What he said.
Bullshit. You just lashed out because he hit a nerve. And now you’re trying to justify your nonsense. I hate to be the one to break it to you an all, but it ain’t workin’.
I lashed out because he took a fairly focused pitting and for absolutely no reason turned it into an irrelevant comment about the left. It’s beyond stupid to suppose that there’s any serious part of the political spectrum that “brought” this to you.
A few years ago a bloke in the R.A.F. was retired on a disability pensionwith a bad back.
Several years later he joined a loony tunes religous cult and trumpeted to the world how everyone should join because the cult leader had performed a miraculous feat of faith healing on him and his back ailment was cured.
The R.A.F. stopped his pension as he was no longer disabled.
Look, you guys can go ahead with your political argument all you want. And this guy may be fraudulent as all hell for all I know. But here’s my situation.
I have vertigo. It’s intermittent. It comes and goes. When I have it, it’s totally disabling, and it can last as long as four days. It probably hits on average once a week and lasts about a day, but I never know when or how long. Standing and driving and movement seem to trigger it, but there are days when nothing I do seems to trigger it, and days when the tiniest thing I do seems to trigger it. I can’t work because I can’t predict during any given period how long I can work, how much I can work. I also can’t prove I have this. Dizziness doesn’t really show up on tests unless it’s caused by something like a brain tumor, which I don’t have. It can be caused by about three million different things, some of them curable, some of them diagnosable, most of them not. I’m selling my house, because I’m roughly three months from being on the street.
If I were the sort of person who did that kind of thing, I could probably body build, because usually more than half the time, I’m physically capable. I’d have to work around some things, like bending over, but something like a Bowflex machine would take care of that.
My point is, things aren’t always what they seem.
You may now resume your political argument, already in progress.
I guess it bears repeating: you’re full of shit. Your post #20 was asinine. Weirddave explained it to you clearly. Yet, you thought you had made some grand insightful point. You didn’t. And since then you attempt to backpedal and further bullshit your way out of it. You might want to revisit the exchange. I sincerely hope that helps.
Of course it was asinine. That was the point: he was making a parody of Weirddave’s equally asinine political sideswipe.
There is no equivalence, as Weirddave pointed out:
The equivalence is the sudden injection of a political agenda into an apolitical thread. And, in both cases, in a particularly stupid and ham-handed manner. The only real difference is that muttrox was being deliberately stupid and ham-handed for purposes of satire.
Post number #17 was also asinine, backed by large amounts of shit, too. What an amazing coincidence!
But Weirddave’s post was relevant. You may disagree with 1) his estimation that to the degree that there is a culture of entitlement and victimhood, that it is tied to the left and/or 2) the degree that the incident the OP cited is an example of that, but that there is a reasonable, logical link between the Op and his statement is clear. The reply by muttrox was lacking in those regards. Did Weirddave inject an additional facet into the debate? Yes, but a relevant one. Muttrox? No. He was just tweaked that someone might have held up the dirty laundry of the left in making a point, and felt the need to hold up dirty laundry associated (especially on these boards) with the right.
Are there a lot of people collecting worker’s compensation who shouldn’t be? Of course there are. Where I’m from it seemed like every third hunter you ran across in the woods was a prison guard who “hurt his back” the week before opening day.
There are also a lot of people entitled to worker’s compensation who will never see a penny, or who have received a pittance for grevous injuries. I was a shop steward some 30 years ago for a man who injured his back at work. The company, a Fortune 100 conglomerate, refused to pay any worker’s compensation, saying he should file for disability, which was carried by another insurer, and a much smaller benefit.
Their explanation was that as long as he insisted it was a compensable injury disability would not cover it, and as long as they could claim it was not work related the company could avoid paying compensation, and they bet his children would get hungry before their team of lawyers ran out of appeals. He took the disability.
The point is, there are a lot of people and companies gaming the system, and it’s not endemic to the left or the right, and people should just keep politics in the political threads. What, there’s a shortage of those all of a sudden, that you’ve got to start dragging that shit where it doesn’t belong?
That right there would be where you and I disagree. Weirddave’s post was an asinine, unwarranted, and patently illogical political swipe that had absolutely no relevance to anything posted in this thread. muttrox’s response did an able job of highlighting it by creating a post of equal vapidity that simply skewed in the opposite political direction.
I strongly disagree. But where do you see the disagreement: in my #1 or #2?
Two, for the most part. The OP doesn’t have anything to do with victimhood and entitlement. The guy being described is a thief, plain and simple. I have little doubt that he’s aware that he doesn’t deserve disability benefits, he just doesn’t care: he found a way to work the system to get something that shouldn’t be his, and he went for it. He’s no more a part of the “culture of entitlement” than an embezzler, or a bank robber. Weirddave’s attempt to link it to leftist politics is also pretty hollow, unless I’m mistaken in my impression that worker’s compensation was one of the social support programs generally favored by the right.
[QUOTE=Miller]
Two, for the most part. The OP doesn’t have anything to do with victimhood and entitlement. The guy being described is a thief, plain and simple.
Yes, the guy is a thief. But while I’ve acknowledged that Weirddave introduced an additional factor into the discussion, I do not think it was out of the blue. This guy raised his hand and said “Poor me, I’m a victim, take care of me. Give me those sweet benefits I’ve heard others get. Benefits to which I am now entitled based on my new status as victim of circumstances.” You get the idea. And, of course, those benefits to which he felt entitled were on the table because of all the hard work from his union forces—one of the most insidious underlying modern-day evils. :eek:
So what? If he was faking a disability and bilking Catholic Charities for the bill, would it be fair to say that it’s a result of living in a Christian culture?
FWIW Miller is channeling my thoughts perfectly.
No. The equivalence you attempt to draw fails badly. Neither the idea of victimhood nor sense of entitlement are associated with Christian culture.
In that case, I don’t know who to feel more sorry for.