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The generations aren't moving forward, they're moving backward. The middle class has shrunken by 10% since 1970 and poverty has gone up, both worldwide and in A

The generations aren't moving forward, they're moving backward. The middle class has shrunken by 10% since 1970 and poverty has gone up, both worldwide and in America. TVs are not good things to have, they're brainwashing machines that make people stupid. Wall street moguls run the government and own the media. They are more powerful than presidents. We barely have a social safety net anymore. It's sad that the people who came from poverty often have the least sympathy. What you are missing is that not everyone can be born with above average IQs and work their way out. You got lucky and the social safety net is quickly crumbling behind you. What you miss about ghetto schools is the school board corruption. The school boards eat all the funding in salaries and perks and corporate pork projects. I'm not telling you or anyone else to sacrifice their well-being. I'm saying you should take a look at the demographic trends and recognize that for your own sake you need to play a part in bettering the communities of the unfortunate. Because your own livelihood depends on an intact civil society with a functioning non-corrupt government that is not owned by a few corrupt industries. The society that gave you the opportunity to enjoy wealth did not just spontaneously arrange itself. It was designed and protected by altruistic, honest, competent and intelligent people just like you. Except you aren't playing a civic role in your community but the corporate lobbyists and Christian fascists are, which threatens your lifestyle. Your social mobility was enabled by the middle class, through hardwon political and social battles with robber barons. You inherited the social traditions that made you more than a serf, but are not passing those traditions on to the next generation. They are quickly going away through corporate owned lawmakers creating a neo-feudalistic corporate fascism. All I want is for people like you to spend some of your time engaging in community leadership and politics, like my grandfathers did after the war to create and defend the middle class, the social safety net, and social mobility. You came from a poor background, but I come from an upper middle class background whose ancestors played roles in creating those social programs that kept you alive and gave you access to educational resources. They did it for future generations of poor children like you were, and I want you to pay it forward through civic participation. Don't just tell the poor to go wallow. Lend a helping hand.

justin_vanw 15y ago
A helping hand doesn't always help. You act as though we know what the problems are, and what the solutions are, but refuse to act because of idiocy or bigotry. Suppose you were given a budget of $100Billion USD to spend however you wanted. Now, give me your plan to fix something, anything. Tell me how this 'helping hand' will be used, and I'll respond with a long, long list of ways you are actually going to do more harm than good. It's not out of idiocy and bigotry that I advocate these positions, it's out of a desire to not simply waste resources (and thus cause harm) when we have no idea how to actually help. Now, to your specific points, you are just full of shit. You are spouting a bunch nonsense. I could refute one point at a time, but your MO seems to be to just move on to new talking points when old ones are refuted. No doubt you win arguments by simply wearing out your opponents with your endless stream of ill-posed statements. Honestly, I would be happy to demolish your arguments one at a time. So, if you want to have this debate, lets start with one important theme, and go from there, not 500 assertions that you'll just abandon and replace with 500 more in your next post. Just to be completely clear, I don't claim to know what all the problems and solutions are. I claim that you don't know what the problems and solutions are, and should stop criticizing people just because they don't advocate the same radical positions you baselessly hold.
- forensic 15y ago
  These are solvable problems. You are way too aggressive with me. University researchers have many consensus, scientifically based viewpoints on how to improve social issues. The simple fact is that the research is just ignored in favor of radical emotionally-potent ideologies. Many political ideas have been scientifically tested. I spent years in university learning about them and I certainly don't know them all, but I know professors who have worked on these issues for decades and have been able to draw strong scientific conclusions. Economists throughout the world are able to reach consensus (defined as 90%+ agreement) on many issues. Their consensus is ignored politically. Psychologists are able to reach consensus on certain questions of public mental health and the mental health of the poor. Their conclusions are politically ignored. This is the pattern. The pattern is that other countries have demonstrated social success stories and other countries have put the University social science into practice and reaped success. The USA does not. American political policy is a combination of Christian fascist social policy, corrupt Democratic/Republican fake social program pork barrel, and Military-Industrial-Security complex pork barrel. People with reasonable views based on consensus science are underrepresented. If you actually think you can "demolish all my arguments" then you've lost my respect for your lack of humility. You're just one man, you don't have time to be an expert in every field. My opinions are mostly informed by the consensus views of social scientists. When implemented, social science has been very successful. What do I want to do about the poor? I just want scientifically literate people to put more time into politics so that they can counteract the voices of irrationality that currently dominate lawmaking. I want smart people to act on the good science that is out there instead of having the wealthy and intelligent throw up their hands and pretend it is someone else's problem.
nl 15y ago
poverty has gone up, both worldwide and in America I don't have the figures to hand for the US, but worldwide the opposite is true. In percentage terms the proportion living in poverty now is roughly half what it was in 1980[1]. In absolute terms it has dropped from 1.5 billion in 1981 to 1.1 billion in 2001[2]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Percentage_living_on_less_than_$1_per_day_1981-2001.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Percentage_living_on_less_... [2] http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTPOVERTY/0,,contentMDK:20195240~pagePK:148956~piPK:216618~theSitePK:336992,00.html http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTPOVERTY/0...
- forensic 15y ago
  The IMF disagrees with Wikipedia. "in recent decades, nearly one-fifth of the world’s population has regressed. This is arguably one of the greatest economic failures of the 20th century" http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/20111130121556567265.html http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/20111130121...
  - nl 15y ago
    You do realize that one with of the world regressing and less people living in poverty can both be true, right? I'm quite familiar with the IMF report. That 1/5th was comprised mostly of former communist nations who's population was much worse off during the transition to market economies. That didn't always drop them into global poverty levels though. There are plenty of bad things in the world, but the fact is that less people are starving to death now than 30 years ago and that is worth acknowledging.

