Oh, you "poor" Americans

The BBQ Pit
61

[QUOTE=you with the face]
This thread would have a bit more substance to it if the OP’s ire was directed to a specific person or group of people. Instead, he’s railing against a “general impression” that really is a product of his slightly knee-jerkified imagination. No one in the aforementioned thread was playing martyr as far I can tell. The only purpose of this thread is to pit, in general, anyone who lacks a sense of perspective and is too self-centered to recognize it. Well done. Except there remains a question that remains unanswered:

Who has shown this lack of perspective? On this board or else where?

I’m sure they exist, just like I’m sure people who kill cats for sport exist. But I don’t start pit threads about unrepentant cat murderers unless I’ve encountered an unrepentant cat murderer. I don’t just break out in a rant about some nebulous group of nameless, faceless people, just because the idea of them offends me. That’s just foolishness.

But hey, maybe I should start such a thread. I have some stuff to get off my chest about those scumbags. They don’t deserve to live and stuff.
[/QUOTE]

Right, no-one in the entire history of the Dope has pitted a general class of people or a particular trend. I didn’t start a thread to diss anyone in particular. If you don’t like that fact, well, sucks to be you, I guess. No skin off my nose.

62

[QUOTE=MrDibble]
Right, no-one in the entire history of the Dope has pitted a general class of people or a particular trend. I didn’t start a thread to diss anyone in particular. If you don’t like that fact, well, sucks to be you, I guess. No skin off my nose.
[/QUOTE]

Usually people don’t pit a general class of people for “just because” reasons. You’ve done a lot of hand-waving in this thread, decrying false martyrdom where none has been displayed, citing your “general impression” as justification but not supporting this impression with actual data.

This thread doesn’t bother me, but I think its pretty lame*. That doesn’t mean I disagree with the basic premise. It’s kind of hard not to agree, the way you’ve set up your OP.

*There’s no need to assure me that this opinion of mine doesn’t bother you, either. It’s not my intent to do take skin off your nose. Just giving you feedback.

63

[QUOTE=you with the face]
Usually people don’t pit a general class of people for “just because” reasons. .
[/QUOTE]

“General impressions” are not the same as “Just because”. mine arose from an overall view of that thread, not just because I felt like pitting some Americans today.

[QUOTE=you with the face]
You’ve done a lot of hand-waving in this thread, decrying false martyrdom where none has been displayed, citing your “general impression” as justification but not supporting this impression with actual data.
.
[/QUOTE]

If I had “actual data”, it wouldn’t be just a general impression, would it? Reading a thread isn’t some exact science.

[QUOTE=uglybeech]

This thread doesn’t bother me, but I think its pretty lame*. That doesn’t mean I disagree with the basic premise. It’s kind of hard not to agree, the way you’ve set up your OP. .
[/QUOTE]

Then just say that and shut the fuck up afterwards.

Why does every fucking thread have to end up in a meta-discussion of the merits of the OP? It’s not like we ration them out or anything. If this thread is lame, stay the fuck out of it or Pit me for lame OPs. Don’t just stay in the fucking thread to rate it, it gets pretty fucking tiresome.

I hope the Russian OP judges give me a 9.9, though. :rolleyes:

[QUOTE=uglybeech]

*There’s no need to assure me that this opinion of mine doesn’t bother you, either. It’s not my intent to do take skin off your nose. Just giving you feedback.
[/QUOTE]

It’s starting to bother me now, as I never asked for your fucking feedback. Discuss the point raised in the OP, yea or nay, or call me a worthless fucktard, or what-the-fuck ever, but if I wanted my OP critiqued like an essay, I’d have posted in CS.

Fuck.

64

[QUOTE=MrDibble]
“General impressions” are not the same as “Just because”. mine arose from an overall view of that thread, not just because I felt like pitting some Americans today.
[/quote]

And your “general impression” looks like a figment of your biases. No one was claiming that they lived in abject poverty because they can’t fill up their SUV, or anything like it. Anyone can create a strawman and then rant against it.

You can still cite something specific in the offending thread to support why you have this general impression. That seems like a reasonable expectation, given that it is that thread which sparked your rant. Since you can’t do that, all it looks is as if you have in your head that Americans are spoiled and therefore can not possibly know what’s it’s like to be really and truely poor, like you apparently do. Well, honestly, good for you! I’m glad you are an expert in this area. Too bad that has nothing at all to do with the thread in question.

Look, if you didn’t want to be challenged on your lameass OP, you shouldn’t have hit that “Post New Thread” button. This is probably why you should have gone with your first instinct and stuck this in the mini-rant thread.

