Could somebody please explain to me how I can pull myself up by my bootstraps?

[Bjorn Against]

I have heard many right wingers say that if people want to be successful and lift themselves out of poverty they simply need to pull themselves up by the bootstraps.

I am not in poverty, but I thought it would make for an interesting experience to see how well the advice the right-wing was giving worked.

I grabbed on to my bootstraps and tried pulling up as hard as I could but I was unable to lift my feet off the ground, apparently there was something called gravity holding me down.

I hear the theory of gravity is just a theory though, and right-wingers always tell us not to believe in evolution because that is only a theory. Logically therefore we should not believe in gravity either.

So please I need some people to explain to me how I can get around this gravity that is preventing me from doing what the right-wing always demands poor people do. I want someone to explain to me how I can pull myself up by my bootstraps damnit.

And while they are at it I would like them to explain to me how they expect people to pay for their own health insurance, rent, food, electric, heating, transportation, and clothing when they are only making $5.15 an hour.

I would like them to explain to me how a child that was born into poverty is supposed to get a job at age five in order to pay their own way because "welfare reform" has made their parents incapable of supporting the child's basic needs.

I would like them to explain to me how a person with a serious mental illness is supposed to find a job which will allow them to pay their own bills which amount to thousands of dollars per month.

I would like them to explain to me how a person with no home address, no phone number they can be reached at, no education, no clothing which is acceptable for an interview supposed to find a job when there are a large number of people with more privileges looking at the same time.

I want them to explain to me how they can sleep at night after spewing so much venom at the "welfare moms" who are some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

Someone please, tell me how to pull myself up by my bootstraps. If I can not defy gravity I certainly can not expect the people living in poverty to defy it.

[tanyev]

1. Easy. Make sure you are born to wealthy parents.

That's how Republicans pull themselves up.

[Trajan]

3. I recently argued with a libertarian DUer ...

Who claimed that Pete DuPont and George Bush 'earned' their riches ....

Said something about how they were paying the fair share of taxes, and we should be thankful they are so rich and so responsible ... (paraphrased) ....

Yeah .... right .....

[Bjorn Against]

7. No, they are already born with their boots up....

which allows them to stomp on the heads of the poor.

[hobbit709]

2. It's even harder

after the conservative asses have nailed your boots to the ground.

[LiberalFighter]

22. It's easier to pull yourself up if your boots don't have any soles

[Xipe Totec]

4. Good Question

It's even harder, when you don't even own boots...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1087228

[Suich]

5. I don't know...

ask Clarence Thomas.

I have no idea how you do it, either!

:hi:

[Selatius]

6. Follow Dick Cheney's example: Fuck over everybody who can be fucked over.

The fastest way to the finish line is to cut the corners and rig obstacles for your opponents.

In the game of greed, only a few win. Everybody else is essentially "owned."

Build goodwill with people you can't fuck over. When you gain the power position over them, then fuck them over. Remember that at this level of the game, alliances are made strictly to gain power. Notions of loyalty are absent here.

[Aviation Pro]

9. Something about honor among....

...thieves too.

[TomInTib]

8. It's easy. First, you bend over.... nt

[EllenZ]

10. It refers to an attitude one has.

For instance, having your dad killed in action in Vietnam, having your mom slowly drink herself to death by the time you finish high school (Far Rockaway HS,NY,NY) which you attended while also working full time so you had money to spend on luxuries like food. Working as an exotic dancer (an education in itself for a sheltered Roman Catholic girl) to put yourself through college (BA in nursing). Volunteering for work in a mission hospital (for the practical experience I was unable to get in a US hospital) in South America while working on an Accounting degree by mail. Taking jobs no one else will for the money involved (like a winter as a nurse in Antarctica) to finish your schooling and get yourself started in business.

And all of the above as a member of an ethnic minority.

Just for the privilege of being called a bloated plutocrat, and that I'm insensitive to the needs of the oppressed.

[Orrex]

11. You insensitive, bloated plutocrats are all alike...

Welcome to DU, EllenZ!

:hi:

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

15. That...

...reads like a synopsis of every Lifetime movie ever. :eyes:

[MGKrebs]

12. The trick is to do it one leg at a time.

You grab the straps on one boot and pull up. You must then balance on the other leg fo a period of time. This is symbolic of the risk one must take to better themselves. Already in poverty and hardly able to make ends meet, one must sacrifice something in their life in order to create the opportunity for success. This may involve sending your child out for adoption, selling your body, and/or eliminating cockroach spray from the budget. Once you have done this for a while, the next rung on the magical Ladder Of Success will appear, and, with a little luck and skill, if you are not too weak from eating only Ramen, you may be able to place your elevated foot on that rung, manifested in the real world by something like getting a car.

