If you HAD to choose:

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Some have made that argument, but I would imagine that the counter-point is also quite arguable. After all, if some protection is necessary, then it's better to take a smaller intervention than a larger one.

Excuse me? I AM poor trailer trash. Bear in mind that our economic interests happen to be low priority in the grand scheme of things. There's more to life than money.

(Though I will admit financial freedom would be nice. My family has successfully whittled down our debt to student loans ONLY, and we've become aware of an easy way to get rid of even THAT)

This also ignores that us "ruminant" trailer-dwellers form the labor base in rural America. As long as the businesses we work for succeed, we're making money, too. And if they shoulder less tax burden, they have more money to spread around, even to the lowly people like us. If you ever wonder where the labor force is going in this country, it's not to cheaper outsourced labor like Mexico or China. If you tax more, there's less income to give to workers, though the trade off is that there are more government services to go around. So we trailer-dwellers get laid off or find it too difficult to get seasonal work. If the taxes are so high and the services are available, basically we're getting paid better to just stay home and NOT work. That keeps the trailer-dwellers in the trailers--meanwhile a new factory opens in Mexico and/or China and someone who doesn't even speak Engrish gets to feed their family. The "system" is breeding laziness, but enabling that behavior is not going to make things better.

Personally, I gave up on finding a job a long time ago. I started working for myself and have found the greatest opportunity for advancement to be in self-employment and freelancing. We are a family of 4 that survives on less than $30,000 a year. Our rich friends go through baby clothes and just throw away BAGS of clothes every time they clean out their childrens' closets, so we take what we need and donate or discard what we can't use. Our neighbors have one parent working, the other parent taking online courses to qualify (at all) for a job, and they have three kids to support, and they're on food stamps (EBT these days)--and they're barely getting by. They don't even know how they're going to get school supplies that the kids need in just a few short weeks. We're doing better than usual this year, so we buy their kids an Xbox. We're like the kings/pimps on the block. We just bought a new portable building (paid for in cash) that will soon be converted into a band practice space/recording studio/sewing room/possible alternate teaching studio. We have another storage building besides that I'm organizing and shelving so all our stuff doesn't have to sit out in the yard. Not bad for under $30k, right?

People end up out here for all sorts of reasons. I ended up out here not because I'm uneducated or a meth-head. I have a masters degree--from SUNY, not a cheap online school; I had to actually sit in a classroom and work with undergrads to complete my projects--and basically lost my last job because I have authority issues. I've stayed away from hard drugs, and I'm only addicted to my family. My wife got fired from her paralegal job because she had a baby. We lost our house in the process. We were lucky to recover just enough, seeing the writing on the wall and putting our house on the market before the bank could get to it, to buy both the trailer AND the acre lot it sits on. Everyone else out here rents. So our main reason for being here is simply downsizing. Meanwhile, I focussed on building an independent teaching studio, expanded the range of gigs I'm willing to play, and my wife went back to a previous employer where she enhanced her job qualifications and networked. She's already had a couple of raises in just the last 3 months. We don't make a lot of money, but we aren't doing bad, either. Sure, the people who live around us are rough around the edges. But we look after each other, we help each other. And unlike rich, city-folk, we mind our own business. Trailer-trash "ruminant" kids don't vandalize your property just because they don't like you (we had to install security cameras around the perimeter of our old place). They don't call DHS on your kids just because you're a little "different" (we still go to an "predominantly upscale" church--WONDERFUL people, but there were 2 or 3 who wanted us out and would stoop to anything to get rid of us. They failed, and they're the ones who ended up moving out of town, though for unrelated reasons). I'd say despite being "a little rough," we're a lot more civil than some people who live in the "developments" or "sub-divisions." And there being more to life than money, which I wonder if suburbanites really understand, we are more concerned that our leadership displays some sense of moral right and wrong than empty promises of how rich they can (can't) make us.

My apologies for the diatribe, of course, but it had to be said!

===

Personally, I miss the 1980s. Those were good times. I'd bring Reagan back.

If I were allowed to go back beyond the 20th century, I'd say bring back Jefferson. Not that I 100% agree with Jefferson, but it would do us some good, I think, to have some of that Enlightenment intellectualism back. We've become fat and lazy in our thinking, and I wonder whether our current situation isn't in part due to having fundamentally lost our identity as a nation.

Of course, living on your own acre instead of in a trailer park means you are "trailer trash lite".
(joke)

I wonder why people who live in trailers get called "trash" and people who live in apartments don't? People with trailers at least own their abode.

lol

Yeah. Well, I DO live in a trailer park, if we're being realistic here. We just happen to own our particular lot. There is another acre right beside us that the guy that owns most of this area just simply "hasn't found a manufactured home he wants to buy bad enough." Yeah, right. I'd like to buy it and turn it into a community fruit/vegetable garden. It's overgrown and harbors rodents and snakes. So when he DOES bush-hog it every couple of years, guess where the mice run to? bleh And it happens every winter, too, when they're just trying to keep warm. I counted 9 mice I trapped getting in through a bedroom closet. That's the same story you'll hear from everyone that lives here.


No idea. Just the association with low/no education and dwindling income. I'm willing to bet I'm the "most educated" person within a square mile, though judging from the people I've met certainly NOT the smartest!