Or better yet, don’t start threads that are lame and expect no one to say so. In the goddamn Pit of all places.

Oh yeah, and also watch your attributions. uglybeech ain’t my name.

65

MrDibble, you can’t blame some of us from being defensive. Both the thread title and the OP have an accusatory tone. Because you won’t cite specific people, it comes across as if you’re attacking all Americans. It’s just, you know, the general impression your OP gives off.

You seem to think that you’re simply blowing off steam, so we should just let you be. But that’s not really how the Pit works. If people feel like your steam-blowing is misplaced or unconstructive, they will call you on it. They aren’t being mean; they’re just doing the same thing you’re doing: Hearing themselves speak.

I’ve thought about creating a Pit thread specifically about OPs like yours, where people are too wussy to participate in a GD thread and instead come over here to talk shit about it, so they have more leeway in language and rational thought. Instead of discussing the subject matter rationally and calmly in the original thread, and perhaps changing people’s minds, you create a Pit thread like this one, so you can cuss and let the emotions fly. Then you get upset when people say you’re off-base with your criticisms. It’s like, why not get a livejournal if you don’t want other people to actually respond to you? I still don’t get it even though you kinda-sorta explained it.

Personally, that’s why your thread has bugged me so much (I know that you don’t care…and I know you don’t care that I don’t care back ;)). If you hadn’t seen fit to make it about another thread (and you had worded your OP differently), then I probably would have posted a “me too” post and been done with it.

66

MrDibble, if I agree with your original assertion that the thread you are pitting was kind of ridiculous, can I still call you a worthless fucktard? Nothing personal you understand, I just want to say “worthless fucktard”.

The person complaining about poverty line being $20k because they had problems making ends meet at $40k does not, in my humble opinion, understand poverty.
Granted, MrDibble comparing the American “poverty line” with extreme poverty is a bit over the top, but I also think about people without access to protein or raw sewage free drinking water when I hear the word “poverty”, so I can understand the confusion.
If the title of this thread was something like “This isn’t poverty” or “I pit people who think they understand poverty because they were late on last months credit card bill”, maybe it wouldn’t have torqued off so many people.

I probably should stay out of the pit - “You both make excellent points, and I think we can agree upon a common ground” seems wildly inappropriate in here… Worthless fucktards.
:wink:

67

[QUOTE=you with the face]
You can still cite something specific in the offending thread to support why you have this general impression. That seems like a reasonable expectation, given that it is that thread which sparked your rant.
.
[/QUOTE]

Crivens. Get this through your thick skull - it was the whole thread. It was a cumulative impression. No one post sparked my annoyance. I do not have to justify myself to you. Stop telling me where I can and can’t post. You are not a Mod. I do not care what you think is lame.

[QUOTE=you with the face]

Oh yeah, and also watch your attributions. uglybeech ain’t my name.
[/QUOTE]

Sorry about that. C&Ping got the better of me.

68

[QUOTE=MrDibble]
Crivens. Get this through your thick skull - it was the whole thread. It was a cumulative impression. No one post sparked my annoyance. I do not have to justify myself to you. Stop telling me where I can and can’t post. You are not a Mod. I do not care what you think is lame.
[/QUOTE]

You started a pit thread, pitting apparently all Americans. You thought everyone was going to agree and applaud you?
You included in your Op everyone in the thread. I think you know that any use of a broad brush usually gets smacked around in the Pit.

Jim

69

[QUOTE=monstro]
MrDibble, you can’t blame some of us from being defensive. Both the thread title and the OP have an accusatory tone. Because you won’t cite specific people, it comes across as if you’re attacking all Americans. It’s just, you know, the general impression your OP gives off.
[/QUOTE]

An impression I’ve explicitly corrected in later posts. So why are you here, again?
If the quotes in the OP are not your views, then you are not the subject of the OP. How fucking hard is that.

[QUOTE=monstro]

You seem to think that you’re simply blowing off steam, so we should just let you be. But that’s not really how the Pit works. If people feel like your steam-blowing is misplaced or unconstructive, they will call you on it. They aren’t being mean; they’re just doing the same thing you’re doing: Hearing themselves speak.

[/QUOTE]

Oh, I know how the Pit works. Doesn’t mean I’m going to roll over on your say-so.

[QUOTE=monstro]

I’ve thought about creating a Pit thread specifically about OPs like yours, where people are too wussy to participate in a GD thread and instead come over here to talk shit about it, so they have more leeway in language and rational thought.
[/QUOTE]

So go ahead and create one, already.

