I agree that education is key. Its just that your rants make it sound as if all of the troubles we are facing are the fault of poor people stealing all of your money via taxes. In general, there is this constant paranoia out there where the haves live in fear of the have-nots, and I can’t figure out why. If it’s not one thing it’s another: “The gays are trying to ruin my marriage! The brown skinned people are trying to blow up my airplane! The poor are taking all of my hard earned money!”
Enough with the paranoia. No one is out to get you, and no one is out to take all your money in order to live the “easy” life. Well, except for maybe the octet mom. But you can’t just take one nutcase and apply her situation to all people seeking help from the government. Most people are hard-working people just trying to make a living. Don’t use psycho-mom-lady to justify your hatred for the poor. I too paid for the majority of my education myself, also working 30-40 hours a week while taking on a full class load. But I also received some grants from the government, and they helped me immensely. This is why I don’t mind paying taxes – I’ve benefited directly from them, so I don’t mind giving back. Did I steal your money too, and do you resent me for it?
All I am saying is that the poor are an easy scapegoat for the troubles of the rich. It’s an easy out and is intellectually dishonest to blame everything on “them.” If you ask me, the poor had the least to do with all of our current problems. The people who were just trying to get a meal or pay the heating bills or get some education weren’t the ones taking out $500k loans on $50k income.[/quote]
AFX, firstly excuse my earlier frustration toward you. I just wanted to make it clear that I never had it easy. In reply to your post above I don’t feel anyone is out to get me and I agree with you, as I have expressed in many other posts, that our government is as much to blame for this current debacle than the poor people of society. I also want to mention that I spend quite a bit of my life donating money and helping those in need, i.e. poor, disabled and the less fortunate. I work with some local SD foster programs because my heart goes out to the little ones. Watching those around me growing up made me realize that we are on this earth to help those that aren’t so fortunate. Please don’t ever assume I hate the poor because when you’ve been one it makes it almost impossible to not want to help them.
My statement that this woman was the epitome of this country was merely stating that this is what America has become. I am not so much passing all the blame on her because I believe on of the biggest problems in this country is that we (the politicians) have enabled the citizens of this country to become this way.
Going back to my company, the problem with creating wealth in this country is that if you aren’t corrupt, chances are you won’t succeed. My biggest problem was my corporation has been extremely honest from all angles. I never had off shore accounts and I never tried to hide any numbers. Being creative with the IRS, but still playing the honest game doesn’t really work. If people knew how hard this government makes it for small businesses to survive many wouldn’t think of running their own business. We have some of the smartest people in the world in this country and yet this government has done a terrible job rewarding those who really do play by the rules.
No one can argue we are in a time where those who were irresponsible, both in our government and in society, are the ones being rewarded right now. This is a hard pill to swallow for anyone, but even harder for those that spend everyday from 6am to 8pm running a company that can no longer survive because our country and its’ citizens have sucked the financial system dry.
Again, back to the basics for everyone during the dark days ahead. I promise no matter hard it gets my goal is to make sure that no one in family (or anyone I can help) has to go through what I did as a child. I wish our government thought the same way I did. If they did they would learn that education goes hand in hand with the free ticket. You can’t create wealth in a country when over 50% expect to be taken care of. It’s a pretty simple concept, yet will be extremely hard to fix.
