Why are the poor, poor?

[Jeff Wrangler]

Broketrash has offered a solution for poverty...interment in work camps for poor people and forced sterilization...but Reagan called America 'a bright shining city'...I was juxtaposing Broketrash's solution with Reagan's vision.

And you did a really good job of it, too. 

[Jeff Wrangler]

really? I would like a list of these democratic countries that are using forced sterilizations...(as Katherine pointed out..we would like some HARD data...something!!)

This thread has been long on unsubstantiated generalizations that we are supposed to take on faith. 

[brokeplex]

Things are getting a bit too heated in here.  Debating ISSUES is what we're all about, so let's cut down on the characterizations of the individuals posting those issues, and keeping the personalities out of the mix.  Casting aspersions on each other usually suggests someone has run out of intellectual fuel to debate an issue intelligently, so showing that "tell" usually suggests you are about to "fold your hand."  It is perfectly acceptable, if a debate has exhausted its course, to simply agree to disagree and move on to the next issue.  We're all neighbors here, so let's always try and keep things civil.

I think that is a wonderful idea. And since I have now blocked the person who was making the somewhat hysterical comparisons to the Third Reich death camps and the other person who seems to be very easily offended, I am happy to continue exchanging posts with those who actually wish to examine ideas relating to welfare reformation.

[brokeplex]

Can anyone explain to me what this is supposed to mean?

It appears to be yet another reference to the Third Reich. Somehow it would appear that the person who posted this thinks this is just a devastating response.

I have noticed that frequently those on the left will automatically charge racism and sexism when their assumptions are challenged. The Nazi references are just this strategy taken to its logically absurd conclusion.

[brokeplex]

So now, in your view, not only should welfare recipients avoid having children, but even the working poor (or even middle-class single parents, I guess) should not have them? In other words, you find it preferable to live in an incredibly wealthy country in which people below a certain income level should be discouraged from partaking in in one of the most basic human experiences ... than to live in an incredibly wealthy country where the haves lend a hand to the have-nots??

people should not have children which they can not afford to raise. This is a crime against the child, and it is robbing the tax payers. Theft and child abuse.

[brokeplex]

Yes. That would be great. Now all you have to do is spread the word through education and encouragement to all the poor people of this country. But then -- guess what? You'd be working for one of the many anti-poverty programs that are engaged in this very effort!! 

an antipoverty program that was able to offer a education that prepared people for the workplace and then offered them a job based upon their skill levels which provided allowed them to advance and meet their material needs would be a blessing.

In fact this program is called SCHOOL CHOICE, SCHOOL ADOPTION, AND CAPITALISM.

[brokeplex]

This confuses me a bit. What are we doing here but debating? Are we looking to hammer out new policy, hoping that the BetterMost members who are also federal officials with influence in this area will read the thread and take action? Or more to the point, is anyone here really trying to come up with some new idea for helping the poor, or are we just batting back and forth our entrenched, conflicting views about the causes of the poverty and effectiveness of the current system?? In a discussion that seems to be taking on an increasingly nasty edge?

My original comment was not aimed at you. I assure you, if you were using the same "tactics" (and that dignifies what I have seen) which some others have used, I would not respond to your posts.

[serious crayons]

I have noticed that frequently those on the left will automatically charge racism and sexism when their assumptions are challenged.

Since this seems to contain a reference to me, let me clarify once again. Sometimes, when I have heard people describe what they perceive as the typical Welfare recipient, or rail about the onerous 1-percent-of-the-budget tax burden it creates, the person also happens to be racist. I don't draw that conclusion entirely from their remarks about Welfare, which is why I haven't drawn it about you. I also draw it from other things those people have said.

Maybe it's entirely a coincidence, and their racist views have nothing to do with their reasoned assessment of welfare's efficacy. Again: Opposition to welfare is not, in and of itself, racist. However, it doesn't take a huge logical leap to surmise that, although the majority of welfare recipients are white, they are disproportionately black and according to stereotype almost exclusively black, so racism may enter into the viewpoints of at least some opponents of the system.

Let me put it another way. Most Welfare opponents may not be racist. But I would guess most racists are Welfare opponents. Except, of course, the racists who are also Welfare recipients.

That clarified, I'm happy to move on. 

[brokeplex]

Uh-huh. Right. Must be because we don't get those hilarious witticisms of hers.  Um, including that one, I guess.

I remind you again, as I mentioned the last time you said this, that the two funniest people in America are on the left. You can see them every night from 10 to 11 p.m. Central Time on the Comedy Channel (though I watch them in the morning, while working out).

Ann Coulter aside, and the fact the humor is indeed in the eyes and ears of the beholder, what is to be done about welfare?

You asked me to offer some solutions. That I did!  You, and Del have offered reasoned objections to those ideas. OK, I disagree, but I am willing to entertain other ideas.

Or do you disagree with me that welfare needs to be scrapped at the federal level, turned over to the states and fundamentally reformed? Can I assume that you agree with Del's earlier post which offered some suggestions that would reform the system around the edges but wouldn't really change the fundamentals?

[brokeplex]

Since this seems to contain a reference to me, let me clarify once again. Sometimes, when I have heard people describe what they perceive as the typical Welfare recipient, or rail about the onerous 1-percent-of-the-budget tax burden it creates, the person also happens to be racist. I don't draw that conclusion entirely from their remarks about Welfare, which is why I haven't drawn it about you. I also draw it from other things those people have said.

Maybe it's entirely a coincidence, and their racist views have nothing to do with their reasoned assessment of welfare's efficacy. Again: Opposition to welfare is not, in and of itself, racist. However, it doesn't take a huge logical leap to surmise that, although the majority of welfare recipients are white, they are disproportionately black and according to stereotype almost exclusively black, so racism may enter into the viewpoints of at least some opponents of the system.

Let me put it another way. Most Welfare opponents may not be racist. But I would guess most racists are Welfare opponents. Except, of course, the racists who are also Welfare recipients.

That clarified, I'm happy to move on. 

I agree to move on, my comment was precisely aimed at the extreme comments on this thread in which analogies were drawn to Nazi death camps. You were not the person making those comments, and your reference to possible racism or classism as motivators among those who advocate welfare reform was made in a manner that was well within the bounds of a serious discussion. I regret that you felt I was strongly objecting to any of your posts.  Since I have met you on this web site we have disagreed very strongly, but I have never noted that you use those types of attacks.