Now comes the tricky part. You have one leg up (a car) which gives you opportunity, but it also entails a lot of responsibility and expense. Gas, insurance, tires, brakes, windshield wipers. You can't really afford all this, but a car will allow much better opportunities for employment. So you go without insurance, and keep your fingers crossed about the tires. If you make it through this period without an accident or a ticket, AND you succeed in acquiring a more lucrative job, AND you haven't developed a serious drinking problem to cope with the stress, it would be symbolically represented by you hooking your first leg over the first rung of the Ladder Of Successs, and while you are dangling precariously over the Chasm Of Failure, you grab the straps of the other boot which still remains on the Plain Of Poverty, and lift it up, past the first rung, all the way to the second rung, where you try to hook the heel over that rung so that you can then reach back down to your first boot and start the process all over again, except of course now you are upside down, meaning deeper in debt than ever, partly becasue the new job requires better clothes. But that's OK, you've got a new credit card. It may be 32% APR, but that will have to be dealt with later.

My understanding is that once you get to about the fourth rung, somebody just reaches down and pulls you up the rest of the way.

In other words, the very act of grabbing your own bootstraps eliminates the availability of your hands for grabbing the rungs of the Ladder Of Success, thereby decreasing your chances of advancing. Forget about the bootstraps. Go for the Brass Ring instead!

[CTyankee]

13. For my father, poor son of a Southern Baptist preacher, it was being

a white male in segregated Texas in the 30s and 40s. He was also well spoken, having learned good English diction from his father. Since he was ordered out of the household upon graduating from high school (he had refused to be baptized as an adolescent), he managed with night school to get a business degree. I don't think he ever really factored in the white male part of his being successful, but I believe that it was a tremendous boost for him. If he had been black or Hispanic, no way would I have been safely middle class growing up!

[blues90]

14. I have no idea how anyone can

At the min wage even if were $10 an hour one would still have to find some sort of very cheap housing and live on cat food maybe have a lamp for light no extras like a electronic device and hope to have heat and thrift shop clothes . No car and no insurance . Or they would have to share the residence with another and have a bit more quality to their life .

This is complete madness in this day and age .

[kineneb]

16. I have lived on $10/hr

actually, WE have lived on $10/hr. Hubby and I qualified for low-income assistance. Now we are living on less: his SSDI, which works out to $7.14/hr. The only way we survive is help from relatives and under-the-table cash jobs.

Having once lost your health, or having a chronically ill spouse means:
not only not having bootstraps, but desperately clinging onto your socks.

Please don't tell me that it will get better, it won't. We are stuck where we are financially until Hubby dies. Then I have to start over, and find a "paying" job.

[sabbat hunter]

17. work 18 hour days

7 days a week. come on you know you can do it!

</sarcasm>

there are some who exploit the system, those that would rather live off others than work. both rich and poor do this. (there are some poor who would rather collect welfare than work, but this is a very small minority)

but i think you can ask most people on unemployment or welfare if they were given a choice between a good honest job with benefits (and child care if needed) and continuing on as they are now, 9 times out of 10 they will choose the former.


we also need to increase education standards, get parents involved and caring about what happens to their kids, rather than expecting a nanny state. although the nanny state seems to affect the middle and upper classes ironically more than the poor.

we also need to cut off illegal immigration, go after the businesses that hire illegals. make legal immigration easier.

[noonwitch]

18. Somewhere, there is a great Coleman Young quote about bootstraps

Something to the effect of we tried to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, but the mfers took the gd boots!

[HughBeaumont]

19. "If you work hard, put your nose to the grindstone, you can be successful, too!"

"My dad worked hard for 37 years. All they gave him was more work." - Weekend at Bernies

For every Horatio Alger myth, there are about 100,000 tales of people who tried and tried, sacrificing their lives, time, health, marriages and for whatever reason it simply didn't happen for them.

Read this message by Lydia Leftcoast for a reality check into 'pulling yourself up by your bootstraps' and how easy it isn't

[raccoon]

21. Amen! Ramen! Whatever!

I'd like to see a story that's the reverse of Horatio Alger. Maybe the Onion has done one.

Of course, there's always DEATH OF A SALESMAN.

[k_jerome]

20. thats just a repub trick to get people to bend over...

before they stick it to 'em.