I don't claim to know anything about the economy, it's all a huge mystery to me.
Evidently.
But stealing is stealing. That's all I've said.
No, you have also told ridiculous lies about the meaning of the word "stealing" and displayed a degree of hypocrisy which, cynic though I am, I wouldn't have believed possible if I hadn't seen it.
I'm sorry I'm in a position where I have to participate in the stealing.
You don't have to do anything. No-one's holding a gun to your head. If you really think that you are profiting from theft, then you can stop. Just refuse to take our money. It's that simple.
I've been in the same boat as you and will be again. When I was on my own but still in grad school (no income) I became perilously ill and spent a month in the hospital at public expense. When I retire and go on social security I'll be collecting public funds again.
Given how poor a job governments usually do achieving their goals, the programs paying out these funds do a pretty good job. They kept me in school to enable me to become (presumably) an even more productive member of society. They're helping keep you warm and healthy. They'll assist us both long after we're too old to work. No one here but you thinks you're stealing. Few people want to be on assistance, but it's not because they think it's stealing. It's because being dependent in this way hurts one's pride.
... rental assistance...my ex... arthritis...
When I hear these occasional tidbits of your life it makes me count my blessings.
Yes, I ahve to have an internet connection as part of my work.
That also doesn't answer my question. I didn't ask if you needed it, I asked if, without the assistance you get from the government, you'd be able to pay for it. In answering this question, remember that internet connections are not usually found in dumpsters.
Faith managed to get through a whole post, an entire twelve words, without saying something contemptibly stupid.
It's been a while since I read the Book of Revelation, but I think the next thing on the list is a rain of blood. I'm off to buy a blood-proof umbrella.
I think it likely that Faith is simply demonstrating the inherent irrationality of the modern American "conservative." Faith is revealing her brainwashing.
Corporate powers want to destroy the government so that they can operate without restraint. Corporate powers have always worked to either own the government or destroy what they can't have. They have convinced social conservatives that economic liberalism - which is what gave this country environmental protections, a minimum wage, the 40-hour work week, workplace safety standards, social security, etc., etc - is the same thing as social liberalism. Basically, starting at least as far back as the Nixonian Southern Strategy, they have harnessed the fear and hatred that social conservatives feel (or can be trained to feel) for hippies, dark folks, non-submissive women, gays, and anyone else who's "different" and used it to get these same social conservatives to hate the very economic and political policies that have benefited them for generations. Why else do you think that bankrupt farmers and unemployed autoworkers can be convinced time after time to vote for candidates who are going to do everything possible to enable corporations to export jobs, pillage the economy and lay waste to the environment - basically to make life even worse for these same voters? All you have to do is to promise to outlaw abortion and you're in.
Corporate interests have the advantage, as they own the media and pretty much all of the government already. At this point there is no genuine left wing political representation left in this country. With one or two exceptions - Bernie Sanders, Barney Frank - all we really have are moderate Republicans (who call themselves Democrats) and batshit crazy Republicans. Compared to most of the rest of the First World, there are no real liberals in power at all. Real liberal policies, things like environmental protection, a sane healthcare system, and alternative energy, have no chance of happening.
Maybe someday, when this country is a smoking, stagnant, Third World trash heap, the conservatives dupes who bought Beck's and Limbaugh's cry to arms that trying to provide affordable healthcare to the majority of this country's citizens is the same thing as sending grandma to the gas chambers will finally realize too late how they've been lied to and used. Probably not, but maybe. Just keep telling these brainwashed saps that fascist liberals are trying to force them all into gay marriages and turn their children into evolutionist witches, and they'll let you rape their retirement funds every time.
I have no time for lies and fantasy, and neither should you. Enjoy or die. -John Lydon
What's the difference between a conspiracy theorist and a new puppy? The puppy eventually grows up and quits whining. -Steven Dutch
I think it likely that Faith is simply demonstrating the inherent irrationality of the modern American "conservative." Faith is revealing her brainwashing.
And what we are seeing is the effect of cognitive dissonance when belief is contradicted by reality.
The reason she is so angry, is not because of the responses, not because of the language used in replies, but because at some level she recognizes the basic contradiction between her views and her reality.
A powerful cause is when actual realities contradict strongly held beliefs.
Maybe someday, when this country is a smoking, stagnant, Third World trash heap, the conservatives dupes who bought Beck's and Limbaugh's cry to arms that trying to provide affordable healthcare to the majority of this country's citizens is the same thing as sending grandma to the gas chambers will finally realize too late how they've been lied to and used. Probably not, but maybe.
Yes, we keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, and for people to look again, with open eyes and minds, but I wonder if this will ever happen. We see a lot of angry people in the tea party parades, and I'll bet a fair number of them are angry because reality doesn't match their beliefs. Note that the effects of cognitive dissonance are:
People have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance
by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, or
by justifying or rationalizing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.
(Cognitive dissonance) can lead to rationalization when a person is presented with evidence of a bad choice.
It can also lead to confirmation bias, the denial of disconfirming evidence, and other ego defense mechanisms.
And only (1a) is a positive result, and the only one that actually reduces the dissonance, the rest are all negative and only hide from the dissonance through denial.
We have seen this denial, and the anger caused by this dissonance, and personally I find it a little sad.
Probably not, but maybe.
Probably not, sad to say.
Real liberal policies, things like environmental protection, a sane healthcare system, and alternative energy, have no chance of happening.
