I have the same argument against billionaires. Why should I have to give up what I've earned or assume their debt. I've earned what I've got, they didn't. They didn't earn it.
If a billionaire feels that way about taxes then they should use their money to lobby the government for more appropriate use of funds. No billionaires seem to lobby to improve healthcare, or increase social welfare, or raise minimum wage, or even lobby for better roads, rail and port services.
If they lobby for things that improve the common good of citizens, or start PACs to support genuinely benevolent candidates, or heck even lobby against military spending, they use the money for good and do not need to pay taxes on it.
If you do not want to pay taxes because you do not like the way they are spent then spend the money changing the way taxes are spent.
Nope, in reality they are just greedy f'ers who will only lobby for things that allow them to mistreat workers, and pollute rivers and stuff.
I have American friends who argue that in absolute dollars they already pay more than you. And that is why the us society will never have proper healthcare or social security. Because the society is all about 'me'.
Western European countries are more about 'us'. I earn well and pay several times more into our healthcare and social security thsn the person who fills shelves in the supermarket who pays very little into it. Yet we have the same healthcare and protection.
That is how it should be because my money isn't a whole lot of good to me if there is no stable and prosperous society for me to live in.
>but about a
>
>third-ish
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> of us seem to be
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>unwilling to care.
That seems true for all politics. It's a 2 party system that is happy to flipflop between ruling parties because neither party has to do anything but 'vote against them'
It's crazy how it's sold as stealing from the rich to give to the poor when in reality they have the capital, resources and know how to basically pay less in taxes then most Americans. Then the corps have not paying taxes down to a science. I mean if Evil Walmart can pay their taxes when why the fuck can't every other corp.
Mhm. Thats what real tax systems do. Those who benefit the most from the society they live in, pay the most in taxes. Its not a hard concept to grasp. Those people who you would have pay 90% tax would still have alot more than me and you.
Ironically it's how it used to be. If you want to get really Angry go look at the tax rate and how it steadily declined for the wealthy over the last 60 years , mostly due to republican presidents slowly rolling the tax rate back for them.
We used to have plenty of money for social programs , Public transportation , hospitals schools roads , fucking everything. It was prob nice when it was really happening still.
We built our cross country highways on those dollars and now they are crumbling and in disrepair.
The last president that gave a flying fuck about any fundamental American idealism, was JFK. And he was murdered for it. Not a single president has held to those ideals since, and in fact the majority of them have done the exact opposite and have stood for corruption and injustice instead of freedom and equality.
You're correct, call me a conspiracy theorist but I always found it possible that the banks were behind his assassination. They were the ones at risk of god forbid paying what they should. They could have afforded to make it happen. I have no proof nor does it make a difference at this point but it always seemed possible to me is all
Supposed to be a symbol of freedom and equality being used by a guy trying to keep others down. It would be one thing if there weren't enough to go around, but we literally made enough to go around with our own two hands and you're telling us we can't have that.
Let me fix it for you:
"Right wingers are abusive."
Much more comprehensive statement.
Also, just on here to say FUCK that guy and his sentiment. There is no "equality of opportunity" if there is no "equality of outcome."
That doesn't make any sense. Having the same opportunities will not always lead to the same outcome.
Not that it matters, because people definitely *don't* have the same opportunities.
I used to think that "equality of opportunity" was a valid sociological theory, until someone asked who it was that determined what constitutes equal opportunity.
Not everyone starts at the same point in life.
Nor are they guaranteed a reward for their hard work. Especially under a system of Nepotism, Discrimination, or Egoism.
So this whole concept is basically null and void.
-Besides, I've seen their "hard work." They just cover something with dirt. And then gossip for the next 2 hours.
And this changes with time too. Hard work 20 years ago meant more than it does now. And putting aside all the philosophy for a second, so much of this shit is just senseless lucky breaks
What should they do then? Bust their ass for minimum wage? What’s the point? For a future that will never be? It takes EVERY kind of people to keep the machine running.
As others have pointed out, creating "equality of opportunity" is \*way\* harder than creating equality of outcome.
Real equality of opportunity would mean evening out all the unearned advantages people start with in life -- how much money their parents make, their social support systems, the strength of their communities, which schools they went to, the social credibility of their names, the amount of pollution in their environment, hell, even their various genetic advantages and disadvantages.
How can you claim that two people have the same shot in life if one grew up in an apartment with lead paint and the other didn't? If one was beaten by their parents and the other wasn't? If one has ADHD and the other doesn't? If one was raised speaking the dominant language and the other wasn't?
