Because rich = hard work, automatically. Got it. I think we're getting somewhere now. Cutting through your previous bs and getting to your real opinions. Rich = hard working. Poor = lazy. Got it.

"There are very few ways anybody can cheat the system while living hand to mouth on government assistance. "

You give people too little credit. If the rich are capable of being parasites how is that the poor are somehow unable?

Because the government panders and is run by millionaires and billionaires. Poor people have shitty lobbyists.

Anyways, my wife is headed for bed, and frankly, no offense, arguing with you doesn't even register on the same scale as joining her, so I'll be signing off now. I'm here all day tomorrow to help you stew..

Make sure to say your prayers to Supply Side Jesus before you go to sleep.

Leif, I've had plenty of students who are poor and do now. One of my students was living in a shelter with her 13? 15? year old daughter, and told me one Wednesday that she had to be out by Monday and didn't have a new place lined up, but hoped to by Friday. She was one of the fortunate ones who got a place. The reason she was in a shelter was because her husband was abusive and she took the kid and got out. They had no family and she had no job training. The point is that there are poor people who work hard, or cannot work.

Today I drove an ex-student to a food bank and he took two bags of groceries home to his family.

He has mental health issues and while he just got a job, it's unlikely that he'll be able keep it (in my estimation). He's basically disabled, but can't seem to navigate the paperwork, which is horrendous, or isn't qualified on some technicality.

"Make sure to say your prayers to Supply Side Jesus before you go to sleep."

LOL

@ Mujus:

Reference points 3, 4, and 5 of things I did not say.

Putin seems to view the world through this "poor" vs "rich" lens. It seems to me that he believes there is something inherently virtuous about the "poor" while the "rich" are all greedy, shifty bastards, that are inherently evil.

He continuously tries to sift everything I say through this viewpoint, or so it seems to me.

I view the world through a different lens. I see people who give a crap and care about others and try to work for the benefit of society, and I see people who are takers and either wait around to be served or do whatever it takes to get what they want.

Both of these categories span the rich vs poor class divide Putin espouses.
There are rich who are greedy and/or lazy (and a good portion of the population is and has been angry with them for some time, myself included, just not very much in this thread). Conversely, there are rich who deeply and genuinely care about the good of society and work to better it and to share what wealth they have been blessed with. Likewise there are poor who have given all they have (or never really had much in the first place to give), and frankly are at the point where they have nothing and/or they can't even look out for themselves and no one seems interested in helping them. Unfortunately, this category is not a small percentage of the population (and elsewhere I've stated that I feel that a federal government based system is rather ineffective at attempting to provide the help these people need). But on the flip side, there is another not small percentage of the population that is poor and greed/lazy. This last segment is the segment I have been railing against in my thread. But somehow, this 'taker' segment of the lower class population is taboo to talk about because the segment of the population that is genuinely financially distressed and does need help is somehow slighted and deeply injured by the mere mention that someone might be gaming the system.

I've purposefully steered away from "anecdotes" and "bullshit personal stories" because Putin shifts to vicious ad hominem attacks if a conservative shares such experiences because he apparently believes that every conservative is inherently incapable of empathy for those who are hurting and that they use such stories to somehow assuage their guilt.

I'm more than willing and am very interested in talking about my ideas for solutions to help people who are in distress, and ways that I currently do try to help. But I have no interest in discussing these ideas if I am decried as heartless for talking about people at the bottom financial end who game the system.

So there you have it, rich = hardworking, poor = lazy is Putin's translation.

In all seriousness Putin, and to bring this back to Thucy's original purpose of this thread, what from your viewpoint is the appropriate response I or any privileged white male who is decently well off should have regarding their privilege and the world around them?

The fact is that this kind of armchair social theory based around the supposed fact that
'some people are just lazy and greedy and want handouts all the time" isn't one that really holds up to scrutiny. It's a convenient narrative for a conservative point of view, but convenience is not truth.

And the reason Putin doesn't accept anecdotes to support population wide data, is because anecdotes are not useful information when you're trying to talk about population level data. Anecdotes do not beat statistics. Also because in an internet debate literally anyone can make up a story about their aunt's co-worker's daughter who filed a false this, or lied about that etc. And even if your aunt's co-worker's daughter really did file some kind of false paperwork or whatever to get a "handout" for which she did not technically qualify under the governments byzantine and almost completely incomprehensible rules for qualifying for assistance, that doesn't mean she didn't deserve it. The fact is anecdotes are unreliable, and even when they are reliable their interpretation is coloured by your worldview and your preconceived notions. You see what you want to see in personal stories, and you bring that interpretation to the debate without necessarily really understanding the real situation.

Most developed countries in the world have far more extensive welfare states than the United States, and have to put up with LOWER levels of welfare fraud, not higher. Not that I expect that argument to go anywhere. American conservatives are consistently unwilling to accept that another country can provide useful data to predict how people will behave in the United States. But if they did, they might notice that in the rest of the world, social policy has changed somewhat since the Victorian period.

