Was the death of the blue collar class a good thing?

blatham wrote:

fishin' wrote:
blatham wrote:
My mother is dead. She'd become a problem. We took her out back and shot her.

But.. Now who's going to make the dang pudding?

There will be no more pudding.

Unless there is a terrible accident and Dick Cheney's brain liquifies.

0 Replies

blatham wrote:

There will be no more pudding.

ACK!! Back to those little "snack pack" cans of pudding for me.

0 Replies

Dick Cheney's brain? Rather suppositious of you, Mr. Mountie. Sounds awfully oxymoronic to me.

0 Replies

Pistoff writes:

Quote:

"most of us have no such entitlement and are required to work for what we want rather than have others support us."

Statements like that are one of the many reason I dislike Right Wingers intensly.

Soon there will be three classes the Wealthy and the Working Poor and the Destitute. That's what the Corps and Right Wing wants.

Citizen A and Citizen B grew up side by side. They are the same age, went to the same church, attended the same school. Both of their fathers work for the same money at a plant nearby. Both their mothers are stay-at-home moms.

Citizen A stayed in school and graduated highschool, stayed away from drugs, didn't get pregnant or get anybody else pregnant, spent awhile at low wages while s/he acquired skills in a trade and soon was pulling down $60,000 a year in one of those blue collar jobs. S/he saved money for a rainy day that allowed him/her to weather layoffs and/or seek employment elsewhere when his/her employer closed up shop.

Citizen B didn't do his/her homework, smoked pot, ran around with a rough crowd, dropped out of school, went from job to job because none of them suited him/her and soon became one of the unemployed or one of the 'working poor'.

There are some who believe Citizen B is entitled to have Citizen A support him/her or supplement his/her income with taxes from Citizen A's income. It's almost as if it is somehow immoral for Citizen A to be much better off than Citizen B.

I'm sorry, I simply fail to understand the logic in that. I think a moral society does take care of those unable to care for themselves through no fault of their own, and I think many people will offer a voluntary helping hand to help somebody get back on track. But I think it is blatantly immoral to confiscate wealth from responsible citizens to support those who do not wish to live with the consequences of the choices they make. Of course that brands me as a 'neocon' who wants to keep people down.

0 Replies

Stop making sense, Foxfyre. You'll set a bad precedent...

0 Replies

Gratuitous smear of all the members of these fora . . . sadly, one has only to consider the source . . .

0 Replies

foxfyre

Well, you do realize that you've set up something of a strawman here?

You portray an example certain to elicit the response you desire where the relevant factors are limited to prudence, endeavor, and forsight. But no one would seriously disagree with this example and the conclusion you draw from it - that it would be injust to take earnings from the citizen who isn't lazy to give some portion to the citizen who is lazy.

If the matter were so simple, so black and white, no one would have a problem with your position.

Citizen A is born with fetal alcohol syndrome, or with an IQ of 80, or with schizophrenia, or with serious physical malady, or into a poorly functioning family, or into severe poverty.

Citzen B is born golden, with great mental and physical attributes, and into a wealthy and well-connected family.

What then?

0 Replies

Setanta wrote:

Tarantulas wrote:
Or, in other words:

"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."
- Karl Marx

Ah, it is comforting to know that the legacy of "Tailgunner Joe McCarthy" lives on. Have you checked under your bed for commies today, Boss?

Of course I did, Comrade. Because the thing we all have to worry about the most is Purity Of Essence!

0 Replies

Blatham writes:

Quote:

Citizen A is born with fetal alcohol syndrome, or with an IQ of 80, or with schizophrenia, or with serious physical malady, or into a poorly functioning family, or into severe poverty.

Citzen B is born golden, with great mental and physical attributes, and into a wealthy and well-connected family.

If my post is read objectively, one will see that I was quite specific that a moral society takes care of those who cannot care for themselves through no fault of their own. I also left room for voluntary charity toward those who need a leg up after they screwed up.

But I really would appreciate anybody explaining to me how it is moral, ethical, or just for the government to take the honorable and lawful earnings of Citizen A to give to Citizen B who made choices that made him far less well off?

0 Replies

Tarantulas wrote:

Of course I did, Comrade. Because the thing we all have to worry about the most is Purity Of Essence!

I see you are aware of General Jack D. Ripper's lonely crusade to prevent the international communist conspiracy to sap our precious bodily fluids . . .

. . . I salute you ! ! !

Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-lute ! ! !

0 Replies

Foxfyre wrote:

But I really would appreciate anybody explaining to me how it is moral, ethical, or just for the government to take the honorable and lawful earnings of Citizen A to give to Citizen B who made choices that made him far less well off?

It isn't. But I think Citizen B from your example is often lumped in with Citizen A from blatham's example and both are categorized as "less fortunate" or "needy" or whatever makes Citizen A deserving of public assistance. So your Citizen B gets a free ride.

I think there's a whole group of people on our streets these days categorized as "homeless" with the implication that it's no fault of their own, who really should be occupying cots in an institution somewhere. But since years ago, the courts in their infinite wisdom decreed that those who were no danger to themselves or others had to go free, the dark corners of our cities are filled with people who are incapable of ever existing the same as you and I do. There was a retarded kid walking the streets of Phoenix a while back who kept breaking into this one business to support his drug habit. He would sit in jail for a while, and then the court would turn him back on the street again. I think it was the tenth time he broke in that the business owner was waiting for him, and beat him half to death. Thousands of those are out there, and the courts have decreed that they are "society's problem" and not an issue for mental institutions. I'm not sure how bad the problem will finally get before someone calls a halt to it, but I hope they fix it soon.

