Republicans can’t stop comparing food stamp recipients to wild animals on Facebook

a reply to: beezzer

Just curious, Beezzer, what's your family background? Your parents and grandparents - were they middle-class, from the hood, wealthy?

a reply to: Gryphon66


So this is about Christians now?

Way to try to derail the thread.

a reply to: Gryphon66

Right? I'm sure Jesus would sternly look at them and say, "Get a better job!" or "Take our a bunch of loans and get a degree!" (despite the fact they may not qualify for loans).

I'm sure Jesus would also say, "How much does a library card cost!?" or "Go hunt for your own food, this is my kill and my deer meat!"

originally posted by: thesaneone
a reply to: Gryphon66


So this is about Christians now?

Way to try to derail the thread.

Are you saying that religious beliefs should be excluded from our discussions? I disagree. First Amendment and all.

Or at least the spirit of it.

The sense of charity is exactly on topic here. A majority of Republican politicians can't invoke enough "god" into every move they make, claiming that god told them to do this or that. They also claim, almost to a person, that their Christian faith informs their legislative judgments.

Off topic? Come now. It's a vital aspect of this discussion. Sorry you don't approve.

Hey, It feels good to villanize the poor.

a reply to: dawnstar

Actually Texas job market is really good and has been for well over 30 years, I know I live here, I see it first hand. We have all manner of industry, you think it is just a fluke companies like State Farm, and Toyota just came here? GM just came here? TI, Raytheon, I could keep going... point is Texas is a juggernaut and can not be stopped. We have always been that juggernaut since March 2, 1836. Can the rest of the nation say that? Gona go with no on that.

Once again many here are comparing tax cuts/loopholes for corporations and wealthy people with actual welfare. This is always an interesting exercise.

Tax cuts for corporations and rich people = productive businesses and citizens keeping more of the money that they actually produced and earned.

Welfare/food stamps = non productive(often tremendously irresponsible) people being handed something they did not earn and do not deserve.

Why exactly do we compare these two?

a reply to: neo96

I think when you say "evolution" what you really mean is Social Darwinism.

a reply to: hammanderr

Supply side economics has been clearly demonstrated to be a failed economic theory.

Tell me, who buys the products of these very successful businesses and corporations, eh?

That's right, the 95% of the population that is not wealthy.

What happens when 95% don't have the money to buy goods and services?

Our economy crashes. Those successful businesses and corporations take their companies overseas, stealing work from Americans, meaning that we have even less money to spend on their products.

There's a reason the phrase "robber barons" was developed in the late 1800s.

a reply to: sycomix

well in the 80's it was heavily reliant on the oil industry, that's when we lived there... it well.

originally posted by: dawnstar
a reply to: sycomix

well in the 80's it was heavily reliant on the oil industry, that's when we lived there... it well.

Texas ... land where the median wage below the national average, one of the largest minimum wage workforces in the country, the highest rate of adults without health insurance, and a poverty level above the national average.

Gee, it looks like that boomin economy isn't reaching everyone, eh?

But ... but ... if the rich are getting richer ... doesn't that "trickle down" to the rest of the people?

Hmmm.

what america needs to do instead of just supporting the poor monetarily is bring back solid blue collar manufacturing jobs to america. the whole economic model we are in now is horrible. we would not need to produce things for pennies and say "isn't this great, things are so much cheaper when they are made in foreign countries at slave wages." instead, we would be saying "wow. isn't this great we can actually afford to buy things made in america at decent wages, because most people make decent wages."

a reply to: Gryphon66

You have missed the point, well educated productive people make a great living here, I even know people with nothing more than a GED that make well above minimum wage because they were willing to work, and willing to train on the job, they started in mail rooms or mopping floors. If your are a lazy sack of flop and your skills merit nothing more than flipping burgers than yes your are gona be a broke joke. The only thing holding anyone given person back is a lack of motivation. If you want something WORK for it, no one is going to just give it to you. You don't "deserve " anything you didn't work for. You are not "entitled" to anything. America is falling due to laziness. Even in our worst of times people were not afraid to roll up their sleeves and do an honest days work. Now they just hold their pathetic hands out and say "please sir may i have some more." My answer is a firm NO!

a reply to: hammanderr

Federal bailouts, stimulus, quantitative easing.....

a reply to: hammanderr

Tax cuts for corporations and rich people = productive businesses and citizens keeping more of the money that they actually produced and earned.