Anecdotes aside, take this statement: Statistically peope who work hard do better than people who don't work hard.
I just made that statement up, but I bet it's true. If this could be verified is the statement less valid than white people have more advantages than colored people, or the middle class have more advantages than the working class?
Indeed is not the observation more useful as it offers a mechanism by which anyone may better their lot. With regards to what changes society should make (whether or not society should be more liberal or conservative) it is a neutral statement.

Well...I got the most elitist, white-bred section score possible, a 20...

Although I'm not upper-middle class, my father's an insurance adjuster (was a manager) and my mother's a teacher aide for special education children...

I live in a suburb, sure...

But that's still not living next to the Kennedys or in West Egg near Jay Gatsby or anything...

I guess I just have an elitist attitude, but I already knew that, oh well.

Back to the Henry James novel and Tchaikovsky, then (And they think I'm sheltered, ha! I walked to a Barnes and Noble while listening to social theory lecture on Locke and Montesquieu to pick up that Henry James novel...and walked ALL THE WAY BACK, TRULY I'm as much a trooping middle classmen as any Thomas, Richard, or Henry, er, Tom, Dick, or Harry!)

;)

"Most developed countries in the world have far more extensive welfare states than the United States, and have to put up with LOWER levels of welfare fraud, not higher."

That doesn't sound surprising. I think you expect that since in a country with more extensive welfare there would be less need to make a fraudulent claim - you would be more likely to make a legal claim and succeed.

So you want population wide statistics?

Lemme go into a disability office with a survey asking people whether they are gaming the system. Prediction? incredibly small numbers of people who admit gaming the system.

So I'm sorry, I can't tell you I'm upset by a neighbor of mine who's on permanent disability and seems to be gaming the system. In previous conversations he's told me he hasn't had a job for more than 2 months at a time since his time in the service because of his physical (not mental) injuries received while he was in the service, but somehow he's always out in his yard doing what appears to me to be rather strenuous physical labor for hours on end, he jumps out of airplanes a couple times a week for fun, and he rides his Harley all over the state. But no, I can't be upset that my tax money is funding his party while a family of 5 at the school my wife teaches at doesn't qualify for my state's supplemental nutrition program because the wife makes too much at her part-time job and the husband has been unable to find a job and was unable to get unemployment benefits after he lost his last job because of a technicality. So I have no right to be upset about these two situations because they are personal anecdotes.

Statistics about said problems are hard to reliably gather for a wide variety of reasons.

So I guess the problem doesn't exist then...

"I just made that statement up, but I bet it's true." - You can't do that. I'm sorry. You can't base an argument around something you just made up, but which happens to fit your worldview. If you want your worldview to matter in a debate you have to base your worldview on facts. Not introduce made up "facts" which happen to fit your worldview.

And really, I'm pretty skeptical of the idea that working hard is something that varies a lot between people. Everyone is hard working when the need to be, and are motivated and a little bit lazy when they're not. I know, I know, you're an exception, you work hard all the time, good for you. While you're at it, pull the other one, it's got bells.

The fact is, I don't think it's a good idea to base social policy on some bullshit work ethic based morality invented by the religiously oppressive puritan movement from the 1600s.

"If this could be verified is the statement less valid than white people have more advantages than colored people, or the middle class have more advantages than the working class?" - The relative validity of those two statements, assuming the former one is even true (spoiler alert: It's not), is dependent on the strength of the statistical correlation between the two. And seriously, look around you, unless you happen to think that certain races of people are consistently "harder working" than others, it's pretty clear that the stronger correlation is the one about white = privilege.

Ummm OK several points, Leif. You don't know his situation and you don't know his story. You see, this is exactly what I'm talking about. You think that people gaming the system is some big problem, so you meet this guy and you say "aha! see!" You don't know what his injuries are, you don't know what his work situation is, and here you are judging him. Maybe he just has trouble standing for long periods of time, maybe he's actually seriously hurting himself doing strenuous physical labour, but is just going stir crazy and feels he needs to do something. Maybe it really is a psychological thing and he just didn't want to tell his self-righteous, judgmental neighbour about that.

And how does your neighbour collecting disability prevent the family of 5 from collecting their money. I don't see the connection here. Is he like, opening their mail and stealing their cheques? I don't think it's your neighbour's fault that they're not getting what they deserve.

I'm not saying no one games the system Leif, I'm not. I just don't think THAT'S the real problem with the American welfare state. And to focus on it so unduly as you have here is absurd. Welfare fraud is not the reason the welfare system doesn't work.

""I just made that statement up, but I bet it's true." - You can't do that. I'm sorry. You can't base an argument around something you just made up, but which happens to fit your worldview. If you want your worldview to matter in a debate you have to base your worldview on facts. Not introduce made up "facts" which happen to fit your worldview."

No but I can introduce a hypothesis which you are welcome to prove wrong if you have access to some facts. They would have to be some pretty extraordinary facts though. Does it really strike you as an unlikely theory? Tell me you what you really about the statement: as a group people who work hard do better than people who don't work hard (all other factors being equal)
a. Likely to be true
b. not likely to be true
c. can't tell either way

I am going to make up another statistic: as a group gamblers lose more money than they win. Are you goimg to tell me i can't just make that up? Is their not a grain of logical plausibility in either statement?

