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How we are losing

Kaos

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How we are losing
« on: February 05, 2023, 10:34:42 AM »
You've heard the saying that if you're not a liberal in your 20s you have no heart and not a conservative by your 40s you have no brain?  That's how things used to be. 

It was true for me. I was ridiculously idealistic in my 20s. I railed against my parents and grandparents and their 'racisist ideology.'  I wanted equity, didn't think it was 'fair' for some people to have so much and others to have so little. I thought welfare and social programs were good and necessary. It frustrated me that I had to work to get the things I wanted.

None of that remained by the time I was in my mid 30s.

The older I got, the more conservative I grew. Watching money come out of my paycheck for taxes was a wakeup call. Working in a service industry allowed me to see another side of people. Selling cars and renting furniture to low income families woke me completely up to the realities of that community.  Take, take, take, take.  No respect for anything.  Give them a new home and it would be trashed within six months.  Those are broad stereotypical strokes, but I saw it every day, multiple times a day. 

Sweating in a low-income apartment, making $8 an hour while I battled waves of roaches to install a washing machine, I heard Ethyl Lee tell her 16-year old daughter that she either had to have another baby or find her own place to live, they couldn't "get by" on their checks without it.  Her apartment was filthy, stank of roach droppings and stale grease, every counter was slimy, the floor was gross, the carpet was nasty. But she drove a nicer car than I did.  My furniture store supplied her with a big screen TV, VCR, stereo, washer, dryer and other furniture -- things I couldn't afford working for a living.  She paid for all of it (occasionally when we forced her to) through government checks.  She didn't work. Her mother never worked. None of her daughters worked. They sat home, had babies and collected checks.  None were or had been ever married.  Ethyl herself had six children. All of her daughters over the age of 15 had at least one, most had two or more. Sadly, Ethyl Lee wasn't an exception.  I saw that pattern repeated over and over and over and over and over.  More than anything, those experiences changed my world view.

Things have changed today.  Too few kids work like I had to (like my generation did).  Parents give anything and everything.  Kids aren't exposed to the realities and by the time they get out of college (far too liberal), their worldview is so skewed they have no concept and it's difficult to change. It's hardened into idiocy that no amount of logic and practicality can overcome.

Girl who worked for me is a prime example. She bemoaned the existence of capitalism and promoted socialism from her parent's $800,000  home while she drove the $50,000 car she'd been given and wore clothes I could never afford when I was her age.  She wants to destroy the system with no real understanding of what that would mean to her.

I could never get her to understand that the reason "people like me" (I checked all her indignation boxes by being white, educated, and male) made more money than "the workers" was because I took all the risk. It was money I made and saved over years of work that allowed me to have enough to invest in the businesses I owned. It was my risk. If it didn't work out, "the workers" could find another job. That wasn't the case for me. If it doesn't work, I lose much more than just "a job." She never could figure out that without my saving and investment, "the workers" wouldn't have the jobs, the insurance or any of the other benefits they enjoyed. She couldn't understand that if you remove the risk-reward opportunity, no one would have an incentive to work hard, make more or take that chance to make a better life for themselves, their kids - and by extension the people who worked for them.  Nope.  I was a "greedy, cis, white-privileged capitalist" for wanting more. 

I heard an older guy say recently "this generation has never suffered.  They've never been poor. The prospect of real war is a distant memory. Diseases are all but eradicated for the young. They don't know what it means to sacrifice."

He's right. There's no adversity. Our kids and grandkids are soft. Without the struggle to just survive like our parents and grandparents faced, these pussy ass morons have nothing better to do than contemplate their private parts, and rage over imagined slights. 

We're soft and we're stupid.  Our political system is corrupt beyond redemption. We're allowing elections to be brazenly stolen. We're allowing the very fabric of our nation, the principles on which it was founded, to be discarded. We're rewriting history to serve an agenda, not to view it as it actually was and learn from the successes and mistakes.  It's not progress. We are ripe for being overrun.   

