How Many Libertarians on this Board Were Born Into Poverty?

Something still doesn't add up here. And if you're still under the age 18, your Mother should find another lawyer. I knew someone who made about $50,000 a year and was paying $800 per child, 2 kids, per month to a wife who was working and earned about $30,000 per year.

 

Is there a moral to the story? Many of us have lived through both bad times and good times, but often rationalize our experiences from greatly different viewpoints. When down and out, it becomes quite easy to look at those who are doing well and view them as irresponsible, or even responsible for our own distress.

 

Your mother throwing away both of your lives and choosing to leech off of other people when she had the full power to support you might have something to do with the misguided opinions i've seen you throwing around.

 

I get it, hipsters are hypocritical because they have similar taste to you, but more money than you. The nerve of them!

Cheap and lazy by choice and down and out are two different things.

To ME choosing the lazy drain on everyone and everything (including your son) route sounds more hypocritical than anyone with money wearing a trucker hat or drinking PBR.

 

I have plenty of money now. I live with my father and work a job. Most hipsters you encounter on a daily basis are fairly lacking in understanding the mind set for witch they base there veiws and to me seem to just be lazy punks venting there anger against there parents..And yes it is also EXTREMELY hypocritical to say protest corperate manopolys and then buy cloths from sun-pac, hot-topic ect..

 

What the fuck's a "sun-pac"?

There's better places to shop. So go shop better places. Ignorant, they might be. And you're sure as fuck not curing em by insulting them on internet forums.

Everyone rails against em, but I've never met a "hipster".... I've met people who generally follow their lifestyles and ideologies... And they where all from poor backgrounds.

Because someone has the right idea and some money, even if they make mistakes, does not make them hypocritical. It does, however, make them an easy target for poor people AND rich people.

 

I've lived in both the big city and the suburbs my whole life.. and i have met mannnnyyy hipsters. Trust me if you ever met the city ones you might have a diffrent opinion..Most are down right snobs and posers and treat politics, religion ect like a fad. Like i said there upper class kids rebeling against there parents.

 

This is exactly what every hippie of the 1960's was but even worse since they were the product of the most economically successful generation in American history.

*edit*
Actually most sub cultures begin as middle aged white kids rebelling against their parents.

 

Every social group in history has had there "hipsters" i guess.

Edit: Ha a point has ben proven!

 

Every social group is literally no different than hipsters aside from what their clothes look like, at least hipsters specifically are often trying to be ironic.

 

I'm not sure about that.

What's dishonorable about being the child of upper-middle class people doing things that you hate, and for good reason, and saying fuck this, I'm throwing away my shoes and my comb, and dropping acid and smoking pot, and NOT killing people?

I mean, there might be more effective strategies, but I don't see that, being products of their upbringing, hippies did too badly for themselves....

 

I was born into poverty.. Seen one them commercials. "Be all you can be" did that,. now Im in double poverty.. I should of listened to that other commercial "

 

Indie

So let’s see if the country you live in is Laos, then from what I can tell the average monthly income there is around 50-100 dollars a month? (Probably lower for the subsistence farmers I believe you’ve claimed to live amongst)

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I already know from past discussions with you that you’re oppose to redistributive ways of creating a fairer society but the problem is that so far the only reason for you holding these views seem based on the rather flawed ideas of Social Darwinism.

This seems to be the view that wealth distribution is somehow a ‘natural’ indicator of the superiority or inferiority of individuals and groups.

Just repeating over and over that you are opposed to something is fine but it’s meaningless if you don’t have any rational or reasonable reason for having that stance.

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PS: Just a quick note about your signature

Well you can take away the question mark

So it doesn’t seem to be a Franklyn quote but claiming it is gives it a lot of kudos especially amongst that crowd that think the founding fathers words are sacred. Second someone with a certain mentality and bias has subsequently added the second sentence about being armed.

It seems to me that the quote is basically about undermining democratic ideas; it is about instilling a distrust of democracy. Or in a later addition that democracy could only work with widespread gun ownership.


But then you have already argued against democracy so it probably appeals to you ideas.

 

i think indie's going senile

first he thinks i'm racist for thinking $300 a month is a fortune in laos

then he thinks connecticut is receiving foreign aid

maybe i shouldn't be making jokes about it, poor thing . . .

 

Now while class may be a factor in how a person’s views were shaped (one of many) shouldn’t the question be more aimed at trying to understand why those factors led them to a particular set of views and can that viewpoint be defended, in any rational and reasonable way?

 

^^^ teenage rebellion

 

Most of my neighbors earn around the equivalent of $250 per month, some slightly less, some quite a bit more.

I'm all for redistribution of wealth, just not in the way you would like to have it done. When you use the term "Social Darwinism" I assume you're referring to simply "Survival of the fittest"? I simply have no problem with the most productive reaping the greatest rewards. Charity worked well in the U.S. up until the point government took it over.

About all wealth distribution indicates is the result of the decisions one is making or had made in the past.

I've yet to see you present a rational or reasonable position for your own views, other than an emotional one. Two persons just out of school begin work at the same company, doing the same type job, earning the same wages.

"A" purchases a new car trading it in every 3 years for a new one, while "B" purchases an inexpensive used car which he maintains himself and keeps running for a couple of decades.
"A" spends his wages completely each week while "B" gets by with only what is a necessity and saves all he can, investing where ever he expects he can later reap a profit.
After 40 years of working along side each other "A" is deeply in debt and cannot afford to retire, and has to continue working to try and pay his bills.
"B" retires with quite a large accumulated nest egg, a house paid for in full, and a newer used car.
What does "B" owe "A", who is destitute, had his car repossessed, and about to have his house foreclosed on?

