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Comment by theandrewbailey | Hacker News Reader

> Why are so many clamoring to tear it down?

It stopped working for many people. Not many people can afford rent or a house anymore. We just got done fighting 2 long wars that we didn't win, mostly for the benefit of warmongers, who cashed out like bandits; others involved were scarred, maimed, mentally anguished, or outright killed. Good jobs are difficult to come by if you don't have a college degree. And who would want a degree with the ruinous undischargable debt it comes with? The ever more expensive food and water seems laced with poison or trace amounts of drugs, and when it causes people to get sick, few can afford healthcare.

Would you want to tear that system down?

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> Good jobs are difficult to come by if you don't have a college degree.

what awful logic. this is exactly what's wrong with america. we've been taught this exact sentiment and it will be our demise. so, what if every college closed tomorrow? my god, how would we get jobs?!

i had a friend who started mowing lawns in high school, after he got his driver's license. i genuinely looked down on him because he mowed laws to make a living. what kind of career is that?! i knew i was superior for going to college...

the result? he owns a multi-million dollar landscaping firm, employing dozens of people, drives a fully-loaded company vehicle (which is replaced every 2 years), and he makes GOBS of money loving what he does.

the lesson here is that you actually don't NEED a college degree, but we sure as hell have been programmed to think otherwise. too many kids are forced into college, take on massive amounts of debt, when they were better off going into gasp the trades!

> he owns a multi-million dollar landscaping firm, employing dozens of people

That's fantastic for your friend, but the vast majority of people don't want to be entrepreneurs. Can those dozens of employees under him (presumably without degrees) support a family, a mortgage, healthcare, AND save for the future on that one income?

> too many kids are forced into college, take on massive amounts of debt, when they were better off going into gasp the trades!

The school-to-college funnel is a flaw in the system, but it's too late for many who already have the debt.

>> Good jobs are difficult to come by if you don't have a college degree.

> what awful logic…[anecdote]…the lesson here is that you actually don't NEED a college degree…

Do you see the straw man you erected?

GP never once claimed that a college degree was “needed”, only that lacking one made life more difficult. An effective counter-argument against that would certainly consist of more than a single anecdote.

Those who want to tear it down almost always assume that what replaces it will somehow magically be better. Instead, it's almost always worse.

xibalba said it better than me at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29244364

No, because I believe problems can be iterated on and solutions can be found if people participate in the process.

Tearing a system down and replacing it has a significantly higher cost.

> Tearing a system down and replacing it has a significantly higher cost.

Worked out pretty well for Britan's relationship with the EU /s

Participate in the process how? There is no time off, no sick leave, no protections for people who say something their boss doesn't like. People can't even get time off to vote, and all the local polling places are being closed.

The busses are being shut down. Mail in voting is being suppressed. Strict voter identification is being enforced. Residency requirements, black laws, and drug laws prevent the homeless and destitute from voting. District maps have been drawn to disenfranchise opponents.

The game has been rigged. That's what they want to tear down.

There's been so many ills in this thread & it's all so very very Tea Partyist, that the way to win is to get people to not believe in government & the way to get people to not believe in government is to be an awful awful government that cancels services, is unbearably cruel to people, that broadly disenfranchised as hard as it can.

It's sad to see the loyal opposition fall into such disloyal treachery. Now we have radical extremists in power & welcomed in to a major party, I he voice for a sizable chunk of America. And actively working to undo the Union.

Errr. What?

You're right that people have been roundly disenfranchised and are just desperate. There's little time to paritipate.

And they're fed a constant source of Fox News & ever accelerating worse terror mongering telling them to despair, making them think everything not deep red is aflame & terrible Sodomistic horror.

But there are real hopeful politics out there they could at least consider voting for. That have a track record of trying to help more than the plutocrats, that try to build a better social support system. But still, people keep voting for the Leopards Eating People's Faces party. They get jazzed up by the extremely wealthy astroturfed anti-government Tea Party campaigns. And these campaigns just get more and more believable the better and better the red powers get at obstructing & blocking healthy governance. That's the freedom of the Freedom Caucus, that's the Tea Party.

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