OK, Explain This To Me Like I’m a COMPLETE Idiot Because I Don’t Get It . . . Part V!

[HughBeaumont]

This latest installment deals with a particular recycled pile of Republican/Libertarian animal droppings that showed up in a Facebook argument yesterday (Lesson # 1: Never, ever EVER post anything political on Facebook because you’re merely asking for a firestorm from Hannitized morans who migrated from AOL and Yahoo to this medium).

That being said, no matter how many times this gem gets brought up by the droolers, it never fails to make the palms cover my cringing and gritting face before the blowup:

“You are in your boat because of choices you have made. Either risks you took or didn't take, education you got or didn't get or skills you have or don't have.“

:wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf:

Verbatim, folks. I’ve also heard some other iterations of this, but you get the picture.

So let me see if I got this right . . . .

People who were told to go into IT in the late 80s-early 90s by every mainstream rag under the sun because it was “the wave of the FUTURE!” (and logically, it was), strived to achieve degrees and/or certification, constantly studied new languages dictated by monopolies with business models that rely on planned obsolescence, worked long hours and sacrificed family time and lives for little thanks to get products and deliverables out the door, only to see their very important careers commoditized and cheapened, reduced in worth by business leaders to mere widget assembly and then laid off in the hundreds of thousands . . . are where they are because of “bad choices”?

Individuals in the financial and banking fields were told as early as junior high “businesses come and go, but there’ll ALWAYS be a need for banks!” So when they became finance majors and went into graduate programs, got their MBAs, worked their way up the ladder and put long hard hours in their professions, only to get laid off and have their lives ruined because of a combination of management’s Vegas-level risk taking and stagnant American wages vs. rising costs of living . . . are they where they are because of “education they got or didn’t get?”

RNs, factory workers, lab technicians, software developers, construction workers; these were all once great-paying professions that fell victim to offshoring/inshoring abuse. In most cases, they required study, time away from families, and long hours with little pay or thanks. This was once the middle and working class. You know, that group whose money you kind of need for that cute little thing called a consumer based economy. Are these people now considered "economic losers in the game of life"?

Retirees who got their pensions looted from them Romanian-style by the Madoffs, Milkens, Sanfords and Keatings of the world because of bad risks taken by hedge fund managers are now where they are because of "bad decisions"?

Then there’s the tragic example of a person who either is mentally or physically handicapped, isn’t smart enough or has no desire to go to college and has no opportunity to go even if they could (that is, without indebting themselves until they’re stuck in a grave) because the cost is just way too high and getting higher. In their town they see nothing but closed plants and boarded up small businesses like auto-repair shops, hardware stores, grocers, bookstores, etc, thanks to rampant corporatism leaving entrepreneurship in a piecemeal heap of bones. There’s no Ford or Steel Mill or machine shop for them to go to anymore after high school. The only opportunity they’re left with . . . is a service/retail job that pays less-than-poverty wages to start out, with no benefits or vacation. Is this person where they are in life “because of risks they did or didn’t take?”

“It’s YOUR fault you got laid off/fired/downsized. It’s YOUR fault you’re not successful. YOU made bad choices!”

Tell me, is this sage wisdom, or just merely a stupid cliché designed to absolve crappy political and corporate “leadership” from blame when the “boom . . .bubble . . . CRASH” economies they preside over and the businesses they run take Hindenburg joyrides?

Right. No such thing as bad luck, bad breaks, bad economies, bad teachers or bad management. All OUR fault. Gotcha.

So when does this looney-toons victim-blame-a-thon stop?

Logically explain this to me . . . if our business leaders have absolutely NO clue as to what the world’s future holds (I question whether corporate or political leaders have a clue about ANYthing lately), how do they expect to shift this risk on the shoulders of the workers with a straight face? How exactly does one KNOW what risk(s) to take? How exactly does one know WHAT to train (or retrain) for? Should we just toss environmental science, nano-/bio-/green tech, mag-rail & other transportation technology and genome research to the river because those fields are eventually going to shoot us to a fast path of unemployment, just like all of these supposedly iron-clad careers I just mentioned did?

Once again, explain this to me like I’m a COMPLETE idiot because I DON’T get it!!!

[rfranklin]

1. Ever notice they say that until one of their heroes gets caught...

sodomizing young boys, taking a wide stance in a public restroom, wearing diapers and get spanked by high priced whores, looting their campaign funds, taking off for South America for a romp in Rio, snorting speed for better sex with their male hooker, et cetera. Then, all of a sudden, it's a "private matter," or they "have found Jesus," and everything is A-okay.

