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I'm not imagining anything; I'm speaking from personal knowledge. I grew up in poverty. Poor people aren't a distant mystery to me; they've been my friends, fam
by leereeves 8y ago
I'm not imagining anything; I'm speaking from personal knowledge. I grew up in poverty. Poor people aren't a distant mystery to me; they've been my friends, family, classmates, and neighbors most of my life. (Not so much coworkers because I was fortunate to enter the tech industry.)
I've known many people who prefer to live on benefits and take pride in their ability to work the system. That life may not seem comfortable by SV standards, but they like it. They have no intention of working hard and earning a more expensive life.
Of course, I've also known many poor people who worked hard to improve their lives. People who advanced by going to night school while working full time, or through hard work and loyalty for an employer, or by living simply and investing what money they had. But I rarely see policies that help that kind of person from either party.
- AsyncAwait 8y ago> I've known many people who prefer to live on benefits and take pride in their ability to work the system. Yeah, sure, but there's always going to be people taking advantage of any system. Does that mean no system is worth having? I mean there's a tremendous amount of waste at the Pentagon, for example, yet the right always seems to rather be focusing on punching down, rather than up.
- leereeves 8y agoSome systems are worth having. Taxing idle wealth instead of productive work would be a good system. Rewarding work instead of cutting off benefits would be a good system. The system we have helps people who don't work but does little to help poor working people and IMO isn't worth having.
- AsyncAwait 8y ago> Taxing idle wealth instead of productive work would be a good system. I actually 100% agree with this. I am pleasantly surprised you support this, since many on the right tend to protest taxing wealth more.