Forum Post: Live Free or..........
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 22, 2011, 12:10 p.m. EST by Daennera
(765)
from Griffith, IN
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I would rather live free or die. I would rather live free with the deck stacked against me than live in a nanny state where everyone gets to live comfortably with out sweating or bleeding for it. There will always be poor people. There are plenty of things people can do to minimize their chances of being poor. Life is nothing more than a game of risk minimization and benefit maximization.
Get with the program people.
Is there a manifest I'm not reading because nowhere does OWS say that they are trying to completly eliminate poverty??? Just trying to keep everybody from being in poverty.
Extreme right ideologues have to build up the strawman of extreme egalitarianism to fight, because they can't effectively counter the liberal argument for moderate equality as a social good.
"the more a person deems absolute equality among all people to be a desirable condition, the further left he or she will be on the ideological spectrum. The more a person considers inequality to be unavoidable or even desirable, the further to the right he or she will be."
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism#Definitions
Fascism.
Sounds like you would like life in Somalia.
Plenty of sweating and bleeding to done there.
Probably. I am one of those weirdos who looks forward to all the chaos an armageddon would bring.
I'm sure there's a preacher somewhere picking a new date for that.
Darfur, is another good "choice" in the mean time.
How can one be free if they have to work for 10+ hours a day just to get by?
They wouldn't even have free time to stop and think what it would be like to be free.
If you don't want to pay attention in high school and get good grades while working part time with the plan to advance either through college or working, then you've decided you will work for crap pay and work crappy hours.
The great thing about freedom is that it is possible to make the kinds of choices that will leave you starving in the street. And if starving is the result of choices, NO ONE should be forced to save your ass.
So if I get diabetes because our food is poison and doctors have to amputate my legs I should starve to death so all the conformists and opportunists can have yachts and mansions and waste my planets resources?
Our food is not poison. I have yet to see anyone get diabetes who eats a steady diet of fresh foods and vegetables from your standard grocery store.
Clearly you know nothing about Diabetes. Nor the food for sale at the store.
You can eat healthy, that is a CHOICE. And don't give me some crap about cost. It's cheaper to eat healthy than unhealthy.
I know that people with diabetes can end up with missing limbs. About the cost of food, in some places that might be true. In others it is not. Some people rely on food subsidies to survive and the only food that is offered to them is not even real food. I bet you never had weeks where you were so broke you had to go to a food bank.
In fact, I worked at a soup kitchen, I have diabetes, and I have worked at a few food banks. I know the laws around such things as well. And you can eat healthy enough at them.
Oh ok well I apologize for my assumptions. I've never actually been to one I just read a lot and know that some provide a pretty poor choice of food. But my point was really about how some people need to be taken care of and that I think it is disgusting to let people starve or freeze to death even if it is entirely their own fault which is not usually the case.
That is exactly what OWS is about. Doing something to end poverty.
We already have plenty of opportunity in this country to end poverty. We should only be supporting children, the very sick, and the elderly. The rest of you with two working legs, arms, and of majority age need to get off your ass and work. Work for free if it means getting experience. Go to school. Trade schools even.
Exceptions must be made when the corporations outsource and fire Americans. They must be regulated. I agree that there is more opportunity here than anywhere else but OWS is proof that change must come. Your guidelines were our parents' guidelines. That is not true any more. Besides, the people we protest are against children, elderly and sick people.
It still is true. Very true. I see postings for jobs everyday on craigslist for general labor paying $9 an hour. Yeah its hard work, but hey it's better than not eating or being on food stamps. If people were just automatically given food, shelter, and clothing; do you think people would do those jobs for the kind of pay necessary to keep inflation down? How quickly will inflation eat all the gains of a guaranteed income anyways?
Seconded
Really? I haven't seen one realistic idea here that would end poverty. If you think ideas like raising the minimum wage to $25 an hour (seen posted here many times) is an answer to poverty, you are sadly mistaken. Have also seen many posts about the "right to a living wage". Doesn't exist and never will. As the original post says, we're all on our own.
Not getting down on OWS here - nobody has some up with any real solution to poverty. The present government, through its massive "stimulus" programs and additional funding of welfare just facilitates the chronic poverty we see. Since Lyndon Johnson's "war on poverty", the poverty rate has stayed essentially the same, while we have spent trillions to perpetuate it.
I think when people say things like "raise minimum wage to $25 an hour" it's not meant to be a practical solution to be taken seriously. It is meant to make you think about what it would be like in a world where workers can have some goddamned dignity. Did you ever think that maybe the reason why people don't want to work at mcdonalds for $7 an hour is because it is degrading?
Actually, I worked at McDonald's once. Seriously. Slinging burgers for $2.10 an hour was degrading. But you know what? It taught me a valuable lesson. To study hard and get a job that I would actually like and make a living wage, which I went on to do.
McDonald's pays $7 an hour because they can find somebody that will be willing to work for that. That's free-market capitalism. Supply and demand.
