Oh well. I give up. Seeya.

H

You cling to a 1950/60s definition of poverty and put scare quotes around the word “facts” when they come from the census or other dispassionate sources because, for your worldview to make sense, you *need* to do so. For your politics, your agenda, and your *anger* to make sense, the “poor” must be in the dire, “3rd world”-esque, destitute straits that you and those so angered by the West’s wealth regularly assert (without any basis in fact). That entire vast number of people designated as “poor” by our goverment *must* be all (or nearly all) starving, homeless, and utterly destitute. And any facts to the contrary *must* be damn lies. Even when they come from bi/non-partisan census figures or otherwise dispassionate sources. They *must* be lies, and despite no evidence to the contrary, the poor in this country must be starving and destitute because otherwise, your cause and your self-esteem might suffer. And we can’t have that!

The Left plays games with the word “poor” and “poverty” in order to pretend that the free markets and Western-style capitalism are just as prone to impoverishing its people as those craptacular places all across the globe where such systems are not in place. Yet any non-revolutionary fool knows that there is a *vast* difference between “poverty” there and the pseudo-”poverty” we have over here. Which the rest of the world and any prior generation would have a hard time calling “poverty” at all.

Did I mention I was done? You say that I’m obstinate. Yet you yourself demonstrate that you’re impervious to facts and objective statistics and merely dismiss those that don’t fit your world-view. Meanwhile, I’m supposed to find agenda-driven socialist propaganda objectively enlightening and convincing. It would be hilarious if it weren’t so disheartening. And it’s disheartening because so many of our ignorant, brain-washed kids think like you in this day and age, take what they have for granted, and are going to piss away the most prosperous system and era ever known to mankind because people like you fill their heads with this naked propaganda. And, of course, everyone just wants to be a “good person” and help the “poor”. . . you just need to make sure they don’t actually learn what is actually meant by “poor” in this country.

I assume that it’s also fun to paraphrase someone’s argument as you do. . . removing all nuance and stating everything in ridiculous absolutes while (as always) refusing to acknowledge what the person is *actually* saying. You argue against what you *wish* people were saying because that’s convenient for you. But note that you never actually either understand or address the merits of the position you make vague, disingenuous attempts at addressing. And, finally, it’s entertaining to see how you totally ignore the way your prior post(s) have been dismantled and exposed as an attempt to change the subject (from “poverty” to “homelessness.”).

You’re like a caricature of a Left-wing nut-job. You actually seem to think that saying: “That’s something conservatives say” will actually cause the average person to think: “Oh! Then it must be wrong! What was I thinking!?!” Tell me, do all your friends think like you? Or, better yet, do you consider yourself to be immersed in intellectual diversity because some of your friends are Marxists while your other friends are merely Socialists?

But, of course. . . nobody has ever said here that “There are no poor” as you lamely and disingenuously allege.

It’s very simple (which is why you seem to intent on obfuscating): Poverty is a word. Words have definitions. The definition of poverty has changed over the last several decades and been constantly redefined upwards by our government so that people who would never have been considered “impoverished” forty years ago *are* now considered to be “impoverished” by our government. You play along not only with this gradual redefinition of the term “poverty”, but even attempt to perpetuate the myth that everyone (or the vast, vast majority) so-designated is actually in the dire straights (starving, freezing, homeless, helpless, hopless) that the programs were originally created to remedy.

But that’s simply not the case. “Poverty” doesn’t mean what it once did in this country. As others have said, go take a look elsewhere in the world for “real” poverty. “Poverty” in this country is no longer anything like that. That’s called “progress.” But of course, you can’t recognize such progress because it puts your agenda at risk and threatens to undermine an entire political constituency.

Is there economic inequality in this country? There sure is! Nobody would dispute that.

Is there the type of “poverty” in this country that there used to be and that still permeates most of the rest of the world. Hell no. And it’s sad that you can’t see that.

You and those perpetuating the class warfare you claim to despise intentionally confuse/conflate inequality with “poverty” and rail against them as though they are synonymous. They are not. And anybody with an ounce of common sense, a degree of historical context, and isn’t completely addled by revolutionary zeal can readily recognize the difference.

H

I assume you stand by your opinion and any attempt to get you to look at any real substance is wasted.

Here: http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/bg1713.cfm

The above right wing site agrees with you completely. They even source themselves for all of their “facts”.

The right wing in America has had as a fundamental and basic idea “there are no poor people and the poor people that can be proven to exist deserve it.” this class warfare has been going on since the mid 1800’s…

Here’s a book: http://tinyurl.com/3n6kw5

But I guess I will vote anyway, mostly because I’ve known too many people from places like the former Iraq under Saddam, and some African countries, to be able to look them in the eye and say I squander everything I have but they didn’t have back there. I am thinking of voting for Barr, just to send a message. Whether that message is “I’m fed up with corrupt crap from both of you” or “I’m a nut” I am not sure.

Get rid of the electoral college? So only cities will count and rural and surburban voters won’t mean crap? It’s bad for the same reason removing the republic and deciding everything by referendum is bad: the majority will rule and the minority gets trampled. Or so that any small town could suddenly be the victim of lawsuits with tons of cash from the national parties, instead of lawsuits in just select cities right now during close elections, and our whole system grinds to a halt? We can’t even count votes with better than 2% accuracy yet.

