So the answer to poverty is that we need more great men?
Sam, what you think of when you use the word poor and what comes to mind when I use the word poor are stunningly far apart. From some of the news reports I heard during the flooding in New Orleans, some of the families in the 9th District in New Orleans were trying to live on less that $10,000 a year before their homes were destroyed. Two years ago my hometown church found a man and his wife who tried to feed themselves on $100 a month.
You are the one who is taking the struggling middle class and trying to describe them as impoverished. $32,000 a year and a mobile home does not qualify someone as the working poor in my book.
Then can you explain why you put quotation marks around it as if it didn’t really mean what it says? Wouldn’t you feel a little insulted if the front page of your newspaper referred to Mrs. Stone in this way: "Sam Stone was seen leaving the hotel through a side entrance with his “wife”?
Liberals don’t help the poor to find jobs? They don’t help them to be more productive? They don’t encourage self-reliance, pride, and confidence? Can you say PEACE CORPS? VISTA? The Civil Rights Movement? The Rainbow Coalition? The Women’s Movement? On and on…
Where in the world did you get the notion that Conservatives have the monopoly on conventional wisdom? Do you think that Liberal parents teach their children different principles? About the only thing that I would disagree with is “Don’t demand things from others.” I would think that people who advise that are probably people who have not been denied their rights or been subject to frequent discrimination based on gender or race.
That certainly isn’t so in rural areas. Doctors have become scarce. A single nurse practitioner may now be responsible for an area where two or three doctors made house calls fifty years ago. The costs of medications is unthinkable. (Anecdotal example: My sister travels 250 miles roundtrip once a month to take a shot that costs $7,000 each (prior to insurance payment).
As educators they’ve surely had a course in child psychology and often a course in developmental psychology. But your point is well taken. Do none of them have chldren of their own?
Do you see why teachers become so frustrated at decisions made from afar by government officials who haven’t the foggiest notion of the reality? Grrr-r-r-r-r
Even this is wrong! Sam, you know shit all about the poor. Right now in Oakland it’s a two month wait to see a doctor at Planned Parenthood to get a refill on your birth control pills- a ten minute procedure. Free Clinics are a godsend, but it’s nothing like having regular medical care.
Why not. The definition of poverty is kinda stupid anyway. Most definitions are either a household income that is anything below:
- 3x the household’s food budget
- The average or median (I forget which) income of the nation as a whole divided by two
But you can ‘cure’ poverty by getting a roommate. If one minimum wage single parent makes 11k and is below the poverty line then marries another minimum wage single parent with a poverty level 11k income their combined household income is now 22k and above the line but they are still struggling just as hard as before.
I think you missed the point - fifty years ago birth control pills didn’t exist.
Regards,
Shodan
Your point – insofar as I can discern it – seems to be at least arguable, but what has it to do with even sven’s point?
It doesn’t. I don’t think poverty can be eliminated by Horatio Alger stories, except in small pockets. But it is better to at least try to improve your lot than accept it and give up, even if you fail miserably at least you tried.
The problem in my view is that most of the world’s greatest achievements in things like medicine, human rights, technology, etc occured when the countries in charge were welfare states so the idea that the welfare state eliminates motive to achieve doesn’t really make sense to me. If anything a person can make the arugment that a welfare state leads to more Horatio Alger stories as it gives people less reason to turn to despair and crime and gives them more opportunities to get an education and contribute to society.