What possible worldview do you think the statement represents? Other than common sense?

At any rate, I made clear the statement was hypothetical. One can conduct thought experiements as a way of testing ideas. I know this to be true because i just looked up in the "rules of forum debating handbook" and it is allowed ;-)

So mafia, you did not answer my question. IF the claim could be verified is it any less valid than the claim middle class people are more advantaged than working class people. Why assume the statement reflects a personal bias or is based only on anecdotes? Politically the statement is neutral (you may dispute this if you wish and if you do i would be interested to hear why).

Also, probably my guess about your neighbour? He was probably told by his doctor to take disability, so he did. Got bored and started doing all this stuff to make up for it, but can't go back to work, because then the disability payments will stop, and he may lose eligibility for good. But if going back to work makes his injury worse to the point that he legitimately can't work at all, he's lost his eligibility for disability altogether, and then has no source of income. I knew someone who was in that situation, though not for a injury sustained in the services.

Alternately he might also be suffering chronic pain which can be exacerbated by stress, more than physical exercise, so doing yardwork wouldn't actually make it worse at all.

Have you discussed the particulars of his injuries with him? Do you know what the issue is here?

I missed this bit:
Mafia said: And seriously, look around you, unless you happen to think that certain races of people are consistently "harder working" than others, it's pretty clear that the stronger correlation is the one about white = privilege.

I don't think the statement implies that at all. Working hard is just one factor. But it is generally sound advice.
There is an almost infinite number of was that we may segment society. People aren't just black or white or working class or middle class. There are a multitide of factors at play that determine our life statisfaction. While as a group white people are advantaged over black people this does not mean that all white people are advantaged over all black people. Likewise educated people are advantaged over noneducated people, but this not mean you can't have success unless you are educated, and it does not mean tha just because you are educated that you will have success. And alas it is true that working hard does not guarantee life satisfaction. But working hard and getting an education are still good strategies nontheless.

Politically the statement "hard work = success" is not a neutral one. That statement is the backbone of conservative ideology with regards to social welfare policy. The correct completely honest answer to your question is c). We really, sincerely actually can't know whether it's true (I realize this contradicts my earlier statement, but I was being facetious before). But what people don't realize is that this is an idea, with a traceable history in our culture. It goes back to the puritan movement starting in England in the 1600's. It's part of what sociologist Max Weber called the "protestant work ethic" that he theorized help to shape the industrial revolution in England, and was partly responsible for building the modern capitalist world. That statement reflects a pro-capitalist world view, that you don't even realize that is kinda helping to prove my point. You're viewing arguments about capitalism and the welfare state, through an ingrained and unconscious, pro-capitalist lens.

"Politically the statement "hard work = success" is not a neutral one. "

That is not the same thing as what I said though. I agree hard work does not necessarily equal success. But you are more likely to succeed if you work hard.

@ spyman - "But working hard and getting an education are still good strategies nontheless." Sure but these things aren't possible for some people. That's part of the point here. The fact is, oppression along race or class lines are often the reason why people can't get a good education or are perceived as "not working hard". The unconscious, culturally ingrained racist and classist assumptions we all make cause us to deny opportunities for education or employment to marginalized people. You can't just go outside and start, working hard at something, and suddenly you'll just have success. You need someone to employ you for your hard work to be worth anything at all. If no one's going to hire you, no amount of hard work is going to change a damn thing.

"But you are more likely to succeed if you work hard." - It's just a weakened version of the same idea, it's still an idea that comes from the same social and political framework. My point stands.

I'm really tired of Leif's dishonest and hypocritical grandstanding. You make these ridiculous statements and then pretend that's not what you said.

I said most rich people are selfish but somehow your theory of evil human nature comes away thinking they're not, you automatically replaced "rich people" with hard work, asking incredulously "so hard work - selfishness". Don't lie. That's what you said. The implication was clear as day. Being rich = working hard.

So all these speeches about how I somehow distort what you said are garbage, especially in light of the fact that you distorted my comment about rich people to claim I said working hard = being selfish.

As for the rest, Mafia's thoroughly demolished your continued attacks on poor people who supposedly game the system.

Mafia, We might be talking at cross purposes though. You and Leif are debating welfare fraud. I have taken Leif's post to mean that he is just advocating that people work hard. But if he really is saying that *all* poor people don't work hard, as Putin seemed to think Leif was saying, then I don't agree with that at all. There are poor people in this world who do need to change their attitude if they want to improve their lot, but there are also poor people have have very challenging circumstances. Single mothers come to mind as just one example.

"There are poor people in this world who do need to change their attitude if they want to improve their lot" - See. This still bothers me immensely. The fact is, you're still being extremely judgmental here in saying that. Again, you haven't lived their lives, you don't know why they say the things they say, or they act the way they act. This is part of what *privilege*, which is what this thread is about, is; the assumption that you can just pass judgement on the way other people act, and the things other people think without having lived their lives, without have had their experiences. That's an extremely privileged stance to take. The point is, people have the attitudes they have for a good reason, and you need to look at that.