These are not diploma mill colleges. They are community colleges that have open admission. There are several in the DC/VA/MD area that are highly rated and have partnerships with 4 year colleges for easy transfer after 2 years.
So getting ahead in life is hard? It takes work and struggle? The HELL you say!
How about we help poor people by not making excuses for them, find them the opportunities they need (that exist, even if it takes a lot of work), and help them succeed. I don’t think moving all poor people to an island is the best course of action :rolleyes:
Really confused about what you mean so can you clarify?
The rich can afford the kids they have so they have to use condoms?
So that means a poor woman has to have unprotected sex because the rich do?
The rich have to have the same birth control poor people do?
Poor women shouldn’t use abstinence because rich people use condoms/birth control pills?
Since having a child affects poor and rich people equally, they need to make the same choices?
It is unfair that the rich have more choices in life?
Clearly, you stopped reading after the first quoted sense. As I said, it’s an EXPLANATION, not an EXCUSE. If you don’t understand why someone does something it makes it much harder to change that behavior.
That was tried - as I’ve mentioned, there have been several instances in the 20th Century of forcibly removing children from cultures considered undesirable and placing them with a “proper” family. The results were less than optimal. So… what do you suggest?
Funny, I knew a LOT of people growing up who got their jobs via connections - worked in the family business so daddy gave them a job (or in one case mommy), parents or uncles/aunts giving them references and/or directing them to acquaintances looking for new employees. Really, you didn’t know anyone who got a job from family connections?
Sure, because not all middle-class kids are connected, but connections sure help. The kid still has to work, but having daddy speak to someone he knows in HR can get your foot in the door.
Well, maybe said person is scavenging all those buckets of half-eaten popcorn for snacks… naw.
I have to agree, as presented that’s a pretty stupid thing. I’d probably even tell the person in question “it’s pretty frickin’ stupid to go to the movies every week when you’re having trouble paying for food”.
Actually, my $200 shoes are what enable me to work 8 hours on my feet on concrete floors without foot pain, so I consider them work equipment… what you’re talking about are the $200 “athletic shoes”, right? Mine don’t have a famous athlete’s name attached and are pretty utilitarian in appearance, as opposed to fancy frills.
You are wrong. Medicaid, which varies by state, is NOT required to pay for birth control. Some states do (most, fortunately) but some don’t.
In some states, able-bodied single adults without children do NOT get Medicaid, which makes whether or not Medicaid covers birth control irrelevant.
In some states Medicaid will cover the kids but not the able-bodied adult parents of children, so, again, whether or not birth control is offered would be irrelevant to those who do not qualify.
But hey, continue to simmer in ignorance.
Sure - if there is a Planned Parenthood office close enough for a visit. There usually is in urban areas, not so much further out in the boondocks or do you assume poverty is only a city problem?
But doesn’t always work from the standpoint of achieving safer sex experience.
And with this, and your subsequent replies to my points, it becomes obvious that you are not here for a discussion but to promote an agenda. So I’m puzzled as to why I should ever reply to you again. I am not here to be your punching bag. There are other people who disagree with my viewpoint who are willing to have a discussion rather than target practice.
It’s pretty simple - why are we holding the poor to a different standard than the rich? If society deems that poor people having fewer children is a good thing then society should make it easier for poor people to obtain effective birth control because history shows people don’t stop having sex. It’s like saying poor people should only subsist on a liquid diet and not eat solid foods - not gonna happen, even if the liquid supplied is perfectly healthy, nutritious, and tasty.
Sure, SOME poor people will live celibate lives. Some poor people will also only have sex with their own gender. Those are outliers, though, and if we’re going to set up a system to take care/improve/whatever poor folks making the rules for outliers isn’t going to work very well. You have to look at the majority of people and the fact is very, very few people are going to live their entire lives without having sex. It’s unrealistic to expect that or hold it up as a standard of behavior.
puh-LEEZE… ever since the great AIDS crisis of the last part of the 20th Century there have been places you can get condoms for free. The problem isn’t the supply of condoms, it’s more than people (for the most part men, although some women object as well) don’t like to wear them while having sex.
IF people were happy to use condoms I’d advocate dispensing them for free just on the basis of them being good for public health (reducing the spread of disease) but even if you give them away a lot of people just won’t use them. A birth control method is no good if you can’t get people to use it.
That’s fine, you can wallow in your poor self-pity all you want. It just irks me when numerous plans, programs and other opportunities for poor people are brought up they just get shot down with a bunch of excuses about why poor people can’t do them, apply for them, shit, even just KNOW about them because they are all so poor! Or the program doesn’t cover every single poor person in the country, so it is obviously a failure.
Jesus, at least acknowledge the fact that there are numerous programs to help poor people, and maybe move the discussion on how to get MORE poor people to qualify, apply, or even just KNOW about them instead of just hand-waving it away with “Poor people are poor, dumb, and stupid and can’t do any of that stuff”
I didn’t say growing up, I said “in college”. Most of the small number of people who I knew who got full time post-college jobs via connections were either upper-middle class or upper class, who did stuff like getting hired after law school at their uncle’s firm, or they were more working/lower-middle class types who did things like went to work laying tile with their dads, or working construction with their uncles, or the like.
Maybe it’s different elsewhere, but the vast, vast majority of people I knew in college were either 1st generation college students whose parents’ networks didn’t really benefit them much, or they were going into a totally different field than their parents were even remotely involved in.