[LWolf]

2. Okay.

I'd suggest, first, that if you don't want responses from morons on facebook, don't friend them. Seems simple.

Here are two truths:

1. Our culture is addicted to the blame game: anytime anything happens, it's always someone else's fault. Personal accountability is not an American value. Not even by the moron who tried to use this argument.

2. Much of the time, we DO have choices that we don't exercise, and we DO avoid responsibility for those choices. Example: An adult throws a tantrum and is later embarrassed. Excuse? "You made me mad." As if anger were an excuse for incivility. It's a choice to allow anger free reign, or not.

It looks like your moron was trying, unsuccessfully, to use personal responsibility as a talking point. That's common from the right. They preach personal responsibility in opposition to anything that smacks of socialism. You know: social responsibility.

Democrats/liberals/etc. are associated with social responsibility, while republicans/conservatives/etc. are associated with personal responsibility.

In reality, both are necessary. Neither works well without the other.

While the nation and world might be better off without either of the 2 major political parties.

[HughBeaumont]

7. He's a "libertarian", which I didn't know before friending him.

Unfortunately, he's one of those Paulite libertarians who's really a Republican who doesn't want to say he's one . . . you know, with Bewsh sullying the term and all. His economic commonalities are in line with Big Business and corporatist privilege Republicans want so much because they believe they're going to be part of that group one day.

[LWolf]

20. That's what he sounded like.

I'm a "leftist libertarian," at least according to the political compass.

Probably why you find me pushing social and personal responsibility at the same time, lol.

For the record, I strongly believe that health care is a right, and support HR 676 as the best plan out there.

[Flying Dream Blues]

3. Clearly, Hugh that is only not true if THEY are the ones who

are unemployed. Just like "discomfort" can be defined as "someone else's pain"; you get the picture. They are the first ones to run crying when it happens to them.

Oh, and don't forget this WHOLE thing was caused by Bill Clinton wanting "minorities" to have "houses they couldn't afford" so the banks were "forced" to make all these high risk loans and that's why we're in this big mess. Nothing to do with the rape of the middle class by Bushco.

[HughBeaumont]

6. Oh, he uses the good ol' "CRA" canard every so often.

As do a lotta conservatives I work with.

[Laelth]

4. I'm all right, Jack. Keep your hands off my stack.

It's really that simple, I think. People want to believe that they're not responsible for the misery around them, so they blame the victim, purely as a means of justifying their greed and their refusal to do anything about an obvious problem.

:dem:

-Laelth

[OhioChick]

5. Good Post as Usual, Hugh. n/t

[hileeopnyn8d]

8. I blame Ayn Rand n/t

[ginnyinWI]

9. I was raised with this world view.

I think it's meant to instill a sense of responsibility, but it goes too far. It makes you responsible for everything that happens to you, and that's simply not how the world works. And that is why they have to blame things on other people or other factors: unless you can find a scape goat to explain away your mess, you are responsible for it.

It makes for a simplistic, black or white worldview that is just begging to be disproved. When a really tragic thing happens to you, your world crashes and you have to find another way to look at life to survive with your self worth intact.

By the time I was in my forties I had run into enough real life experiences that I had to discard the old way of thinking. I became a lot more sympathetic to the troubles of others. Of course there are those who maintain this kind of thinking throughout life. I suppose many of them are white males--a non-oppressed group, many of whom have also gotten very, very good at blaming something or someone else.

This explains some of the latest escapades from members of the GOP. They go along in their arrogance giving themselves permission to have affairs and stuff because they have an overdeveloped knee-jerk habit of assigning responsibility and blame onto some other factor. Until they realize that they have finally gone too far.

[HughBeaumont]

12. These are people that never stopped believing the bedtime stories Reagan told them.

That "land of opportunity" BS.
"The USA are always the good guys".
"Enemies foreign and domestic are EVERYWHEREZ!"
"Communism is EEEEEEVUUUUL . .. that is . . . unless they're willing to be the personal slave state of the US . .. well, that's basically OK"
"Welfare Queen!"
"There isn't any AIDS epidemic"
"Personal Responsibility for you! For me and my cronies . . . well, anything goes, sorry.

And they never outgrew this mindset. Never.