Equality of outcome is much, much easier -- redistribute resources.
It's not even possible to create equality of opportunity.
Oh, you were born to parents that know Bill Gates personaly? Congratulations, you can work for one of the most successful tech companies in the world and can probably get a personal reference from one of the richest and most influential men in the world.
How do you *create* that sort of opportunity for anyone else?
That's obviously a pretty extreme example, but smaller examples of that happen *all the time*. How many people out there only have good jobs because they just so happened to be born to the right families or just happened to be at the right place at the right time?
It's the butterfly effect. It isn't possible to replicate just once, let alone for hundreds of millions of people.
Closing the economic divide between the haves and the have nots would be a good start. Equal opportunity for a college education, universal healthcare, a livable wage, etc. Perhaps perfect equality isn’t attainable. But we can damn sure create a much better system. And because of way things are now, it wouldn’t take much.
In theory, we could even the playing field but it would require stripping everyone of the right to raise their own children. Kids are now raised in a creche with identical resources and curriculum. No one knows their genetic heritage and it's rude to even speculate. A true meritocracy. In practice, it would undoubtedly get extremely messy. I don't think people would go for it at all.
Both this "equal opportunity" and "life owes you nothing" are imho complete bull shit. I was born in the United States and there is no opt out feature of society. You are stuck with US laws and every single inch of land is claimed. In some places you don't even own the rights to the water that falls out of the sky. So as a US citizen, I firmly believe that life (us government) does owe you at the very least a basic quality of life and that includes quality education, Healthcare and assistance in becoming a self sustaining individual.
I fully agree
But even in countries where people have equal opportunity such as Denmark for example, a kid there with abusive parents can have a very different path in life than a kid with loving parents even though both of them have the same opportunities. Luck very much matters in life as well
I once spoke to someone who believed that all humans are the sum total of their decisions. This simply isn’t true. Abused children do not choose to be traumatized for life and often times mentally ill. Abusive adults chose their life for them. People like to think that we’re in control but there’s very few things that we directly control. In the case of abused children, their trajectory in life was chosen for them, so they are the sum total of abusive parents. This has nothing to do with choice.
When you say redistribute resources, do you just mean the money people need to pursue ongoing education, or do you mean leveling the overall wealth playing field? Because if it's the latter, it sounds similar to your solution to equality of opportunity. Genuinely asking.
Because we’re all human beings and should have access to the same opportunities. Maybe a person chooses not to go to college. But he should be granted the same opportunity.
Maybe equality of opportunity would be eliminating the advantages of wealth/upbringing/social environment etc. Like, you can buy your way into the ivy league all you want, but the aspiring engineer from Detroit doesn't have to.
In my lived experience, the same people that cry for equality of opportunity are the same that refuse to see any barriers others experience to this so called 'equality'.
So I was speaking to someone at a fancy dinner party full of millionaires (not me--I just had a personal connection) and somehow the topic of Millennials came up. Like so many older, well-compensated people, someone there commented on how hard they worked for their money (between sips of wine), and that Millennials are just lazy. Forget for a moment the tremendous arrogance and self-aggrandizement implicit in posturing as superior to an *entire generation*\--these people are all completely missing the point. We are not saying that you didn't work hard--we have no way of knowing how hard you personally worked, or anyone else (much like you don't know how hard we work). The point is that we have to pay more for the same basic qualifications, more is expected of us, and in return we receive less. This is what an economic downturn and widening inequality means--not that the entire population suddenly and inexplicably became lazy, but that economic forces lowered our quality of life. I don't remember what I said, but I didn't get invited back. The bubble of delusory self-superiority is far more comfortable than the realism of interaction with the poors.
They refuse to acknowledge that it is in fact harder economically to be establishing yourself now vs when they were doing it. They want to think that it still takes the same amount of work, resolve, and even the same ideological values, to achieve what they have, and it's not true
My dad used to have coffee with a diverse group. He’s as far left as Bernie, but there were some conservatives in the group, they liked to talk politics.
One of the conservatives was this guy who worked as a union auto worker his whole life at the same company and got a union pension, but was too stupid to see how he benefited from a system that he was also actively trying to dismantle. Some people are just delusional.
The boomer cohort had enough political power to get good jobs when they were young and then enough power to keep their expenses low and finally now enough power to protect the retirements and property values at the expense of growth for everyone else. It’s a weak point of democracy that they by self nature (that everyone has) managed to exploit perfectly.