 As Tony Soprano once said "I'm getting the feeling I came in at the end.  The best is over."  I keep thinking there's hope that we can find our way back to sanity/truth but I'm losing that hope. 
« Last Edit: February 05, 2023, 10:47:43 AM by Kaos »
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CCTAU

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Re: How we are losing
« Reply #1 on: February 05, 2023, 10:57:21 PM »
I told my wife that many years ago. The next generation has never been hungry.
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Five statements of WISDOM
1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity, by legislating the wealth out of prosperity.
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friends, is the beginning of the end of any nation.

GH2001

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Re: How we are losing
« Reply #2 on: February 06, 2023, 09:47:37 AM »
I told my wife that many years ago. The next generation has never been hungry.

Never had backs to the wall or done without.

Poor in 1940, or 1977, or even 1992 was very different than what poor is now. Poor now is having a pretty new car, roof over your head, smart phone, and led tv with Netflix. Too much free or "cheap" money (aka credik) flats around in the economy now. Anyone looked at the FedGov's credit card bill? Yikes.
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Kaos

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Re: How we are losing
« Reply #3 on: February 06, 2023, 10:11:58 AM »
Never had backs to the wall or done without.

Poor in 1940, or 1977, or even 1992 was very different than what poor is now. Poor now is having a pretty new car, roof over your head, smart phone, and led tv with Netflix. Too much free or "cheap" money (aka credik) flats around in the economy now. Anyone looked at the FedGov's credit card bill? Yikes.

I was poor growing up.  My dad was in school and working most of my childhood.  My first house was built by my dad and grandfather with material scavenged from scrapyards.  Nothing fit or matched.  We had two bedrooms both small. There were four of us kids crammed in there.  Only one of the bedrooms had a closet.  Our shower was metal. No tub. There was no AC. The only heat came from a floor furnace in the living room.    In the winter we'd have to put plastic over the windows inside.  Stapled it there.  It was still cold enough at night to see your breath.  In the summer it was hot. Floor fans only took so much of an edge off that.  Mosquitos had no trouble getting in.   

Lived there through sixth grade. 

We never had a new car.  We had hand-me-down Volkswagen bugs.  Only one.  Mom didn't have a car.   

We had to have a garden and work it so we could have vegetables in the winter.  Things like Cap'n Crunch and Froot Loops were rare treats (why I love them to this day) and we could never afford PopTarts.  Typical meal?  Showboat baked beans with chopped up hot dogs in them.  On a good week, hamburger in the beans.  I made that for my girls recently and they refused to eat "dog food." 

Once a month - maybe - dad would bring home a bucket of KFC.  FIIIINE eating those days.  When I was in first and second grade my grandmother would take me to Jack's Hamburgers on the way home from school. But that was the extent of our "eating out."

The thing is?  I didn't spend all my time in front of the TV, there was no TickerTock or BookFace or any of that to make me covet things other people had.  I never thought about being poor.  I had parents who loved me, lived close to my grandmother who loved me just as much.  I played outside, rode the bike I bought myself (from the proceeds of selling seeds after I saw an ad on the back of a comic book) and was blissfully unaware and happy.  It's only now, in retrospect, that I understand how poor we really were. 

My kids have never known that kind of struggle.
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Re: How we are losing
« Reply #4 on: February 06, 2023, 02:13:11 PM »
I was poor growing up.  My dad was in school and working most of my childhood.  My first house was built by my dad and grandfather with material scavenged from scrapyards.  Nothing fit or matched.  We had two bedrooms both small. There were four of us kids crammed in there.  Only one of the bedrooms had a closet.  Our shower was metal. No tub. There was no AC. The only heat came from a floor furnace in the living room.    In the winter we'd have to put plastic over the windows inside.  Stapled it there.  It was still cold enough at night to see your breath.  In the summer it was hot. Floor fans only took so much of an edge off that.  Mosquitos had no trouble getting in.   

Lived there through sixth grade. 

We never had a new car.  We had hand-me-down Volkswagen bugs.  Only one.  Mom didn't have a car.   

We had to have a garden and work it so we could have vegetables in the winter.  Things like Cap'n Crunch and Froot Loops were rare treats (why I love them to this day) and we could never afford PopTarts.  Typical meal?  Showboat baked beans with chopped up hot dogs in them.  On a good week, hamburger in the beans.  I made that for my girls recently and they refused to eat "dog food." 

