Does society owe lazy or stupid a living? And that leads to the question, are people responsible for there actions?
1
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Your question is repleat with false innuendos. Who is to say that a person in desperate circumstances arrived there by their doing. Many people are born or thrust into social and economic circumstances that there is no way around or out. The use of the word stupid and lazy are stereotypes, and like most streotypes are more often not correct. The terms are often used by whtes to rationalize why they do not have to feel any social responsibility. Just another form of white privilege.
t1nick
Level 8
Jan 19, 2019
1
I don't know about the description of lazy or stupid. It's a pretty complex set of situations as to the homeless. I regularly come into contact with the homeless in Medford, OR and Kona, HI. Many are mired in substance abuse, alcohol and mental illness. Others just got in over their head financially during Bush's recession. I've heard 70% of Americans don't have $1000, 40% don't have $400. Much of America is a missed paycheck away from living under a bridge. I have a family member who was homeless by choice. He preferred being homeless to being sober. Once when his son and I were sitting with him at a halfway house he said "he could not wait to get out so he could party with his buds". I don't know the answer, maybe looking to other countries who may have been more successful. Everyone should have the opportunity to work should they choose to. It is a serious situation and it seems to growing.
rogueflyer
Level 8
Jan 19, 2019
1
I had second thoughts about posting those questions. When I did, I was about to get ready for a month in Europe. Of course I got too busy and haven't even read all of the responses.
I'm not so ignorant as I appeared.
The reason those questions struck me is that I've been attending a meeting about our homeless problem here in Santa Rosa. I hope to get some women in a group I started.
I'm progressive and pretty well educate. Was struck by how much anger was in some of the responses.
I will write more after this trip.
I've visited over 50 countries and find most place are made of strong communities. Politically I lean towards socialism.
Hopefully I haven't opened another can of worms.
marlayne
Level 5
Sep 3, 2018
2
So you think that lazy or stupid is a punishable offense?
Stupid is rarely, if ever, a choice, ya know?, and I have known plenty of not-as-smart-as-me people who are hard workers! But of course we should pay them less, because they are stupid........
Lazy? Perhaps, perhaps not...maybe COPD, or fibromyalgia, or recovering from a stroke or cancer, and feel like crap 90% of the time! Like yelling at a "perfectly healthy" person using a disabled parking spot, you have No Idea, so keep your mouth Shut!
Arrogance is Not attractive, and last I looked, you ain't the judge of me!
AnneWimsey
Level 9
Sep 3, 2018
2
What do you mean lazy or stupid. There are plenty of people who have millions and billions of dollars because they people with low wages. Those people are not held responsible for their actions.
Then you ask, "are people responsible for their actions?" It's like asking, do people have free will" That is something that a xian would ask.
thexter
Level 6
Sep 2, 2018
2
What's a xian?
@rogueflyer Christian
There is no connection between the two things you are talking about.
Very responsible and hard working people are unemployed. Very irresponsible and lazy people are employed. It happens all the time. How many times have you had shit customer service from some asshat who hates their job and hates you, and you wonder how they don't get fired from their job?
Work does not equal virtue. Not working does not equal vice.
Too bad the world isn't that simple. If it were, you could put all the bad people on a boat, tow it out in the middle of the ocean, and sink it -- unemployment, disability and crime all permanently solved in one go.
Sometimes I wonder if people who ask such questions even listen to themselves.
mordant
Level 8
Sep 2, 2018
3
how do you define stupid or lazy? someone perhaps who thinks "there" means "their"? and if so, which is it -- too stupid to know the difference, or too lazy to learn it? how does THAT feel -- being judged by someone who doesn't know you? maybe you used voice and it put in the wrong word; maybe you were tired and typoed. maybe someone who can't find a job isn't lazy; maybe a disabled person doesn't have a missing limb and YOU can't tell that person is disabled, and yet that person -- me, for example -- is? maybe society shouldn't make assumptions about a person's value. maybe the person who doesn't work now worked for a lifetime and contributed more to society than the clerk who makes the judgment. is my answer a little bit offensive? well, maybe loaded questions are offensive. but i'll now answer it straight anyway: i would rather 10 lazy or stupid people got benefits so that 90 others who "deserve" it (again, by whose standards?) wouldn't be left to rot. however, studies show that there is extremely little welfare abuse among recipients. providers abuse the system -- not, in general recipients.
g
genessa
Level 8
Sep 2, 2018
6
...we used to be
the leader of the
FREE World,
PS,. I need some copies tooooooooooo
Your comment speaks volumes, g. This irrational resentment of the "undeserving" is one of the big reasons we don't have single payer healthcare like the rest of the First World. I can't count the number of times I've heard hicks or rednecks in my state say that having single payer would be wrong because "all those illegal Mexicans" would be eligible, to which I tell them, " So you would rather go without affordable health care, just to spite them?" Stupid is as stupid does....
@TomMcGiverin indeed, just as they'd rather get their revenge on someone who might be guilty of a crime (sometimes just the crime of not being rinso-white) even if it means some innocent people who couldn't afford dna tests get executed along with them. it's backwards, immature thinking. that's where the laziness comes in -- it's mentally and emotionally lazy to value spite and envy and revenge over fairness and justice.
g
I'm disabled. Does that make me 'lazy' or 'stupid'?
memorylikeasieve
Level 7
Sep 2, 2018
2
No it does not
You earn what you get. To just get something given to you it is not apricated. Personal responsibility to take credit for your actions if the be favorable or detrimental.
azzow2
Level 9
Sep 2, 2018
0
So you would let someone with a father or husband unable or unwilling to work die of starvation in the richest country in the world?
