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In reply to the discussion: Why Poor People Stay Poor [View all]AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)something different.
Because I just searched for that phrase, and I can see a lot of right wingers do, in fact, use and embrace the meaning of the term that you felt was the usage here.
It's got more than one interpretation. Having been poor, I understand it. Compare and contrast, today, I have a decent car, 9 months into a 36 month purchase. I have a good job. I have a great boss.
If my car gets towed, I have luxuries that the poor, in the same predicament, would not have. I can potentially just pay the impound. If not, I can finance it, because I am not tapped out, surviving day to day, paycheck to paycheck, in debt. I can take the time off from work to go get the thing from the impound on the odd hours it's open at all, etc. Car's missing, I'm calling the cops, calling tow companies, triggering the lojack, you name it.
Poor person? Maybe can't move the car 3x a day because of parking limits, or the car got a call for being shabby or whatever, and they towed it because of an old parking ticket that wasn't paid because it was pay the ticket or eat, not both. They can't get off work, most likely, or can't afford to take the time out of their hours to go get the car, let alone call around and see which impound lot HAS the car. The car sits another day. Fees accrue. No credit, or tapped out credit. Pretty soon, it's cheaper to just let the car go, for them, and they will. Late to work because of it, lose your job, you don't go after a wrongful termination suit, like a comfortable middle-class worker might when you're poor. It's not even an option.
Letting things go, not fighting for their property, or their rights, just scraping by surviving, paycheck to paycheck, these are survival coping mechanisms that you develop when you have no resources and no options. Those 'poor ways' are survival adaptations. Not the cause of their poverty.
The game is different when you're poor. The rules are different. The deck is stacked against you, and there are barriers and burdens on all sides, and no way out. That was the point of the OP's article. It's just not he same world for the poor. That was the point of Madokie's post. That's how I interpreted it anyway, and the 'this was hard to understand' disclaimer gave it away, for me, anyway.
if it turns out I was wrong, that that was a boostrappy, 'you're poor because you're stupid' comment, I will come back and eat all these words. But I am confident that is not the case.
I take a step back and say this, because I can see, that phrase is ALSO used by certain cliques that want to blame poor people for being poor. I'm giving Madokie benefit of the doubt that the OTHER meaning is what he was going after. If that was a comment, as you interpreted it,