steve wrote:danmohr wrote:Possessing the correct values from which successful decisions can be made (and actually making wise decisions) is far more valuable than having a few thousand dollars in the bank. I think the latter is derived from the former in most cases. I think that the values are the boots.
So poor people wouldn't be poor if they valued the right things? They just need to think right and work hard and they won't be poor any more?
These magic "values" of yours are luxuries. Only someone with enough money already would say something like "values matter more than money." If you have enough money, then sure, you can conduct yourself in whatever manner you like. You can take pride in it. If you are desperately poor, you have bigger problems than pride.
I'm not sure what constitues "thinking right" but I'll interpret it as "acting responsibly, investing yourself in education and exercising self-control" or some other lame platitudes. I don't think that "thinking right" and working hard alone guarantees anyone success but I do think they are critical pieces of being successful. Moreover, I think that we need to do a better job of rewarding and encouraging these behaviors than we do. Raise the minimum wage. Increase funding to poor school districts for books and teachers and special educations programs (not computers). Reinvest in domestic manufacturing and growing real careers that don't require a huge investment in college. We are doing some of these things now but we should be doing more - and we could be doing more without continually raising taxes if we spent less money on bombing other countries, giving tax breaks to companies that are cutting domestic jobs, the staggering overhead our government chews up and a pile of other shit that is rewarding terrible behaviors.
Didn't the churches used to handle charity? I thought they had the hotline to the big J and could ask him to cool out on the hurricanes and earthquakes for a bit.
steve wrote:Starving honorably, or dying of disease, is still starving or dying, and anyone who thinks that's an acceptable price for "proportionality" can fuck off and go stand in the corner over there with Matthew.
Of course that's not acceptable. I thought I had been clearly calling out that it would be inhumane to tax someone into poverty under the guise of "fairness". And people dying due to a lack of basic health care is a problem that is really a web of seprate issues we need to solve (what constitutes an acceptable level of basic care, how is that coverage administrated, how is the burden shared between employers and taxpayers, etc.). The latter issue is one I expect (or hope) to see addressed within the next decade. I keep giving money to the goddamn advocacy groups for public health care; I hope they're not just using it to get high.
And please don't make me stand next to Matthew. He smells funny.
Dan
