StrangeSox

Apparently not, if those jobs are going unfilled.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 10:07 AM) There are currently some 3 million unfilled jobs in America right now. That doesn't seem like a "personal responsibility" thing. They want skilled, trained labor for $12/hour.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 10:03 AM) Don't be. I bet every last person here knows a 20 something that's not working BECAUSE they can't find the job THEY WANT. They can find jobs...just not the exact job or pay they're looking for...so they CHOOSE to not work instead. I'm one person and I can produce 5 people I know doing this right now. I'd bet you could name a few yourself...and so can everyone else here. So please, let's not pretend otherwise. My brother and my bro-in-law, sort of, they're both working to get music careers off the ground and live at home working odd jobs. I don't know that this represents a 'problem' that needs to be addressed on a societal level, though.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 10:03 AM) Yeah, it was more the bs comment "I don't know what you are saying here." No I honestly don't understand what the point you were making there was. That could entirely be on my end.

Cite/source?

I am skeptical that there's a meaningful number of people sitting on their asses trying to get their "dream job" and don't take any other work.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 09:57 AM) Perhaps people will buck up and take responsibility? Maybe someone will stop sitting on their ass trying to get their dream job and instead take the job that is open until they actually have a shot at their dream job? Is this a situation that actually represents a meaningful number of people?

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 09:49 AM) And honestly, the intellectual elitism is just dripping off your fingers right now...for some of you folks that are always out to save those less-fortunate than you...well, I will just leave it at this: it's pretty f***ing ironic. One of the big pitfalls with regular American liberalism is falling into a high-brow paternalism.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 09:44 AM) We haven't had a thread on poverty, SS. We've had a thread on the life expectancy of Americans and the "wussification" of America. Neither of those, in my opinion, are subjects which require a discussion of the structural causes of poverty. I view the framing of the eating/exercise habits discussion in a similar manner, though I do believe personal agency is more important there. But if we're going to look at issues in our society that are that broad, I'm going to reject the 'direct causation'/"personal responsibility/failings" angle in favor of a systematic approach. You're right that I can sometimes derail s*** with hobby-horses, though.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 09:27 AM) I love how you guys have grabbed this "lazy poors" thing the last few weeks and run with it. I don't think anyone ever used that phrase, I know I certainly did not. If poverty really is the result of individual moral failings, then that's an accurate-but-critical portrayal of what's been said repeatedly in this thread. If you're going to attribute poverty to a lack of personal responsibility, you're just saying "lazy poors" in nicer language. At least, that's my view of things. I don't know what you're saying here. Ceaselessly ignoring the structural causes of poverty and talking only about "personal responsibility" means you're not focusing on the actual problems that need to be addressed. Especially when plenty of poor people are hard-working and responsible.

I don't view poverty as some sort of moral failing. If you want to go to an individual, case-by-case level, sure, you can probably find examples. But the problem of poverty as a whole? Never. edit: here's an interview I've found that gets into the difference in the framing of poverty being individualistic or systematic. http://newsframes.wordpress.com/2012/12/06...ty-framing-jrf/

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 09:10 AM) Honestly, you and Balta are the ones that are always assigning blame to some larger cause, rather than actually expecting people to show some kind of responsibility on their own. Plenty of people in s***ty situations are hard-working and responsible people. Plenty of people in great situations work no harder than them. I think understanding why is important and that blaming it on lazy poors is just a reflexive defense of privileges you've been given in life.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 09:03 AM) My point is, you don't have have to "rig" the system to "de-rig" unearned opportunity from others. Those who receive unearned opportunity eventually squander it on their own. But rigging one system to de-rig another, especially when it's unnecessary, is an absurd idea to me. The proverb three generations shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves exists for a reason...and while sometimes it takes more or less than the three generations, it eventually happens. Those who gain things without having to earn them tend to squander them rather quickly. In all cultures. I'm not sure how much it's a zero-sum game, but to whatever extent that it is, you do need to remove the unearned privileges that one group or class enjoys if you're to take away the corresponding disadvantage. e.g. to whatever extend males enjoy an unearned privilege in today's society, if we're to make women truly equal, that privilege will need to be removed from men. If you're only thinking about it in terms of inherited wealth, I think you're going to miss most of the picture.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 09:02 AM) I'm just curious...for you and SS...is there ever anywhere you draw the line and say "ok, at some point, a human being has to take responsibility for him/herself and actually do something"? Or are there always societal or cultural factors...someone else to blame...some government or a political figure or a study to cite? Why can't it be both individual and societal and, maybe more importantly, nothing to do with "blame" at all?

