The other day I got into an argument with another republican. I think I've found the major flaw in their capitalistic economic theory. At the core of their economic argument is the idea that all people have the opportunity to work, and if they have a good work ethic, they will succeed. This leads to a lot of contempt towards the lower, impoverished classes. They seem to think that those people are all lazy asses that refuse to work and enjoy sitting in disease ridden allies and eating out of the trash. They don't seem to acknowledge all the factors that come into play in the issue of poverty.
Most people are poor, not because they don't want to get a job, but because they can't get a job. They are the worst possible candidates because of the past history of employment, their economic record, debts, and sometimes criminal record. They can't get jobs because when they walk into an interview, they don't have "nice" clothes to wear and walk in wearing the only tattered clothes they have. Imagine you're a manager at McDonald's Are you going to hire the smelly guy in ripped up clothing, or the high school student? Companies have an image they want to uphold, and that image is destroyed as soon as someone sees the hobo flipping burgers or at the register. Their reputation would be destroyed if they hired someone like that. They can't get jobs anywhere because their resume is a mess. They can't improve their resume because they can't get a job. Poverty is literally a trap. Once you fall in, it's near impossible to climb out. Even if there are people willing to hire the homeless, they're so few and far between that they'd never be found without some sort of advertisement, which they don't do anyway. The entire Republican system is based on the ability to work, they disdain the impoverished because they don't work, never realizing that poverty is not laziness, it's a real economic problem.
A similar argument goes for illegal immigrants. Many of these people are families trying to survive, to escape the starvation of never having a job by fleeing to the US where they might get a job. Their dream is the same dream of the Republicans that treat them with such contempt; the American Dream. The people trying to cross the border do so because they know that if they can work, they have the chance to succeed. Most of them work harder than most middle class Americans and for much worse pay. They are normal people trying to live their lives, trying to provide a better life for their children, and their children's children. The only difference between an illegal immigrant and a hardworking American is that they're from Mexico. So if you're against illegal immigration, Oops! You're racist. Maddox makes an extremely valid point. If companies were forced to pay illegal immigrants the same as normal Americans, any incentive to hire them would be destroyed. The fact that they're willing to work for less makes them harder workers than anyone working the same job for more. Furthermore, illegal immigrants don't "steal" people's jobs, the only jobs they're taking are the lower class, supermarket dead-end jobs. The jobs that nobody really wants. If you get fired from a law firm, and a Mexican takes your place, it's not because he's an illegal immigrant that just took your job, it's because he had better credentials, or was a better at your job than you were.
The arguments against welfare and poverty, saying that poor folk are just "lazy asses" is ignorant and just plain wrong. There might be a tiny percentage of the lower class where that might be true, but for the most part they are normal, honest people down on their luck, trapped in this noose of poverty, with no money or support or ability to get a job. That's why welfare is so important, it gets those people back on their feet, it allows them to get jobs and contribute to society. That's why free public education is so important. That's why jobs in the USA are so important. They are the thing that keeps the lower class of the economy running, it reduces the poverty rate, it allows people the opportunity to work and provides the netting to catch them if they take a financial risk and fall. It gives everyone a more equal opportunity to live the American Dream.
Dealing with immigration: I'm against illegal immigrants. Plain and simple, but what I'm not against is immigrants. If you can't cognitively understand the definition between an immigrant and an illegal immigrant let me break it down for you. An illegal immigrant is a person that either took their family or left them and typically put everything in danger, just to get to America. Now if you look at this from a moral stand point IT'S INSANE to think these are moral people at all, who are they to risk their children family etc to get into a country? Or even WHO ARE THEY to leave their family. The fact that they bring children or leave children alone is enough to warrant concern about their personal character. Secondly, real immigrants go through months, even years of a process spending thousands of dollars to come over here. In the sense of liberal doctrine is this fair? Is this giving equal rights? What is this doing? The logic behind grouping immigrants and illegal immigrants in the same category is beyond my understanding. Any person can do something, but a MAN does it the right way. Illegal immigration is illegal, amnesty should be given to anchor babies, but only after the border is secure. Giving an amnesty before that just encourages the unlawful and unjust action of breaking the law to come over here.
ReplyDeleteNow onto the Social Welfare bit and the poor: You can't blame the poor for being poor, but you can blame the ideology of giving the poor just enough to get by to the next election so another liberal can do it again a morally terrible thing. It's nature period to take the easy route. I mean if your fridge was always stocked with unhealthy food, but you could go out of your way to the store to get healthy food 9 times out of 10 you're going to ask yourself "What's the point? I'm fine how it is". The poor people aren't lazy, the lack of incentives is plain laziness in philosophy. I'll give one more simile to explain to the typical liberal on what essentially is going on to pay for social benefits etc. There's a class at a University, a small one at that. One person has an A+ and actually beyond because he did extra credit etc (A big corporation) There's a B student(Small business owner, doctor, lawyer) There's a C student (Decent labor job, accountant) There's a D student (Mcdonalds, BurgerKing worker) and an F student (Unemployed) Now the teacher doesn't want to look like they're doing a bad job at running the class (Liberals in the government) So the teacher decided to trim some of the C-A+ students and add them to the F-D students. The end result looks a little like this. The A+ student still has an A+ because you only took away the portion of the extra credit, cool no problem. The B student is now at a C or C+ so they are basically a middle class citizen now, possibly lost their small business or just not making wages like they used to. The D student is now at a D+ or a C, now the once small business is near or on the same scale as a McDonalds worker. And the F student is now given freely the grade of the previous D student. What's all this bullshit I just typed even mean? Well, what honest incentive did the Mcdonalds worker get to stay at their job? Pretty much zero, they can now just quit their job and accept free money, sounds like a dream come true. The small business owner might have lost his business we can't be for sure, but he sure as hell is going to have a harder time making it back to where he previously was or would need a deal with Satan to even imagine reaching even an A, I'm not even going to give the possibility of him reaching A+ at this point they're untouchable with enough money resting in Sweden to buy Crete outright (Only because of the hyper liberal doctrines the EU imposes on it's members and allowing people who don't qualify to join the EU (See immigration)). The F students on the other hand have no more chance raise their grade than before because there's no difference between McDonalds and unemployment. Who wants a 9-5 job or a life long vacation? I assume you want that 9-5 job reading what you've just wrote or you expect people to want the 9-5 job over a lifelong vacation.
ReplyDeleteConclusion, Liberal logic is very hard to understand and I must be a potato. The intellectual superiority is too hard for me to handle and I'm a racist bigot and inferior in thinking according to a Liberal (Sounds a little like the problems you have with extreme religious people).
On Immigration. Imagine you are one of these illegal immigrants. You lived a dirt-poor existence, constantly on the brink of starvation. There's no jobs, drug cartels basically run the town you live in, and you have a kid or two that have absolutely no future if they stay put. These immigrants aren't leaving their kids behind, they're trying to secure a better future. Why would you stay in Mexico? It's basically a choice of you and your kids definitely having no future, to MAYBE having a future. If you were in these peoples' positions, you can't say you wouldn't do the same. My entire philosophy is about helping people who need it, it's immoral to let these people starve. They have the right, just like any human being, to have a chance to succeed.
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