[QUOTE=monstro]
Instead of discussing the subject matter rationally and calmly in the original thread, and perhaps changing people’s minds, you create a Pit thread like this one, so you can cuss and let the emotions fly. Then you get upset when people say you’re off-base with your criticisms. It’s like, why not get a livejournal if you don’t want other people to actually respond to you? I still don’t get it even though you kinda-sorta explained it.

[/QUOTE]

Because I’ve paid for a subscription here, not on lj? So you have to open my threads and read them. Ha-ha, you are all my helpless slaves. Or you could just, oh, I don’t know, not read the thread? Or keep posting, but that doesn’t mean I have to sit and take it.

[QUOTE=monstro]

Personally, that’s why your thread has bugged me so much (I know that you don’t care…and I know you don’t care that I don’t care back ;)). If you hadn’t seen fit to make it about another thread (and you had worded your OP differently), then I probably would have posted a “me too” post and been done with it.

[/QUOTE]

Are you married to the other thread, that it matters so much to you? The thread certainly isn’t in here complaining that I dissed it.

[QUOTE=What Exit?]
You started a pit thread, pitting apparently all Americans. You thought everyone was going to agree and applaud you?
You included in your Op everyone in the thread. I think you know that any use of a broad brush usually gets smacked around in the Pit.

[/QUOTE]

No, I was hoping people would read my actual OP, then argue about it, not just assume because it said “Americans” in the title, I was pitting all Americans.

Gaah, I’m going to bed, it’s after 11 here.

70

[QUOTE=MrDibble]
No, I was hoping people would read my actual OP, then argue about it, not just assume because it said “Americans” in the title, I was pitting all Americans.
[/QUOTE]

What is it that you want us to argue about?

That folks are being whiny jackasses when they cry about being impoverished because they have trouble filling their tank twice a week?

Okay, I agree. Those people are really really dumb. I don’t know who these people are, but by gollee they suck.

And people who push little old ladies down the steps need to be imprisoned, too. Who’s with me on this?

71

But seriously, Dibble, your concept of poverty is flawed if only because it’s based on criteria that only seem relevant because of modern technology and/or your own cultural reference point.

Kings and queens back in the middle ages didn’t have access to plumbing and electricity, either. But they were hardly impoverished. In nomadic cultures today, the rich people don’t live in fancy, mansions; some live in tents and sleep on the ground. But that doesn’t mean they are poor. And before cars were invented, walking was the rule of the day. Even the affluent were known to go miles on foot just to get somewhere. But so what? “Poverty” and “affluence” are always going to be relative terms. In a thread specifically about poverty in the US (not the world, mind you), it is more than appropriate to talk about how those terms are defined economically, in the context of a specific time and place.

If it took living in a tin room shack with no running water or electricity before we started considering anyone poor over here then we’d have all kind of problems. There would be little money going toward social programs, crime would get out of hand, and eventually we would see people living in the gutter with flies on their faces. But by then it’d be too late to do anything about it. That’s what having a “it could always be worse” attitude leads to.

You can always point to someone who is worst off than you. That’s just a fact of life. But just because one person is suffering from terminal cancer, it doesn’t mean it’s wrong or insensitive to describe another person as unhealthy, even if theirs is a disease that is less deadly.

72

So if I have a broken leg, I shouldn’t complain because somewhere there’s someone with two broken legs? And the guy with two broken legs shouldn’t complain because somewhere there’s someone who’s a quadriplegic?

There’s always going to be someone worse off than me somewhere. If I can’t afford proper dental care, it’s not a problem because someone in Uganda never gets to eat meat? I shouldn’t have felt resentful when I couldn’t use my car after the IRS took the funds I needed to get the transmission fixed, because somebody in Mexico didn’t have a car at all? I mustn’t worry about whether or not I’ll have enough money to avoid hardship in my old age because somebody in Pakistan isn’t going to have any money at all in his old age?

I don’t get the reasoning which says that my troubles are somehow not real because somebody else’s troubles are worse.

73

I’ve struggled with this kind of idea in my life - how did I get so lucky to be born in such a rich country, and not as a poor, starving person in the slums of Calcutta? If you think North Americans don’t know how good they’ve got it, and feel some guilt for it, think again. I decided that feeling guilty for winning the world lottery by being born in Canada was pointless, though. I didn’t ask for it, and I plan on enjoying it. Do I feel badly about all the poor people in the world? No. I can’t feel badly for every poor person in the world. I can’t fix all their problems. There are rich people in the world, and there are poor people in the world. We all need to tend to our own knitting.