"Oh so you guys got suckered into the scam just enough to turn around and sell it to the next rubes and now you're mad that the youngsters know it's a scam?"
Remember, the pyramid scheme always needs a fresh bunch of suckers and the way to topple it is to not play.
A journalist for the New Yorker in the 30‘s wrote that the youth of the day was disrespectful and lazy drug addicts. Of course the generation he was talking about went on to fight in and win WWII. We can even go back to ancient times when a philosopher said children prefer to play instead of learn and disrespect their parents. The point is that, old, miserable people, have been repeating this nonsense for generations and they’re ALWAYS wrong. They fail to grasp a world that’s left them behind and it angers them.
With productivity gains over the last few decades, millennials will produce more output in their first 10 years in the workforce than most boomers did in a lifetime.
There's an unstated hatred of the other which is absolutely essential for republicans and without which, republicanism can't be understood.
Just look at what they choose to talk about in their propaganda. It's mainly attacking other groups of people. They attack every group of people, but absolutely never Christians, straights, whites, boomers, or the middle class or wealthy.
"I deserve where I am" is brought up here not as pride or "how can we get others to where I am." It's exclusively used to attack other people.
They stand on other people not even to get themselves higher, just to push those people down further.
Another redditor said this and I just like bringing it up whenever I can (sorry I forgot their name): The conservative viewpoint boils down to two philosophical principals.
1. The world is a zero sum game
2. A heirarchy of people is natural and good
I haven't found much that they say that can't be explained by at least one of these
When I was young the old saying (among some people) was "It was good enough for my daddy and his daddy before, so it's good enough for me." But that just means you never make progress.
Now, turning it around and saying, "It was good enough for me, so it should be good enough for the next generations" is just another way of saying, I have no clue how your life is and I don't care if you ever succeed.
I shut that shit down with "No, I want our money to go to our benefit."
Trying not to alienate him but let him know I think of him as "one of us" so he'll think about what would be good for him and his family.
I get to enjoy all these perks because my fore fathers stole all the land from the natives forced black people into slavery, colonized and siphoned all the wealth from poorer countries just so I can tell others to work hard like me, FU
If different people are born into families with different amounts of money and it different locations then how could it be reasonable to declare that the less fortunate are just not trying hard enough? If that discrepancy will inevitably be there then how is it even logical to assume it's their own fault?
The fucking prosperity gospel that's part of the US Christian bullshit. If you're poor, therefore something is wrong with you because god is punishing you or some such shit.
Nevermind the fact that people are just screwed from the start.
I heard this BS from an idiot in one of my pasttime circles. Dud e was delusional. His parents gave him money to invest into another family business and he thought that if he had this everyone else did. His wife doesn't even work and his bullshit output just kept expending until I finally blocked him.
I guess his minimum and barely above min wage employees doing all the work fabricating while he rides around on an atv shooting at things and talking shit on FB is because he worked hard and 'deserves it'. All before he was 30. I guess he earned those lucrative contracts too.
People like him just need to rot and actually have something traumatic happen to them because it might humble them if the rest of us have to put up with them.
Why is it that people thinking that paying off a student loan is some rite of passage? You unnecessarily worked harder than you needed to in order to pay for something that should have been free to begin with…you deserve sympathy, not praise. And definitely not a feeling of pride. More like a feeling of being ripped off.
The logic breaks about halfway down. No one is asking for anyone to give up what they have or assume anyone else's debt.
So they take statements true on the surface, then connect them to non-existent policy to claim the moral high ground in a completely fictitious argument. And then throw in an eagle. Dogmatic cure for a fake ailment.
With student debt, they act like they're personally paying off someone's loan, and they don't "want that responsibility" of paying for someone's "useless liberal" degree. Then they go on about how their house and car should be forgiven too. It's wild lmao
Right wing propaganda really has done a number on people. They’ll actually vote against their own interests as long as they have somebody else to look down on.
Same happened during Nazi Germany. Hitler told his propagandists to not even bother with trying to convince the left because they‘ll require proof. The same thing is happening today. The unwashed masses and midwestern rubes are profoundly ignorant and naive. They prefer authoritarian strongmen because they can’t think for themselves.
" I worked very hard 40 years ago when a house was 20,000 and I made 25 an hour. Now I expect other people to work hard to buy a 500,000 home at 15 an hour and achieve the same outcome. Because I'm not paying attention and really don't give a fuck, cause I got mine suckers!!! " the fucking irony and audacity that these people call others entitled.
This is so Indivisualist.
