I Pit the ID-demanding GOP vote-suppressors (Part 1)

The BBQ Pit
8701

Since we’re talking about generational poverty, allow me to explain. I’m not saying it’s genetic. Especially since I’m a product of it. :smiley:

It doesn’t have to be the result of more than one generation. All that matters, is the child grows up in poverty, with parents or caretakers that can’t or won’t provide them with examples, information, resources, and connections. It isn’t the same thing as a guy who loses his job and moves his family into a shitty apartment while they get back on their feet. Or a woman disowned by her parents who has to work two shitty jobs while she raises kids and gets a degree. Those people have the tools and education necessary to prepare their minds, as Bricker puts it, to succeed. But without those tools, it’s a trap that can trap generations of people in ignorance, desperation, and poverty.

Take Donald Trump as an infant, and raise him in a ruined suburb of Detroit with no present father, and a mother that works a minimum wage job at WalMart to barely scrape by.

He has none of the education, opportunities, connections, and examples that the real-world Trump used to achieve his success.

He, might have done reasonably well, given his brash nature, but more likely, I’d say, he’d never have cultivated it. He’d certainly be more likely to be a used car salesman, than a presidential candidate.

And this illustrates why Bricker, though poor, wasn’t of this sort. His father instilled upon him the training necessary to have a better shot. Which illustrates why Bricker is fortunate. If his father were common, he’d have been brought up in a San Salvador shantytown. Bricker doesn’t see this because he wants success to be entirely based on his personal choices, so he can dismiss the poor as layabouts and aggrandize himself as superior.

Of course success is partially luck, and partially preparedness. And some of the poor are lazy bums. Believe it or not, some of the middle class and the rich are lazy bums too.

8702

No.

That’s not an accurate description of the choice people face. My father would have said to himself, “I have a year to obtain this document. Here are the days I can do so without losing work.”

If anyone faces the choice you describe, it’s because they waited until time was so short that they had no other options.

8703

But my father WAS brought up in a San Salvador shantytown. Yet he succeeded. How does that fit with your theory?

8704

So, if some prepared minds have favorable outcomes, and other equally prepared minds do not, what accounts for the difference?

8705

What, are you too stupid to think of anything or just being a disingenuous ass?

8706

You are profoundly stupid when it comes to addressing your biases.

Your father was uncommon. He got out. I’m not saying, you dimwit, that transcending this sort of poverty is impossible. It’s unlikely. Not everyone has the capacity and/or luck to do it.

It’s really weird that you can’t understand that.

It’s also really weird that you haven’t apologized for lying about my position earlier, when you said, I said, your father got where he was because of luck alone.

I guess lying about my position comes easy to you, since you repeatedly did so against my requests to stop, in this very thread.

8707

Too little contextual information to answer. In chess, the answer is different than in motor cross racing. For each pursuit, luck favors the prepared, but preparation does not insulate the prepared participant from ill outcomes. Your current question can’t be answered as a general principle.

8708

Drunky, we’re already dealing with one goofball, you’re just gonna be lost in the glare of the Bricker.

You’d be better served bringing your goofball game after he’s retired from this thread again.

8709

Obviously luck doesn’t exist as a force. But I think you’ll find that most people use it to speak of things outside of their control.

8710

You assert that my success is due to the advantages my father gave me. I rebut this argument by pointing out that he lacked similar advantages. Your response is that he was uncommon. Why am I not uncommon, then?

You are doing the same thing now: it’s luck, unless somehow you can prove it isn’t.

8711

Sure.

Gallant keeps his spare tire inflated and checks it every time he gases up the car. Goofus hasn’t touched the spare since he bought the car.

It’s “bad luck,” to run over a roofing nail on the way to the job interview. But Gallant’s spare is ready to go on the car, and even with his bad luck he arrives on time. Goofus has a flat spare and is stranded for longer.

Of course, the bad luck could have been a cement mixer running the light, putting either driver in the hospital regardless of their spare tire’s readiness. But the prepared person’s preparations lessen the impact of malign outside forces.

8712

Let’s assume personal success, such as your father achieved. Do you suppose everyone, under similar circumstances, who followed his example would have a similar outcome?

8713

No, not everyone. Some might get hit by a cement mixer that ran a red light.

But the vast majority would, yes.

8714

Sorry to see that you’re doubling down on misinterpreting what that study was about. But no, there is no “implied” luck involved. They are talking about moving form the very bottom of the economic ladder to the very top in one generation. The fact that so few do can simply mean that it’s a very difficult thing to do. Luck can always be one explanation, but the authors make no mention of how much it might play in that particular process. Whether it matters in 0.1% of the cases or 90% of the cases, one cannot tell just from reading that article. Besides, other than winning the lottery, “luck” can be a very difficult thing to define. In the end, though, there is no reason any of us should be reading something into that study that isn’t there.

8715

Looked at the right way, this sort of thing actually empowers and honors our less worthy citizens. It affords them the opportunity to “go the extra mile” and prove their civic virtue! This is not offered to the smugly comfortable, since they have no meaningful impediments. And you don’t see *them *standing on line for hours to cast a vote. So, in a way, the Republicans offer a special advantage to those who are mostly trickled down upon, they get a chance to prove their value that others don’t get!

Damned white of them!

8716

Is bad fortune typically as catastrophic as being hit by a runaway cement mixer?

Are the vast majority those in similar circumstances who achieve less than your father thwarted only by sloth or lack of forethought and preparation?

8717

Finally, an attempt to circle back to relevance.

Anyone? Can you say with confidence that what you describe applies to every single person who has trouble meeting the enhanced voting requirements?

8718

Thanks for making me think of the DMV clerks in Zootopia.

8719

Since Republicans favour a good day’s pay for a good day’s work, it’s only fair the poor get two votes!

Unless you want to give the lazy and the hardworking the same reward, you filthy communist.

8720

No. The cement mixer was merely an example, a proxy for unhelpful random events.

Sloth and lack of forethought and lack of preparation and lack of willingness to delay gratification are the major factors. Occasionally someone may win the lottery – a proxy example for a series of favorable random events – or get hit by a cement truck.

But the vast majority of people willing to put in the work, the savings, and the lack of gratification will succeed.