[surrealAmerican]

10. They just want to feel like they are better than others.

It makes them feel more secure, like it can't happen to them. It does, however, cause their whole world to crumble when they meet with the same sorts of misfortune.

[HughBeaumont]

11. You know what else libertarians are great at?

Thesauric masturbation that says . . . nothing (grammatical and spelling errors left intact):

Again, egalitarianism doesn't work. I have been part of companies that are no more. You can either play the victim card or you can move on. The complete lack of historical context regarding not only the 230 years of American economic history but perhaps the economic evolution since DiVinci becomes obvious in the neo-facist, egalitarian drivel of those who espouse such nonsense.

At the end of the day, and back to your original point, if I outdo you economically, men with guns will come to my house and take what I have produced and give it to people who did not produce. Furthermore, the 90% marginal tax rate hurts those that you seek to help. It relegates them to a lifetime of the proletariat. Think of it like this, at a 90% tax rate Bill Gates still has billions. However, if your and my children ever want to save enought to not be a ward of the stat how do they do that? Every dollar they save goes into thier account at 10 cents on the dollar. Furthermore when they go to use it they are taxed again. You advocate a system that by definition keeps you under the thumb of an aristocracy who keeps you "soma-ed" into submission.

You can be a ward of the nanny state all you want. Just remember, the government isn't stealing money from me to give to you with no strings attached. You give up opportunities and liberties not only of your own but of posterity in favor of a proletariat existence. Furthermore, continue your hypocricy by cashing checks from your "corporate overlords" until such time as the state assumes their role in doing so.

Your arguments are not logical and they are incumbered by a mid-20th century understanding of a rapidly changing world. It is a global economy, furthermore it is in transition and people will lose jobs and fortunes. It is NOT the first time this has happened nor will it be the last. If you get left in the dust of an economic shift you can lament your situation and address it through retalitory "get evenism". Or you can unhitch yourself from a Marxist understanding of the world, understand your situation and the long term effects of not only your actions but those of your government and try to build a better tomorrow for your posterity. However, if your bitterness over your own lack of understanding of the world leads you to clench to the idea that an ACORN organizer and his gestapo stealing what others produce and giving it to a perpetual proletariat (of which you have relegated your children to be a part of) sounds like a good idea to you then I guess I you just think what you think.

When Camus said that "the welfare of humanity is the alibi of tyrants" I believe he had this conversation in mind."

:wtf: Ooooooooooooh-kay. Paranoid much? :wtf:

[Orsino]

13. They love their corporate masters...

...but even more than that, they love feeling superior to other corporate slaves.

[Hydra]

14. They think they will become the Corporate Masters

Through their "Hard work" and support of them.

They'll never get that TPTB see them as useful pawns that work for free and nothing more.

[Orsino]

15. They *dream* of being masters...

...but they demand that they be considered superior other slaves.

The one thing they will not stand for is being treated as shabbily as those they denigrate.

[HughBeaumont]

16. Horatio Alger.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Alger_myth

Most scholars decry it. Most conservative pundits and teabaggers are in love with it.

The problem is that it doesn't square with the reality of the American caste system and relies on zero financial landmines to occur (in other words, sheer dumb luck).

[Missy Vixen]

17. This is one of the best posts I've ever seen here

because it's TRUE.

The retraining merry-go-round never stops, does it? For those of us without a crystal ball (or a golden parachute,) let's put it this way: Those running the show keep changing the rules. Those of us who work for them are stuck with whatever they decide.

Again, thanks. You put it into words.

[HughBeaumont]

19. We like to call it "Employment musical chairs".

In reality, that's what happens: you aren't fast or savvy enough, the chair gets yanked out from underneath you. Now imagine this happens . . . for the rest of your life. And conservatives are still going to laughably tell me that this is a fair system?

Yeah, but I'm a "Marxist" with a "Marxist" POV. :eyes:

I think that's what my next " . .. Explain This to Me" is going to be about; the bizarre Conservative clinging to the "Red Menace" crap of the 1950s.

[krispos42]

18. The decisions made by the Powers That Be affect overall numbers

It's true that somebody will always win and somebody will always lose, it the percentages that government policy directly and indirectly affects. They can drive the demand for certain skill sets. For example, globalization decimated our manufacturing base. Regardless of skill set, people lost their jobs.


The other thing is that something like half of all jobs are gotten by knowing somebody anyway, so it's not even a matter of having the best skill set.