justin_vanw 15y ago

A helping hand doesn't always help. You act as though we know what the problems are, and what the solutions are, but refuse to act because of idiocy or bigotry. Suppose you were given a budget of $100Billion USD to spend however you wanted. Now, give me your plan to fix something, anything. Tell me how this 'helping hand' will be used, and I'll respond with a long, long list of ways you are actually going to do more harm than good. It's not out of idiocy and bigotry that I advocate these positions, it's out of a desire to not simply waste resources (and thus cause harm) when we have no idea how to actually help. Now, to your specific points, you are just full of shit. You are spouting a bunch nonsense. I could refute one point at a time, but your MO seems to be to just move on to new talking points when old ones are refuted. No doubt you win arguments by simply wearing out your opponents with your endless stream of ill-posed statements. Honestly, I would be happy to demolish your arguments one at a time. So, if you want to have this debate, lets start with one important theme, and go from there, not 500 assertions that you'll just abandon and replace with 500 more in your next post. Just to be completely clear, I don't claim to know what all the problems and solutions are. I claim that you don't know what the problems and solutions are, and should stop criticizing people just because they don't advocate the same radical positions you baselessly hold.

forensic 15y ago
These are solvable problems. You are way too aggressive with me. University researchers have many consensus, scientifically based viewpoints on how to improve social issues. The simple fact is that the research is just ignored in favor of radical emotionally-potent ideologies. Many political ideas have been scientifically tested. I spent years in university learning about them and I certainly don't know them all, but I know professors who have worked on these issues for decades and have been able to draw strong scientific conclusions. Economists throughout the world are able to reach consensus (defined as 90%+ agreement) on many issues. Their consensus is ignored politically. Psychologists are able to reach consensus on certain questions of public mental health and the mental health of the poor. Their conclusions are politically ignored. This is the pattern. The pattern is that other countries have demonstrated social success stories and other countries have put the University social science into practice and reaped success. The USA does not. American political policy is a combination of Christian fascist social policy, corrupt Democratic/Republican fake social program pork barrel, and Military-Industrial-Security complex pork barrel. People with reasonable views based on consensus science are underrepresented. If you actually think you can "demolish all my arguments" then you've lost my respect for your lack of humility. You're just one man, you don't have time to be an expert in every field. My opinions are mostly informed by the consensus views of social scientists. When implemented, social science has been very successful. What do I want to do about the poor? I just want scientifically literate people to put more time into politics so that they can counteract the voices of irrationality that currently dominate lawmaking. I want smart people to act on the good science that is out there instead of having the wealthy and intelligent throw up their hands and pretend it is someone else's problem.

nl 15y ago

poverty has gone up, both worldwide and in America I don't have the figures to hand for the US, but worldwide the opposite is true. In percentage terms the proportion living in poverty now is roughly half what it was in 1980[1]. In absolute terms it has dropped from 1.5 billion in 1981 to 1.1 billion in 2001[2]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Percentage_living_on_less_than_$1_per_day_1981-2001.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Percentage_living_on_less_... [2] http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTPOVERTY/0,,contentMDK:20195240~pagePK:148956~piPK:216618~theSitePK:336992,00.html http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTPOVERTY/0...

forensic 15y ago
The IMF disagrees with Wikipedia. "in recent decades, nearly one-fifth of the world’s population has regressed. This is arguably one of the greatest economic failures of the 20th century" http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/20111130121556567265.html http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/20111130121...
- nl 15y ago
  You do realize that one with of the world regressing and less people living in poverty can both be true, right? I'm quite familiar with the IMF report. That 1/5th was comprised mostly of former communist nations who's population was much worse off during the transition to market economies. That didn't always drop them into global poverty levels though. There are plenty of bad things in the world, but the fact is that less people are starving to death now than 30 years ago and that is worth acknowledging.