Why are the poor, poor?

[Artiste]

To that case above, I have seen something similar once:

I was in a public park where there were many persons walking and it was an afternoon.

Kids came along and started teasing an old man who was alone and quiet; these started to beat him up just for fun !!

Luckily, a calm gentleman (later I learned that he was a gay man), came and he was joined by me in stopping the beating !!

No else cared, and just walk along... carefree like.  Many now go to see killings I hear, as a sport !!

Who is to say when one is poor or rich ??

That to me is a form of being poor even if your are a rich kid or adult, or in a poor situation !!

[Jeff Wrangler]

    OK. have it your way...the left and dems are the party of defeat and n'er do well. So be it. Live in a world of 'here's why nothing works'...'oh woe is me' if you want...whatever turns one on.

And the right and Republicans live in a fantasy world where tax cuts have no effect except to take less money out of their wallets.

And I don't see you offering an alternative for how to help Johnny learn things by himself when that library in your own example is closed. Obviously it's just a lot easier just to make fun of a serious rebuttal than it is to respond seriously.

[Jeff Wrangler]

I answered that. It does not follow that because a program does not work, it was not compassionate. Compassion and success or failure are completely unrelated.

Absolutely disagree. True compassion does not simply throw out "goodness". It seems ludicrous to think hard-nosed anticipations of success or failure need to be completely related to compassion to ensure the efforts success. By your implications, the happy meals, ice cream, candy, and pop all the kids have been consuming making them quite unhealthy would have been a compassionate upbringing (since it attended to wants). However, I see it as very uncompassionate because thinking people knew the downsides of the gluteny and did it anyway for a short term benefit. Few social scientists predicted the mass entitklements of years past, particularly the extremes I have pointed out in public housing) to end up with a net increase in productive, self reliant people.

compassion and results are indeed related. How uncompassionate to risk the life long well being of anyone on a flimsy program that could thwart their abilities to be self reliant and productive.

This is so twisted and convoluted in its logic that it defies comprehension, let alone response. You're saying something is only compassionate if it succeeds? I say that's completely wrong. Compassion has to do with motives, with, say, wanting to improve housing for the poor. If the first attempt to solve the problem doesn't work, then by all means move on and try something else, but that in no way means the motivation was not compassionate.

And your bizarre reference to Happy Meals, etc., is totally off the mark because I was talking about needs, not wants.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Oh, for Pete's sake. OK, HerrKaiser, sure, whatever.

 

Don't worry, Friend Crayons. Considering a certain person's responses to my most recent posts, you aren't the one who's lost the argument, or run out of ideas.

Someone else around here is unwilling to face up to reality that theories put in practice may not necessarily have the consequences desired or anticipated. It's much easier to post platitudes about teaching children to use libraries than to face up to the reality that libraries get closed when there is no tax money to fund them.

[Luvlylittlewing]

    OK. have it your way...the left and dems are the party of defeat and n'er do well. So be it. Live in a world of 'here's why nothing works'...'oh woe is me' if you want...whatever turns one on.

I don't think it turns anyone on.  This is just the reality for a lot of people.

[serious crayons]

Someone else around here is unwilling to face up to reality that theories put in practice may not necessarily have the consequences desired or anticipated. It's much easier to post platitudes about teaching children to use libraries than to face up to the reality that libraries get closed when there is no tax money to fund them.

Thanks, Jeff, and I agree. I'd even go so far as to say there is probably, on both sides, some idealism about applying theories that don't necessarily work as planned, in reality.

What seems to be the difference between the two viewpoints is that one risks wasting some money -- yes, even trillions over 40 years, which must amount to, why, several hundred dollars over four decades for the average middle-class taxpayer!    -- attempting to execute their flawed theories in hopes of helping poor people in need.

Meanwhile, the other "side" is willing, if their theories don't work, to let fellow citizens -- people living in the richest nation on earth and in history, the one that's supposedly about equality and opportunity and all that stuff -- suffer and, without health insurance, even die.

Don't seem right, to me. 

[Kerry]

Why are the poor, poor? In a word, "Karma."

I am genuinely not trying to trivialize this important issue by responding as I have. It is what I sincerely believe.

I believe that it is only the karmically UNevolved who are given wealth, because they are "young" souls, unaccustomed to the rigours of life and its lessons. We are given wealth in our early incarnations in order to soften the hardships of life. It is only after we progress karmically through many incarnations that we gain the privilege of attaining the lessons provided by lives of poverty. It is only then that we have the strength and experience from progressively experiencing more and ever more challenging incarnations that we are able to cope with poverty.

It is my belief that the entity who is closest to Nirvana and experiencing his/her final incarnation on Earth prior to progressing to a state of everlasting Bliss is more likely to be the beggar on the street, NOT the millionaire in his mansion.

We in the West see wealth as a blessing. Karmically speaking, it is just the opposite.

Peace. 

[Jeff Wrangler]

It is my belief that the entity who is closest to Nirvana and experiencing his/her final incarnation on Earth prior to progressing to a state of everlasting Bliss is more likely to be the beggar on the street, NOT the millionaire in his mansion.

We in the West see wealth as a blessing. Karmically speaking, it is just the opposite.

Peace. 

"The West" has its version of this, too. Remember: "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven"?

 

[Jeff Wrangler]

Thanks, Jeff, and I agree. I'd even go so far as to say there is probably, on both sides, some idealism about applying theories that don't necessarily work as planned, in reality.

What seems to be the difference between the two viewpoints is that one risks wasting some money -- yes, even trillions over 40 years, which must amount to, why, several hundred dollars over four decades for the average middle-class taxpayer!    -- attempting to execute their flawed theories in hopes of helping poor people in need.

Meanwhile, the other "side" is willing, if their theories don't work, to let fellow citizens -- people living in the richest nation on earth and in history, the one that's supposedly about equality and opportunity and all that stuff -- suffer and, without health insurance, even die.

Don't seem right, to me. 

Don't seem right to me, either.

Tell you what, sometimes I wish I had a shower-proof computer. In the shower last night I composed the most elegant explication of the Conservative viewpoint as seen from a Liberal perspective, and this morning I can't remember a word of it! 

[Kerry]

"The West" has its version of this, too. Remember: "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven"?

 

A very sobering quote, indeed, and totally in keeping with the tradition of the Middle Eastern Jew who spoke those inspired words.