WP a liberal forum?

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Your country is broken. Find a better country to live in.

It's still a choice. $17/hour is damn good money...if you want to work in a mine. As nobody goes from minimum wage to CEO, you're also making an apples to oranges comparison.



I don't disagree, but the "corporate" environment isn't all there is. I know many who are doing well self-employed in trades providing services to people. Maybe you're not "built" to be your own boss, but the options are there, and most kids growing up now are learning that college will not produce employ ability, so they are learning to look at occupations in a new light and new paradigm. Those of us brought up under the old paradigm are having the most difficulty adjusting to how things have changed.



I equally dislike temp agencies and how they are exploited and, in turn, exploit people. Nonetheless, this has nothing to do with "right to work" laws or states. "Right to work" means you can't be forced to join a union to apply to or keep your job. Unions do not ensure better pay, treatment or job security. Unless you have a contract, everyone has an "at will" employment arrangement with their employer, and even contract workers are probably "at will" in that their contract says so. Even in an "at will" relationship, if the employer has a policy and procedure manual governing hiring and firing, the employer is legally bound to their own policy manual as it becomes a contract by its creation.



Non argument. Sales is an ugly and cutthroat business. Only people who excel at it do well, and in many places they have to watch their backs so that other sales staff (or management) doesn't steal their sales or customers out from under them. Most good salespeople change jobs many times before they find a place where they are treated differently. I've tried sales work, and I know how ugly and difficult it is.



Again, apples and oranges. People born into affluence will always be better off. For the rest of us, the ability to make something of life is still tied largely to what we choose to make of our lives. Those of us with AS or other disabilities have more of a challenge, but you can't sit there and say there are no options.

Hell, I'm considering packing my stuff and moving...even if it means going bankrupt...because there is NOTHING here opening up for me. Oh, there's stuff here, but for me, it's all low pay and part time. I can't be taken seriously if I try to apply long-distance, so I'm thinking of packing up, going where I'd rather live, and see what happens. It would be SAFER to stay here and make the best of it, but if I don't elect to take a chance, then I'm dependent on what happens locally to find prosperity. If I elect to take a chance, yes, I may fail, but I might also succeed.

The ordinary (non affluent) people I know who live well have one thing in common, THEY TAKE RISKS. They don't take blind risks, but they take risks. Many of them have "issues" of their own to overcome (not AS per se). They find something they can do and risk loosing it all to make something of it. They've had success and failures, but they made the effort to try.

Sitting back and expecting the state to solve your problems for you is not the answer. If everyone did that, the system would come apart overnight because NOBODY would be making the money to pay for what you get.

Go on YouTube and search for "Eat The Rich." It spells out how if we confiscated 100% of what the "1%" had, we'd barely make it through ONE budget year in the USA. Even they don't have the resources to support the existing government budget. What makes you think they can take care of any of us long-term?

I wish to never see that image again.The first time I saw that pic I readd that the child died, and the photographer committed suicide later.If you couldn't get that image out of your mind,I don't really blame him.

how lucky for them. what about all the people in the world who work hard and take smart risks and still lose their jobs and homes? you do realise that whether the risks you take turn out well for you depends largely on luck and on who you know, right?

but f**k the unlucky people, amiright? it's their own fault for not working harder at being lucky.

Kevin Carter. There's a song about him.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp9_Ng3wzt4[/youtube]

Patsy Straightwoman interviews Benjie Arnborough on this matter.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgONAAir4ls[/youtube]


PS: But seriously, you must realise your story is inspirational?
BA: Yeah but seriously, why?
PS: Because it shows with determination and hard work anyone can be a world champion.
BA: What? No. No, that's not what my story shows at all. Wow, you really haven't understood my story. No, my story shows that with determination and hard work, I can become world champion. I mean, that's it. That's what I've spent my whole life proving.
PS: But the message applies to anyone.
BA: No! No - the message literally only applies to me. That's the whole point of making it a race. Do you think the people I beat didn't work hard? They really did - I saw them. And their story shows that with determination and hard work, you can come second. Or eigth. Or not qualify. Or not even be selected. And there are loads and loads of people with that story, and only me with mine. Mine is a statistical anomaly - you should discount it.

