An article that will be fun to flog "bootstrap" libertariantards with.

[Doktor Howl]

http://inplainsight.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/16/19504230-im-working-as-hard-as-i-can-for-the-poor-the-costs-of-life-can-be-higher?lite

Good read.  No surprise to most people here, I imagine.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

She's confident that her two degrees, plus her experience as a home aid, will land her a full-time job with benefits and a living wage.

Those lazy, lazy poor people.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

One thing that I think really needs to be driven home to those assholes who don't think people on public assistance should have the "luxury" of an automobile, or who think that it's an unnecessary expense; people who ride the bus often spend more time waiting or in transit, each week than they spend working. That lost time could have made the difference in a lot of ways; they could have had a second job, taken an extra class, or even two classes, with that time. They could have cooked from scratch instead of buying fast food. They could have improved their quality of life and health through leisure time. In most places in America, a car is not an additional expense when you add up the lost wages and opportunity that often result from not having a car.

[Doktor Howl]

I mean, it's no surprise that the system is rigged.  "Ghetto taxes" on food, gasoline, etc.  I live on the NW side, where there's (some) money.  My gasoline is $0.09/gallon cheaper than it is down around 29th & Alvernon.  My food is about 20% cheaper.

Why?  Because I can drive anywhere I like to get what I need.  Poor people who have to walk to the grocery store are a captive audience.  They are ground down by what to me would be very minor expenses, and the chance of them "bootstrapping" is roughly that of them winning the lottery, but the LP and the teabaggers insist that they should be thrown to the wolves.

It is precisely for this reason that I abhor libertarians and all they stand for.  Teabaggers are basically the same thing, except that their racism is fairly blatant and self-admitted, rather than buried in economic policies.

[Doktor Howl]

One thing that I think really needs to be driven home to those assholes who don't think people on public assistance should have the "luxury" of an automobile, or who think that it's an unnecessary expense; people who ride the bus often spend more time waiting or in transit, each week than they spend working. That lost time could have made the difference in a lot of ways; they could have had a second job, taken an extra class, or even two classes, with that time. They could have cooked from scratch instead of buying fast food. They could have improved their quality of life and health through leisure time. In most places in America, a car is not an additional expense when you add up the lost wages and opportunity that often result from not having a car.

It's basically the urge to punish poor people; they should not receive assistance until they are ENTIRELY destitute.  This is of course designed to make sure that they STAY destitute.

The thing to remember is that libertarianism is the ultimate expression of privilege.  Which makes it even funnier when the people preaching it try to tell some story about growing up in a cardboard box and eating dirt.

[Doktor Howl]

The other fun thing is listening to shitnecks who are DAMN NEAR in the gutter themselves whimper about how "they'd be for assistance, but there are too many cheats".

Ask them how many cheats there are, as a percentage of the people on welfare.  They will almost always answer with an anecdote about Those People¹ using SNAP to get manicures, etc.

Remind them that they are one bad day from being in the same boat themselves.  Watch the hackles go up.




¹ They mean Black people.

[Ben Shapiro]

I mean, it's no surprise that the system is rigged.  "Ghetto taxes" on food, gasoline, etc.  I live on the NW side, where there's (some) money.  My gasoline is $0.09/gallon cheaper than it is down around 29th & Alvernon.  My food is about 20% cheaper.

Why?  Because I can drive anywhere I like to get what I need.  Poor people who have to walk to the grocery store are a captive audience.  They are ground down by what to me would be very minor expenses, and the chance of them "bootstrapping" is roughly that of them winning the lottery, but the LP and the teabaggers insist that they should be thrown to the wolves.

It is precisely for this reason that I abhor libertarians and all they stand for.  Teabaggers are basically the same thing, except that their racism is fairly blatant and self-admitted, rather than buried in economic policies.

I hate them for that reason as well. "Back in my day we had to walk 20 miles, and also we didn't have your precious internet." Not working hard enough. Seriously I don't understand how these fucking simpletons can wear this as a badge of honor.

[Ben Shapiro]

One thing that I think really needs to be driven home to those assholes who don't think people on public assistance should have the "luxury" of an automobile, or who think that it's an unnecessary expense; people who ride the bus often spend more time waiting or in transit, each week than they spend working. That lost time could have made the difference in a lot of ways; they could have had a second job, taken an extra class, or even two classes, with that time. They could have cooked from scratch instead of buying fast food. They could have improved their quality of life and health through leisure time. In most places in America, a car is not an additional expense when you add up the lost wages and opportunity that often result from not having a car.

It's basically the urge to punish poor people; they should not receive assistance until they are ENTIRELY destitute.  This is of course designed to make sure that they STAY destitute.

The thing to remember is that libertarianism is the ultimate expression of privilege.  Which makes it even funnier when the people preaching it try to tell some story about growing up in a cardboard box and eating dirt.

DING! DING! DING! WE HAVE A WINNER!

[Doktor Howl]

One thing that I think really needs to be driven home to those assholes who don't think people on public assistance should have the "luxury" of an automobile, or who think that it's an unnecessary expense; people who ride the bus often spend more time waiting or in transit, each week than they spend working. That lost time could have made the difference in a lot of ways; they could have had a second job, taken an extra class, or even two classes, with that time. They could have cooked from scratch instead of buying fast food. They could have improved their quality of life and health through leisure time. In most places in America, a car is not an additional expense when you add up the lost wages and opportunity that often result from not having a car.