0 Replies

Every hike in the minimum wage, every new rule requiring more benefits to be extended to workers, every union contract that limits the amount of work a worker is allowed to do increases the cost of doing business and makes foreign labor pools look all that more attractive.

Foxfyre,
Your statement completely ignores the fact that the difference between the CEO and the janitor in any company is a chasm compared to what it was in the 1960s. It's not the hikes in minimum wage that hurt the legendary average worker but the cut of the pie taken by management.

Now, probably on abuzz, and not here, on a thread a discussion was taken up about how an administrative assistant working in the greater Boston area and earning a salary in the $20,000 to $29,000 range can not rent an apartment by herself and drive a new car. Contrast that with my elementary school friend working a job that was below that of secretary (what we once called women who are now known as administrative assistants) in the late 1960s. Granted, working for Ford, she received a discount on her car, but, her 40 hours per week earned her much more than an AA earns today and she probably had to earn a bachelor's degree to be considered for her AA job.

0 Replies

There are gas stations and garages on every corner of every town in greater Boston - all of the mechanics that work in them are blue collar workers.

While it's true that mechanics are blue collar workers, unless said mechanics inherit houses or own their garages, they can not afford to buy a house in eastern Mass.

Furthermore, there are fewer sorts of blue collar jobs than there were in the middle of the last century.

0 Replies

Tarantulas,
The blue collar worker of the late 19th C aspired to the intellectual life that the leisure and professional classes enjoyed. Now the professional classes watch the tube and no one aspires to much.

0 Replies

I'd like to take the opportunity to note that as my mother (a registered nurse since 1939) was, for more than 30 years, a supervisor in a state department of mental health and developmental disability, during which time more than 75% of that department's facilities were closed, that the contention that court's in their infinite wisdom shut them down is a right-wing canard.

In the 1970's with tightening budgets, which arose from a deteriorating economy, and in the face of law suits from the families of inmates over the appalling conditions which resulted from chronic legislative neglect, that state, as was the case in many, decided to cut and run. Using the formula "no danger to themselves or others," state legislators emptied these facilities to save the money (although, of course, no tax refunds or decreases for the citizen were forthcoming). The "no danger to themselves or others" seems an ugly irony to me when i consider that my mother, intervening to prevent the assault of a minimum wage kitchen employee, suffered an attack by one of these "no harm" patients which crushed her cheek bone and dislocated her jaw. She was obliged to sue the state in order to recover her medical costs and be paid for the time when she was unable to work (which is why i haven't mentioned the name of the state). The state in question had then, and has had for most of its history, a Republican governor, and the state legislature has been in the control of the Republicans for more than a century.

But, of course, it wouldn't due for a conservative to do anything other than paint this as a liberal induced disaster, now would it.

0 Replies

Our very own less-than-beloved ex-Premier Mike Harris closed down many hospitals, in a budget-slashing move to "help the economy". Well, then Toronto got hit with SARS and we were screwed for facilities. Unlike most conservatives, Harris must have had a heart somewhere, as he resigned due to "stress". I hope golf can help him, because he'll die before getting hospital treatment.

0 Replies

seems like a consistent hew and cry is the "those that deserve and truely need" yet in this nation of plenty I see few, if any, capable of telling just who are those "truely in need" without bias of their own accord. would "those in need" include the ugly, the dysmorphic, the slow-witted, the short-fat guy that never gets chosen for the baseball team? seems to me, the more a society has in material goods, the less willing to see others as "in need" while in the poorest of societies equality of goods is far more commonplace. now perhaps this is self-evident as proof that in a society with greater value on goods is more likely to amass such goods, it does bring into question what development of values is co-existent with said amassing of goods. I guess I would prefer to live in a society where none go hungry then one where some eat to their death and some starve to their death. I'm a liberal.

0 Replies

Setanta wrote:

...the contention that court's in their infinite wisdom shut them down is a right-wing canard.

Hey, not everything I say comes directly from Conservative Central. This one came from a former Sheriff's Deputy in Idaho. Maybe the courts shut down Idaho's facilities and in your state the legislatures shut them down. It doesn't mean one "side" or the other is at fault. What it does mean is that there are people on the streets who shouldn't be. In my opinion, that is.

0 Replies

There's absolutely nothing wrong with being a "blue colar worker". Honor is as honor does!

0 Replies

plainoldme wrote:

Now, probably on abuzz, and not here, on a thread a discussion was taken up about how an administrative assistant working in the greater Boston area and earning a salary in the $20,000 to $29,000 range can not rent an apartment by herself and drive a new car.

An administrative assistant working in Boston and making $20,000-$29,000 should be looking for another job. The median salary for an entry level administrative person in Boston is $31,249 according to Monster.com. The very low end of the scale dips just below your $29,000 marker. $30,000-$39,000 is the typical pay range for entry level administrative support in Boston.

0 Replies

Was the death of the blue collar class a good thing?

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know