Considering joining the service?

[NBVegita]

freak I never said using a gun was bad, but unless you are target shooting, you are using the gun to cause damage. Sometimes the presence of a gun can prevent that, but if a gun is pulled, it is pulled within the realm of causing damage. No matter if its for a good or bad reason.

 

Mind you I'm pro gun.

 

and sever,

 

you can't use centuries of oppression to scape goat on today. A black american born the same year as me had more advantages to get a job and get schooling than I had. Every school I applied to had lower requirements and higher financial aid for minorities. If you're saying it's due to lack of motivation because of the years of oppression need I remind you how hard it was on the asian americans after pearl harbor? I think that has been one of the worst discriminations that has occured in the united states in the past two centuries.

 

If a kid born today, no matter the color of his or her skin cannot excel, it is not because of lack of resources. Even in a poor poor area, if you appy yourself you can do well in life. Now if you're blaming in it on their parents who can't seem to get over oppression that occured decades ago, and that they p!@#$%^&* that on to their kids, and there is no way to fix it, I say deport them all. White, black, asian, deport them all to different countries. I say stop giving them welfare, at least I can account for my state, where 42% of people on welfare have been on it over 5 years.

 

Either start working or start packing, I'm fed up of paying for lazy !@#$%^&*ing people who want to blame everything wrong in their lives on other people. If these people spent half as much time working, even a minimum wage job, as they do complaining, they wouldn't need welfare.

[SeVeR]

you can't use centuries of oppression to scape goat on today. A black american born the same year as me had more advantages to get a job

I completely disagree. More black children than white children were born into poor families. So your typical black American born in the same year as you was far more likely to be born into a poor family; thus getting a poor start in life.

[NBVegita]

But the fact that I was born into a family, that due to my fathers factory closing down when I was 3, was in poor for a good majority of my life. So thus by indicating that they had more advantages than I did makes it a valid statement.

 

And its actually worse off to be middle class for college. If you are rich your parents can pay for it, if you're poor the state/fed pay for it. If you're in middle class, your parents make too much for the gov to give you money, and they don't make enough to pay for your college.

 

Being poor is no excuse for staying poor. And if you're right and the reason why poor people are poor is because they're born poor, maybe we should sterilize everyone under the poverty level so they cannot reproduce. That would solve that problem.

[AstroProdigy]

What about getting to that point? Did you live in a society that saw education negatively? Being poor is a great excuse for staying poor. Even if a state pays for all of college (which only liberal states do) then what about living? Who pays for that? What about a Master's Degree since a Bachelors degree is now almost useless.

 

Sterilize everyone under the poverty line? That's about as rational as nuking Iraq to solve the problem. Sterilize everyone under the poverty line and the poorer people above the poverty line will be pushed below it so that they could clean up the bathrooms of rich people.

[SeVeR]

NBV, there are exceptions to every rule, but i remember you telling me how you were involved with the "bad crowd" for quite a while. It seems that the "bad crowd" will attract or be attracted to poor people doesn't it? You must consider yourself a rather special case rather than a typical one.

 

The middle class do have it hard in that respect, a smooth drop in government payments for poor uni students should be implemented instead of a sudden drop at whatever limit the government chooses.

 

Yes, being poor is no excuse for being poor. But being poor makes it more difficult to become rich. Think about your typical poor neighborhood: - The influences of gangs, the run-down schools, the parents who don't have enough money to buy their children toys (forcing them to the streets). You're looking at a formula for another poor person. You should consider yourself lucky to have escaped.

[NBVegita]

Astro well what are we supposed to do? We give poor people money for college, money for food, money for housing, money for fun and money for transportation. We give poor people all we can. The problem is motivation. My dad could have gotten all the welfare in the world when he was laid off, instead he worked 3 minimum wage jobs to keep a small amount of food on the table and a roof over our heads. Nowadays everyone has their hand out. We can't force them to be motivated, and if we're pouring billions of dollars into a project that is just not working, when do we decide enough is enough? We take most of the money that is out there for college and give it to the unmotivated poor kids, when it's those motivated middle class kids, who can't afford college either that could use more money. I'm tired of paying to have poor people be lazy and poor. Now I know there are some legitimate welfare cases, but coming from the liberal state of NY, they hand out to everyone, and for as long as they want it.

 

And I agree sever that being poor makes it very hard to become rich, but you can easily become middle class. Even if you just finish highschool, and work at mcdonalds, full time mind you, for the rest of your life, you will make enough money to be middle class. If you want to work retail, work part time and eventually you'll get a full time posistion. You'll get benefits and retirement, and enough pay to live on, if not extravogently.

 

You don't even need a college education to make it to middle class, all you need is a little motivation. And it's pretty !@#$%^&*ed up if after living in poverty your entire life, you don't even have the motivation to not live in !@#$%^&* anymore. If you can look around and honestly say you enjoy living in a slum and being poor, then you are useless to society. And if you hate living in a slum and being poor, yet you won't even work a simple job to try and help it, then you are also useless.

