The American problem? Our "poor" have it too easy.

[bucs90]

Exactly. The poor have a free ride. They do better taking a handout than they could working. Why work?

Poverty is like a bed.

The more comfortable a person is in it, they longer they'll stay in it.

We've made American Poverty an envious position for 95% of the rest of humans on Earth. No wonder our poor aren't in a big hurry to get out of it. It's an easy life.

 

[kwc57]

I am sure that you and everyone else on this board is willing to trade places with them

Hell no. I did like my dad and his dad before him......the way I raised my son. You go to school, you do your homework, low grades are not acceptable, you get a part time job in high school and develop a work ethic, you go to college and you get a job when you get out. You keep your nose clean and stay away from drugs and alcohol. The end product is a a good life. Why would I trade places with people who won't follow an age old proven path to success?

 

[rightwinger]

I was one of them. I grew up poor. And thank God I grew up as a "poor" person in America............because unlike the rest of the world, I had all the opportunities to work myself into a middle class life. I took advantage of a free public education and my parents made me get good grades (or else!). Took advantage of several chances to improve my future, and did so.

Had I grown up poor in just about any other country on Earth, I'd have remained poor.

But in America, staying in our poor class is a choice. That choice is much easier made in youth, and the choice to get out of it gets harder as one gets older.

There has always been opportunity in this country.

But some Americans grow up with two strikes against them while others grow up standing on third base.

Doesn't mean everyone has an equal chance to score

Ah, so we come to the nobility of good parenting and the merit of setting one's children up for a better future. Giving one's child a "head start" is very noble, unselfish. Is that WRONG to do? No. It's honorable.

But everyone DOES have an equal chance to score. We guarantee chance, not outcome.

But it is impossible to make the road equally difficult, or easy, for every human. Each of us has our own path to follow, with various challenges on each. But we each CHOOSE to react to them how we do.

Drop out of high school, get pregnant out of wedlock, do drugs, buy $5,000 rims for your car? Probably gonna struggle. Vote for a guy just because you want more handouts? Yep. Not gonna work out.

Children don't get to choose their parents.

We each must play the hand we are dealt. Some are dealt a great hand while others get a handful of crap. It is easy to look at those who do not succeed in life and blame them for their situation. There have always been poor people in this country and every other country. With our economic system today, it is harder not easier to escape from poverty

 

[Truthmatters]

So what do you all suggest we do?

Let the poor starve and our economy will boom right?

 

[bucs90]

The system won't allow me to neg rep you anymore...

Your "opinion" is yours and you are allowed to have it. However, to speak of so many of our homeless vets in such a manner relegates you to the trash pile.

I have the highest admiration for our military. But being a vet does not make one immune from criticism. Timothy McVeigh was a vet, and he's the scum of the Earth (was, thank God we got rid of him).

But you are practicing typical left wing ideals. You do not want to confront a hard truth. And that hard truth is that most poor people CHOSE to get poor or stay poor. Not by desire to be poor, but by desire to not do what it takes to avoid it.

Your words about our vets show otherwise. And while you may have some vaild points about some of "the poor" in this country, to paint with the broad brush you are shows how little you actually know, or even care to know.

Don't blame me. Blame the VA. The Dept of Veterans Affairs states that over 70% of homeless vets are substance abuse addicts: About Homeless People & Drugs | eHow.com

If arguing facts is uncomfortable to you, I suggest debating someone else, like truthmatters perhaps.

But I operate in the truth my good friend!

 

[CountofTuscany]

Exactly. The poor have a free ride. They do better taking a handout than they could working. Why work?

Poverty is like a bed.

The more comfortable a person is in it, they longer they'll stay in it.

We've made American Poverty an envious position for 95% of the rest of humans on Earth. No wonder our poor aren't in a big hurry to get out of it. It's an easy life.

when you figure these people are used to nothing, even poverty levels are a step up for them. Before welfare and social programs people found a way to make it work out. Because they had to. Handouts take away a lot of the incentive.

 

[VaYank5150]

So what do you all suggest we do?

Let the poor starve and our economy will boom right?

And don't forget to step over the dead bodies of the poor who cannot afford food, shelter, health insurance, etc etc....