The question is whether people will actually realize that they benefit from the healthcare reforms and other Obama programs, or will they continue to fall back on the conspiracy theories and feed on the misinformation that prevails in their world.
While you're having such a great time regarding me like a bug specimen pinned to a board, pscyholoanalyzing me to suit your own prejudices and all, I thought I'd put up a list of links to the posts I think are the most key to this whole thread, where I psychoanalyze YOU:
Of course Humpty is right and all that matters in the end is who is to be master, and at EvC you all are master, since it's at least twenty to one against me.
That's your only claim to being right, though.
Message 232 In this and the next I'm spelling out what has happened on this thread to that point from my point of view
Message 234
Message 237 This is where nwr finally makes it clear to me that while I'm using straightfoward factual language I'm being heard as saying moralistic incendiary things instead.
Message 267 Which I state in this post as I grasp that what's going on here is YOUR inability to treat the words for what they mean and I quote Humpty Dumpty.
After that in typical fashion many here simply stole what I said and turned it against me. Childish tactic but there you have it.
Faith, what I am curious about is, who is this infamous "they" you are talking about here:
Faith writes:
I tried to say my objection to welfare programs is that they STEAL.
and
Faith writes:
You seem to be saying that if you don't SEE your neighbor being robbed, if it's done on paper by the IRS and THEN given to another neighbor who is poor, that's not stealing.
And how is this "they" any different than you who receive HUD (a federal and state subsidy aka welfare type system to assist low income earners to rent apartments which they normally would not be able to with subsidy aka welfare) which even by your own admission, you consider welfare.
So in essense this infamous "they" is YOU. I agree cognitive dissonance definately comes into play here.
Faith writes:
HUD indeed is a form of welfare. It's not what is called Welfare, but it's one form of it.
Faith writes:
I get some rental assistance through HUD.
Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.
One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. - Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection
"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." - Carl Sagan
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World
I am not intentionally trying to be mean or cruel. I am trying to make you see how silly your argument is. In fact, my desire is that you reach a state of epiphany in which the light bulb goes off and you say:
"Wow, what I have been saying really doesn't make any sense. Maybe I should do some introspection before making hypocritical and self-righteous remarks about people less fortunate than me"
or something along these lines.
I don't even care if you think I or anyone else here is right. If I can win one person to a state of rational thought and critical thinking, I will be happy.
Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.
Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.
One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. - Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection
"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." - Carl Sagan
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World
No, what you're doing is much more than just disagreeing. You're emotionally irrational. You wrote me that you believed you were better able and prepared now to discuss contentious issues, but faster than at any time previous you self-destructed. As in the past as the irrationality of your position became more and more apparent you became more and more strident and began lashing out at everyone who disagreed with you, in the end once more announcing you were leaving (but, as before, not actually leaving).
We've seen it all before, Faith. That's why I warned folks to be prepared to become engaged in discussions that you imploded and abandoned.
If you would like to engage in dispassionate and productive discussion of controversial issues then the moderator team here is prepared to foster the necessary environment, but they can't do that if you refuse to follow the Forum Guidelines and work with moderators.
I think what we're looking at is someone who is embarrassingly caught in her own sticky web of beliefs. (I'm just guessing of course, since I'm getting no answers to any of the questions I've asked in recent posts.) I am assuming that Faith has believed in this "welfare is stealing" thing for some time and now inadvertently finds herself in a situation where she is actually on it (or a form of it). Embarrassing indeed for someone who believes that she is now participating in the very evil system that she has been protesting against. My thoughts are that if/when she gets more money and no longer needs the assistance, there will have been no lessons learned and she will simply continue to rail about the evil system.
Now if she only changed her views to ultra-conservative after she was already on government support, that would be interesting. As it is, though, we seem to have been talking with someone whose beliefs are divorced from reality, an evident fact that just about everyone here has commented on numerous times.
Faith, what I am curious about is, who is this infamous "they" you are talking about here:
Faith writes: I tried to say my objection to welfare programs is that they STEAL.
The welfare programs. It's grammatically correct. My objection to welfare programs is that welfare programs steal. There aren't any other "theys" in the sentence.
Faith writes: You seem to be saying that if you don't SEE your neighbor being robbed, if it's done on paper by the IRS and THEN given to another neighbor who is poor, that's not stealing.
The IRS is doing the stealing, although there's no "they" in this sentence that I can see.
And how is this "they" any different than you who receive HUD (a federal and state subsidy aka welfare type system to assist low income earners to rent apartments which they normally would not be able to with subsidy aka welfare) which even by your own admission, you consider welfare.
I don't consider myself different from other recipients of aid. We're all in the same boat. I haven't said a word against any of them. It's the government that's doing the stealing.
So in essense this infamous "they" is YOU. I agree cognitive dissonance definately comes into play here.
Yes, you do seem to be struggling with ordinary English.
Faith writes: HUD indeed is a form of welfare. It's not what is called Welfare, but it's one form of it.
Faith writes: I get some rental assistance through HUD.
I get some welfare assistance. And your point is?
See, I'm capable of being objective about these things. I'm not calling people names or blaming people or pointing the finger as so many here love to do, and it's because it's done here you think I'm doing it. I'm not. I can talk about the system as stealing even though I'm benefiting from it and wish the system were different.
Probably if there were no welfare system I'd have other provisions. Since there is one I stick to it because I know if I go off it I'm forcing friends or family to help me. They'd HAVE to help me if there were no welfare system but since there is I don't want to impose on them.
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