Why are the poor, poor?

[Jeff Wrangler]

"It seems ludicrous to think hard-nosed anticipations of success or failure need to be completely related to compassion to ensure the efforts success."

A perfect example of the muddled and convoluted prose I was discussing earlier.

"compassion and results are indeed related."

No, they are not.

Have you heard of the concept of 'tough love'? That is exemplory of compassion with a eye toward a successful outcome rather than simply delivering another "fix" that has only short term satisfaction, if that. The entitlement programs have largely not been 'tough love' and the results have been, by nearly all measurements, failures in terms of helping people get out of the cycle of not being able to care for themselves.

Tough love may indeed be successful with individual troubled teenagers, but if you try it on a single mother on welfare, it's apt to be her children who suffer the consequences.

[HerrKaiser]

A perfect example of the muddled and convoluted prose I was discussing earlier.

Thanks for the personal swipe that is only an opinion! 

No, they are not.

Ah, such perfection! I thought Oprah was the only one who thought she was God! 

Tough love may indeed be successful with individual troubled teenagers, but if you try it on a single mother on welfare, it's apt to be her children who suffer the consequences.

If the single woman had not felt comfortable, in the first place, that a child she could not afford would be covered by the broken system, she likely would have made better choices. 

[serious crayons]

If the single woman had not felt comfortable, in the first place, that a child she could not afford would be covered by the broken system, she likely would have made better choices. 

This exactly supports Jeff's point, which you appear to have missed.

If the woman DOESN'T make better choices, the child will suffer. Should the child have made better choices?

[Jeff Wrangler]

Ah, such perfection! I thought Oprah was the only one who thought she was God! 

Oh, I get it. The Right is allowed to know it all, but the Left never knows anything. Clearly you can't refute--or concede--my point that compassion relates to motivation and not to results, so instead you must try to turn it into a joke.

This exactly supports Jeff's point, which you appear to have missed.

As usual.

Thanks, Crayons. 

[Jeff Wrangler]

If the single woman had not felt comfortable, in the first place, that a child she could not afford would be covered by the broken system, she likely would have made better choices. 

A good example of the Right's bizarre way of thinking.

"Oh, she should have foreseen that her children would suffer when we kick her off welfare, so she should have had fewer (read: none) children."

[HerrKaiser]

the above posts are a fine indication of how confused many posts are:

1) seriouscrayons uses my quote to suggest it supports a point by JW

2) JW salutes seriouscrayons for stating this opinion.

3) JW then refers to the same quote as bizarre thinking.


Very, very strange. 

[serious crayons]

1) seriouscrayons uses my quote to suggest it supports a point by JW

Yes. But I suggested that it unwittingly supported a point by Jeff -- that your response indicated you had misunderstood Jeff's point to the extent that, in attempting to argue your own position, you inadvertently were reinforcing his.

JW salutes seriouscrayons for stating this opinion.

3) JW then refers to the same quote as bizarre thinking.

Very, very strange. 

Not really. If you read all of the posts more carefully you will see that my criticism of your post, and Jeff's description of bizarre thinking, applied to two different weaknesses in your argument.

The first, the point that Jeff initially made and that I repeated, is that you did not seem to consider the suffering of the children -- whose only mistake was to be born -- into the "tough love" equation.

And as I understand Jeff's critique, the second weakness, the aspect he called bizarre, is that you seemed to suggest that a woman, when having children, could be expected to foresee future changes in welfare policy and plan her pregnancies accordingly.

[brokeplex]

The first half of this sentence is correct: "People who are dependent on programs for their very life, shelter, medical care, clothing, etc, are extremely unlikely to VOTE."

Yes, as I'm sure you know, voting rates are very low among the poor. (Many believe that's why George W. Bush was no hurry to rush to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and I find that quite plausible.) If doing favors for poor people in exchange for their votes is the Democrats' big plan to get into office, it explains why they've lost the last two presidential elections! 

But when they DO vote, do many poor people vote for Democrats? Sure. Just like many rich people vote for Republicans. As a rule (with some obvious exceptions) people tend to vote for the candidates who they believe are most concerned with their interests. I don't see that as some kind of secret underhanded scheme on the part of either party. Bush is quite open about whom he considers his "base."  And that's why HE does the favors HE does. Nobody would mistake our president for someone who goes around worrying about poor folks.

oh, come on. now that is Jesuitical parsing if I have ever seen it!

Those who are on assistance of any type are much more likely to vote Democrat. It is no accident of fate that some of the safest Democrat districts in the US are in the inner cities with a large pop on assistance. Lets dispense with such silliness as trying to dodge the economic motivating factors in voting decisions, and the very real impact that being on assistance has on voting decisions. People tend to vote their pocketbook, and this is the control that the entrenched welfare system has over a segment of the electorate.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Not really. If you read all of the posts more carefully you will see that my criticism of your post, and Jeff's description of bizarre thinking, applied to two different weaknesses in your argument.

The first, the point that Jeff initially made and that I repeated, is that you did not seem to consider the suffering of the children -- whose only mistake was to be born -- into the "tough love" equation.

And as I understand Jeff's critique, the second weakness, the aspect he called bizarre, is that you seemed to suggest that a woman, when having children, could be expected to foresee future changes in welfare policy and plan her pregnancies accordingly.

Could or should be expected to foresee, but, yes, that's it. 

[brokeplex]

Nope, this is the first time it has come up. And your wish is my command. Since it's so long, I'm going to put it in quote mode to save space. For anyone who finds that difficult to read and wants to see it in bigger print, here's a link.

http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html

Lets all right now start weeping for the starving children of 18th cent Ireland who have been dead for 280 years!

I can see that the left is now running out of ammo and need a little diversion.

The reality is that there really is no relevance to the comparison of the famines in Ireland in the 18th cent which Swift was parodying and the 21st cent American underclass. Just as there is no comparison to the fate of the underclass in this country to the fate of the starving in 3rd world countries of today.

Now if you really feel a call to save starving children such as described by Swift, then go to Africa. There in the Islamic country of Sudan, a people are being starved to death in a type of ethnic cleansing.

and if people advancing the cause of the welfare state actually believe that there is a comparison, then the gulf is too wide to bridge the debate without using words like "delusional" and "confused".