It's a rich man's world, err... congress.Follow

But they're our Islamic terrorists!

Reagan was a great believer that one could divinate the future by staring at patterns of stars that vaguely resembled figures from Greek mythology. Maybe he meant those principles.

Hmm? It never ceases to amaze the amusing amount of zeal people have to propagate the myth that Reagan believed the same things they did.

The guy was obviously a brilliant politician, because he was able to make his constituency actually believe that he was just like them, that he shared the same convictions. It is doubly amusing given that no one could really tell what those convictions were. It is a triple whammy because he was hailed for having them.

So yeah, tell me what you believe, and tell me what Reagan believes. I dare you.

Edited, Jan 10th 2014 7:57pm by angrymnk

Edited, Jan 10th 2014 7:57pm by angrymnk

As much as this pains me ( seriously, you have no idea), but as someone who did grow up poor, I have to agree with Smash. When I see a poor person now, my first thought isn't "Oh that poor guy, someone should help him/them."

My immediate thought is "Lazy *** bum needs to get off his lazy *** and get his sh*t together". "Just look at him, not a pot to **** in, but he's got plenty of money for smokes, booze, tattoos and lottery tickets."


Granted, even if he did bust his *** he'd probably still be poor, but it does chap my *** to hear someone ***** about the injustices of financial inequality in America as they **** what little money they do have away.

Poverty may breed compassion, but it's just as likely to breed contempt.


Edited, Jan 11th 2014 5:51am by CoalHeart

Coming from humble beginnings only makes a person more compassionate if they have the good sense to recognize all the privilege/lucky breaks they received that led them out of poverty. Basically, if they think they did it all themselves, they will probably be just as bad or worse than someone born into money when it comes to judging poor people (I got out of it, so they can too!)

If they come from humble beginnings but are still able to see in a clear-eyed way that they won the lottery of lucky breaks to get out of it they are probably more likely to be compassionate towards people down on their luck - AND have ideas of how to create levers that people can use to break the class barrier/ways to increase social mobility.

While folks probably worked hard to get out of it, working hard alone is irrelevant. The world's poorest workers are likely also the hardest working. That means jack squat, in the real world it is all about luck, connections and privilege.

True to a point. Even though luck trumps all, the guy busting his *** to get un-poor is far more likely to achieve it than the guy sitting on his drunk *** hoping someone else saves him.

Ludicrous. In perfect identical circumstances, maybe. In the shared context we refer to as "reality" working hard is almost never the primary reason someone succeeds over another person.

Hard work means different things to different people, and things that exhaust one person will barely wear on another.

Also, work smarter not harder.

Nice pipe dreams - or maybe you've been visiting gbaji in 1959?

I do agree that this attitude that only the extremely lucky make anything out of their lives is a bunch of baloney, but we do still need to make sure that we aren't just stepping on people without any compassion at all. Minimum wage is one of those things that needs to be regulated and raised regularly, because big business has already proven that it can't govern itself. Look at how every fast food restaurant operates these days. They make money hand over fist, but still manage to have an entire fleet of employees who they don't have to pay benefits to or even schedule for a full 40 hour week. That's your free market already at work, and it's failing pretty hard. These places are going out of their way to ensure that the individual doesn't get enough hours\pay\benefits to live, and it will continue until a law is passed that says they can't do that anymore.

If there is a loophole, Corporate America will find it and exploit it until the government steps in and puts a stop to it. You want people off food stamps and government assistance? Get your rich business owner buddies to start hiring full time employees again and stop this practice of scheduling adults for 20 hour work weeks because you don't want to have to provide health insurance. Treat human beings who are working for you like human beings. You will have better employees, less turnover, and the economy will grow.

Ronnie should have looked into that then

So is someone getting a second chance then? Or are we just stringing them along playfully until the hammer falls?