[AstroProdigy]

My dad has been working hard his whole life, but he still only rakes in 20k a year and is going to retire with less than anyone could survive on in NYC. My parents saved because they're smart, but the vast majority of Americans, black or white, don't do the same so they're screwed. Certainly cutting taxes for the rich and losing a trillion dollars that we could use to virtually end homelessness, solve the supposedly "bankrupt" social security problem, and provide free healthcare for the poor is a huge step in the wrong direction. The Clinton years saw moves away from poverty. The Bush years saw a big leap backwards. Hopefully we can get a Democrat with Clinton's abilities back in the White House because more hard liners like Bush would rip the country apart.

[SeVeR]

Someone working in McDonalds cannot become middle class. They will forever be working class because their wage will never be high enough to let them afford a decent home or a quality of life beyond work-eat-sleep-work-eat-sleep etc. They may escape poverty, but if you ask someone to spend their life flipping burgers in order to get enough money to live on, they may well give up on life.

 

The government is there to help them out for one purpose alone... and its not because they're such a caring bunch. It's because they don't want these people turning to crime.

 

Some people are destined for failure because they are poor and stupid. The only way to get out of that situation is through an immense amount of motivation, and not everyone has that. Those that don't must gain some level of support to stop them from mugging you on the street. They are useless to society, but the alternative is incarceration, forced labour camps or execution. I seriously wouldn't mind the idea of forced labour camps, provided they are humane and give every oppurtunity for progression back into the normal labour system. The subjects put into these camps would have to have been out of work for a long time and would have demonstrated a significant level of laziness.

 

I don't think anyone enjoys living in a slum.

 

Anyway, i'm sure you know all about poor neighborhoods, so do you think one with a crappy school, gang-ridden streets, and parents who cannot buy their children toys, is in some way a productive environment for producing motivated young doctors and lawyers? I doubt it. Black people tend to live in these neighborhoods, not by choice, but through the fact that their ancestors lived in these neighborhoods. Yes, some kids have that special motivation to actually make something out of themselves, given this poor start in life, but most will not. Black people born into these neighborhoods are starting to move away and into better jobs and therefore better lives, but 40 years isn't long enough to equalize the racial polarisation of wealth.

Edited May 22, 2007 by SeVeR

[NBVegita]

First off astro, I don't know what your dad has been doing his whole life but he needs a new job desperately. To make 20k a year that means your dad only makes $9.61 an hour, I was making more than that as an !@#$%^&*istant manager in a retail store at 18. Maybe he should switch to retail. Or flipping burgers, crew leaders make over 10 dollars an hour. At 20, with no degree, I was making over twice of what your dad is making now.

 

Second I'm all for taxing the upper class, but I'm not all for giving it ALL to the lower class. The middle class needs help too. And I am against universal health care. Just another reason for the poor people to stay poor. Right now if half of the people on welfare go out and get a job, they can't afford to keep the standard of life they have when the government is paying for it. Give them full health care too and why would they ever want a job? I'm not a very big fan of socialism.

 

McDonalds pays similar to retail, at least in my area, and by 20 working retail I was making over 35k a year (I quit this job in the spring after getting the job mentioned above). That is considered middle class right there. The poverty level in America for a single person is 9000 a year. So that means by 20 I was making 4 times what the poverty level is in the united states, by working in retail. It might be lower middle class, but it's middle class. If you average even a $.25 raise a year, very low, by 30 I'm making over 41k a year. By 40 I'm making over 46k, and by 50 I'm making over 51k. !@#$%^&*uming you are getting a very small raise you still end up making decent money. The problem is that you have to be hard working, honest, show up on time, not get mad if your supervisor tells you to do something, and be mature enough to hold onto a job. Things anyone, from any background can do, if you just want to do it.

 

And I would agree with the camps also, or even maybe drafting these people into the army.

 

And I've never said that a poor neighborhood is a good environment, its !@#$%^&*ty. Very !@#$%^&*ty. But we can't force these people to be motivated. I mean growing up in !@#$%^&* motivated me to never live like that. Ever. And if even that can't motivate these people, there is nothing that a little money will do for them.

 

And on a final note, I still don't agree with your 40 year theory, but being it's your opinion vs mine, how about we agree to disagree?

[SeVeR]

Socialism, not being at a political extreme, is open to many intepretations ranging from moderate to very leftist. I think we both agree not to get too left of centre.

 

However in England we have something called the National Health Service, and in my opinion it works brilliantly. I got appendicitis and an infection of the large intestine, and was operated on a few hours after i was given a hospital bed. I was charged absolutely nothing. To see your doctor costs nothing aswell, only non-essentials are charged. This is easily possible in America, if you don't spend trillions of dollars on Iraq.

