This attitude you call poverty culture, I call normal human behaviour. It is not exclusive to those in poverty, it is a pervasive mindset that I think the majority of the planet follows. But when you're rich, nobody gives a fuck if you are an idle scrounger because you can pay for your mistakes with money.
It isn't that poor people fuck up. It's that they fuck up with no safety net. Well, besides the rest of society... and we just kick it back to them with some bullshit like EBT or whatever. Fucking not IT, bitch. No take backs.
But you can get a safety net as a poor person. I fucking did it. I wasn't some fucking hero at 20-whatever yet still managed to save. I was just some fucking schlub working some grunt job hauling shit around. It wasn't rocket surgery.
But, BUT, BUT! The people I worked with who made the same fucking money as me (sometimes even more) told me to my goddamn face I was "rich". Like, y'know earth to dipshit, I make less than you. You don't even know what rich is. I just save shit well. I worked hard for this money. Fuck if I am going to give it away. Like, I learned to make biscuits from scratch rather than buy the knock-off store-brand pillbury ones. The instructions are on the can of baking powder and that dollar I saved is an ounce of sweat. That little thing I learned saved me a 20 whole dollars a year in my biscuit budget. It adds up, man.
I don't understand how you can lay that at the parents feet, but I assume you don't understand how I can not. I guess this is the crux of it for me
The kid IS totally innocent. Which is why I am mega pissed.
As for the parents. Clearly their fault. Tab A. Slot B. They did it and that's what started this mess. Pretty difficult to track this problem of a child to back before conception.
They presented society with fait accompli problem and tender-hearted folks like you just go along with it. I'm the hard-ass who says, no, fuck you dickbags. Shit ain't right. You don't get to make the rules by just doing what you want for your own (and we do agree that it is totally selfish, right?) reasons.
If CPS has gotta pull a few more kids because of it, so be it. I'll pay. It's better than being raised by either incompetents or narcissists. Maybe both.
That doesn't make it right or moral or sound or anything like that, but it is what it is. You can obsess over it, and become another Dylan Roof or unabomber or moviebob, but it won't help, it's not a genetic thing or a race thing or iq thing, it just is.
I never said it was. I made it a point to specifically say that they are exactly like us.
Exactly like us. I brought up Cousin Eddie because he is a funny character from a movie we all know because we all have that person in our family. But also that the movie sanitized it a bit to make him likable.
My point is that the are slacking and mailing that shit in and shirking their responsibility. The responsibility they assumed by deciding to have a kid. You can plunk any person from any kind of background into that position and they still would be a POS if they neglect their responsibilities as a parent like that. Identity politics doesn't rate here my friend. This is a purely morals and ethics argument. If your start some shit are you then responsible for the consequences.
If you think not, give me your address. I want to practice my torch juggling on your roof. Hope you are insured. Not my problem. Didn't mean to set anything on fire. I'm too poor to think about that kind of stuff in anything other than the most basic way of watching flaming things fly through the air because flashy lights make my brain all tingly. Because I'm poor. Sooooooo poor. Ne'er you mind what I was doin' fer this. I wuz poor. Also, here, take care of my baby. I'm a bit drunk and I don't want to go back to jail again for hurtin' a child with my theater. The chainsaws were a mistake.
That doesn't mean hand outs, but you won't convince me maternity leave is a hand out. Infancy is a critical part of the development of a child, and putting them into daycare is bad for them.
It's a subsidy. There isn't some magical money fairy who creates the cash to pay these folks. It comes from somewhere.
Even moreso in the US where money for that kind of thing comes directly from payroll.
I mean, fuck me, really? You don't think consumers, stockholders, and employees don't bear this burden?
We pay for it all. Somehow. Some way. We pay.
We get hosed in this transaction. And for what? So we can just pay more later for even worse decisions. Gee thanks. You shouldn't have.
No really. You shouldn't.
I'm not saying we should actually physically stop them. Just don't pay for their stupid shit with public money. If they can't afford to keep their little love memento and it becomes threatened by a credible threat of harm or neglect, the state should take it. Just like they do now. Take the kid to grandma's (she actually raised a kid that lived) and make the family aware of how bad of parents they are. I'll gladly pay for that. Maybe if they get a kid pulled they figure out finally that they are straight fucking up being a parent and work to do better. Maybe some shit gets fixed and the cycle gets broken.
I think ColtWalker1847 is referencing these type of people. Not the small amount of people who just hit bad luck or because of location they can never pull out of poverty.
Oh man I wish it was that simple and easy. If I could just blame the most awful dregs of society who milk the system. But that isn't it. You would be surprised by the amount of people who turn down honest work because of some weird hangup they have. It's like getting a 6 year-old to eat vegetables, I swear. But they they won't sign up for some program for baby formula or whatever because they don't take charity. Damn, dude people are just beating you over the head with opportunities and ya just don't take them.
This isn't some cherry-picked opinion of some urban shithole here. I'm a rural guy. The people I am talking about I see as full-fledged should-know-better adults who need to step up but don't. My neighbors. We had guys who needed money to "feed their kids" and you felt sorry for them so you used your connections to get them a day laborer gig for a week doing concrete or whatever then on the second day they called in with a "family emergency" then never showed up after that. That kind of crap.
But know this, somebody out there somewhere wants you, yes you, for a fantastic employment opportunity anywhere and everywhere if you just open yourself to it. My deal is I push diesels around and I can tell you, for sure, you can live pretty much anywhere in America but Hawaii with that skillset and make a living. It's not rocket surgery. Just having the will to sacrifice something for a later benefit and maybe learning something along the way. If you are willing to do that, shit, you can make six figures.
The problem isn't the lack of jobs, it is dynamiting people out of their spots to apply themselves for employment. And then sticking to it. Commitment. What was often referred to in previous eras as "the grind". You ain't above it, I ain't, and neither are they.