Welfare/food stamps = non productive(often tremendously irresponsible) people being handed something they did not earn and do not deserve.

Why exactly do we compare these two?

What is your definition of productive? If a productive person is one who produces, then what exactly is it that wealthy people are producing more of that makes them more productive than the laborers? As Thomas Paine famously opined in Agrarian Justice:

"Separate an individual from society, and give him an island or a continent to possess, and he cannot acquire personal property. He cannot be rich. So inseparably are the means connected with the end, in all cases, that where the former do not exist the latter cannot be obtained. All accumulation, therefore, of personal property, beyond what a man's own hands produce, is derived to him by living in society; and he owes on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of civilization, a part of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came.

This is putting the matter on a general principle, and perhaps it is best to do so; for if we examine the case minutely it will be found that the accumulation of personal property is, in many instances, the effect of paying too little for the labor that produced it; the consequence of which is that the working hand perishes in old age, and the employer abounds in affluence."

I don't know that it's ever been stated more eloquently. The wealth that rich people possess comes from the labor of other people and without those other people (aka the rest of society) they have nothing more than what they can produce with their own two hands.

You might also notice that this was written in 1795, 137 years before federally subsidized food stamps.

I digress, you're clearly speaking with the authority of a person who has it all figured out so maybe you could generously impart some of your wisdom? Perhaps explain to me how labor markets work? As far as I know, when labor supply exceeds labor demand, the inevitable consequence is unemployment.

What you and others have been saying is that people don't have jobs that don't exist because they're lazy which is wholly illogical and unfortunately, one the more popular conservatively correct ways of blaming anything but the system and the people that control it for its failures.

a reply to: sycomix

do they still have the attitude that men need jobs because they have families to support but women don't because well, they have men to support them or should have. that's why I will never go back there, in the 80's I couldn't find a decent job and well have been told by several that is why.

originally posted by: sycomix
a reply to: Gryphon66

You have missed the point, well educated productive people make a great living here, I even know people with nothing more than a GED that make well above minimum wage because they were willing to work, and willing to train on the job, they started in mail rooms or mopping floors. If your are a lazy sack of flop and your skills merit nothing more than flipping burgers than yes your are gona be a broke joke. The only thing holding anyone given person back is a lack of motivation. If you want something WORK for it, no one is going to just give it to you. You don't "deserve " anything you didn't work for. You are not "entitled" to anything. America is falling due to laziness. Even in our worst of times people were not afraid to roll up their sleeves and do an honest days work. Now they just hold their pathetic hands out and say "please sir may i have some more." My answer is a firm NO!

"no ones going to give it to you"?...are you serious?
blogs.wsj.com...

and here how "hard" the Koch bros "worked for it"
www.alternet.org...

hey goldman saches ceo wants to give away training, education, housing to us all!!!

money.cnn.com...

why do I get a feeling it is free housing in fema camps where you work in on the job training for your share of beans and rice?

a reply to: jimmyx

If i hit it big and got "rich" your damned right I would leave it to my sons. I am not gona give it to some random bozo. I worked for it and will do with as I please. I may even withhold it from the kids just to have a money bonfire. If they inherited it, that means their family worked for it. It is rightfully theirs.

a reply to: Gryphon66

Actually, this is a pretty sore subject for me.

First, the Federal Government spends 50 years destroying Mexico. We armed the cartels and let them create a bloodbath out of the nation. So when the people start fleeing the carnage....they end up here. Then we get people turning that into "you have the largest uninsured...." and all that. Damned if we do, damned if we don't.

But ill tell you this: when the Katrina evacuees came here for shelter...they sure as hell didn't end up going back. They didn't have a pot to piss in here or there. So they stayed, and started over. Just more padding for the statistic that is being used as a verbal weapon here.

Beyond that...we can make all the laws, and harass all the busineses we want. It doesn't stop them from coming. So we have mae it harder for them to work....but did nothing to stop them getting here in the first place. And the ones who do work? Fake SS numbers, and employers paying low wages in return for not asking any questions. Once the everify system becomes the law...even that will be nearly impossible.

No. DC made the decisions. We are just trying to deal with it. So screw the stats. I know the people.