottom 10% of American society would probably be in the top 10% in Paraguay or Namibia, and chances are you would believe there should be basically no assistance unless you're literally on the street, starving. But what about relative poverty? Relative poverty, in my opinion, is more relevant because it acknowledges the very important concept of perception and relative deprivation. This might sound like bullshit - but it isn't. Psychology is a big factor in defining poverty.

Let's say that you live in a street with 10 houses (in either a really poor country, or 1960s America), only one household has a TV. TV is a luxury good reserved for this wealthiest household, nobody feels particularly deprived, because most people don't have it. You don't need it at an absolute level either way. But what happens five years later when 9 households have a TV and one does not? TV entered the mainstream, your neighbors talk about what they see, they can watch the news and gain a much broader information set on their government and elected officials, on new products, on safety concerns, maybe job opportunities advertised through TV, etc - TV begins to permeate the debate, and becomes almost necessary to function.

This is a historical constant, even Adam Smith talked about it (in his time, no self-respecting man could be seen in public without a Linen shirt, although it was entirely unnecessary 50 years prior, the lack of a Linen shirt to wear in public placed you on the 'outside,' and hurt your sense of dignity - having shoes was another example - especially if you're in the diminishing number of people who can't afford either). Even today, the TV and cell phone examples are happening in India (pretty sure I read about this in The Economist, can't be bothered to find the article now though) - they conducted a study that showed that despite rising living standards, people in India still do not get enough caloric intake, and that in fact people go hungry so that they can afford a TV or a cell phone, that even when they spend money on food, they do not increase the calories they buy but rather switch to more expensive calories (ie, instead of buying more rise, they buy meat, because this, in effect, makes them feel not as poor, which is really a function of deprivation, real or imagined).

Anyway, I'm not endorsing the idea that the poor should buy giant flat-screens or expensive Nikes. But what I do think is that this is a function of the fact that basically the entire structure of modern Western Capitalism is based on a propaganda machine whose sole purpose is making people feel deprived unless they get *this* product or *that* product. At least half of the programming on the TV that now we all have is "You need this. You want this. You can afford this under our adjustable-rate payment plan." Even normal programming seems to push this ideal of "everyone has this product" and "everyone wants this product" and "everyone lives in these massive suburban houses" and "everybody drives a Mercedes." But what is there to do about it? Ban commercials? Regulate TV programming? No... I really don't know. I guess it is a fact of life.

I digress - to get back on topic, I think making very broad statements (ie, "welfare makes people lazy!") about the subject at hand is silly. To say there should be NO welfare or that welfare should be provided for EVERYTHING is silly. What is needed is a bit of nuance in our positions - recognize, like you do, that there are situations were welfare is acceptable, also to recognize that welfare alone or welfare for everything is not workable, and to work towards sustainable, targeted programs that provide the right incentives. Programs are being adopted all over Latin America, like "Opportunidades" in Mexico, "Bolsa Familia" in Brazil, "Avancemos" here in Costa Rica, that have been effective in getting poor people to school, and they've been huge successes. There's also been programs in the past of welfare that have been total failures (like bread subsidization in Egypt, a famous example of perverse incentives in which bread was so cheap that it was literally used as feed for cattle). The point is not to totally throw out the idea of welfare but to make the programs effective.

And anyway, apologies for the extremely long post, but I'm bored. There goes my big rant on welfare.

 

[Sallow]

I'm wondering if this sounds like a racist statement to people here. Is it more rich white guy hate speech or a sane and logical statement of fact?

No, it's not racist.

I don't actually know what it is since it isn't really a complete POV, is it?

Epsilon Delta provided a link to the entire column in post #7. If you want the complete POV, you can read it.
I did not provide a link in the OP because I expected more responses like Sallows and intended to link to the article once the thread developed.

You wanted to do a gotcha..and it didn't work. I've pointed out that people employing this sort of strategies..aren't themselves racist.