 

[CountofTuscany]

So what do you all suggest we do?

Let the poor starve and our economy will boom right?

How did they get by before welfare and social programs? They found a way. We wouldn't have this immigration problem if we didn't offer a free ride. But we are flooded with poor because we welcome them with handouts. Social programs created our problems

 

[VaYank5150]

I have the highest admiration for our military. But being a vet does not make one immune from criticism. Timothy McVeigh was a vet, and he's the scum of the Earth (was, thank God we got rid of him).

But you are practicing typical left wing ideals. You do not want to confront a hard truth. And that hard truth is that most poor people CHOSE to get poor or stay poor. Not by desire to be poor, but by desire to not do what it takes to avoid it.

Your words about our vets show otherwise. And while you may have some vaild points about some of "the poor" in this country, to paint with the broad brush you are shows how little you actually know, or even care to know.

Don't blame me. Blame the VA. The Dept of Veterans Affairs states that over 70% of homeless vets are substance abuse addicts: About Homeless People & Drugs | eHow.com

If arguing facts is uncomfortable to you, I suggest debating someone else, like truthmatters perhaps.

But I operate in the truth my good friend!

And these "drug addicts" are caused by what? War, death, killing, maming, perhaps? I DO blame the VA for their condition, but I blame you for claiming they CHOOSE to be drug addicts. You say you deal in facts. Where are the facts that show they CHOOSE to be homeless and drug addicts?

 

[CountofTuscany]

So what do you all suggest we do?

Let the poor starve and our economy will boom right?

And don't forget to step over the dead bodies of the poor who cannot afford food, shelter, health insurance, etc etc....

The problem grows because there is no incentive to improve.

 

[VaYank5150]

So what do you all suggest we do?

Let the poor starve and our economy will boom right?

How did they get by before welfare and social programs? They found a way. We wouldn't have this immigration problem if we didn't offer a free ride. But we are flooded with poor because we welcome them with handouts. Social programs created our problems

Ummmm...corporate GREED caused our illegal immigration problem.

 

[bucs90]

So what do you all suggest we do?

Let the poor starve and our economy will boom right?

My opinion?

They WON'T starve. Necessity breeds independence. How many run-down, seldom used parks or playgrounds are around poor neighborhoods? Plenty. It's just dead space. Space that crops can grow. Or people can fish. Or OPEN THEIR OWN BUSINESS.

If you keep handing out free food stamps, they'll NEVER use the resources around them. Thats what you libs don't get.

You left wingers DON'T BELIEVE IN HUMANITY!!!!!

I hate poverty. People are capable of so much more. But if you keep telling them they can't overcome, they can't do it, they start to believe it. ANYONE of any race or gender can make it!!! From ANY starting point. But you all simply don't believe in people and their ability. I do. But I also believe it's easy to convince some that they can't do it, that they are in too deep to get out on their own, and thus, must depend on the government.

I disagree. If we believe in the people, they'll thrive. But we first gotta stop convincing them that they can't do it without Daddy Government.

 

[midcan5]

This is the root of why we are struggling. The poor have it too easy. We have a massive class of people that are purely dependent on others to get by. Here is how.....

The poor! That is almost too funny for comment, if you said the privileged had it too easy at least you be on the right track. Why do people take their own luck in life and assume everyone should have the same luck. The unemployed are looking for work, when thousands turn up for a few jobs, I guess they have it too easy. What pure BS. Americans have lost their soul. Here's some of the easy: The Conservative Nanny State


"In the last year we seem to have suddenly awakened, rubbing our eyes like Rip van Winkle, to the fact that mass poverty persists, and that it is one of our two gravest social problems. (The other is related: While only eleven per cent of our population is non-white, twenty-five per cent of our poor are.) Two other current books confirm Mr. Harrington’s thesis: “Wealth and Power in America” (Praeger), by Dr. Gabriel Kolko, a social historian who has recently been at Harvard and the University of Melbourne, Australia, and “Income and Welfare in the United States” (McGraw-Hill), compiled by an imposing battery of four socio-economists headed by Dr. James N. Morgan, who rejoices in the title of Program Director of the Survey Research Center of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.