[Joanne98]

21. Most people choices are influenced by the system they live in.

This is true for 90% of normal people. The conservatives have a hidden reason for promoting the "personal" responsibility propaganda. It's the same reason they preach individualism.

It's kinda hard to explain but here goes.

Conservatives do NOT believe in individual anything. Look at the institutions they belong to.

The church, the corporation, the military, the police, the shareholder the family.

All these are collective in structure. Some have very strict rules against being an individual.

They see these structures as their strength and in fighting a long term war with the left they want to destroy our collectives while strengthening theirs. Whenever the left forms groups of any kind they attack it.

They're shaping the battlefield. It's David versus a collective of Goliaths. We're already David because we represent the little people or the powerless. Our ONLY strength is in numbers. If we're fighting with a collective of Davids against one Goliath we could win. So they have to trick us into individualism so we will always lose. It's a divide and conquer scheme. While, at the same time, they criminalize individualism within their own groups. They use abuse and shunning against anyone who dares to have a different opinion. Look at what they did to Megan McCain when she dared to speak out against some of their ideas.

They want an overwhelming advantage on the battlefield so they try to convince us to be individuals. If you see yourself as an individual then everything is your own fault. It's your PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY.

David may have beat Goliath. But he wouldn't have beat an army of Goliaths. That would take an army of Davids. Which we don't have mainly because we keep falling for the individualism trap.

[HughBeaumont]

31. There was a quote, I forget who said it . . .

. . . but it went something along the lines of "If conservatives are so dead against communism, then why are they supportive of the kind of economic system that led to it's upbringing?"

Their whole "war on ideas" is comical as well. Yet again, another disjointed collective effort by supposed individualists that can't make up their minds to save their puny lives.

[GoCubsGo]

22. These droppings are showing up everywhere....

People are spewing them in my local right-wing fish wrap lately. Never mind that the ones who spout this garbage most likely inherited or married into their "successes and riches". Or, they lied, cheated or stole their way into them.

Then there was a bumper sticker I saw recently: "Don't share my wealth. Share my work ethic." Fuck these people! They claim that all the good stuff comes to those who stay in school, do their work, go to college, work hard, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, I did all of that and more so. Yet, after more than two years of being laid off and finding nothing but sporadic low-paying temp jobs, I have nothing left. My savings is gone, and I'll probably wind up losing my house. My current temp job is physically demanding and leaves me exhausted, not to mention scratched and scarred from briers and insect bites. I have two college degrees. I guess this is all my fault because I got them in the wrong subjects. When I got laid off, I kept hearing people telling me to "re-train". I didn't spend seven years in college, including three hellish years in grad school so that I could get re-trained to do something else.

If someone ever actually says any of this shit with in earshot of me, they will be extremely lucky that I am too damn tired to deck them.

[HughBeaumont]

23. That's another thing people don't seem to get.

The whole axiom of "continuous education" is a complete crock. Let's not even mention the arguments where the person practically has to be a fortune teller to know WHAT to train FOR.

Where does the average individual, especially if they work for a business that just cut out tuition reimbursement (as I do), come up with the FUNDS for the likely multiple excursions to universities over his/her lifetime?

How are they expected to save for this AND retirement AND their kid's college AND emergency stashes at the same time?

For the average individual, who in all likelihood is spending (counting commute time) 8-12 hours doing something job related, where does the time to study and do the coursework come into play? Do you not sleep? Do you not be around your children anymore? Does it help not to have children or much of a life to begin with?

I just do not at all see the point in getting YET ANOTHER college degree when it's been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that a college degree is no longer an iron-clad guarantee that I'll be successful. Yes, college graduates earn more on average than those who don't. That's a given. But with no window into our futures and the Friedman cheap-labor corptocracy still firmly in charge of things, the ROI just isn't there for someone who already has two degrees, as we both do.

This is, again, part of the insane reality that where you are in life, who you are as a person and your ability to compete and survive in modern day America completely depends on your employment status and personal wealth. We need to get away from this in the worst way. Otherwise, you're well on your way to a two-class society.

[GoCubsGo]

24. No kidding!

Back in my original job, which I was at for 20 years, we were advised to "cross-train" in order to make ourselves so that if a particular skill was no longer needed, we would have others to help us stay in a job. Well, I did that as much as they would allow me to do. It isn't helping. Just another load of B.S. coming from the very people who put me in my state of affairs. Naturally, they're all doing just fine right now...