Every system has problems, yeah, that doesn't mean you don't work to correct or fix them. Not sure where you'd get "1984" from that, though. That was a system with rigid class structures based on a totalitarian government; reducing class, race, gender etc. socioeconomic discrepancies doesn't really require anything like that. edit: fun tangential fact: for as often as Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm get cited by people making a conservative argument, it should be noted that Orwell was a dedicated Trotskyite.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 08:44 AM) I'm not saying that people are "wussys" because they were dealt a bad hand, either. But I will say it's better to be dealt a bad hand in this country than it is in many others. For some, life will be easy street...take for example, a person like Paris Hilton. In comparison to her, my life was hell trying to get from there to here. I worked 3 jobs, went to school full time, and lived with my parents. For someone else, MY life was easy street. So, you can throw your hands up, claim the system is rigged and give up...and make excuses all along the road to failure...or you can accept that s***ty hand you were dealt, make the best of it, and TRY to stack the deck a little for your kids, so the hand they're dealt will be just a little better than the one you had to deal with. You can also work to understand and de-rig the system so that fewer people are dealt unearned s*** or unearned privilege.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 08:28 AM) Then they have other choices to make, don't they. That's not a question, it's a statement. I made the most of my opportunities, when I could have just as easily squandered them. Some people have it better, some people have it worse. And life isn't fair, but it goes on with or without your excuses, or your permission. If you wan't your kids to have better opportunities than you had, then sacrifice for them, like my father did for me. It's not like were talking about some guy that had everything handed to him. He was an immigrant from Germany, during WWII...you know, when everyone LOVED German people who could barely speak English in the United States. He was such a beloved figure here, that when he arrived, they threw high paying jobs at him. Oh, wait...they didn't. He could have leaned on lame ass excuses, too. But he didn't. Somehow, he made it, without all the opportunities he afforded me. Someone eventually has to stop making excuses and recognize they will only get so far...but perhaps they can enable their children to make it a bit farther. And so on down the line. Or...f*** it, let's just make excuses, instead. Because it's easier. It's easier to imagine that everyone is a "wussy" who made bad choices if they're in a s***ty spot in life than to actually try to dig down and understand social structures, opportunities, privileges, generational poverty, etc. and that the experiences of immigrants from 50+ years ago are relevant to today's opportunities for the poor and middle class. There's nothing wrong with making the most of the opportunities you've been presented with. It's just that, for a lot of people, those opportunities are still pretty s***. And because the path to those opportunities is much more perilous, it's much easier to have one minor misstep result in them being squandered.

For a lot of people, the options aren't "stay at a (stable) home with parents" or "go party in college"

Kansas GOP House Speaker ‘Prays’ That Obama’s ‘Children Be Fatherless And His Wife A Widow’

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment We don't really know how we'd act if we were in 1930's Germany, or the Antebellum South, or apartheid South Africa etc.

Some great posts there,badger.

Yes, I'm "enraged" at your comment. Good call.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Jan 19, 2013 -> 01:20 PM) You're just cherrypicking because my argument made you uncomfortable. I know you dont actually believe the industrialized slaughter of 50 million people in a 6 year span is preferable to one girl being date-raped. But you are proving my point for me. Addicted to outrage, the truth hurts so you run behind your state-deity hoping to be shielded. I'm cherrypicking because I don't take you seriously, not because you are making me "uncomfortable." Not sure where you're seeing outrage, though, or running behind a "state-deity." It's mostly just laughing at this thread as a microcosm of why reactionary conservatism is so terrible.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Jan 19, 2013 -> 01:18 PM) Yes, you are so ignorant. Just look at his point and try to not argue about his choice of material to compare. You know what he meant, you are just being a dick in arguing that point. I'm glad that the stopping of the Nazis means nothing to you. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. lol, we go from unsolicited and irrelevant "rape isn't as bad as WWII!" to "you don't care about stopping the Nazis!"

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Jan 19, 2013 -> 01:02 PM) If you're scared of bridges, make an effort to never go over them unless you absolutely have to. Seems like a stupid idea though doesn't it? Yes, that seems like a monumentally stupid idea compared to having engineering and design standards so that people don't have to evaluate the structural integrity of every bridge they cross.