I had a car because I did manual labor for the entire summer at minimum wage, (never had an allowance btw) and then paid for it Putin. I was never given a car. My dad even made me pay kelly blue book for that car. Talk about a rip off (except that car lasted me another 6 years and was in great shape till someone totaled it for me by plowing into me at a red light). Shocking what can happen when you work for something.

Shocking what can happen when the only expense you have is paying for a car and you have the opportunity to buy a car from your parents. Which is the only way you could afford a car while working minimum wage for a couple of months.

I imagine every conservative has these ridiculous bootstrap stories where they think their dad selling something to them and having to work for a summer means they have license to have callous disregard for everybody who is struggling to make ends meet.

That same month I moved out of the house, paid my own tuition, and room and board, my gas, my insurance, my taxes, etc. while getting my undergraduate degree, lost my job after after undergraduate, looked for work for a year (while married on my wife's first year teaching salary), and somehow suddenly I'm a rich parent endowed conservative with was gifted his position in life with no thought of those who struggle to make ends meet.

You consistently apply your narrow view to me and come up lacking Putin.

My car was a used beater, and I probably could have gotten better scanning the newspaper and somehow the only way a person could ever have a piece of junk pile of scrap metal to get to work is IF THEIR PARENTS ENABLED THEM?

Really, all while working a minimum wage job for a summer? Sure you did.

"Shocking what can happen when you work for something." is now equivalent to "license to have callous disregard for everybody who is struggling to make ends meet."

I don't deny that many people are struggling to make ends meet and have had a hard time thrown their way in life. I just don't buy it that everyone who is struggling to make ends meet is trying to solve their own problems rather than wait for someone else, whether its daddy, charities, or the government, to fix their problems for them.

Not just anyone struggling to make ends meet gets my callous disregard, just those who refuse to try to help themselves.

Yeah the minimum wage job was for the summer before college to purchase my car (if you bother to read what I wrote).
Loans, scholarships, and part time work (not at minimum wage) sustained me through college for all the rest of that. So no, 1 summer of minimum wage work did not fund all that, and only you would try to pin those words on me Putin, but it funded the car that allowed me to have the job, etc. while in college.

And you're an authority on this because you worked for a summer for a car your daddy sold you, and chose to go to college and chose to live by yourself? Oh and you didn't have an allowance! Sacre bleu! The hardship!

" (if you bother to read what I wrote). "

You seamlessly wrote about how the very same month you had this minimum wage job to pay for your car you went to school, paid your insurance, moved out, and whatever other crap you could invent to make yourself out to be working stiff. Not my fault you wrote incoherently.

"Then shut up about NASCAR." I actually was done, but since you said that, I'll post again. I've never seen the Brickyard 400, but I've kissed the bricks at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

"Loans, scholarships,"

Oh what you mean handouts? Nice, the story gets better.

So you paid for tuition, your car, insurance, and rent on part-time work? Absurd.

Continuing to read only the parts you want to Putin. I've had enough of wasting my time with your pretending to care about people who are having a rough time in life for the sake of arguing on a frivolous gaming site and trying belittle people because they disagree with you.

Pfff. I was born a poor black boy. Fuck ya'll white folks.

Belittle people? You want an excuse to belittle people, and are upset when your excuses are thrown back in your face. Just like so many on here, you sure can judge others and determine that they're lazy or somehow didn't work as hard as you, but when people fight fire with fire, you do nothing but whine.

scored a 73, believe that gives me the high score for the thread, do I win a prize? :D

Typical Putin... Comes in and immediately attacks people with ad hominem...

Ah... This is much better. Confusing now that Putin is muted again, but better confused than pissed off and ready to make trip to columbus to reenact a little Aerosmith in person.

i still don't get this romanticized version of being lower middle class, not having a car, etc. Its certainly not morally superior to having a rich family and i doubt there are any statistics on whether it makes you a "better" person (however you define it). And the jobs suck...lifelong hard labor, dirty....Why would anyone romanticize or think working in a steelmill, a car plant, construction, an oil rig, or laying cable outside in the middle of winter is so great. I certainly don't think being poor, working hard manual labor, not having assets builds any more "character" then the opposite. The reason I disliked this quiz is because of the underlying assumprtion that this lower middle class lifestyle is "better" or something to aspire to. It isn't - In fact, in almost every level of items i find important it is far inferior.

It's not about aspiring to be less than you can be, ajb. It's about empathy and understanding that what you have wasn't completely earned by you. And the bubble is how you view the other classes. A thick bubble typically means you are so far removed they may as well be livestock or an ant farm to you. A thin buble means you aren't one of them, but you can relate to them and may even be friends with them, viewing them as equals as best as you can and not as subordinates.

So strive to be all you can be and have the finer things in life and do what you enjoy, but be aware of those in the other classes- classes which individually are larger than the collective upper middle and upper classes. And while you climb up the class ladder, remember to look back and talk to the people who are on the lower rungs. You may one day need their direct intervention and your own ladder climbing wouldn't be possible without their being the backbone of corporate America/Europe/wherever.

"Typical Putin... Comes in and immediately attacks people with ad hominem..."

Hahaha aint that the truth.

"Why would anyone romanticize or think working in a steelmill, a car plant, construction, an oil rig, or laying cable outside in the middle of winter is so great."

Because it's honest work as opposed to living off of interest & dividends, like the parasitical upper class do.

"Comes in and immediately attacks people with ad hominem"

Leif attacked people and then whined when anybody called him on it. It's rather typical that the biggest moaners about ad hominems are usually the ones who dish it out the most.

No its just that you do it without fail.

Leif is barely on my radar.

"Leif is barely on my radar."

You have a highly selective radar.

"reenact a little Aerosmith in person. "

Love in an Elevator?

@SD - LOL! No, "My Fist Your Face"...

Dude (Looks Like a Lady)?

I'd use another one, but Putin might think I was actually threaening him with violence instead of seeing the humor in it...

Draugy's Got a Gun

"Humor". Remember when Draugnar denied he ever threatened anybody? Yeah, that was funny.