"Why can't poor folks just...go away?"

[Taverner]

Go where, my co-worker?

Some folks think that LWP (living while poor) should be a crime. Apparently some cops do too.

[unpossibles]

1. I always try to remind them that many of those poor people

are there not through their own actions but have been fired, laid off, on disability, or any number of things beyond their control. Hell, I get so sick of the bootstrappers acting like everything they've done is through nothing but their own hard work - how quickly they tend to forget growing up in a middle class home (often with government assistance!), being able to get an education, etc.

I'm seriously about to start a challenge of some sort to them: offer them $1000 cash if they can go to an island with NOTHING but their wits and a pair of bootstraps and build a business empire from scratch. They get no technology, roads, phones, shipping, modern medicine or anything else which was created at least partially due to government funding (ie: SOSHALISM!!1!) to help them, and have to literally become self-made. Maybe if I present it as if I am one of them they'll fall for it, since they seem pretty damn gullible.

[Taverner]

2. LOVE IT!

If going "Galt" is so important, why don't you just do it?

:)

[unpossibles]

3. exactly!

Make it pro-Galt and encourage them to drop out. Hell, maybe even offer some kind of help with their plane tickets....

[Taverner]

4. Might point them to the history of Liberia too

Liberia was founded by the smartest, most learned ex-slaves. Built on pure capitalist "virtues" - every man pulls themselves up by their bootstraps. The Masons ran things, the "titans of society." They were given a lump of cash to start their own Galtland too. After years of corruption, civil wars, and death - they are the most impoverished nation on Earth.

[tigereye]

13. yeah, Liberia is such a sad situation..

[Odin2005]

5. I hate people who say shit like that!

[MiddleFingerMom]

6. I wish it WERE a crime.

.
Maybe somebody would rehabilitate me.
.

[mcctatas]

7. +1

send me to a re-education camp that teaches me how to be a wealthy asshole any day! :P

[Quantess]

8. Let's just butcher and eat the poor. Maybe they taste like chicken.

Problem solved.

[Dr Morbius]

9. Don't think that isn't coming.

Sooner or later, we'll be seen directly as food to these people. They already see us as tools, fools, or leeches, depending on their mood; we're less than human so that way, they can have it all and still feel good about themselves.

People have been eating sheep for millennia. They see us as sheep. It isn't a far jump.

[coyotespaw]

11. Let them try to come try to take a bite out of me

us Coyotes gots teeth.

[RFKHumphreyObama]

10. I kind of wish that people like that could be given a "Trading Places" experience

Like the main character in the movie. It might make them understand compassion and empathy a little more

[guitar man]

12. "For the poor always ye have with you"

John 12:8

That's my favorite answer to this question ;)

[tigereye]

14. well, where does he expect them to go?

:rofl: more of that NIMBY stuff?


Educate people for better jobs, help them out, get a leg up - we've all benefitted from that kind of thinking. I agree that most middle class folks really don't think about that too often - that there are middle class "entitlements" as well. GI Bill, home and college loans, etc.

[sarge43]

15. Give me all your money, co-worker and I will. n/t