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>>But the reality is that saying poor people should "just move someplace cheaper" is basically a classist assumption that lack of adequate income is the only th

>>But the reality is that saying poor people should "just move someplace cheaper" is basically a classist assumption that lack of adequate income is the only thing that matters in their life and their life can be boiled down to that one detail and that one detail should be the sole deciding factor in all their life choices. You would never suggest such a thing for someone who wasn't destitute. Like the saying goes, beggars can't be choosers. Economic necessity has forced me to do very difficult things in my life. That's what people do, because becoming a burden on your family and the rest of society is a failing in every way. Seeing the homeless gather with their buddies to smoke crack, and loiter all day on some street corner, while living and buying drugs at the taxpayers' expense, while people I know work back-breaking jobs at low wages, strikes me as a total injustice, brought about by people who manipulatively employ the victim narrative to perpetuate the current paradigm. Life is tough. It doesn't get less tough when you redistribute the pain to make it more levelled. It just makes it less fair, by severing the link between responsibility and consequences, while creating unsustainable dependencies that will turn out badly for everyone involved in the long run.

maconic 8y ago
We were all a burden on our family since day one weren't we? It takes a few takes decades to repay that burden, if ever. > "Seeing the homeless gather with their buddies to smoke crack, and loiter all day on some street corner, while living and buying drugs at the taxpayers' expense, while people I know work back-breaking jobs at low wages, strikes me as a total injustice, brought about by people who manipulatively employ the victim narrative to perpetuate the current paradigm." I think you're painting all homeless people with the same brush which is grossly unfair. The person that you're replying to said she was a military wife, I doubt she is one of these people you're describing that have crack smoking friends or loitering in the street. I assume you live in SF and have generalized all homelessness to what you see in certain parts of SF? The movie Pursuit of Happyness was based on a real-life homeless person based in SF. Sounds like you should watch that ;)
- CryptoPunk 8y ago
  Our families chose to have us. In the vast majority of families, children are biological progeny of the parents, and so carry their parents genes into the future. The fact that you're trying to compare disjointed people within a nation to a family where parents support their own children really shows the amount of non-voluntary collectivism you want to impose on society. >>I assume you live in SF and have generalized all homelessness to what you see in certain parts of SF? I realize that not all homeless are loitering drug addicts, but they form a significant percentage of the chronically homeless, and a situation where no-strings-attached aid is provided to them at the expense of the taxpayer, while others make the sacrifices to be independent through back-breaking work, is unjust. It's not just a matter of competence. It's also a matter of choice. Some people choose to take responsibility. Some don't.
cazum 8y ago
Your idea that these laborers are victims of "homeless crack addicts manipulatively employing the victim narrative" is such an extreme miscalculation that I wonder if you even looking at the data honestly. The amount of money that actually goes to homeless people is extremely low, and most of those meager funds are used to give them food and temporary shelter so they don't literally die outside. And even then, the amount of taxes that "low wage laborers" earn is slim. Why can't those with vast excessive wealth give some of it to services that can rehabilitate the homeless, or create unskilled or low skill jobs that pay enough to keep people indoors? If a homeless addict is smoking crack outside, what he needs is a shelter that can rehabilitate him, get him off drugs and get him employed somewhere where he can make meaningful contributions and connections to his society. Services like these barely exist, and are in desperate need of the money that we for some reason insist on giving to the wealthiest mega billionaires who keep it in offshore accounts and refuse to give to the people they are directly responsible for putting on the streets via critically unsustainable low wages. To assume that the homeless are homeless because of "responsibility and consequence" is to totally ignore any systemic circumstance outside of their control that may have led them to become homeless or jobless in the first place.
- CryptoPunk 8y ago
  >>Your idea that these laborers are victims of "homeless crack addicts manipulatively employing the victim narrative" is such an extreme miscalculation that I wonder if you even looking at the data honestly. I didn't say the homeless crack addicts are manipulatively employing the victim narrative. It's the taxpayer funded social support network around them that does that. >>The amount of money that actually goes to homeless people is extremely low, and most of those meager funds are used to give them food and temporary shelter so they don't literally die outside. Social housing and shelters are extremely expensive. All the federal assistance programs like Social Security Disability Insurance are a massive expense. And a lot of these non-profits who work with the homeless are funded by government. About half of the funding for non-profits comes from government, and the aggregate amount of funding is massive. >>And even then, the amount of taxes that "low wage laborers" earn is slim. The point is they're supporting themselves through back breaking work while crackhead and his buddies are loitering around and smoking crack every day with no one forcing them to start paying their own way. >>Why can't those with vast excessive wealth give some of it to services that can rehabilitate the homeless, or create unskilled or low skill jobs that pay enough to keep people indoors? What rehabilitation are you referring to? There is no discipline or order imposed on these drug addicts. They live a completely unstructured life, with no strings attached to the aid they receive. They don't want to work, or abide by the basic rules of society, and their poverty activist supporters will ensure that any effort to change that is met with exasperated calls of fascism, lack of compassion, "criminalizing the poor" or some other items from the set of manipulative victim narrative talking points. And any way, it's not the responsibility of those whose wealth ideologues deem to be "excessive" to pay for the living costs of those who do drugs every day. >>If a homeless addict is smoking crack outside, what he needs is a shelter that can rehabilitate him, get him off drugs and get him employed somewhere where he can make meaningful contributions and connections to his society. They don't want to get rehabilitated or work. This idea that they're all well-meaning people down on their luck is propaganda. The reality is that many of the most irresponsible people in society are among the homeless, and that they won't take any responsibility unless forced to. >>To assume that the homeless are homeless because of "responsibility and consequence" is to totally ignore any systemic circumstance outside of their control that may have led them to become homeless or jobless in the first place. Some are homeless and jobless because they'd rather do crack and party with their friends than take up responsibility. There are countless government programs they can avail themselves to. They don't want to. They don't want to listen to any authority, or control their impulse in any way. You don't seem to understand and/or care that you can't fix someone who doesn't want to get fixed, unless you take control of their lives over their objections.

