B0ycey wrote:Because the Western poor are not poor. They are given welfare which makes them richer than most working residence in the third world.
Truth.Pants-of-dog wrote:Two comments:
1. Poor is a relative term.
2. It is not about how much stuff you have, but how well you can manipulate social situations with your wealth. The poor cannot do this even if they have a second hand LCD TV.
What a bunch of Marxist hogwash.
That would be like saying that someone with a billion dollars who was subsequently excluded from being to able to manipulate social conditions, was not actually wealthy at all.
Such an idea is an affront to the common-sense of most normal people.
If you possess a pile of Gold the size of your house in your back yard, and can purchase what you want for your own consumption as long as you live, you are wealthy. Full-Stop.
Sivad wrote:It is absolutely about how much stuff you have, that's all it's about. Poverty is lack of wealth(material resources), that's all it is.
Correct.
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As an aside, I remember a specific conversation between my father, my brother, and myself during my time living in the inner-city:As a backdrop: my father was raised by his grandparents who were second generation Americans born of German-Irish and Slovakian immigrants. My dad's Pap was born around 1905 and was taken out of school in 3rd grade to work in the Pennsylvania Coal Mines, he taught himself to read, married, and settled down during the great depression. They were devout Christians who worked for everything, eschewed hand-outs, and did what it took to make things work. My gram, in spite of being a housewife most of the time, often worked a shift at the local Cigar Factory on the side AS WELL in order to make ends meet. In spite of being poor, they kept their home immaculately clean, their house in good repair, and lawn well trimmed. They aspired to be well-dressed, even though the young girls had their dresses made from old potato sacks and they were always welcoming hosts even if they served you on old soap plates that came free every time you bought a new bar. They were law abiding, hard-working, moral, and hated laziness more than any other thing. They lived through the depression and in their opinion there was little excuse for living on welfare. SO: with this backdrop in mind, my brother and I were riding with my dad through a well-known low-income neighborhood in Pittsburgh, called Wilkinsburg.
As we drive, my dad scoffs at all the garbage in the streets, dilapidated (but habitated) houses, and teenagers roaming around with iphones just dropping their depleted cheetoes bags into the streets.
Windows of habitated homes are barred and every door has a steel security door on it.
In response to this, my leftist brother remarks:
"The reason they are like this dad, is because they are poor."Boy did shit hit the fan when he said that.
My father remarked in a solemn and chastising tone:
"You couldn't get poorer than my Pap and Gram and they didn't throw garbage in their yards and let their homes go to ruin, they didn't steal from others and they certainly didn't take handouts, this isn't a problem with money, this is a problem of values."These well-dressed inner-city blacks have plenty of material luxuries and because they have little need to earn (over several generations now); they have lost the concept of self-respect along with the loss of their family structure and the loss of common decency. This of course, is no longer a black problem, white trash have begun to follow this same pattern.
"Why get married when we can collect more welfare without marriage?" I literally heard my cousin say this to my wife when she asked her when she was planning to marry her boyfriend (with whom she already had a kid.) This is the same logic that killed the black family starting in the 1960s.
hard work and moral values prosper in a state of necessity and as soon as church lost its moral authority and yielded it to the state (which was all too willing to accept the role of "charity") the necessity for values, honor, and hard-work ceased.
We now have the "poorest" class in the United States being one which also has the highest rate of obesity.
Calling these people "poor" is not only an insult to my Pap and Gram, its an insult to sub-saharan refugees and impoverished kids digging through trash piles for their next meal in the subcontinent.
Its absurd and my dad was right to knock that bull-shit down.
Our poor are not poor, not really.
They have their material needs taken care of and they are incentivized to pursue decadent lifestyles. With the values of hard-work and family eliminated, all is left for them is crime and a disregard for persons and property. That is why the ghetto looks like it does and why the working class neighborhoods of my depression-era forebears were both clean and safe.
- By Pants-of-dog
- By FiveofSwords