The Entitlement Mentality

[darb72]

I don't know Darb...maybe me stealing it from your pocket?

I think the intelligent question you are trying to ask if I take the time to work through your reactive anger is:

Why Galen do you think everyone should have equal opportunity when nature has always favored the strong survive or at least prosper?

If you ask your question like that it opens up a philosphical debate.

When you ask low-brow questions like why do I think it is okay to steal your money in a condescending manner it just makes me question your ability to engage in anything worthwhile here.

No. I'm asking why you think it is alright to take money from me and spend it on things YOU think are worthwhile, ignoring the things I think are worthwhile. As stated in my previous post, I would much rather my money go to finding a cure for my son's health issues as opposed to pretty much anything else.

Now on to your comment about giving everyone an equal opportunity. You do realize that everybody has free access to a high school education, right? Once they've graduated, it is easier for a minority or poor student to get help paying for college than it is for a middle class white person. How is that equal? A lot of my students who do come from middle class families have to work full time jobs to pay for school.

In Georgia, every high school graduate who earns a B average gets free tuition to a state school. That sounds like a very fair deal to me. You work hard, you get rewarded. Why is that so hard for you to understand?

[Galen Sevinne]

That's a grade-A cop out. The "who are we to judge" card. Who are you to cast condemnation based off of this racist picture you have painted of us? You imply we are racists in every post, you are just to much of a coward to come out and say it.

I guess it is just coincidence that everytime conservatives remark on negative qualities of the welfare state, they show minorities ranting incoherently. It is an artifact from the 60's and the Republican southern strategy. Diminsh the value of the Democrat initiatives of working from the bottom up by convincing the white majority that Democrats only want transfer white wealth (and their women haha) to blacks.

The consensus is not that we despise the beneficiaries of welfare, but the system itself. The fact that you would even go there is a representation of the atypical liberal view of reality, and how the liberal MO is to attack those with dissenting views.

Oh my bad, I guess my atypical view of reality led me to think these comments were more directed at an individual than a system:

15 fucking kids? Really?!?

Where are the fathers? Isn't there child support in Florida? Ever heard of condoms or birth control?

I was also a little disgusted that she had so little self-decency that she could act like that.

That woman was getting 800$ a month from taxpayers and she's to lazy to find a job.

You might have the intellectual dexterity to distinguish between systemic problems and the character of an individual but I wouldn't suggest that's demonstrated by the consensus around here.

We're the merciless ones for despising the mentality in question, but your the saint for wanting to throw them a bone? Because lets be honest here, that is all welfare is. It seems to me your preaching has more to do with pity than it does a desire to find a way to help the less fortunate.

Never have I suggested to throw anyone a bone. There are few people in my life who would describe me as acting out of pity...in fact, that suggestion would incite many a laugh I am sure.

What I have suggested is maybe you guys should try a different paradigm in looking at poverty; one other than disgust and other than emananting from a political ideology as in liberalism causes poverty. Poverty has existed long before politics and certainly long before liberalism. Poverty, for most, is as much a product of a self-fulfilling prophesy than any other variable and is generated from generational role models of the said individual as well as low expectations from the privileged one's charged with the task to change the outcome.

To simply tell impoverished people to go get a job is as insensitive as telling a depressed person to just get up and be happy.

[StingerNLG]

I guess it is just coincidence that everytime conservatives remark on negative qualities of the welfare state, they show minorities ranting incoherently. It is an artifact from the 60's and the Republican southern strategy. Diminsh the value of the Democrat initiatives of working from the bottom up by convincing the white majority that Democrats only want transfer white wealth (and their women haha) to blacks.

This is the great lie of the Liberal. That somehow Democrats who in those same 60's opposed civil rights legislation, integration, and who's Ku Klux Klan leaders made Senator of West Virginia somehow have minorities in their interests.

The truth and fact is that what the left needs out of minorities is simply their vote. And to do so they need to keep them thinking they are not able to be as good as everyone else. So long as they "need" Democrats, Liberals can keep in power.

Its why every time a strong independant thinking woman or minority tries to buck the trend, Liberals and their media puppets do everything they can to destroy them. Because you cannot have a black, or woman, or Hispanic that actually believes in their own personal responsibility, right Galen?