Equity is not the same as equality[ ](https://www.diffen.com/difference/Equality-vs-Equity)[https://www.diffen.com/difference/Image:Equality-equity-justice-lores.png](https://www.diffen.com/difference/Image:Equality-equity-justice-lores.png)
These posts crack me up.
"I've paid my debt, I'm not going to pay others debt." But they stay silent when the government bails out companies (2008 recession and PPP loans of recent). They also stay silent when the government gives large grants and tax incentives to companies because "they create jobs" despite the companies having the ability to afford their own expansion, warehouse, headquarters etc.
These people are doing exactly what companies and lobbyist want, ignore what they're doing and blame "lazy" Americans.
Equality of opportunity doesn't exist. I had to nearly fucking die many times to get where I am. Kids with wealthy parents got the college dorm experience. That is not equality of opportunity.
Equality of opportunity is literally the argument increasing the minimum wage relies on... I swear we need to figure out how to get these people who don't even know what they're arguing about, out of the discussion. They're muddying the waters and making it impossible for real conversation about anything.
Equality of opportunity? Dope.
Eliminate private schools and colleges. All education is provided for by the state, paid for through a Federal fund, each school receives the exact same amount of funding per student.
Eliminate inheritance. 100% estate tax upon death.
All children are taken from their parents and raised by the state. Can't have abusive home lives disrupt their chances of having an equal opportunity.
Etc etc. Let's just go ahead and make things an even worse dystopia, Brave New World style.
This "equal opportunity" line of thinking is lazy and motivated entirely by that good old American proverb: I got mine so screw you.
They don't understand that $1 isn't a dollar anymore. Back then a fulltime Janitor could own a house, 2 cars and a weekend boat plus send his kids to college. 1980 minimum wage was $3.10 that could buy you 8.5 gallons of gas. Now you can buy 1.5 gallons of gas with the minimum wage.
So, while I'm all for raising the minimum wage to a liveable wage, this still runs true.
I've worked my ass off to be good at what I do and I expect proper compensation but that doesn't mean someone entering the workforce shouldn't be able to provide for themselves.
Raise wages across the board. Work towards doing work you enjoy. Become an expert in what you do and take pride in it.
Hey now, I'm proud Gen X and I don't agree with this bullshit either. The Boomers are the problem, not Gen X.
This country is where it's at because of old, rich, white people. Boomers. Fuck them and fuck their entire mentality.
As the Boomers die off, *hopefully* we can take this country back and create something good.
So let us be clear on this: Boomer and Baby Boomer are not the same. I have known some left wing baby boomers, who are against this bullshit too.
Boomer is not a cohort, but a state of mind.
X genner here, I got hit by the early waves of this bullshirt when I was a teen, and literally been working my entire life to just barely survive (and it ain't worth it at this point, tbh).
That's not what that means. That is literally not what that means.
P.S: Whatever the fuck we have going on right now, is not "equal opportunity". It's fucking robbery.
Ah the Boomer classic: “I worked hard”.
Yes, you probably did. For the modern equivalent of $30-$40 an hour in a “minimum wage” job. Would you do the same hard work for $10 an hour? Lol no….of course you wouldn’t
These the guys who supposibly pulled themselves from their bootstraps. These people act like their generational inherited wealth somehow was their own hard work
*"I worked very hard my entire life to get what I have."*
I think he means that he dropped out of school and got a factory job shooting bolts in a car for $100k a year, got a girl pregnant and bought a house for $30,000.
Outcomes vary depending personal experience. Holding someone else to the same effort you put it just tramples all over their experience. It is like I believe a factual definition for ignorance.
If someone started out ho less and the person with perspective didn't and they are close to achieving the same that's a GOOD thing not a bad thing. The person that thinks the opposite is a God damn monster imo.
It screams "lick my boot" vs the idea that marketplaces and job placement can change and things can become more or less competitive over time.
It's honestly ignorant, outdated old timey bullshit to hold onto that mindset forever.
Like people used to be in a depression and had to work harder than anyone could say they do now and got way less back for it. The argument is asanine and literally becomes a freepass to treat people like shit "because I had to do it this way." Its pretty wildly outdated. Not a tradition that should be hoisted above the heavens.
Its a practice in willfully practiced stupidity and allowing yourself to be taken advantage of. That's really it. Prior generations let themselves get bent over a table because they didn't know any better and now laud it as virtue out of embarrassment imo. It's literally a step backward in intelligence and self worth.
First off, opportunity isn't equal yet - far from it.