The above may appear to be hypothetical, but it is not, and is based upon one of my past co-workers who did retire 2 years after I did because the company offered a $200,000 lump sum payment to those at or near retirement age as an inducement when downsizing. And I might add the he quickly spent the $200,000 without paying off his debts and now works at a much lower paying job than he had previously, which he will probably do until death.

I still like the quote.

If you see Democracy as majority rules, then I am all for undermining it.
Actually, it is "Freedom" that requires widespread gun ownership. When it comes to the point that government progressively evolves into being the enemy, which Democracy eventually does, only the well armed citizens can bring about the changes necessary. Look at the mid-East now, Libya in particular.
I know, "That could never happen in the U.S." ...but I think it's best to never say never.

Yes, I am against Democracy as most people today appear to feel it should work. Ideally, government itself should be heavily constrained by laws, and laws should be written in such a way that neither a majority nor a minority, or even the government itself can legally oppress any member of the society. Laws should protect the safety of the inhabitants, allowing them to prosper as best they can in their "pursuit" of happiness.

 

Indie

Just repeating over and over that you are opposed to something is fine but it’s meaningless if you don’t have any rational or reasonable reason for having that stance.

LOL – Just repeating something over and over does not make it true and does not make the criticisms go away.

Indie this is me, we’ve been through a lot of this before and I’m still waiting for you to address many of my criticisms of you views let alone getting any actual answers.

I mean not giving answers is ok, but, just going off and then sprouting the same seemingly flawed stuff all over again somewhere else, when you know it has all these outstanding criticisms unaddressed elsewhere well it just seems…well rather dishonest.

Why not address the actual criticisms rather than just pretending they don’t exist.

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But again that comes up against the whole counter argument of the uneven distribution of advantage and disadvantage that you still have not address beyond the view that ‘life’s unfair’ and ‘shit happens’.

Again that has been countered by a number of arguments that you have not addressed, and I’ve also asked you a couple of times to back this statement up which you’ve declined so far to do.

Oh indie again man, this is me you’re talking to not someone that doesn’t know you – we’ve been through all this before

The greatest effect on a person’s life is where and to whom they are born. This can give someone advantages or disadvantages that can affect their whole lives and their possibility of having success or failure, and long before they have the independence to take certain actions themselves.

I know your answer is to this so far has been a simply, no, but that isn’t a counter argument it’s the total lack of any counter argument.

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As to guns that is not this threads concern try –
Should Guns be Banned in the US?
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=417940&f=36&page=41

But read this first

Can guns save you from suppression?
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/s...&postcount=217

I would say about the current situation in the Arab world -

“The best defence against tyranny is a balanced political system and the best hope of bring one down is an army that isn’t willing to open fire on its own people.”

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Yes I know and I also know about your views on government but once again there are quiet a number of criticisms of your views still outstanding and unaddressed on the subject.

 

I said that to me the question is why people have the viewpoints they do and if they can defend them.

It is easy to shout slogans, make assertions or give an opinion and many come here to do just that and it is possible to learn things from them but to get a deeper understanding what is needed is context and explanation.

The why.

And the problem is that many find this a lot harder, because many times they seem not to have asked these questions of themselves and put them under scrutiny. And because of that they so often flounder when it comes to explaining or defending their ideas.

For example Indie above seems to be saying that he has based his whole view of relative wealth on one guy and has extrapolated from it that all financial hardship is due solely to the ‘inferiority’ of the individual concerned, so all financial hardship is deserved.

Now that is a why but is it a rational and reasonable why? Can it be defended from criticism?

Well of course not, it is ridicules to use one example as explanation for a whole societal situation. But it is an emotive example, designed to raise a emotive response contempt for the those in hardship. And so why should he or others of a like mind help people who so clearly deserve there hardship even as he has said even unto death.

This isn’t a new mentality it is actually a very old one and the reason why charity as a means of helping the disadvantaged has never been a great success.

It’s the idea of there being the ‘deserving’ and the ‘un-deserving’ poor.

Which for some meant that the deserving were those that don’t ask for help and so don’t need any and the undeserving being those who do ask for help thereby showing that they are scroungers and wasters who don’t deserve any help.

So - the argument went – there was little or no need to give assistance to the disadvantaged.

The problem was that these disadvantaged people were often the same people but just at different stages of life or circumstance.

It is very similar to the right wing argument often put forward today that if people are responsible and make the right choices they don’t need assistance but if they’re irresponsible and make bad choices they’re feckless and don’t deserve assistance.”

The thing is that people make good decisions and bad decisions they are at times responsible and at other times irresponsible. And like the idea of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ – the view of decisions and responsibility can be affected by time, place, circumstance and viewpoint.

For example what might seem like a ‘good’ decision and praised as such at that time may be seen later on and in hindsight as a ‘bad’ decision.

So why does a complex issue get boiled down to a story about some guy at work? Do they actually understand that it might be a complex issue?

 

Um I was born broke as fuck and as a result I'm for pretty much do what you want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else, and that's it. If that makes me libertarian then so be it, but as for me I can't live in such a bullshit system, unless by some grand miraculous alchemical operation by the people (unlikely) to turn the dross into gold where love rules, I have no opinion in political matters, as I try to do everything myself.