Do poor people always have an excuse?

Actually it was supposed to be a harmless joke insisting that you eat poor people, but I think the pic might have been a bit much.

Should have picked something...less graphic.

Editted for accuracy.

EFA.

Good job proving his point, Bear.

Spoilered.

Extreme graphic images should be put behind spoiler tags, please. Some folks are at work, in public or eating while browsing here. Not to mention some folks just want the option of choosing whether they want to see something graphic or not. Or at least a moment to brace themselves first.

What? That those of us capable of getting up off our asses and holding a job aren't going to understand the mindsets of those who won't?

More that you overestimate the amount of people that are poor only because they won't go get a job.

Unlikely.

Serves you goddamned right.

Almost certainly.

Let's give it a try: Why are you poor?

I presume you're asking me.

I never said I was poor.

So what percentage would you guess is left after you parse out everyone who is unable to find adequate working income because they made a series of bad choices in life?

Azure, sounds like you did it right- document, document, document.

Now the shysters need to come in and prove you fired him based on race. They won't be able to do it. You're good.

If it goes political and you somehow wind up getting burned, sue and you'll win.

*sigh* All this could've been avoided if Vestas had slipped the Peigan Native Board a few browns and a crate of firewater.

The only reason the Peigan board is doing this is to try and wring out a settlement from what they see as the big greedy company owned by white people. They did the same thing to the City of Calgary and their ring road they wanted to build on T'suna land. They said, first build us an Injun casino, then we'll talk. After the casino was built, the demands suddenly changed, and the price got higher. The T'suna got their big payout and a new casino. Why should the Peigan settle for any less?

Them's the ways when you're doing Injun business. They should know better.

You should say this in court.

You should not say this in court. :flow2:


I think it's pretty easy for us to sit back in our comfy computer chairs and pass judgement on why poor people are so pathetic and worthless, but the problem is, not every man is created equal.

Some have more skills than others, including hard working skills and reasoning skills. Some are also blessed with an abundance of ambition. Some are born active, and want to see things moving forward and happening all the time, while others don't even need weed to be completely mellow.

I didn't know this before, but a hockey coach who comes from a family of farmers says that hard work is a skill, just like any other. You can develop it and make it better.

It's hard to explain why two kids from dirt poor families can have one become very successful while the other is a deadbeat. This can happen in rich families as well.

I hate to let the lazy-ass people off with the excuse that they are just born with it, and that society should help them out indefinitely, but us trying to motivate them or encouraging them may not help either, if they already feel downtrodden and defeated before they even start.

I don't know what the solution is. Handing them money and free stuff is not fair to us as a society and not fair to the people who bust our asses to have it taken away in taxes to feed these parasites.

But if we let these people die in the gutter, I think we, as a society of achievers, may be stronger for it, we would've also lost a big part of what makes us human - the ability to care for others and show compassion to people who neither deserve or are worthy of our help. And that makes us, as a species, worse.

Rewarding bad behavior is not an act of compassion.

And that's how you justify never helping anyone, right?


No matter who it is you'd rather see starve to death, you can always tell yourself "they made a bad choice at some point, not my problem."

No idea. But I do know that you don't get to choose your parents or your upbringing. The exceptional case of someone rising up out of the reserve or the ghetto or whatever does not make it realistic to think that EVERYONE should be able to do it. It's far too easy to pass judgment on others that we see as inferior to ourselves, whether it be in work ethic, intelligence, ambition or whatever else.

First, I don't need to justify myself to you or anyone else.

Second, refusing to do it unconditionally is not refusing to help people at all.

Go sell your guilty bullshit to someone else.

Hey, I'm content to mind my own business, but if you come to me with your hand out, you are going to account for your situation.

And I don't judge myself superior to anyone, but anything that can be reduced to a lack of willpower gets no sympathy from me. I didn't come from big money and I sure as hell don't have it now. But I'm getting by, what's mine is mine, and nobody who refuses to put forth at least my minimal level of effort should bother asking me for anything.

Azure, think of it this way: Paint the natives any color you want, but subject them to generations of the conditions typically found on the rez. Take it one step further and imagine your great-great-grandparents had been slaughtered, your great-grandparents driven through the snow as orphaned children, their children sent to mission schools, forced to change their names, beaten if they spoke their own language. You've grown up hearing about all of this. Does it instill you with faith in your fellow humans and a belief that you can be whatever you want to be if you just try?

How many suburban mall rats grow up useless? Mommy and Daddy buy them everything they want, and they end up stoned and in rehab or busted for shoplifting or boosting cars.

What I'm trying to say is, judge each person individually. Instead of "do poor people always have an excuse?" respect those like the ones you gave examples of who transcend generations of being held down and *do* make something of themselves.

There are layabouts in every social class. It's just that the well-off ones aren't as noticeable. The poor little frat boy who pays someone else to take his exams and then slides into his own office in daddy's corporation doesn't get judged nearly as harshly as the poor kid.

I don't even know this is a poor person/Native person issue.

There are always fuckers who think they can do shit the way they want regardless of the facts. They think they know it all and everyone else is just stupid so they continue doing what they want despite warnings or people trying to teach them different.

Zel runs into fuckers like this sometimes...jerks who with no regard to safety do stupid shit with wiring and it's as bad there because it practically takes a corpse and blood on the hands of the asshole to get them fired from a Union job.

Of course not, but that's how you justify it to yourself.

It is when you throw up a condition that excludes everyone.

It's really not, but Azure framed it as such, so that's where the discussion went.

Well, it is easy to see why he did.

While this man's poor employee behavior and lack of good safety that led to his firing shouldn't be about race, the fact the Native Council is sticking it's nose in to try and make it about race...well, makes it more about race where it's not necessary.

Hopefully, they will take a good look at the facts and drop the inquiry and the further threats once they see this person was fired for sound reasons.

Not really. If he'd started a thread about some minorities playing the race card to deflect valid criticism, that would have made sense. Instead, he went on a rant about and poor natives, and poor blacks, and lazy, worthless (his word, not mine) people in general, none of whom happened to be white.

He can say he's not racist or bigoted all he wants, but when it's coming from the same guy who kept calling Obama an Oreo (before Liet used the term and it stopped being cool), it's harder to believe him.

From what Azure tells us, it does sound like the firing was legitimate. Of course, we're only hearing one side of the story.

Also, Azure should probably be more careful about what he's posting. Googling "Peigan Native Board" brings up this thread on the first page, and some of what he's posted could really hurt his case.

"Of course we must believe in luck - how else can we explain the successes of people we don't like?"