To simply tell impoverished people to go get a job is as insensitive as telling a depressed person to just get up and be happy.

Right. Because then they don't need the Government or Democrats to hand them things anymore. And THEN what ever will you guys do??

[darb72]

Which flawed system is that Darb?

The one that saw her as a black female in school and placed her in standard level classes, at best, with the rest of her low-income minority friends where the expectation was never to move up to AP classes but instead, to simply not distrupt the class?

That flawed system?

Wow, you went to a really terrible school system. I'm glad I live down here where we don't judge based on color.

or this conservative mantra that minority kids are taught to have unlimited kids, not work and quit school early so they get their dignity eroding independence cards and live for free in some rat infested, lead painted, bullet richocheting housing project next to the chemical plant all so that in the end they end up with 15 kids, their father in jail and no where to go but a cheap hotel room?

So explain to everyone how that isn't what happened here. All those kids see is their mother not working and demanding handouts. She failed them and now they have been taught to expect free money. That is where the welfare system has failed.

Believe me, I blame the flawed system and it has nothing to do with politics. It has everything to do with people of privilege, of which I consider myself to be one, desperately holding onto their little piece of the pie so no one else might even get the satisfaction of a sniff of it. It erodes communities from the bottom up while they keep you waiting for the glory to trickle down

We have a vastly different view of what the word privilege means.

I worked when I was in high school. I paid for my first car with money I earned. My parents made me work in the chicken houses we owned. When it came time for college, I busted my ass to earn a scholarship. I earned my career. My wife just got promoted to bank officer (not branch officer, but officer of the entire bank) and she earned it. We've had nothing handed to us.

That woman in the video was given 800$ a month and did absolutely nothing to earn it beside spitting out 15 kids she can't support. Why should she be given free money when I'm not? Seems to me that getting free money is a privilege.

Problems like what this woman is experiencing will never be solved when your first reaction to her and subsequently your proposed solution for her is one that originates from disgust for her.

So your idea is to give her more money that someone else worked for? Do you honestly not see the flaw in that plan? I would say there's no way you can be that dense, but I think that yeah, you probably are. You are rewarding her for her failures as a person and as a parent. When her kids grow up, it is likely that they will be on welfare too. It is a system that breeds sloth. I have 60 years of history backing me up on this one so don't try to argue.

Instead of giving out free money, maybe, just maybe, we should think of a way to reward hard work instead of punishing it. Wow, what a novel concept.

[darb72]

I guess it is just coincidence that everytime conservatives remark on negative qualities of the welfare state, they show minorities ranting incoherently. It is an artifact from the 60's and the Republican southern strategy. Diminsh the value of the Democrat initiatives of working from the bottom up by convincing the white majority that Democrats only want transfer white wealth (and their women haha) to blacks.

I've been dying for someone to say this.

During the 60s, Alabama voted Democrat. Wallace was a Democrat. But hey, don't let the truth hinder what I'm sure will be an entertaining rant.

To simply tell impoverished people to go get a job is as insensitive as telling a depressed person to just get up and be happy.

So you're saying that woman can't help being poor? And yet you call me a racist? Interesting.

[NCRAVEN]

I guess it is just coincidence that everytime conservatives remark on negative qualities of the welfare state, they show minorities ranting incoherently. It is an artifact from the 60's and the Republican southern strategy. Diminsh the value of the Democrat initiatives of working from the bottom up by convincing the white majority that Democrats only want transfer white wealth (and their women haha) to blacks.

Hey Asshole, I came across that video, I didn't go out to Google and type in "minority with 15 kids and entitlement mentality", stop looking through the word with your race baiting glasses will ya?

Oh and thanks for continuing to show where the real racism lies, Galen.

[HoustonRaven]

Galen is right on one level. It isn't her fault.

I feel sad for her, honestly. How can you blame her? She's been brought up in a system where the government tells you that every need will be given to you. She's a product of a system where twice a month, you get money for doing nothing. She's symptomatic of a system that is on the verge of failing.

She's a mother who is concerned about her kids well being. She's a mother who is now realizing the lies that she has been told by a government that has been dominant in inner city politics for 4 decades.