@LenHazell53 Not saying that. If they do not earn it and someone provides they will expect it to be provided when it is not provided they resort to criminal behavior. Would you want to be hit on the head and put in a hospital because you were expected to provide and were unable to?
@azzow2 Hit on the head?
Have you ever actual seen poverty? Oppression, known a situation such as in world war 1 where more people died in the UK from starvation and flu because there was no welfare than died in the trenches. Were people stole bread and milk in the desire of going in to prison or a work house in the hope of a modicum of food?
Your hyperbole is ill informed and the product of a violent society where violence is the first reaction rather than the last resort.
A country where a dying person can be turned away from a hospital because they don't have the means to pay for a cure or humanitarian aid.
And in my country yes assistance is expected, because it comes from taxes we all pay, even those on welfare for that exact purpose to have a safety net to protect the unfortunate, the weak and the unable to know they will not starve or suffer because of the horror of a society without mercy, pity or compassion.
@LenHazell53 It is unethical and illegal for a hospital doctor to refuse treatment in this country. There are food banks in every city if the food bank can not provide there are charities that do. If someone is starving in our country they have not worked to remedy the problem.
You are so dense light bends toward you.
@memorylikeasieve And you do not think I have not experienced this you would be wrong.
azzow2 okay so little children should starve because YOU think their parents are lazy. that's fair. and old people who can no longer work, fuck 'em, right? because YOU don't think they've earned it, or deserve it. who died and made YOU god?
g
People can't help being stupid - none of us are given the choice, after all. Since we're coming to a point where a huge number of jobs from the most menial to the highly-skilled are going to be taken over by machines, we're going to have to rethink laziness too: already there aren't enough jobs to go round and very soon that's going to get a whole lot worse, so if some people choose not to work they could be doing us all a big favour.
Jnei
Level 8
Sep 2, 2018
1
Finally I'm getting back to this. My question was not well thought out, especially the stupid part. You live in a country where people are taken care of. I lived in England in 1969 and in Scotland in 1978. I've been a socialist at heart since then. The US is too rich and capitalistic for it's own good.
Thanks for you thoughtful answer.
think of it the other way around
do the lazy or stupid deserve life?
If your answer to this is no, you're evil.
are people responsible for there actions? Of course they are so long as they are capable of making responsible decisions if not then those decisions must be taken for then to protect them and others from them.
LenHazell53
Level 9
Sep 2, 2018
1
My question was not thought out. I lived in the UK in 1969 and again in 1978 and have been a socialist at heart ever since. I want universal health care and more programs for the poor.
The United States has a disaster of an education system and our capitalism seems to promote the most reprehensible characteristics of human nature.
Society owes everyone a living, but in the form of work. You don't work, you don't get paid. Now stupid people may be too stupid to work so ssi is available to them, you know, for the severely retarded. Lazy people, that's a whole different story
sellinger
Level 7
Sep 2, 2018
2
SSDI is for the disabled, not the stupid. Unless you're suggesting that 100% of the disabled are disabled because they're stupid.
There are those in our society who do not feel everyone is "owed" even the opportunity to work. And then there's the question of what constitutes a valid work opportunity. The opportunity to work at a physically demanding, mentally unchallenging job for $10 an hour? The opportunity to work at a physically undemanding, mentally challenging job for $115 an hour? The opportunity to spend millions in unearned income bestowed on you by wealthy parents?
Since the 1970s, productivity in the West has gone up a few orders of magnitude, yet wages have not, and in fact, the middle class is currently evaporating. The reason is that most of the productivity gains have gone to the wealthiest members of society.
40 years ago people were predicting that by now we'd be working 20 hours a week for the same money if not more, and that we'd have unprecedented levels of discretionary time because of it. And why not? If people can earn 10 or 20 times as much per hour depending on the work as pointed out above, why couldn't they work less for more money? Nothing wrong with that so long as the wheels of commerce manage to turn adequately.
Now since technology is making more and more jobs obsolete, so that society has less and less jobs on offer, many are saying that a universal guaranteed minimum income is inevitable. Even conservatives say this. To people who think that not HAVING to work some set number of hours per week means people will become indolent, I suppose that would make their heads explode. And yet those same people are aiming to do just that, in retirement. And what do they do in their retirement? Learn new things, explore the world, make new friends, volunteer to help the less fortunate, and just generally enjoy life. And is there something wrong with that? I rather think not.
@mordant ...thanks , becouse we ain't the only
country facing this and economists are
reaching the same conclusions !
Productivity has been stagnant /automation will increase it in some
not all,yet real wages are the same as 30 yrs ago.
This year increases are the same as inflation.
As we increase the retirement age(72)/
some just work till death.America as it is
does not have an upwardly mobile middle/lower
class , which would equatablly reward hard workers of all kind?I have no answers,---remember Politicians wanted to Social Security
accounts to go into the stock market-before
the housing bubble.
It should have said lazy or stupid people.
Yes, give them options as in Europe. We aren't created equal, nor are we always greeted on this side by parents capable of loving us unconditionally.
marlayne
Level 5
Sep 2, 2018
1
...my parents could not afford our
college,yet they gave other life
lessons
uch as work ethic; empathy;
dignity;compassion- the answers you
seek were probably decided long
ago,by a man with a briefcase.
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