If you want to spend all day, every day watching sports then it shouldn't be an issue if you don't get a head in life. It's a personal choice, but you can't have it both ways.
I too am one of those people who overcame a lot early in life.
Our choices matter. Of course they do.
What is often not discussed is a reasonable, modest life. For many people, that is all they want, and our current society is growing toxic to it. The "game" of life does not need to be as hard as it currently is. Nor does it need to select for extremes.
No matter how great our ability to choose is, the fact is only a fraction of us will do well, and the rest are going to really struggle and that is unnecessary.
The other fact is luck plays a huge role.
I'm not entirely sure it's unnecessary. Not everyone can live an upper middle class lifestyle.
My main message is that there's culture changes that can and must be enacted within those communities or individuals that will provide opportunity.
A majority are struggling today.
Unnecessary.
Examples elsewhere in the world are not hard to find.
Wealthy people purpose most of their time.
The majority struggling are poor in this sense.
That is unnecessary.
As a species, yes! We are doing well.
No argument.
Here, right now, in the US, a majority suffer. Their income is not up to their cost and risk exposure, particularly with health care.
They labor too much.
I could go on.
Massive gains have not played out as solid gains in life quality and wealth basics most would agree were set decades ago.
Blaming people holds no answers.
But if these people who make poor choices and then look for handouts, from your tax dollars, then you have right to complain about their lifestyle.
I had to support my brothers for a long time. They just stayed with my parents, played video games all day, hung out with wrong crowd at night, and complained about lack of money. My parents would guilt me into giving my brothers some handout. And then they complained about capitalism.
And I would complain about them not working and not able to do thing I wanted to with my money but my parent always shamed me for being selfish.
After a lot of nagging and many time refusing to give handouts, they slowly got decent jobs and are doing pretty good. I just wish I had nagged earlier and stopped supporting their lifestyle with my money.
So based on my personal experiences, I don't agree that we should spend our tax dollars on helping poor but don't shame them about their unhealthy lifestyle.
But my tax dollars go to handouts for things I think are bad choices all the time to the wealthy! My tax dollars are used to subsidize industries I don't agree with to continue in their wasteful useage of resources. If we are to protest bad decisions begging for handouts, we should first complain about the lifestyles of board members of companies.
Johnson and Johnson knowingly created abestos-laden baby powder[1] and they recieved 8 million in federal subidies, 80 million in state/local ones. With an additional 10 million in federal loans. [0]
0. https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/johnson-and-... 1. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/johnsona...
The more I see how the democratic platform has devolved in the last 4 years, the more I have come to understand and agree with the decision in Citizens United. Right now, we have at least two candidates talking about a pretty extreme wealth tax (which is a tax on money you've already paid a ton of taxes on) all because others are envious of what they have and just want to use mob rule to steal.
Allowing money to influence votes, in a way is not unlike how a bicameral congress works. We have one that has equal representation (the Senate) and one that has proportional representation (the House). Similarly, every one has one vote (equal representation) and the ability to donate money to influence those votes and the amount of influence you are able to exert is proportional to the amount of value you've accrued from mutually beneficial voluntary transactions with others in that society whereby you provided to them some good or service they found valuable (proportional representation).
Money in politics is one of the greatest forces for the protection of private property. Without it, we'd likely devolve into a place like Venezuela where private property is seized unilaterally without recompense because the people voted for someone who promised them that they would use the government's right to licit first use of force to take private property from private citizens.
Had Martin Niemöller been born in pre-Soviet Union Russia or pro-Chavez Venezuela, he might have started his poem this way instead:
"First they came for the billionaires..."
Eventually, they'll come for the middle and upper middle class like they've done in many countries that become communist/socialist in the 20th and 21st centuries.
This is not to say that money in politics isn't a corrupting force, it is. But a democracy is also corrupting. The two balance each other out.
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy." — Alexander Fraser Tytler (possibly Alexis de Toqueville)
Blame and shame really aren't productive.
Given the strong role luck has in our lives, improving on society such that people can figure out how to live better a little more comfortably makes a lot of sense as well.
The poor are not always poor by choice. I won’t even get into poverty caused by unequal sentencing from the same crimes, official government policies with red lining, etc.
I'm reminded of all the people who weren't allowed back into evacuation zones during the latest surge of forest fires to save more belongings from their house. People invoke the reasonable point of "I should be able to make that gamble if I want" but in reality, if they were to find themselves in danger, they'd be squandering resources of emergency responders having to save them and the attention of other people who should be working on evacuating swiftly rather than saving their neighbor.
It's not always obvious where to draw the line when concerning ourselves with the actions of others.
We shouldn't be prioritizing anyone's interests via an institution with the right to licit first use of force. We have the technology now to charge people directly for the government-provided services they use. If you use it, you should pay for it. Until we start doing this, society is never going to price things properly and prices are the fastest mechanism for a society to communicate what is important.
Unilaterally taking away IOUs someone has accumulated without recompense merely deprioritizing someone's interests. It's theft.
> it could just be the rebound from society over-subsidizing your lifestyle.
what aspects of my lifestyle do you believe society over-subsidizing?
Right. We should leave it to individuals with power and influence accrued during the current era, where we... prioritized some people's interests via an institution with the right to licit first use of force. Usually based on heritage.
This is definitely a good idea that you have had.
>what aspects of my lifestyle do you believe society over-subsidizing?
Depends on what your decadent western trade and hobbies are.
I empathize with the fact, that for many people who do want to better themselves, they're often surrounded by people who don't want to. And that's a tough situation to be in -- that can drag you down. It's tough to persevere in certain situations.