Real Poverty Exists in America, Let There Be No Doubt

Man I leave for a couple hours and come back and this thread is seven pages long. Sorry to bring up old shit.

Third world conditions do vary but even the wealthy in third world nations would barely be middle class by America's standards. The question that was posed was whether or not true poverty exists in America and while it no doubt does, it is nothing compared to being poor in the third world or even being wealthy in the third world. And while you might have an idea of the kind of infrastructure problems I was talking about I don't think you really understand the situation that exists in places like Jamaica or Mexico or Madagascar. Very few of those people in Mexico or any other poverty stricken area want what we have in terms of luxuries. It has no use to them. A poor man in Jamaica can't do shit with a brand new BMW. For one the cost of that BMW could probably feed him and his family for the whole year. Secondly even if he could afford it he probably couldn't afford to fix it if it ever broke down which it would constantly since the conditions of the roads are shit, if he even has roads which goes back to the infrastructure. Also driving a brand new BMW around his neighborhood would probably end in him being shot over it. Your deluding yourself if you think you have any idea what real poverty is from looking at the bums around your neighborhood. I have friends just like yours, broke, living in a run down house in a run down neighborhood but driving brand new cars with new rims and wearing $200 pants. That isn't poor thats stupid.

@ Tamar:

True, considering the nature of libertarianism. But if so, they could hardly validly make the claim that I should be out there helping others. Further, they have no idea whether or not I am helping others, or whether I am financially able to do so. The fact that someone does not or is not able to do something at the moment does not invalidate their argument, any more than a proponent of a Second Amendment right to bear arms that includes expensive machine guns who cannot afford such guns is barred from his position by his inability to buy them at the moment.

Sounds great, how do we pay for it without crowding out investment? And assuming we can pay for it, how does that fix poverty? The poorest people in the U.S. get free healthcare now. National health care helps out the working poor, not the impoverished.

If you can't afford to do anything for them, who are you to try and force anyone else to? Why do you get to decide where other people's money is spent?

Poor people can lick my balls. But seriously they cost too much to imprison so let's either kill them or help them be more productive.

Who is anyone to argue that government should do, or refuse to do, anything at all? The essence of accountable government is that citizens should take an interest in how it acts -- including how it spends tax money. It's not solely your money once it becomes taxed, or taxable. Payers of specific taxes aren't the only ones with a voice as to how those taxes are spent.

[action=Liet]checks who started this abortion of a thread.[/action]

[action=Liet]does a double check on how long this thread is and how quickly it got that way. [/action]

[action=Liet]triple checks to make sure this hasn't evolved into off topic parody or serious discussion not including the idiotic affected persona of a total git that started this thread.[/action]

[action=Liet]weeps a little for wordforge.[/action]

Come on folks; there's giving the troll a nibble 'cause you can't control yourself for the moment and then there's letting him gorge and splooge.

So reasoned discussion is antithetical to Wordforge? How so?

Actually, many people become impoverished because of the need to pay medical expenses. However, you're correct that national health care can only be a small part of the solution.

One of? You give him too much credit. He's responsible for introducing socialism to the US. Johnson only entrenched it.

I just can't take National Health Care proponents seriously. Having experienced it first hand in Britain, I'd rather be an illegal immigrant in the U.S. when it comes to recieving health care.

People who say that FDR was a socialist don't know what true socialism is. Socialism means that the rights of society always trump private property rights. In this country, the rights of holders private property have almost always trumped the rights of society where the two have been in direct conflict, other than as contemplated in the constitution. (Even in eminent domain cases, private property holders are always compensated for any taking.) The notable exception has been the recent and much-criticized Kelo case, which is a decision I dislike and that I agree exceeds traditional bounds.

And it's always the folks who think government is evil that want to put it in charge of health care. Go figure.

Except for eminent domain.

Er... what? That doesn't make any sense.

I see the left on this board going on all the time about the evil American government that doesn't care about poor people or blacks or illegals or whoever their trying to sympathize with this month yet they are all for national health care. Doesn't make sense to me either.

He means wacko liberal conspiracy nuts are the same one's who think the government should be in charge of health care.

It's not the government that's evil at all. That argument is reserved for anti-government nuts. Liberals take the position that government can be beneficial if it implements the right policies. Sadly, in the last two decades or more, the government has been dominated by people who don't believe that government can improve the lives of the least fortunate.

This present attitude started with Ronnie Reagan's stupid little slogan, "Government isn't part of the solution. Government is part of the problem." Something like that.