maconic 8y ago

We were all a burden on our family since day one weren't we? It takes a few takes decades to repay that burden, if ever. > "Seeing the homeless gather with their buddies to smoke crack, and loiter all day on some street corner, while living and buying drugs at the taxpayers' expense, while people I know work back-breaking jobs at low wages, strikes me as a total injustice, brought about by people who manipulatively employ the victim narrative to perpetuate the current paradigm." I think you're painting all homeless people with the same brush which is grossly unfair. The person that you're replying to said she was a military wife, I doubt she is one of these people you're describing that have crack smoking friends or loitering in the street. I assume you live in SF and have generalized all homelessness to what you see in certain parts of SF? The movie Pursuit of Happyness was based on a real-life homeless person based in SF. Sounds like you should watch that ;)

CryptoPunk 8y ago
Our families chose to have us. In the vast majority of families, children are biological progeny of the parents, and so carry their parents genes into the future. The fact that you're trying to compare disjointed people within a nation to a family where parents support their own children really shows the amount of non-voluntary collectivism you want to impose on society. >>I assume you live in SF and have generalized all homelessness to what you see in certain parts of SF? I realize that not all homeless are loitering drug addicts, but they form a significant percentage of the chronically homeless, and a situation where no-strings-attached aid is provided to them at the expense of the taxpayer, while others make the sacrifices to be independent through back-breaking work, is unjust. It's not just a matter of competence. It's also a matter of choice. Some people choose to take responsibility. Some don't.

cazum 8y ago

Your idea that these laborers are victims of "homeless crack addicts manipulatively employing the victim narrative" is such an extreme miscalculation that I wonder if you even looking at the data honestly. The amount of money that actually goes to homeless people is extremely low, and most of those meager funds are used to give them food and temporary shelter so they don't literally die outside. And even then, the amount of taxes that "low wage laborers" earn is slim. Why can't those with vast excessive wealth give some of it to services that can rehabilitate the homeless, or create unskilled or low skill jobs that pay enough to keep people indoors? If a homeless addict is smoking crack outside, what he needs is a shelter that can rehabilitate him, get him off drugs and get him employed somewhere where he can make meaningful contributions and connections to his society. Services like these barely exist, and are in desperate need of the money that we for some reason insist on giving to the wealthiest mega billionaires who keep it in offshore accounts and refuse to give to the people they are directly responsible for putting on the streets via critically unsustainable low wages. To assume that the homeless are homeless because of "responsibility and consequence" is to totally ignore any systemic circumstance outside of their control that may have led them to become homeless or jobless in the first place.

CryptoPunk 8y ago
>>Your idea that these laborers are victims of "homeless crack addicts manipulatively employing the victim narrative" is such an extreme miscalculation that I wonder if you even looking at the data honestly. I didn't say the homeless crack addicts are manipulatively employing the victim narrative. It's the taxpayer funded social support network around them that does that. >>The amount of money that actually goes to homeless people is extremely low, and most of those meager funds are used to give them food and temporary shelter so they don't literally die outside. Social housing and shelters are extremely expensive. All the federal assistance programs like Social Security Disability Insurance are a massive expense. And a lot of these non-profits who work with the homeless are funded by government. About half of the funding for non-profits comes from government, and the aggregate amount of funding is massive. >>And even then, the amount of taxes that "low wage laborers" earn is slim. The point is they're supporting themselves through back breaking work while crackhead and his buddies are loitering around and smoking crack every day with no one forcing them to start paying their own way. >>Why can't those with vast excessive wealth give some of it to services that can rehabilitate the homeless, or create unskilled or low skill jobs that pay enough to keep people indoors? What rehabilitation are you referring to? There is no discipline or order imposed on these drug addicts. They live a completely unstructured life, with no strings attached to the aid they receive. They don't want to work, or abide by the basic rules of society, and their poverty activist supporters will ensure that any effort to change that is met with exasperated calls of fascism, lack of compassion, "criminalizing the poor" or some other items from the set of manipulative victim narrative talking points. And any way, it's not the responsibility of those whose wealth ideologues deem to be "excessive" to pay for the living costs of those who do drugs every day. >>If a homeless addict is smoking crack outside, what he needs is a shelter that can rehabilitate him, get him off drugs and get him employed somewhere where he can make meaningful contributions and connections to his society. They don't want to get rehabilitated or work. This idea that they're all well-meaning people down on their luck is propaganda. The reality is that many of the most irresponsible people in society are among the homeless, and that they won't take any responsibility unless forced to. >>To assume that the homeless are homeless because of "responsibility and consequence" is to totally ignore any systemic circumstance outside of their control that may have led them to become homeless or jobless in the first place. Some are homeless and jobless because they'd rather do crack and party with their friends than take up responsibility. There are countless government programs they can avail themselves to. They don't want to. They don't want to listen to any authority, or control their impulse in any way. You don't seem to understand and/or care that you can't fix someone who doesn't want to get fixed, unless you take control of their lives over their objections.