 

I agree that the wealthy should be taxed, but there are instances where tax is not justified, even for the wealthy. For instance we have an inheritance tax where 40% of any inheritance over 300k (pounds = 2x dollars) must be given to government. This is clearly unfair, and is an example of an overly leftist regime.

 

I agree with you on helping the middle class more with university costs.

 

I'm amazed McDonalds pays so much, surely you have to work 12 hour days without holidays to earn that though?

 

40 years of freedom for blacks is an estimate. Obviously it didn't all happen at once. With these poor environments being so !@#$%^&*ty, is it surprising to you that a larger percentage of black kids remain in poverty through adulthood? I think the efforts of the black community are changing this situation, but they need more time AND effort.

[NBVegita]

McDonalds will usually start at about $7.50 here, where the minimum is $7.25. A friend is HS, was up to $8.50 at 18 just for being a grill trainer. Yes all he did was teach the new guys how to press the burgers lol. At 20 he got crew leader and was making about $11. Then from there he quit because he didn't want to smell like grease anymore.

 

He worked normal hours as a crew leader, anywhere between 30-40, overtime was just if you couldn't get things closed in time, or if they really needed the help. The problem is that the mcdonalds was open til midnight, so if you closed you would be working til 1am. And they were open early. There is always a give and take.

 

And I agree about the inheritance tax, I think thats rediculous, and I also don't agree that you should have to give up insane amounts of money just because you make a good amount of money.

 

As for universal health care, if it could be monitored and not abused, and it cost me less a month than my current health coverage in taxes, and I got the same care, I'd be all for it.

 

What is surprising to me is after living how I lived, and seeing people live how they lived, that they cannot muster up enough disgust at their roach infested falling apart apartment to do something about it. It surprises me to see so many people perfectly able to do something about a situation they hate and yet they do nothing.

 

We live in a society where we love to !@#$%^&* about everything, and like to do nothing.

[AstroProdigy]

He's 60 so he's working less hours. I'm not sure how much he's making I think it might actually be 25k. You try working for even 30k a year to support a family of 5. It's easy for someone like you to climb up the ladder. You're a well educated guy. My dad's an uneducated immigrant. He took what he could get being a griller at a restaurant. The pay was alright at first, but it's been the same pay for 40 years. He's been working hard his whole life, but continues to make very little. The problem here is that in this country, while hard work could get your kids through a crappy college and they can have good careers if they work hard, you're basically doomed yourself if you're in my dad's type of situation. It's really a lot harder to live comfortably in this country than you think. I'm lucky my parents pushed me very hard. Take that away and my future would likely be in flipping burgers at McDonalds.

 

You're really stuck with a bad situation here. You have dysfunctional families because of a lack of education, and a lack of education because of dysfunctional families. You can't magically solve the problem with families without fixing the opportunities for education so this is the best place to make a change. Tuition costs for the good universities are huge. This system readily supports class stratification. On top of that, dooming the generations of poor today with shotty healthcare and retirement benefits is wrong too. We have enormous wealth in this country and if we could get a brave leader that would be willing to stand up to the rich then maybe things will change. Tax cuts for the rich are only going to make things worse and this along with other measures Bush has taken only exacerbate the problem. That's why I'm a Democrat!

Edited May 24, 2007 by AstroProdigy

[NBVegita]

At 21 I still did not have a college degree. The only thing I had was a diploma from one of those !@#$%^&*ty under funded public schools. Now I'm a formally educated guy, but I have always been hard working. Any job that you have been at for 40 years at the same pay is rediculous and is the worst job in the entire world. Even a burger flipper at mcdonalds gets a raise every 6 months. Now I don't want to insult your family but being an immagrant really is a poor excuse.

 

My best friend was born in america but his family came from cambodia (long story on how they're chineese and were living in cambodia). Each and every one of them came over without knowing a word of english. And they sent one at a time over to work for enough money to bring the next and so on. Now it took them longer than a lot of people but they all have college degrees, even if only from the small community college, they all have their own houses, enough money for a decent retirement, brand new cars, and the best work ethic I've ever seen in this country, immagrant or not. To this day his mom still works 50-60 hours a week, and its not because they need the money, far from it, its because she tried only working 40 hours and got so bored that she requested to work more hours.

 

Whether you are born here or come from another country, we have one of the best economies to work in. No you may never make millions as an everyday person, but you will be able to make a fair wage as long as you work hard.

 

I'm not saying that your father did not work hard, but if he was working for a job where he A) didn't get a raise for 40 years, or <_< after 40 years was only making 30k a year, that might be a good indication to get a new job.

[AstroProdigy]

Being uneducated makes it hard to find other opportunities, though, and having to work 11 hours a day 6 days a week as my dad used to do makes it impossible to get any education while working even if he could, which he can't considering he stopped going to school after 6th grade there.

 

He's retiring in a few years a new job isn't going to work.