Government is pretty much hit and miss with it's policies(no matter whos in charge). Some benefit those who it's actually supposed to, some don't do shit and some even make the problems worse. The only thing the government does consistantly is waste money and time. That's what you want in charge of our health care?

I agree that government is often inefficient. Often its policies aren't what we would want for ourselves. However, sacrificing our own personal interests is the price we pay to live in civilized society, and sometimes -- even if not all the time -- government does perform essential functions that otherwise could not be equitably performed.

Further, it is often the case that government is the only institution well-positioned to enforce both equity and solutions obtained from compromise where one party is much stronger, for unrelated reasons, than another.

This governments job isn't to take care of us. It's job is to provide the environment that will allow us to take care of ourselves. The left needs to learn that you can't legislate health and prosperity. No perfect set of laws or policies will ever create the type of utopia you desire.

Wrong.

Intelligent people know improving the lives of people less fortunate isn't, and shouldn't be, one of the functions of government.

All it does when you let them amok where they don't belong is money flying out the window and diversions of time and attention away from issues government is there for.

Sorry I didn't get back sooner, Chaos. My point, and I again apologize for the obscurity, is that being a poor person myself and have no doubt about it, living in New York can make you poor despite having small luxuries like running water, a roof over your head, a television and on payday when you get to splurge on a real lunch.
This picture of this billboard was taken in New York and depicts poverty and downtrudeness just a few train stations away from the heart of Grand Central Station.
My point, these were supposed to represent the demographics of rural USA. Poverty is not rural; it's everywhere.

I spent three years living in those conditions. It was called "College".

That's why so many Americans are in credit-card debt.

Also, I agree with Mewa about the education thing. It's like "you want the reward? Eat this pile of shit (degree). All the other people ate their pile of shit. How can you compete if you don't eat it? And BTW, eat the shit now, before it gets even more expensive later."
College costs are going through the roof (like housing in most areas of the country). Are teachers making that much more money? I doubt it, since I make more than they do. A degree is "the thing to have" whether or not it has jack shit to do with your job.

I disagree with your contention. There are plenty of intelligent people who believe that government should provide for the general welfare, that the states should help the least of us, and that it was only due to government regulation beginning in the Progressive Era and social programs beginning in the 1930's that the United States became a more socially just nation.

Many academics take the liberal view of government. The counterargument by conservatives that academics aren't intelligent, but conservatives are, lacks much credibility.

America is way too obsessed with goddamn image. I had kids stick their noses up to me because their parents lived in a well-to-do neighborhood and three cars and could afford to buy $200 jeans that they throw up in the closet a week later and never wear again. I'll bet my bottom dollar that at least half of them were one paycheck away from bankruptcy.

My moms fiance only makes 2000 dollars a month. Nothing's been renovated in the house we're stuck living in since he bought it 25 years ago--same shitty ass carpet, same flimsy window and same dull ass paint, which my mom and I have taken out of our own pockets to paint--He pulled out 100,000 dollars on his house two years ago, which was supposed to go towards buying an investment property.

But instead of doing what his financial consultant said of getting a simple investment house, he wanted to put all the money into an apartment complex and came up with one bullshit excuse after the other not to spend the money, but yet he could put down 10,000 dollars down on a $27K Benz no one needed. Calling it a "Birthday gift" for my mom, but her name isn't on it.

All in all, he pretty much wasted the money on stupid shit.

and yet, he'll call thirty dollars for a plant being "frivolous" with money.

Okay.

Sounds like that person should probably move to a cheaper locale.

Provided there are suitable jobs there. If you're, say, an editorial assistant who makes $15.00 an hour at a New York publishing house, it might still be impossible to find a decent place to live nearby. However, there aren't that many publishing houses in, say, Peoria.

Excelcius are you new here? Let me brake down the arguments of the other side for you.
Basically, the other ideological side here at WF is going to tell you that there are no poor people in the U.S. and if they are poor it is simply because they are lazy, stupid wastes of DNA, who have been robbing them of their hard earned money by sucking on the government teat.
No amount of evidence to the contrary will change their mind. You could physically take them to say rural Appalachia and they still would tell the people to just pack their shit and move.
Poor equals lazy. Rich equals superior. That's how they think.

For the record of course there are people that are worse off in the world, but in a country as well off as this one we should be ashamed that there are so many who can not get adequate health care, afford nutritional food, or find and keep a decent place to live.

Allow me to be the first to laugh hysterically at you.