Yes, she bears some responsibility but only a little, given that she has been sold a bill of goods by the Democrat party and it's given way for her to make very poor decisions.

[Sirdowski]

Galen is right on one level. It isn't her fault.

I feel sad for her, honestly. How can you blame her? She's been brought up in a system where the government tells you that every need will be given to you. She's a product of a system where twice a month, you get money for doing nothing. She's symptomatic of a system that is on the verge of failing.

She's a mother who is concerned about her kids well being. She's a mother who is now realizing the lies that she has been told by a government that has been dominant in inner city politics for 4 decades.

Yes, she bears some responsibility but only a little, given that she has been sold a bill of goods by the Democrat party and it's given way for her to make very poor decisions.

Well said. To be considered racist for wanting to destroy this system that negatively effects all parties involved with its complete lack of prudence is beyond ignorant.

[Galen Sevinne]

Galen is right on one level. It isn't her fault.

I feel sad for her, honestly. How can you blame her? She's been brought up in a system where the government tells you that every need will be given to you. She's a product of a system where twice a month, you get money for doing nothing.

So we agree that it is not her fault, that she is symptomatic of a system gone awry.

1. Your take on the systemic problem is one of a political ideology that encourages people not to work because if they choose not to work, they will be taken care of by that system anyway.

2. My take on the systemic problem is a system embedded with low expectations for minority children (or as you unwittingly defended as "soft bigotry") that then leads to less opportunity. This dynamic becomes a generational pattern if unbroken and cements poverty in some minority communities.

You blame government and I blame society so which one is most accurate?

I will ask you if it is so obvious that if we choose not to work and can be taken care of, then why do you work and she doesn't?

[Galen Sevinne]

Well said. To be considered racist for wanting to destroy this system that negatively effects all parties involved with its complete lack of prudence is beyond ignorant.

I will ask you also, why do you work and she doesn't?

[NCRAVEN]

So we agree that it is not her fault, that she is symptomatic of a system gone awry.

1. Your take on the systemic problem is one of a political ideology that encourages people not to work because if they choose not to work, they will be taken care of by that system anyway.

2. My take on the systemic problem is a system embedded with low expectations for minority children (or as you unwittingly defended as "soft bigotry") that then leads to less opportunity. This dynamic becomes a generational pattern if unbroken and cements poverty in some minority communities.

You blame government and I blame society so which one is most accurate?

What came first the chicken or the egg, in other words, what came first the slackers then the government that takes care of them or the government that creates the slackers so they stay in power and thus creates more slackers.

I will ask you if it is so obvious that if we choose not to work and can be taken care of, then why do you work and she doesn't?

Seriously???

I am not sure how much the Government would give me of other peoples money but I am certain it is no where what I can go out and make on my own. Not only that, but I would feel like a HUGE low-life sitting on my ass taking from other people who choose to get up and work for their family.

[darb72]

So we're all in agreement that democrats are racist?

Good. Now on to the next argument.

[Galen Sevinne]

Seriously???

I am not sure how much the Government would give me of other peoples money but I am certain it is no where what I can go out and make on my own. Not only that, but I would feel like a HUGE low-life sitting on my ass taking from other people who choose to get up and work for their family.

No one else wants to answer the question about "why do you work since the government will support you if you don't"?

This is a common question that presenters ask when discussing how minorities growing up are subjected to low expectations from the day they are born.

The conversation goes like this everytime (as you can see in NC's answer and would have been consistent in others if they followed the exercise).


Audience: If the liberals didn't create the "nanny-state" then these folks wouldn't choose to not work but would have to work!

Presenter: Why do you work then?

Audience: Ahhh...duhhhh...because I can make more and live better by working! haha showed you!

Presenter: Really? So from where did you get your high expectations?


At about this point, some in the room always start to get it. They get it that those coming from privilege had maybe two parents that had successful experiences in school and knew how to navigate the school environment, had teachers that expected them to not only be quiet in class but also to turn their work in and complete all assignments, had neighbors and others in the community that also modeled this pro-academic behavior.

Research shows that african-american students disproportionately receive referrals in greater numbers than whites. Studies have demonstrated white teachers expect less in minority students than in white students. The cummulative effect of this over a child's life in school and a family's life over the generations is immense.