“This is a production of Leonardo DiCaprio’s company, who also got http://www.declareyourself.com started. Slightly NSFW splash page of Jessica Biel in bondage.

J.

3 Oct 08 at 10:23 pm”

It’s Jessica ALBA damn you, not Biel. Get your Jessica’s correct!

So, to sum up in case it never appears:

Providing two links to demonstrate that the government thinks there are a whole lot of people in “poverty” does nothing to further our discussion because the discussion has always been about what *constitutes* poverty in this country.

You then go on to (again) conflate homelessness and those living in shelters with the government’s definition of poverty. Yet, again, the homeless make up only a tiny, tiny fraction of those considered to be “impoverished.”

Nobody here doubts that the homeless have it very rough indeed and deserve our help. But while all those who are homeless are “impoverished”. . . not all “impoverished (according to our government’s definition) are homeless. Your need to conflate the two speaks volumes.

So, as I said in the yet-to-appear post. . . your need to avoid the actual topic and instead talk about the homeless and take us aside into irrelevant tangents when you’re not just asserting that those who disagree with you are “white kids” or (of course) merely ignorant. . . it all demonstrates that you don’t seem to really have that much to base your position upon. And as fun as it is to win an argument against someone who blusters and can’t help but call those they disagree with “ignorant” at every opportunity. . . it has stopped being fun because you aren’t even addressing the merits of the counter position. We’re talking about the definition of poverty and what it is constituted by in the real world for the vast majority of those so classified. You want to scream: “Think of the children you ignorant bastard! They’re all starving to death! See! Look at these numbers!” Yet, as anyone can see, those numbers say no such thing.

How do you argue with someone willing to go to those lenghts of intellectual dishonesty? Well, in my case, I choose not to.

Hurin,

http://preview.tinyurl.com/4gmmwp
^
Raw numbers.

http://www.povertyinamerica.psu.edu/

^
People do not have air conditioning or even heating, they freeze to death in the winter, they go hungry…

Again, your perspective on the poor in America is so out of touch with reality I’d have to take you by the hand and walk you through a homeless shelter (It’s no surprise to me, but it will be to you that the majority of people in homeless shelters are CHILDREN) and government housing (Again, you’ll see the majority of the occupants are CHILDREN.)…

You are shamelessly ignorant.
—————————————–

Uh. . . it’s like you just read one or two words of every sentence, then say: “Nuh uh! IGNORANT!”. . . and then feel good about yourself.

You just sent me two links just giving numbers. Nobody ever questioned that the government designates a whole lot of people as “impoverished” or “below the poverty line.” We all know that. The question is what constitutes “poverty” in this country.

You seem to (again) be (willfully?) confusing “poverty” with homelessness. The truly homeless constitute only a tiny, tiny fraction of those huge numbers that the government designates as “impoverished.” The vast, vast majority of those “impoverished” aren’t living on the streets or in shelters. So you can take me to all the shelters you want. . . that’s not poverty. That’s homelessness. And that’s not what the government figures you sent me are covering. You conflate the two and then hysterically point to the huge numbers to try to convince us that each of those numbers are not only on the street starving to death and dying of cold, but that they are CHILDREN! CHILDREN! Geez, demagogue much?

Nice attempt at redirection though. You can go on talking about the homeless. But I’m not. Since nobody has any issue with helping them.

You don’t seem to realize this basic fact: Homeless are impoverished. But not all impoverished are homeless.

The government has been redefining poverty upwards ever since LBJ and the Great Society. We keep dumping huge sums of money into the “war on poverty”. . . yet the poverty rate has *never* improved substantially. Why is that? Because we keep redefining what poverty is relative to the wealth of others, rather than absolute standards. It has become a means of exacerbating class warfare and income redistribution rather than providing the truly “impoverished” (by reasonable standards) with necessities.

And, one more time, as I said from the very beginning. . . we’re talking about those the government consider to be “impoverished”. . . and that is not synonymous with “homeless.”

I’ve given you ample opportunity to stop yelling “IGNORANT!” and “nuh-uh!” and actually make a cogent argument. But since that’s the best you seem to be able to do without being intellectually dishonest and willfully ignore distinctions of which I have to believe you are fully aware. It’s too bad you can’t make your points honestly and politely. Oh, but you don’t feel you need to be polite or even honest. Because everyone you disagree with is “ignorant” and probably dangerously so! You’re fighting for all that’s good and pure in the world. Even if you have to be disingenuous and demagogic as you do so.

So. . . I come here to read about MMORPGs. And I’m tired of hearing the same condescending, false crap from ya. You’ve got nothing, and your one attempt at substance above is demonstrably disingenous. So feel free to continue to call names and yell “nuh-uh! You’re so ignorant” and refer to people in their mid-30s who’ve been around a seen quite a bit as “white kids.” You’re only embarrassing yourself. After three or four posts, I think I’ve given you enough of a chance to say something of substance. And you haven’t. So I’m done. Take care.