Now you're taking the issue to the opposite extreme. You are also talking about another issue entirely.

Welfare is about handing a person what they need to live rather than expecting them to work for it. If you want to debate the issue of job creation/destruction, that's another topic and not really related to the virtues of a public assistance program.

yes, job destruction/availability and the need for public assistance are topics which are unrelated. i should have realised how obvious this is.

Getting back to the original topic, I do feel that the forum is somewhat hostile to non-liberals, and that some of the broad brush generalizations that are allowed to stand unchallenged can make it a pretty unwelcoming environment if you're not of the "correct" political alignment and/or don't have thick skin. I've probably done more than anyone to fight for greater freedom of opinion within the PPR forum here on WP and for a more "relaxed" interpretation of the ToS within the forum, but I do have a problem with posts that do not contribute but merely antagonize people, which on this board disproportionately means attacks on conservatives and religious folks. Being neither conservative nor religious, I don't really have a dog in those fights, but my general interest in fairness and a good forum atmosphere compels me to get involved.

Yeah, I am sympathizing with your post here, but for sure, it does in fact feel that way.

I think that is because of the nature of the political positions. I think that a lot of liberal topics feel as personal to us as gun rights feel to conservatives, but that the conservative counterpositions are not nearly as passionate. So when we talk about welfare we are in a way taking responsiblity as individuals for the macro-scale problems of poverty etc. When I hear "get rid of welfare" that translates to me as "I'm in favor of people starving to death in the streets," and many conservative positions seem to be a collective "not my problem."

It really does come down to collectivism vs individualism. Liberals feel societal failings are a collective problem in the overall structuring of society that can be fixed. Conservatives feel that all outcomes are individual and feel that not only can inequality not be "fixed" but that it should not or serves a purpose.

However I can somewhat see the problem. If 17$/hr is seen as "damn good money" than part of the problem is the conservatives are hard to differentiate from the welfare recipients. At least where I live, 17/$ isn't enough money to own property, much less raise a college bound family. It's basically what you earn at starbucks/ costco/ or aldi eg unskilled labor jobs at companies not led by capitalist labor efficiency minimalists. For someone to whom 17$/hr is the aspiration I can see where others receiving a leg up to almost the same level of themselves would seem unfair because despite all of their efforts they feel as if they are just barely scraping by. Rather than recognize that not as an individual problem effecting only them and understanding that it is in fact a structural problem created intentionally, they see it as a personal failing to work quite hard enough. Therefore a welfare recipient must have some severe moral failing to even accept such a "handout." This largely extends from the failure of many individuals to understand the relationship, or lack thereof, between the price of their work, or wage, and the value of their work. Quite simply the reason you are "jealous" of welfare recipients is not because they receive too much but because you receive to little for your work. There are a few professions that are so lean that wages actually do reflect value-added, such as working in a low-profit sandwich-shop. But most in most industrial and post-industrial professions the "profit" of each worker exceeds their wage by several multiples but the valuation of their work is in perpetual decline. Any argument on the point is moot, however, as the problem is not that someone who views 17$/hr as a "damn good wage" makes too little but that their expectations have been conditioned to be just low enough to be grateful to be trickled down upon.

Social welfare in the US gives barely enough or less than enough to survive. We have one of the highest GDP.P.C.'s in the world for an economy of our volume and yet our wages are less than midling. The idea that we "can't afford" welfare is a myth. GDPPC is 51000, going up every year. Average wages are 31,000. That 20K represents a transfer of wealth from the wage earning class to the investor class. I understand the math isn't that simple, but each year the portion of total weath of the nation rises, the total wealth% held by the 1% goes up and the total percentage held by the 99% goes down. In real terms the marginal increase of total wealth on the 1% is greater than the total marginal increase of wealth for the 99%. When adjusted for inflation the 99% are losing total value i.e. you literally have less money on average than the year before. This is a new phenomena as the percentages tended to remain static and everyone tended to have more wealth each year, but no longer.

idk. It's a pointless debate and at this point I realize I am, in fact, being openly hostile thus proving op's point.