Dr. Kolko’s book resembles Mr. Harrington’s in several ways: It is short, it is based on earlier studies, and it is liberally inclined. It is less readable, because it is written in an academic jargon that is merely a vehicle for the clinching Statistic. Although it is impossible to write seriously about poverty without a copious use of statistics—as this review will demonstrate—it is possible to bring thought and feeling to bear on such raw material. Mr. Harrington does this more successfully than Dr. Kolko, whose prose is afflicted not only with academic blight but also with creeping ideology. Dr. Kolko leans so far to the socialist side that he sometimes falls on his nose, as when he clinches the inequality of wealth in the United States with a statistic: “In 1959, 23% of those earning less than $1,000 [a year] owned a car, compared to 95% of those earning more than $10,000.” The real point is just the opposite, as any citizen of Iran, Ghana, Yemen, or the U.S.S.R. would appreciate—not that the rich have cars but that almost a quarter of the extremely poor do...." Books: Our Invisible Poor : The New Yorker

 

[bucs90]

Your words about our vets show otherwise. And while you may have some vaild points about some of "the poor" in this country, to paint with the broad brush you are shows how little you actually know, or even care to know.

Don't blame me. Blame the VA. The Dept of Veterans Affairs states that over 70% of homeless vets are substance abuse addicts: About Homeless People & Drugs | eHow.com

If arguing facts is uncomfortable to you, I suggest debating someone else, like truthmatters perhaps.

But I operate in the truth my good friend!

And these "drug addicts" are caused by what? War, death, killing, maming, perhaps? I DO blame the VA for their condition, but I blame you for claiming they CHOOSE to be drug addicts. You say you deal in facts. Where are the facts that show they CHOOSE to be homeless and drug addicts?

Easy.

The day after they graduated boot camp they:

1- Were not using drugs
2- Had a gov't provided or subsidized home through the military

At some point, they made decisions that changed both 1 and 2.

And if you are gonna argue it's the military's fault for sending them to war, well, I've been into military recruiting offices. They have posters with, you know.....tanks, guns, battleships, etc. They don't promise you a job at a water theme park, they fight wars.

 

[CountofTuscany]

So what do you all suggest we do?

Let the poor starve and our economy will boom right?

How did they get by before welfare and social programs? They found a way. We wouldn't have this immigration problem if we didn't offer a free ride. But we are flooded with poor because we welcome them with handouts. Social programs created our problems

Ummmm...corporate GREED caused our illegal immigration problem.

Now please explain how corporate greed has created the poor.

 

[VaYank5150]

How did they get by before welfare and social programs? They found a way. We wouldn't have this immigration problem if we didn't offer a free ride. But we are flooded with poor because we welcome them with handouts. Social programs created our problems

Ummmm...corporate GREED caused our illegal immigration problem.

Now please explain how corporate greed has created the poor.

Reading and/or comprehension is not your strong suit, is it?

 

[midcan5]

Another Conservative suggestion:

For Preventing The Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being Aburden to Their Parents or Country, and For Making Them Beneficial to The Public By Jonathan Swift

”I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled ...” Jonathan Swift - A Modest Proposal

 

[CountofTuscany]

So what do you all suggest we do?

Let the poor starve and our economy will boom right?

How did they get by before welfare and social programs? They found a way. We wouldn't have this immigration problem if we didn't offer a free ride. But we are flooded with poor because we welcome them with handouts. Social programs created our problems

Ummmm...corporate GREED caused our illegal immigration problem.

Uhm no it hasn't. Lack of enforcement of laws has allowed it. More people flood in than there are jobs. No problem, we cover them. Cut off the gravy train and watch how fast the problem goes away.

 

[bucs90]

Bottom line is if you are poor in America, it's because you made decisions to get there, or have made decisions to stay there. There is not evidence to disprove that.

 

[CountofTuscany]

Ummmm...corporate GREED caused our illegal immigration problem.

Now please explain how corporate greed has created the poor.

Reading and/or comprehension is not your strong suit, is it?

And giving a legitimate, fact based answer isn't yours. So your point is?