It's basically the urge to punish poor people; they should not receive assistance until they are ENTIRELY destitute.  This is of course designed to make sure that they STAY destitute.

The thing to remember is that libertarianism is the ultimate expression of privilege.  Which makes it even funnier when the people preaching it try to tell some story about growing up in a cardboard box and eating dirt.

DING! DING! DING! WE HAVE A WINNER!

Over at MysticWicks, there was this guy named Memnoch, who spent ALL DAY preaching self-reliance, and talking about his glorious days in the service.

Turned out, he was posting from his mother in law's basement (no shit), had worked 5 minimum wage jobs in 2 years, and had washed out of basic training by deliberately pissing the bed.

That's one kind of libertarian.  Another kind was born with a silver spoon up their ass, and they post about bootstraps and personal responsibility from the coffee shop near the university, using dad's AMEX.  The last kind is just sick and damn tired of Those People, but can't stand to be in the same party as the teabaggers, on account of the teabaggers are mostly poor.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

All of them fall victim to petty fallacies like false equivalence and the just world, and, oddly, tend to believe that their intellectual simplicity makes them "smarter" than people who try to explain to them that things are actually much more complex than they think.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Case in point, the kind of thinking that goes "pride groups and clubs are perfectly OK for those minorities, but when white folks try to do the same thing it's racism! It's more of that PC bullshit!"

(Completely ignoring, of course, the proliferation of such social clubs as Sons of Norway and their Polish, German, Scottish, French, etc. equivalents.)

[Doktor Howl]

Case in point, the kind of thinking that goes "pride groups and clubs are perfectly OK for those minorities, but when white folks try to do the same thing it's racism! It's more of that PC bullshit!"

(Completely ignoring, of course, the proliferation of such social clubs as Sons of Norway and their Polish, German, Scottish, French, etc. equivalents.)

Yep.  But that's not the social club they want.  They WANT the KKK or the Silver Shirts...Which is, of couse, why they assume the Black Caucus - for example - in congress is also inherently racist and supremacist.  It's how THEY think, so it's how they assume EVERYONE thinks.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Case in point, the kind of thinking that goes "pride groups and clubs are perfectly OK for those minorities, but when white folks try to do the same thing it's racism! It's more of that PC bullshit!"

(Completely ignoring, of course, the proliferation of such social clubs as Sons of Norway and their Polish, German, Scottish, French, etc. equivalents.)

Yep.  But that's not the social club they want.  They WANT the KKK or the Silver Shirts...Which is, of couse, why they assume the Black Caucus - for example - in congress is also inherently racist and supremacist.  It's how THEY think, so it's how they assume EVERYONE thinks.

Oddly, it never seems to occur to them that a person who is half-white can join the Black Caucus (or, on my campus, the Black Student Union) without question. Would they be as open to membership for someone who was half-black?

Another factor is that, of course, most such clubs are about building community support for members of undersupported groups who often have a difficult time completing college, or who tend to feel isolated or alienated. From that perspective, at most schools, the entire college is a White Student Union.

[Doktor Howl]

Case in point, the kind of thinking that goes "pride groups and clubs are perfectly OK for those minorities, but when white folks try to do the same thing it's racism! It's more of that PC bullshit!"

(Completely ignoring, of course, the proliferation of such social clubs as Sons of Norway and their Polish, German, Scottish, French, etc. equivalents.)

Yep.  But that's not the social club they want.  They WANT the KKK or the Silver Shirts...Which is, of couse, why they assume the Black Caucus - for example - in congress is also inherently racist and supremacist.  It's how THEY think, so it's how they assume EVERYONE thinks.

Oddly, it never seems to occur to them that a person who is half-white can join the Black Caucus (or, on my campus, the Black Student Union) without question. Would they be as open to membership for someone who was half-black?

Another factor is that, of course, most such clubs are about building community support for members of undersupported groups who often have a difficult time completing college, or who tend to feel isolated or alienated. From that perspective, at most schools, the entire college is a White Student Union.

At the U of A, there are no restrictions on membership in the BSU.

And yeah, it's like people saying "Why can't we have a White Entertainment Network?  The Blacks have the BET."

Well, you already do.  It's called ALL THE OTHER CHANNELS.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Case in point, the kind of thinking that goes "pride groups and clubs are perfectly OK for those minorities, but when white folks try to do the same thing it's racism! It's more of that PC bullshit!"

(Completely ignoring, of course, the proliferation of such social clubs as Sons of Norway and their Polish, German, Scottish, French, etc. equivalents.)

Yep.  But that's not the social club they want.  They WANT the KKK or the Silver Shirts...Which is, of couse, why they assume the Black Caucus - for example - in congress is also inherently racist and supremacist.  It's how THEY think, so it's how they assume EVERYONE thinks.

Oddly, it never seems to occur to them that a person who is half-white can join the Black Caucus (or, on my campus, the Black Student Union) without question. Would they be as open to membership for someone who was half-black?

Another factor is that, of course, most such clubs are about building community support for members of undersupported groups who often have a difficult time completing college, or who tend to feel isolated or alienated. From that perspective, at most schools, the entire college is a White Student Union.

At the U of A, there are no restrictions on membership in the BSU.

And yeah, it's like people saying "Why can't we have a White Entertainment Network?  The Blacks have the BET."

Well, you already do.  It's called ALL THE OTHER CHANNELS.

There are a number of completely white member of the BSU at my school. Most of them have personal reasons, like having black family, but I don't think anyone really questions them on it. They're just members like everybody else.