do the poor cause their own problems?

Question

are the poor in america responsible for their poverty?
among whites, there are a lot of young people who claim to not care about money and call the people "greedy" for wanting a comfortable life. they dress in colorful clothes and claim to be "rebels" of society(hippies). theyre mostly artists or drug addicts. but when they find themselves with no college degree and no job, they expect the government to pay for everything.
among blacks you have drug dealers and people who think the rich somehow "stole" from them something that was never theirs, yet they get welfare(which you can call "reparations"). not to mention the hip-hop culture of shooting people and calling women "b*tches" and "hoes".
a lot of them just don't want to work or have unrealistic expectations from life. and when things start to suck they victimize themselves and always want government(tax-payers) to bail them out. if immigrants like myself can make money here, so can they.

katydid, i can sure see how the public education helps kids. "ignorance is bliss", eh?

nonenzedder, would you prefer to live in a socialist society such as france or germany where people just receive money for nothing? would I hire you? I would have to know your background, and I would have to assess the risk of hiring you. would you prefer that the government force me to hire you either way? is that effective regulation?

romare,
you could replace certain words to say:
The modern liberal is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for laziness and taking advantage of OTHER peoples' hard work.

zes,
so why are you asking for other peoples' money if you dont care for it? go live in a tribe in africa if you want. doesnt bother me. but why does it bother you if someone is more successful than you?

Answer 1

All of us face some problems in life that we bring upon ourselves, and some that we do not. All of us have the option of addressing those problems ourselves, or asking for help. The charitable impulse to help such people is equally valid, no matter which sort of problem it is. That does not mean that people in trouble /deserve/ help, just that there's no need to judge them before we decide to help them.

Answer 2

You seem to have a very simplistic view of how life works. Perhaps you are just too young to have suffered bad luck, accident, disease, lousy parents, bad teachers, or losing the genetic lottery.

Some people are poor because they are lazy; some are poor but are the hardest workers on god's earth; some are rich because their daddies were; some got rich by accident; some are rich because they are thieves.

You simply cannot and should not judge anyone by how much money they have.

Some of the world's greatest and most brilliant men and women were poor people.

Answer 3

Wow, you need to stop generalizing so much, there are plenty of white and hispanic drug dealers too, along with every other ethnic group in the country. While I would agree, some who fail it was their own fault, but not in all cases. Some, at one point, had better circumstances but were laid off and unable to get a replacement job to pay off the mortgage. Some were taken by con men. Some were victims of accidents that happened to other people on their property, they got sued and lost everything. There are lots of circumstances that happen to people that are not their fault, but wind up in poor economic shape and even homeless. Also, it happens to people of all colors, creeds, etc.

Answer 4

You share a view continued by the conservative propaganda media, but for the most part, your generalizations are not true.

My mother was on welfare/food stamps BRIEFLY. She was raising 4 children on her own (and actually, she has a Bachelor's Degree). It was hard to balance a full-time job with the full-time job of mothering without anyone around to help you. But she did it- in just under a year on welfare she was on her feet and supporting herself - and four hungry mouths. Note: she was on welfare, not unemployment. There's a difference.

This is what these programs are INTENDED to do. Yes, there are abuse, but nothing is fail-safe. Not even the U.S. constitution. Also, they are there to protect U.S. citizens in times such as a Depression (they were actually founded during the Great Depression). Instead of threatening to get rid of it, which will actually hurt the economy and the lowest tier on the American Pyramid of "equality" - figure out a way to fix it and make it closer to failsafe. Otherwise, city streets will be scattered with many more homeless people then they already are.

Answer 5

In many respects we are architects of our own destiny, however this could only be complete true if we were all given the same resources. It is no secret in America that inner city schools are underfunded and under resourced. Therefore not all kids are given the same tools. Inner city children do not have the same level of education as say the middle class suburban kid they will be completing against for college, and jobs.

Without education, it is hard to make money and so the cyucle repeats.

Answer 6

As a teacher who has worked in very poor neighborhoods, I saw innocent children suffering from poverty. Is it their fault? Do they deserve help?
You can't just consider the parents because if you do, you're leaving out an important part of the problem. These kids are tomorrows adults. Unless they are given the opportunity, the cycle will never be broken.

Answer 7

Under the guise of past 26 years of Conservative economics(voodoo economics, trickle-down economics) the number of people experiencing poverty has went from a 20 year low under Clinton to a 35 year high under Bush. Union's have shrunk since the Reagan era of 35% of all workers to around the 7% where it is now. The average pay of a CEO has went from 30 times the lowest paid worker to over 450 times that same ratio. Cornelll's latest study (although slightly dated) tells us that Poverty is ever increasing. Social policies that were in place in order to give working families a lift or a chance at steeping up the social ladder have been gutted. Student loans, banking laws, minimum wage, freezes in unemployment compensation, influx's of immigrants into communities who accept lower wages, trade policies that send jobs oversee's or force cuts in pay packages, name me one Bill proposed under this Presidency that supports worker's right's, safety, or addresses any of the issues that directly affect the poorest among us--Good Luck!! The fact of the matter is that Corporate Welfare exceeds Social Welfare by a vast margin. Reagan's philosophy that there are Welfare Queen's out there collecting benefits while driving a Cadillac are just not true.

People like you are a mystery to me. You care little about your common man when it comes to the help they receive from taxpayer dollar's and yet offer no explanation for or even have a clue to extent of the rampant give-aways to corporation's that do nothing for you as an individual yet line the pockets of the wealthiest of among us.

How'd you like to be a soldier in Iraq working for one third the pay of your Blackwater counterpart?

How'd you like to be a wounded soldier during the Walter Reed debacle which was the direct result of privatizing the workforce?

At this moment, Bush plans to veto the S-Chip program. A program that provides health care to those children whose family income level place's them in the space just above the poverty line, yet below the ability to pay for private care. The bill put into monetary terms would cost the taxpayer's one month's of the monies we spend in Iraq--- for a five year extension and expansion of the program keeping our children in good health. What would you consider a more national priority??

The poor of this country do not make the policy. They are merely the result of it. The success of a society is not judged by the number of wealthy persons it creates, it is judged by how it treats the poorest.

Answer 8

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness

- John Kenneth Galbraith

Answer 9

Not all poor people bring it on themselves, some just get dealt a crappy hand, cause life is pretty much a big game of poker you know. The kind of people you're talking about usually do bring it on themselves though. Either they are too stupid to do any better (an that's different from ignorant) or they just don't want to. That's fine though. Leaves more for the somewhat more ambitious.

Answer 10

Jay; if you scoop up a bucket of salt water from the ocean you will surely have only salt water in the bucket. Why are you lumping all the cultures in one bucket?? You must have some guilt about yourself to lash out at all of the families in the U.S. I found good people in the Mexican, Black, and Hip-Hop communities. In fact the World Hip-Hop Championships here in Redondo Beach displayed young and older age dancers who had a solid background of religion in their makeup.
Spartawo...