Can’t hold a job, huh?
Right, but I can get hired like a mother fucker. It’s hard work. I know that whole “hard work” is foreign to you, but there ya have it. Unfortunately, there arent many human resource recruiters hanging out in parks trying to force jobs on people.
Why, because I am a liberal, I don’t work hard?
We can argue cause and effect all day, but I would say that they are unemployed because their idea of a job search is to live in a park, smoke dope and play kickball.
This is not action plan of a desirable job applicant.
One could send out resumes or go on interviews or cold call businesses where one would like to work. I’ll tell you, im in management, and maybe once every two years somebody does their research on my co. and cold calls me with the aim of setting up an interview. I am always impressed by that kind of initiative.
Anyhow. That’s how I would try to get a job.
Someone needs to spam the explanatory gap and tell me how living in a park, smoking dope and playing frisbee nets you a career.
Don’t you know that every conservative actually THOUGHT himself into being through sheer willpower, then ran down a cow to skin (with his TEETH) to make his own bootstraps with which to pull himself up? Geez, what are you, some kind of realist?
Well no, you are right. It’s a fair cop. You may work hard. But you are assuming I can’t keep a job, so ya know, that’s what assumptions will get you.
Well that’s kind of the deal.. right? I mean, I got laid off and I didn’t bitch piss moan and whine about how unfair it is that I got laid off. I went and got a job and fed my family. Maybe it’s just a matter of priorities. My priorities are to my family.
This is good advice, that will be heeded by precious few. It seems to me that when jobs are harder to come by that you need to work harder at getting one. How is it that people don’t get that? And to your point, how are one’s chances of landing said job increased by hanging out in a park?
Seriously? I consider it a strong indicator.
And you’re shocked when people don’t consider you credible.
I have an interesting core belief. I say interesting because it’s demonstrably not true. I believe it and act as if it is true because it’s incredibly useful to do so.
This core belief is that I and only I are responsible for everything that happens to me. If I get sick, it’s my fault. If I got hit by a meteor while walking the dog, my fault.
I say it’s useful because the corollary for this kind of personal responsibility is empowerment. If I’m responsible for everything about myself and everything that happens to me than that implies I can do something about it.
It’s proven to be a useful philosophy.
So, suddenly, just in the last three years, the American public became, overnight, so horribly bad at getting and keeping a job (including people who’d had fairly long careers before this) that unemployment just skyrocketed to over 9%? Everyone who hasn’t been able to find a job just isn’ t looking, all those millions of people? They’re all lazy, pot-smoking bums who want to sit in a park and bang on de drum all day? You don’t see why this is implausible, at best?
Look, I know you right-thinking conservative geniuses don’t particularly like the Occupy movement, but I think you’d better consider something. This is the gentle part. If things get worse…if they continue down the path they’re following right now and income inequality gets worse and even more people fall off the edge of the social safety net, people aren’t going to be patient anymore. History has much to teach us, and this is one of those things.
There are only two ways to avoid that. The first is to do something to remedy the constant vampiric upflow of the economy to the people at the top. The other is to come down hard, make the USA look like Stalinist Russia, and start jailing people for simply making their opinions heard.
From my perspective, it really looks like the people who are dismissing the Occupiers have no historical perspective at all. This is the beginning. It’s been getting worse and worse and worse since Bear-Sterns imploded. We’ve finally gotten to the point where the diversions that kept people from looking at the actual criminals who are responsible for the state of the economy aren’t working. That won’t go back into the bottle. It’s in the 1%'s own interest to try to mitigate that, but they’re either too arrogant or too stupid to realize that.
I don’t want to see brokers and bankers strung up from lampposts. I really don’t want to see actual bloody revolution. But I’m afraid it might happen. The people who’ve only begun to hurt since 2008 aren’t downtrodden peasants who’ve never had more than a scrap of bread in their pantry at a time. They’re former middle-class workers and their offspring who’ve come out of college with a degree they can’t use because there are no jobs. They know what they’re missing. They’re not bred for patience on something like this.
If your life has never challenged that philosophy, I can certainly see why it appeals to you.
I imagine it’s not the kind of thing that a liberal would lIke to hear. However, if you look at the demographics of red versus blue states you will find that the states with the highest unemployment tend to vote Democrat. Unsurprisingly those states that receive the most welfare and unemployment also tend toward Democrat.
This is hardly surprising. If you are wealthy and/or gainfully employed chances are you are going to be less in favor of a traditionally liberal safety net. However if you are not employed, receiving welfare, or assistance you are more likely to be in favor of it.
If you are lazy you are more likely to be unemployed/receiving welfare or unemployment. Therefore, being liberal is correlated with laziness.
Quod et demonstratum.
Facts is facts. Credibility has nothing to do with it.
It does. Like I said, I know it’s wrong. I just try to act like it’s true.
I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the media image of these protesters has been that of youngish folks mostly just out of college. I expect that like any protest, it skews towards people who have the time.
Similar to how the demographic at the Tea Party stuff in my neck of the woods skewed “retirees”.
Reason is hardly a lefty magazine.
And it’s [Quod Erat Demonstrandum](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q.E.D.\).
Facts is facts.
You even use the word: “demographics”, apparently without the slightest understanding. You’re like a peacock fanning his tail without realising there is only one rather drab feather.
Oddly, as a generally progressive guy, I have a very similar philosophy.
However, I take it to the next level. “If I get accosted by a homeless guy, it’s my fault. Better improve the economic conditions of the country and get a shelter and some welfare in place so he’s got a place to stand to pull up on those bootstraps.”
Never get into an argument about latin with someone educated by Jesuits.