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Some friends were over at the house the other day and we were talking about the underclass (poor people). One of them works for social services and has got harsher in her tone about the disadvantaged as she has experienced more of the so called real people. She says, "it almost makes you want to vote republican"
The general feeling of our group was that 90% of the underclass (poor people) are a combination of lazy, stupid or unskilled. It was mostly their fault not society or business (employers). 20-30 years ago one could be a lazy uneducated person and do alright because there were plenty of jobs for everyone in manufacturing and strong unions, today, if you have no skills you will be poor forever. Agree?
Location: The Chatterdome in La La Land, CaliFUNia
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Originally Posted by Weekend Traveler
Some friends were over at the house the other day and we were talking about the underclass (poor people). One of them works for social services and has got harsher in her tone about the disadvantaged as she has experienced more of the so called real people. She says, "it almost makes you want to vote republican"
The general feeling of our group was that 90% of the underclass (poor people) are a combination of lazy, stupid or unskilled. It was mostly their fault not society or business (employers). 20-30 years ago one could be a lazy uneducated person and do alright because there were plenty of jobs for everyone in manufacturing and strong unions, today, if you have no skills you will be poor forever. Agree?
It's elitists attitudes such as yours that makes me embarrassed to be a republican. Yes, there are many poor folks that are "a combination of lazy, stupid or unskilled" but there are many poor folks that have faced circumstances beyond their control, such as illnesses or layoffs, which can cause many folks to go broke. These circumstances can happen to anyone and no one is immuned to the unpredictabilities of life.
"Most" being defined as at leat 51%, and allowing for your adjectives being relative, yes that is probably true. There is probably a positive correlation between being poor and being stupid, lazy, and/or unskilled. I think you'd have to put me in the 'agree' column.
We have created a national job lottery. There are 100-million (let's say) jobs, and 120-million who need or want jobs. Everybody crawls on their hands and knees up to a personnel director placed there by a tycoon, and begs for one of the jobs. They are handed out according to fairly whimsical criteria, but stupidity, laziness and skilllessness sometimes comes into play, when things like quotas and profiling and nepotism are exhausted.
The 20-million for whom there is no job are told that it is their own fault, and they are to be denied the simple things in life that might enable their children to be raised with dignity. They are told that such entitlements are socialist, which means exactly the same thing as communist, as in North Korean communist. They will be telling us that soon, watch this forum.
I will leave you with an absolute mathematical certainty. Half the people are lazier than the other half, stupider than the other half, less skilled than the other half, and always will be. What is to be done with them?
20-30 years ago one could be a lazy uneducated person and do alright because there were plenty of jobs for everyone in manufacturing and strong unions, today, if you have no skills you will be poor forever. Agree?
Amazing how you can contradict yourself in the space of two paragraphs as well as provide an answer while being oblivious of the fact that you did so.
Who were these lazy persons who worked in steel mills, auto factories and other heavy industries because clearly you and your coterie of sanctimonious friends have never been within a gunshot of one.
I also suspect that you've never eaten at an all night diner, shopped at Wal-Mart or Target because you might have noticed that the waitress at the diner and the check our clerk at Target were the same person working different shifts for the two respective employers.
Which is interesting since you have noticed that the days of good paying jobs where you learned important skills on the factory floor may be a thing of the distance past.
So to answer the question...
Are the poor largely undereducated and unskilled, without a doubt. Lazy... that's a pretty bogus charge. Take your average street dealer. Once a few years ago I took the time to observe one of these street corner entrepreneurial operations and was astounded by the man hours, inventiveness and dedication that even the lowest level drug dealer brought to his trade. Working 24/7 in all sorts of weather, braving rip offs, attempts at hostile take overs and the heavy handed regulatory might of the government taught me that whatever one might think about street level drug dealers, laziness and lack of capitalist spirit certainly would be one of them.
The general feeling of our group was that 90% of the underclass (poor people) are a combination of lazy, stupid or unskilled. It was mostly their fault not society or business (employers). 20-30 years ago one could be a lazy uneducated person and do alright because there were plenty of jobs for everyone in manufacturing and strong unions, today, if you have no skills you will be poor forever. Agree?
The general feeling of our group was that 90% of the underclass (poor people) are a combination of lazy, stupid or unskilled. It was mostly their fault not society or business (employers). 20-30 years ago one could be a lazy uneducated person and do alright because there were plenty of jobs for everyone in manufacturing and strong unions, today, if you have no skills you will be poor forever. Agree?
1) "It is their fault, not the society or employers"
2) "20-30 years ago.....one could do alright"
Don't you notice the conflict? Who charged the economy in the last 20-30 years? The lazy, stupid and the unskilled?
Simplicity is a sure sign of maturity. And why did it take so long for the declining middle classes to figure that out, that less is more.
Yes, there are many highly intelligent people among the poor who shun materialism and the stressful race to acquire it, knowing instinctively, that at the next intersection they are driving through or the results of a recent MRI, all could be taken from them.
My 10 year anti-materialistic Mexican roommate with only 6 years of education, has sailed through this recession, so far, with flying colors. In the 10 years I've known him he's never expressed any desires to have a nice new car, or a wide screen television, new clothes (all clothes come from Salvation Army), jewelry or whatever.
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