Apartment dwellers run the gamut, though. I think there are probably more people in "section 8" apartments than "section 8" trailers. However, the section 8 apartment people are usually your street gang dope dealers, and they are "people of color." Trailer trash people are the ones actually USING, and you can tell from the meth-mouth and poor dental hygiene. What's worse is that government support/welfare is divided almost entirely along racial lines.

How do I know? Well, my wife went in to apply for some help with childcare costs. She was actually told that they couldn't help her, BUT if she'd walk out the door, take off her wedding ring, and come right back and LIE about her home situation, THEN they could talk. Why is that? The system favors single, unmarrieds and their dependents. If you're black, they don't ask any questions or bother with paperwork. All you have to say is "I can't read." If you're white, married, and still meet the qualifications, even the low income requirement, they are simply going to tell you your income is too high and they can't help you. They won't even LOOK at your application or pay stubs. I don't mean to sound like a bitter racist here. I'm just saying the system is inequitable and corrupt and IS run by racists who will favor their own every single time.

True story: The Leland, MS, office of the same agency my wife went to was investigated by the federal government for mishandling funds and SHUT DOWN. I say that to emphasize that I'm not being hateful here and that what happened in Leland is symptomatic of what is happening in many urban and rural areas.

And don't even get me started about what's going on in the chancery clerk's office...

Back to the point: You wouldn't call apartment dwellers trash because you'd get flamed for being an insensitive racist.

Most "trailer trash" end up there because it's the only thing they can pay rent on. Seriously, it's cheaper to rent a trailer for a family of 4 or more than it is for the average single bachelor to rent a loft (been there, done that, too). And, if you've got something to hide, you're going to do better isolated in a community like that where EVERYONE, even law enforcement, will normally just leave you alone. We police ourselves out here. People in apartments only have a wall between themselves and their enemies, and sometimes not even that. Sooner or later, someone's going to get hurt in section 8. Even when I did live in a nicer non-section 8 complex, the girl who lived in the loft next to mine had a really nasty bf who was always abusing her and probably to a lesser degree their son (though from my experience just watching it is bad enough). Trailer people only have their OWN drama to deal with, not someone else's. We get involved when we need to, though, just like when I took in 3 kids because their babysitter flaked out. All I had to do was provide them with Doritos and our Xbox and they were really good playing Halo: Reach all day. Sure, I played, too, but I can only handle getting hit by a sniper just so many times. I'm more of a single-player kind of guy. Like I said before, people out here are really rough, but they have hearts of gold. They really do deserve to be better off than they are, but at least they have a relatively safe environment that they can afford to live in.

And, of course, perhaps the most obvious is the words "trailer trash" just roll off the tongue better than "apartment trash."

The piece that is missing from that calculus is how the poor get fed, clothed and housed in absence of government managed social programs.

In the middle ages and Renaissance that role fell to the Church and religious communities. With the growth of cities and industrialization, new models came into being--but church patronage continued to be a hallmark of charitable institutions.

But the institutional church no longer has the reach that it did in the period before the 20th century. In an economic downturn during the 19th century, the Church could draw upon reserves to maintain hospitals, schools, orphanages and its other charitable activities. What charity is positioned to do the same in the 21st century.

In any society, everyone must have access to food. Geography will dictate the need for clothing and shelter, but these are largely non-dispensible as well. In a civil society, everyone must have access to food, clothing, shelter, health care and education. Furthermore, it is the society, writ large, that must see to these needs. It is insufficient for a community to close its gates and say, "we will provide for ourselves," if their neighbors down the road lack the capacity to do the same. Cities will always bear the brunt of supporting the underclass, and it is no surprise that it is in cities that you find citizens who believe that there is a positive obligation on government to be the supporter of last resort.

Teddy Roosevelt.

He'd break the rule of the Plutocrats AGAIN. And, physically beat the Tea Party reps for being traitorous morons...

BULLY!

Iran So Far Away
"I know you say there are no gays in Iran. But you're in New York now, baby!'

If I was from the US, definitely Eisenhower. He was the last good Republican.

lol I'm amazed of the intelligence of it.

Sadly, JB is one of the more intelligent right-wing social conservatives here.

It's good to hear a libertarian that evaluates people on more than just taxes. I think the people at CATO consider Eisenhower a tyrant for continuing along with FDR's policies, particularly the 70-90% top marginal income tax rates.

I'm not a libertarian anymore but he's always been my #1 favourite US president. I don't think there's a label that fits me these days since a lot of my views are syncretic.

Last edited by AceOfSpades on 27 Jul 2011, 9:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If that's actually true, why do they accept and use those services? Why are they angry when those services are taken away?

The rural poor that don't rely on social services can get most of their meat from hunting and fishing, and sometimes have meat to share so that they almost never buy it at the store. They also live in areas where the cost of living is extremely low and they have room to grow a supplemental garden as well. And they drive older cars that are simple to work on, and they usually know how to fix it themselves. If they can't repair something, they may trade favor with their neighbors in lieu of payment. Sometimes they are able to obtain equipment that enables them to quit using certain public utilities as well. Not all conservatives are in a position to do this, but the ones that are tend to be happy not having the bureaucracy in their lives.

Yes, I know there is some communalism involved there, and it works because it is done by private arrangements rather than government incompetence.