I’ll use me and several of my friends and roommates as examples:
[ul]
[li]Me: Mom: Teacher Dad: muncipal employee (finance). Got computer-science degree and related job through school career center.[/li][li]Roommate: Mom: teacher Dad: paper mill maintenance engineer. Got job via school career center.[/li][li]Roommate #1: Mom: No idea. Dad: psychologist. Got job via school career center.[/li][li]Roommate #3: Mom: Nurse practitioner Dad: MD, Step-Dad: Professor . Went to law school. Got 1st post-law school job through networking via me.[/li][li]Friend #1: Mom: Homemaker Dad: County Sheriff in rural LA. Got job via networking from internships in college.[/li][li]Friend #5: Mom: Nutritionist Dad: Farmer/Seed salesman in rural IA. Got job via career center.[/li][li]Friend #6: Mom: Homemaker Dad: no idea. Went to grad school, got history PhD eventually, got Fed. government job via application & grad school networking.[/li][/ul]
Some of them got jobs via networking, but even their networking wasn’t the growing-up kind. Even the lawyer one was via the dad of a college friend of my brother’s, not someone he grew up with.
My point is that I think that this networking that people like to talk about as such a middle class advantage isn’t really as strong at the point that you get out of college; it tends to come into play later, after you’ve built your own network.
I can think of some reasons. I’ll leave it to you to decide if they are valid or not.
They are in denial about how bad their situations are. Maybe they are newly poor and they think they are having a temporary bad patch. They don’t want to tell their kid he can’t go on a class trip because the light bill needs to be paid, because what kind of bad parent can’t afford $10 for a trip to the zoo?
Money is often needed to maintain social networks–the ones that are essential for survival. It is your friend’s wedding. This is a guy who knows everyone in town and can potentially hook up you for a job. You could use $30 to buy groceries or you could use that money to drive down to his wedding, with a small token in hand. You choose the latter, knowing that between the food pantry and your mother’s generosity, you won’t starve to death. But at least you’ve maintained an important social tie.
Similarly, your sister has asked to borrow $30. You could tell her no, or you could help her, since she’s helped you in the past and will likely continue to do so. Giving up $30 might mean a few weeks of ramen. But for your sister, maybe $30 is the difference between having a roof over her head or sleeping on the street.
You have low impulse control. Not because you consciously choose to be this way, but because your upbringing never encouraged delayed gratification. You saw your parents spend money like crazy, so you do the same thing. Because you don’t know any better.
You have mental illness. You’re a compulsive hoarder or spender.
You realize that appearances often matter. Maybe you use your last $30 to buy a nice pair of slacks for a job interview, because you know that jeans won’t cut it. Maybe you spend that money on getting your hair done, because you know that no one is going to hire you if your hair isn’t presentable and you lack the ability to make it that way on your own. Perhaps you’ve lived off of ramen noodles for the past month and you’d like to give yourself a special meal before that interview so that you feel just as good as you look.
If you’re a young woman with no job prospects, finding a mate who can financially support you isn’t exactly an irrational decision. But a person who doesn’t look attractive will have a very hard time attracting someone–especially someone who is a good mate. So maybe if you are in this situation, you decide to spend some money on clothes and make-up rather than on electricity and water. Maybe you’d allow a friend to use $10 on your EBT card in exchange for acne cream and some nail polish, because you’re thinking if you can woo the handsome guy with the job who just moved into your apartment building, the sacrifice will be worth it.
You’re depressed. You’ve done all the right things, living the most frugal existence you can bear, but you’re still poor. You’ve lost all hope of it ever changing. You’re lonely because all your friends have dropped off the radar (probably because you keep declining their invitations to do stuff). Your family refuses to help because of your PERSONAL CHOICES. Every time you try to save some money towards the future, something pops up and wipes it away. You can’t afford to spend $20 so you and your SO can have a night out, but dammit, if you can’t enjoy anything in life, what’s the point of living? Maybe you decide to let tomorrow worry about tomorrow for a change, so you can remember what pleasure feels like.
Are you disputing that these are factually accurate statements?
In my state, for example, a non-disabled adult female is not eligible for Medicaid UNLESS she’s pregnant or has a child. In other words, getting knocked up is probably to her immediate financial advantage. (Long-term, not so good, but when you’re poor, figuring out a solution to immediate problems tends to take priority over long-term answers.) Have a kid, have health insurance until the kid is 19. No kid, no Medicaid.
This is one of those “numerous plans, programs and other other opportunities for poor people” you’ve been raving about, and plenty of people do take advantage, but probably not in the way you’ve been thinking.
Actually, I have discussed various “anti-poverty programs” at length, but you choose to ignore that.
Because you’re dealing with people you will NEVER get a perfect outcome. Some people can be easily helped, some require more work, some will never get better. Tightening the screws down further and further eventually reaches a point of no returns.
It is clear you have no desire to discuss details, you just want to bash poor people. Go to the Pit for that.
Poor people can’t set priorities or stick to them.
Poor people can’t help being stupid, because they were raised that way.
Poor people are crazy.
Poor people care more about their clothes than their budget.
Also, 5A. Poor women need to spend money on their appearance because if they don’t spend money on their appearance, they will have to support themselves, which they can’t do, because they spend all their money on clothes and makeup.
Poor people can’t be expected to stick to a budget because it’s haaaaaaardd.
Funny, we live in the same part of the country, and are probably close in age, and I don’t know anyone who got their jobs via connections.
We went to college, graduated with degrees other than Art History and the like, sent out resumes, went on interviews, and got jobs. ALL of us. No connections necessary.
For some people, yes. They just won’t use condoms for various reasons, usually coming down to making sex less fun. Although some people are legitimately allergic to latex and non-latex condoms don’t ever seem to be given away for free.