You do make a valid point though, Mr.Dibble - people need to appreciate what they’ve got, instead of moaning about what they don’t have.

74

[QUOTE=MrDibble]
This thread is making me sick.
[/quote]

Everything you describe is poverty indeed. OTOH, it is also possible for a person to have much higher income and better circumstances than you are describing and still be poor by any reasonable definition. The thread you are Pitting is about where to draw the “poverty line,” which is the upper limit of “poverty,” and where to put it is a highly important question for many purposes.

[QUOTE=MrDibble]
Christ, I know of people who make $10 a day at hard physical graft and they are grateful.
[/QUOTE]

Grateful, but poor.

75

If the OP doesn’t like threads about Americans and poverty, perhaps he should stay out of them instead of being slaves to the threads and reading them.

And I could care less what you think, ya fucking idiot.

76

[QUOTE=Epimetheus]
If the OP doesn’t like threads about Americans and poverty, perhaps he should stay out of them instead of being slaves to the threads and reading them.

[/QUOTE]

Maybe that’s another reason I didn’t post this rant in that thread, ya think?

77

[QUOTE=you with the face]
What is it that you want us to argue about?

That folks are being whiny jackasses when they cry about being impoverished because they have trouble filling their tank twice a week?

Okay, I agree. Those people are really really dumb.
[/QUOTE]

Well, that wasn’t so hard to say, was it?

[QUOTE=you with the face]
I don’t know who these people are, but by gollee they suck.
[/QUOTE]

You don’t have to know who they are.

78

[QUOTE=LonesomePolecat]
So if I have a broken leg, I shouldn’t complain because somewhere there’s someone with two broken legs? And the guy with two broken legs shouldn’t complain because somewhere there’s someone who’s a quadriplegic?

[/QUOTE]

Complain you both can, but the guy with two breaks doesn’t get to call himself quadraplegic, though. That’s my whole point.

[QUOTE=LonesomePolecat]

There’s always going to be someone worse off than me somewhere. If I can’t afford proper dental care, it’s not a problem because someone in Uganda never gets to eat meat? I shouldn’t have felt resentful when I couldn’t use my car after the IRS took the funds I needed to get the transmission fixed, because somebody in Mexico didn’t have a car at all? I mustn’t worry about whether or not I’ll have enough money to avoid hardship in my old age because somebody in Pakistan isn’t going to have any money at all in his old age?

I don’t get the reasoning which says that my troubles are somehow not real because somebody else’s troubles are worse.
[/QUOTE]

I never said anyone’s troubles weren’t real. They just don’t qualify for the same name. I’ve said many times in this thread that you should feel free to complain all you want. I have no problem with complaining. Never have. It’s when you call a certain level of existence “poverty”,when it’s no such thing, that I have a problem.

79

[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Everything you describe is poverty indeed. OTOH, it is also possible for a person to have much higher income and better circumstances than you are describing and still be poor by any reasonable definition. The thread you are Pitting is about where to draw the “poverty line,” which is the upper limit of “poverty,” and where to put it is a highly important question for many purposes.

[/QUOTE]

I guess you could say my thesis is that $18400 is way too high for such an upper limit, then.

But that misses out all the “fucks” though. Plus doesn’t convey my visceral reaction to that thread. Can’t explain it rationally, the whole thread just pissed me off.

80

[QUOTE=featherlou]
I’ve struggled with this kind of idea in my life - how did I get so lucky to be born in such a rich country, and not as a poor, starving person in the slums of Calcutta? If you think North Americans don’t know how good they’ve got it, and feel some guilt for it, think again. I decided that feeling guilty for winning the world lottery by being born in Canada was pointless, though. I didn’t ask for it, and I plan on enjoying it. Do I feel badly about all the poor people in the world? No. I can’t feel badly for every poor person in the world. I can’t fix all their problems. There are rich people in the world, and there are poor people in the world. We all need to tend to our own knitting.

You do make a valid point though, Mr.Dibble - people need to appreciate what they’ve got, instead of moaning about what they don’t have.
[/QUOTE]

Thanks, but that wasn’t my point, though. I have no problem with people being happy with what they have, or even dissatisfied with what they have. I don’t think you should feel guilty at all.

Just don’t come along and say you live in poverty, when you clearly don’t, is what I’m saying. I guess I’m also saying that real poverty isn’t as relative as some might think.