Fucking fuckers.

(Why, yes. I AM bitter. Why do you ask?) ;-)

[OwnedByFerrets]

25. Trust me, these idiots will be first in line at the hand-out booth

when THEIR boat sinks.

[HughBeaumont]

26. Shameless KICK for the night.

:kick:

[GeorgeGist]

27. Well obviously,

its your fault for having a boat that's not sinking fast enough for the droolers who have no boat and cannot swim.

[librechik]

28. Gentlemen in powdered wigs and silk waistcoats have determined

that those wearing rags or work clothes are responsible for their own sad conditions--just as they are!

Rags and Workclothes had all the same opportunities Powdered Wigs had--after all, THIS IS AMERICA!!!

They just stupidly did not make their opportunities grow into mansions in Florida, as the Powdered Wigs did. Therefore, they don't deserve the basic services the Wigs get for free everyday and think nothing about. See? Cuz THIS IS AMERICA!!!

Why aren't you as rich as Bill Gates, IT Boy--you had every opportunity he had (except for his multimillionaire dad--but let's not mention the entrenched aristocracy and their privileges) After all, THIS IS AMERICA!!!

(I fell for the "now that you're unemployed, go get an education--here's a loan!" Reagan scam. Now I owe more on my student loan than my mortgage and I was able to get a Liberal Arts job for $35,000 a year!
Thanks Reagan! I'll never make enough money to pay you back!) Thank god I have any job, tho...

[mistertrickster]

29. Life is far too complex these days to be able to "make good choices."

Clearly, shooting crack cocaine is a bad choice.

But a lot of people are hurting who always played by the rules and did what society expected of them . . .

[HughBeaumont]

34. Just like the old cliche "Do what you love . .. the money will follow!"

Er. . . . ah . . . no.

The answer to that is . . . "well, sometimes."

I mean, yes, if you really love investment banking and stock trading and you already have some cash to invest with, then yes, in all likelihood, the money probably WILL follow.

If you like poetry or music or anything artistically related . . . ehhhhhh, not so much.

Seems to me though, being happy should pay off just as much as "playing it safe" should.

But then there's those damned BILLS . . . .

[Wednesdays]

30. K&R

:kick:

[Mnemosyne]

32. "Hindenburg joyrides" is one of the best, if not the best, descriptions of this fiasco to date.

And add me to that idiot list, Hugh, because it is bizarro world of fantasy finance as best I can figure from all I've read here and from personal experiences with Reich-wing family.

Great OP!

[Mind_your_head]

33. I think you ABSOLUTELY "get it"

K & R

[callous taoboy]

35. I grew up with a father who espoused the crap you rail against:

The only times I ever saw him completely lose his mind was when
1) the totally unexpected would happen
2) people did not behave exactly as he wanted them to
3) he heard that something in society "wasn't fair" (how many fucking times did I hear, "Life's not fair...")

This is a guy who grew up in the mid-west during the 30's and 40's and wrote in his memoirs that there WAS NO RACISM in the town he grew up in.

Bottom line: "Narrow-minded" is how I would describe such a world-view. The "Life's not fair" crowd uses this as an excuse to turn a blind eye to injustices that, with a little muscle and empathy, could be made right.

[alarimer]

36. They forget that it is not a level playing field.

All that might be true if the playing field was truly level.

Layoff are usually beyond the control of anyone being laid off. And how many times in a person's life should they be expected to "retrain" for jobs that may or may not exist when they get done retraining.

No, this crowd absolutely does not believe in social responsibility. There absolutely needs to be a social safety net (along the lines of France's) here. We have responsibility to each other in this society. Libertarianism is a morally bankrupt philosophy, whose main tenet is selfishness. They are the most selfish people I have ever met, maybe even more selfish than Republicans, if that is possible.

[HughBeaumont]

37. They'll assert, however, that it's morally wrong to "penalize" people who "achieved more".

But like it was said in another thread - just as the fact that Americans speaking English is an accident of history and not our birthright, wealth is purely an accident of which womb you fall out of more often than not.

What they also don't get is that many of the things they're against can also be had for selfish reasons . .. such as Universal Health Care and Subsidized Higher Education. But they'd rather have such a wide separation between them and the people they feel they're better than. This attitude works it's way up the corporate and political ladder far too often, usually by fiscally comfortable and morally void sellouts.