These low expectations are the critical reason why one-third of all American fourth-graders – and half of black and Latino fourth-grade students – read Below Basic proficiency. It is why boys of all racial, ethnic and economic backgrounds trail their female peers in reading and in graduating from high school. It is why ed schools do such a poor job of recruiting and training aspiring teachers – especially those heading for urban classrooms. Low expectations are why we have a dropout crisis and an education crisis today.

http://dropoutnation.net/2011/02/09/...-expectations/

http://www.americanprogress.org/issu...stlearning.pdf


To blame this woman's reaction on liberal government is not only a political artifact from the 1960's but it also serves to further segregate and compromise the minority population but neglecting to address the true genesis of this woman's and her community's unfortunate fate.

Heterogenous grouping in the classrooms is becoming the big push in public schools. Its taking a good idea, NCLB, and actually making it work. It is encountering a huge pushback by the modern day segregationalists though.

[darb72]

At about this point, some in the room always start to get it. They get it that those coming from privilege had maybe two parents that had successful experiences in school and knew how to navigate the school environment, had teachers that expected them to not only be quiet in class but also to turn their work in and complete all assignments, had neighbors and others in the community that also modeled this pro-academic behavior.

Really? You mean that a child learns what is expected of them from watching their parents and the other adults in their lives? Who'd have thunk it? You sir, have hit on an incontrivertable truth that has escaped Republican understanding for generations. You deserve a happy smiley.

Galin!

In other words, no shit. That's what we've all been saying. You believe that giving them more money for failing is the answer while we think that people should be held accountable for their actions.

Let's take a second to look a little deeper into the cause and effect though, and see if we can't find a few reasons for such poor inner city teachers.

Lack of money. Alright, that's a reasonable argument. I believe that states should be spending X-amount on each student in public schools. Just to keep the math simple, we'll say 10 dollars (obviously in order to get the correct amount it would be 100 times that but my degrees are in English, not Math). School A has 25 children. School B has 30 children. Under my idea, school A would receive 250 dollars while school B would receive 300 dollars.

Racism. I've never seen this in the schools I attended that had black students but to be fair they were in middle class sections of Montgomery. The classes were, roughly, 50-50 white and black. Of course, we also had a large number of black teachers. I'm not ignorant enough to suggest that racism doesn't occur with teachers, but I haven't seen it.

Poor teaching. Uh-oh, I think we have our first example of liberals screwing the system up. Thanks to unions, poor teachers cannot be fired if they have tenure. That just compounds the problem of low expectations with terrible teaching.

Expectations. I expect everyone, regardless of color, to succeed on their own merits. You, for some reason, consider this racism.

[Greg]

I don't know Darb...maybe me stealing it from your pocket?

I think the intelligent question you are trying to ask if I take the time to work through your reactive anger is:

Why Galen do you think everyone should have equal opportunity when nature has always favored the strong survive or at least prosper?

If you ask your question like that it opens up a philosphical debate.

When you ask low-brow questions like why do I think it is okay to steal your money in a condescending manner it just makes me question your ability to engage in anything worthwhile here.

She has had opportunity, that is the nature of capitalism, everbody has opportunity. She just doesn't take advantage of it because, as noted, she has been conditioned not to. People like you tell her she can't because of this, that, or the other.

And note I did not use EQUAL in front of opportunity. You probably picked it up anyway. Sorry, life is not EQUAL. Some people are smarter, some stronger, some have families that teach them ambition, some teach them dependency on the government. You can not fix that, especially with more of your dependency programs.

Big, liberal government is to blame for this.

Just check these stats and get back to me. Black nuclear families (and white) before The Great Sociey and after. Black children (and white) children born in and out of wedlock before the Great Society and after.

Liberalism has caused families to fall apart because government is the bread winner if families where the man runs off. Men don't have to take responsibility because the government will.

[WasabiVegan]

Have you heard any of Obama's speeches? Or any of his class warfare rhetoric?

I know exactly where she gets the mentality -- 40+ years of the Democrat montra that it's the other guys fault.

Thomas Sowell has written quite a few books on the topic. Great reading.

Yeah the story is insane.