That is exactly why i despise free market capitalism. It is the strong exploiting the week. Big fish eat the little ones. I know that human beings are capable of something much better than merely imitating beasts but that is what free market capitalism leads to.
It is also not compatible with survival on this planet.
Capitalism works for one simple reason: It doesn't try to change human nature.
Your statement that it is not compatible with survival on this planet is completely backward. If everyone were a pure capitalist, they would be the ultimate survivors. You see, capitalism is about incentives for individuals to strive to do better and make more of their own lives.
Any form of collectivism - socialism, communism, Marxism all remove the incentive. It takes from those who are able and gives to those who are either unable or mostly unwilling.
There is a finite amount of resources on the planet. Capitalism thrives off of consumerism which only functions on excessive consumption. Competition will be the death of our species. Without cooperation we never would have evolved enough to even form a language much less a functioning society. Bands and tribes thrived for many thousands of years under a communal form of reciprocity. They shamed the selfish and boastful into acquiescence or exiled them from the community because it was in the best interest of the survival of the group to cooperate.
Your human nature argument is weak. It is also human nature to rape children and have blood orgies. Some aspects of our nature are best curbed.
Human nature to rape children? No, that is a documented mental illness. Blood orgies? That's just weird, man.
Yes, I agree, there is a finite amount of resources. Which is why I have said that the root of many of mankind's problems today are that there are just too many people on the planet. Another billion people have been added in just the last 12 years. That cannot continue.
I was just being hyperbolic to make a point. One could argue that stock holders and hedge fund managers are sociopaths or that they are acting out their human nature.
I agree that overpopulation is the root of many of our problems but that is just another reason why I think that capitalism is a failure. There is no room for preservation and conservation of resources.
I don't think their sociopaths really. I think a lot start out as honest, hard working individuals but they become corrupted when they reach a certain level and get a taste of the money and power. And certainly, there are those who start out looking to screw everyone on their race to the top.
Not really sure, but I think it becomes a sort of game at some point. They have more money than they can ever use, but just want to see if they can keep making more, whether or not it's legal or ethical. I guess it's just plain greed. And greed, despite what Gordon Gekko says, is not good.
I don't think capitalism is a failure. It has it's problems. But nobody has yet come up with a workable alternative. IMHO.
Wouldn't end it, but it would stop the destruction of the middle class:
http://www.brianrogel.com/the-100-percent-solution-for-the-99-percent
So much for not "one realistic idea." We had the solution in the recent past....
I definitely do not agree with raising taxes of any kind on any class of people. Growing the economy is the way to increase overall revenue from taxes - it floats all boats.
As far as the other two ideas advocated in this piece, I completely agree. I especially like making personal finance a required part of the school curriculum.
I would like to say we could spend less on war and more on education. But the fact will still remain that unless kids WANT to get educated and have parents that ENSURE they get educated, we will still have a poor uneducated, essentially worthless lower class.
Exactly. In the inner-city ghettos of America, there is an endless spiral of poverty perpetuated by the state - government-assisted housing, food stamps, HEAP, Medicaid. Only a few "see the light" of education as a means to break free and make something of themselves.
Said like a true wage slave.
Actually, I'm only half a wage slave. Half my income is W2 and the other comes from rentals I invested in with my W2 money. I wasn't born rich, but I don't care. I can build my own little empire in this world no problem.
I would love a state of free people where thinking and talking and sharing is for real. You speak and so can others and we listen to you and expect you to listen to us. We share.
The program is not a program for all and all people are not the same. So we must adjust and make compromises. The weak makes compromises all the time and sweat and bleed for nothing, nada, zero. They survive but do not live.
If we introduce the survival of the fittest, for real, we have anarchy and anarchy has been going on now for more than 2000 years. Multinational banks and corporations are anarcists and they say we have a choice of chosing only their money.
The real poor people are those who are greedy and are idols or famous. kings and queens and presidents surely live the nice life but they are empty and poor in spirit and soul while the hungry and homeless lost not only their soul as well but also their survival-skills.
If we really wanted we could follow the %1 and start the looting. But we do not because we are sane people but, yes, we need to act together to not sweat and bleed to death.
Work is overrated. For many many years humans have tried NOT to work and so the government and school indoctrinates us to work more for freedom. Abeit Mack Frie. Bollocs. Work enslaves. Todays educational system enslaves.
You may think you live free but in fact you may be dead - a zombie - or a technotron. I do not know you and your life but having one oppinion is not sane. If you do, you are called a psycotic. Be free mean being able to open your mind to other ideas.
http://geegood.com/hapinut/2011/11/22/bloodlines-illuminati-and-zero-freedom/
You may not agre and that is fine. Do not cast spells or ignite hatred trough misunderstanding. 500 words can not explain all. Be patient and read other topics than the usual. Feed your brain with new thoughts. Who know, you might cook up a new recipy.
And now I must install Google Chrome to check my spells!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9WVZddH9w