UA be prepared tangent from political meme thread

That "edifice" irrefutably includes the consequences of free will.

Reconcile that for me.

Sure, when you can explain how someone would knowingly choose a path that leaves them destitute.

more of his entitled privilege that he believes everyone has the same set of choices he was blessed with.

By making irresponsible, short-sighted decisions.

Then they're not knowingly choosing a path towards destitution, they're only thinking short-term. And sometimes, one doesn't have the option of thinking long-term. Just ask anyone in Alaska who's had their car breakdown on a backroad in winter. If someone stops and offers you a ride, you take it, even if they look a little sketchy, because you know that someone else might not come along before you freeze to death.

If you find yourself taking a road trip in a snowstorm in a questionable vehicle, odds favor you having made a series of unwise choices leading up to that. Pretending nothing is forseeable is just a way absolving yourself of responsibility.

Even if a reasonable person would expect the government to keep the roads clear?

Yeah, because you've never had a deer or an unseen road hazard take out your vehicle.

No, I don't think it's reasonable to leave your safety completely dependent on other people acting right.

Now it's a deer. Next it will be a Mad Max raider clan. Nothing is ever your fault when you blunder around like a fucking toddler.

So, yeah, let's talk about how the world has come close to nuclear war and managed to avoid it because folks realized that perhaps there was something screwy going on. Please, tell me, how the average citizen would have been responsible for such a thing.

Yeah, because you've never been minding your own business and rounded a corner and spotted a deer standing in the middle of the road or whatever. Because that's happened to me. One time I got lucky and I was able to stop so I didn't hit the deer, the next time I wasn't. In neither case was I expecting to see a deer while I was driving, but holy shit I did in both instances. So WTF? Was I the asshole in one instance, and just an ordinary fuck in the other, or is it possible that random shit can happen to anyone and if you're not prepared to deal with it you're pretty much fucked?

Hey, look at that. You identified the solution to your own problem.

Tell me, are you prepared to deal with a deer jumping out in front of you at the last minute when you're driving on a road you don't normally travel? Or a part failing on your car unexpectedly even though credible mechanics had looked at the car and said that it seemed to be okay? Or having to find a new job all of a sudden because your employer went bankrupt when until the moment that they announced they were bankrupt, you had no idea they were in financial trouble? Because I've had that shit happen to me, and I'm lucky. I might have had to wait a few days for money to hit my employer's account so I could cash my paycheck, but that beats the folks who've suddenly discovered that not only were they out of a job, but they had no hope of getting a final paycheck.

Drive something sturdier than a plastic econobox, and it might still at least get you home.

Buy a repair manual, watch a few YouTube videos, and learn to fix your own shit.

Forgo all luxuries and put aside every extra dollar for such eventualities.

There are no 100% guaranteed solutions, but for people who won't even fucking try, I have zero sympathy for the "I shouldn't have to discipline myself to that degree" mentality. Reality doesn't give half a ropey shit what you feeeeel you should have to anticipate. You either do everything within your power to prepare, or you fucking lie in the bed you have made for yourself.

Are you sitting on an old crate, typing this from a bare unpainted room whilst surrounded only by MREs?

And what the fuck are you typing it ON? How are you connected to the internet?

WHY ARE YOU WASTING YOUR CASH ON INTERNET, you short-sighted fool?!

When I am caught unprepared, I don't waste time wailing at the injustice of it or trying to guilt someone into bailing me out. Like I said, there are no guarantees, but you are not a helpless victim if you could have done more.

I don't think most people do. I think most people, behave the same way you do. Some people need a bit of extra help, that's what social safety nets are for. Very few people cry that they are a helpless victim and "demand" someone do something. Of course, the majority of those people go directly to congress and congress bails them out. And that is billions of dollars more than what most people use with social safety nets.

Anyone can get caught in a situation they had no reasonable means to foresee or avoid.

But that doesn't absolve us of responsibility to anticipate and avoid such situations where we can. Drive more cautiously in bad road conditions, for instance.

Yes, you'll probably get help if you need it. Try not to need it.

Most people do - try not to need it. If people did, they would quickly learn that it's not as easy and lucrative as they previously thought.

So why do you and your fellow travellers seem to automatically assume that the folk who need it DIDN'T try?

Why do you support policies that assume this and try to make life harder for them, not better?

Does it ruin your rose-tinted view of the land of opportunity?

Or is it just that you get off on acting morally superior to someone up Shit Creek?

I find this discussion humorous because this was one of the things Ralph Northam alluded to during the Virginia I-95 Snowpacalypse the other week. And he got roasted for it. Just goes to show you our country is made up of snowflakes of all different political persuasions.

That one.
Big bushel baskets of that one.

Coon man got everything he deserved on that one. What's really hilarious is Tim Cane needing help because his car's battery was dying. Combustible engines for the win.

exactly... there's no way to be 100% prepared, even with your privilege (acknowledged and otherwise).

That you presume anyone less prepared than you can second guess them only serves to support the perception.

@garamet would have made the Tom Lehrer reference by now.

It's usually not hard to pick out the ones who fuck up their lives with short-sighted choices and expect second, third, endless chances at someone else's expense and/or inconvenience. Or their apologists.

Not hard? It's fucking Pavlovian in your case.

I am alert to any imposition.