Once a month - maybe - dad would bring home a bucket of KFC.  FIIIINE eating those days.  When I was in first and second grade my grandmother would take me to Jack's Hamburgers on the way home from school. But that was the extent of our "eating out."

The thing is?  I didn't spend all my time in front of the TV, there was no TickerTock or BookFace or any of that to make me covet things other people had.  I never thought about being poor.  I had parents who loved me, lived close to my grandmother who loved me just as much.  I played outside, rode the bike I bought myself (from the proceeds of selling seeds after I saw an ad on the back of a comic book) and was blissfully unaware and happy.  It's only now, in retrospect, that I understand how poor we really were. 

My kids have never known that kind of struggle.

That's pretty incredible.  My story doesn't compare at all. 

My big struggle was couch surfing for 4 years (17-21), paying what I could to friends/siblings, and surviving on frozen hamburger patties from SAMS for the better part of a year until I finally said "fuck this noise" and joined the military.  During the housing crash, we lost everything.  Dad was paying upwards of $20k a month on 8 spec homes on interest alone trying to hold on to his business.  It didn't last.  Riches to rags.

As a 16 year old kid, I sold my vehicle so that we could eat.  My dad had to file Chapter 7 & he and my mom moved to the Ham in an extended stay for the better part of a year.  Even going through that, I was very fortunate compared to other people.  I had people I could rely on to survive until I could make something of myself. 

I personally feel it is our duty as fathers to provide a better life for our children.  Sounds like you certainly did that.  On my end, so far so good.
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Don't rush me, sonny. You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.

WiregrassTiger

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Re: How we are losing
« Reply #5 on: February 07, 2023, 09:16:22 AM »
That's pretty incredible.  My story doesn't compare at all. 

My big struggle was couch surfing for 4 years (17-21), paying what I could to friends/siblings, and surviving on frozen hamburger patties from SAMS for the better part of a year until I finally said "fuck this noise" and joined the military.  During the housing crash, we lost everything.  Dad was paying upwards of $20k a month on 8 spec homes on interest alone trying to hold on to his business.  It didn't last.  Riches to rags.

As a 16 year old kid, I sold my vehicle so that we could eat.  My dad had to file Chapter 7 & he and my mom moved to the Ham in an extended stay for the better part of a year.  Even going through that, I was very fortunate compared to other people.  I had people I could rely on to survive until I could make something of myself. 

I personally feel it is our duty as fathers to provide a better life for our children.  Sounds like you certainly did that.  On my end, so far so good.
Your experience and K’s are impressive situations to overcome. I have to think that as tough as those experiences were, there is definitely some benefit.
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GH2001

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Re: How we are losing
« Reply #6 on: February 07, 2023, 10:45:07 AM »
Im with K in that my kids have largely remained immune from a lot of the "do without". I imagine he did it for the same reasons I have - in knowing that doing without felt horrible at the time. Maybe subliminally don't want them to have to worry about that - but at the same time, I catch myself and think "maybe they DO need to feel that". Its what hardens you, shapes you, builds your character. So the last few years or so, unless its their bday or xmas, I make them earn the spending money. I use Greenlight now to do that. They get no free money. I think it keeps them grounded more since I started using it. And when they are 16? They will work. Even if just part time. 
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Kaos

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Re: How we are losing
« Reply #7 on: February 07, 2023, 08:56:01 PM »
Your experience and K’s are impressive situations to overcome. I have to think that as tough as those experiences were, there is definitely some benefit.

That’s just the thing.  I never felt like I “overcame” anything.  I watched my dad work and go to school.  Watched mom start college when I was already 15.  And finish. And get a masters degree.

They taught me that if you want something you have to work to get it.  It’s not gonna be handed to you.  Sometimes you have to sacrifice to get there. 

We were poor.  I know that now.  I didn’t then.  Was never aware. 
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Re: How we are losing
« Reply #8 on: February 22, 2023, 10:44:27 AM »
Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.

We are in the weak men create hard times phase.
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CCTAU

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Re: How we are losing
« Reply #9 on: February 22, 2023, 04:34:11 PM »
Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.

We are in the weak men create hard times phase.

Why do you hate transgender men!
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Five statements of WISDOM
1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity, by legislating the wealth out of prosperity.
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friends, is the beginning of the end of any nation.