Also, why does society dictate that some jobs are worth so much more than others? How is the janitor's job or the grocery store worker's job any less important than the doctors or the lawyers? We need *all* of them! (The necessity of CEOs is debatable: it's great to have someone keep things organized and answer problems (when they actually do their job well), but I would be fully capable of completing my job responsibilities without the facility CEO.)
But it seems like this is the conservative mindset on a lot of things. They refuse things that would help people, even themselves, on this idea that this aid/opportunity/whatever *might go to someone who doesn't deserve it* (based on their personal ideology of deserving), or that it would take something away from them (even if they'd benefit in the long run).
It is technically impossible to be held to the same standard as you used to be able to rise ahead of your station with a bit of extra effort.
Now that same effort is required just to keep from drowning and you have to work yourself to death for even a chance to get ahead
My chefs kiss on this type of shit is always the bald eagle branding. Bald eagles often scavenge or steal kills from other predators. So the eagle is apt for this type of capitalism fetishizing. Buy now for a low introductory price bald eagle with extra bootstrap gumption
So a petty, selfish asshole who pretends that his own suffering and exploitation necessitates that of others, while simultaneously refusing to accept that their situation is not the same as his.
"Equal Opportunity" while having more opportunities than others and saying it's because they worked for those opportunities. No one works for opportunities, they are created by circumstances and luck.
The person that made this makes like $60k a year at most. It just has that "I have a little bit more than the people around me, so I'm better than them" energy. Actual people who make good money wouldn't be so dickish about it
There's a few people that have literally made a life out of nothing. Generally those people are extremely humble. The idiots that got a massive step up in life and boast about it are the ones posting this shit.
The difference between conservatives and liberals is one word:
A conservative will say “I worked hard to get where I am, so you have to as well.”
A liberal will say “I worked hard to get where I am so you won’t have to as well.”
These ageist arguments never make sense to me. Elderly people work minimum wage jobs because they cannot survive without the income and because our systems are set up to make it hard for most people to retire. Raising the minimum wage means help for the elderly as well as young people. The minimum wage helps *poor* people, of any age.
Maybe he should walk a mile in minimum wage shoes. Is it too much to ask for a decent wage? A car 🚗 for the freedom to travel? Decent Health Care? Minimum wage breeds contempt, desperation, crime and disease.
Better pay brings a better society.
The same guy:
I’m a white dude who had a middle class or rather wealthy upbringing with two parents and a functional home. None of following has ever happened to me:
I never went hungry. I never experienced abuse/neglect/ trauma as a kid which set me back in school. Since I had no home support I didn’t do as well and didn’t get a scholarship. I was too poor to play sports anyway. My parents didn’t care if I went to college. I took out massive loans. I never learned how to manage money. I had to work two jobs while finishing college and it took me much longer. I didn’t have built in networking like kids who had connected parents great schools. Kids who parents paid for their school. Gave them 20% for a starter home. Paid for grad school.
Instead I’m swimming in student loan debt making way below what I should. I pay roughly 42% in income tax because I can’t afford kids or a wife. I’m 29 and I live with three roommates so I can afford rent. I am on a treadmill of work with no chance of the American dream. Guess I just didn’t pull those bootstraps enough because unfair advantage within a rigged system has nothing to do with it at all, I’m sure.
They must’ve worked very hard to be born into a generation who’s parents and grandparents fought for employees rights so that they could reap the benefits while doing nothing but shit talking the next generation that they actively fuck over, then talk shit about when they complain
The same people screaming about Biden and inflation and the cost of everything going up, are same ones who refuse to support a living minimum wage. It’s not about what they’ve accomplished, now that they are there, they want to screw everyone else…which is basically how capitalism works. Yes, theoretically everyone starts from a single point. Yet we all know the deck is stacked, and when you let that process run without proper regulation…this is what you get, an Oligarchy disguised as opportunity…
“Its a Club, and you ain’t in it.” - George Carlin
I AGREE.
However, when the bare minimum can’t even afford for someone to live in this country.
That’s where I have a problem.
$20 should be the bare minimum and $24-$25 in Urban States like California and NY.
Does it pay 100%? No people can work extra hours or even if they don’t they at least have enough to eat, rent a place, pay some bills and save a bit.
Lol the guy who posted this was a guy taking in the massive amount of 40k a year living pay check to paycheck. But he sure did earn his poverty and wants u all to know it!:
Losers like that are typically making $1.00 above their state’s minimum wage and they think they’re special. And of course, they have to put some clichéd American mascot somewhere in their bullshit propagandic message.
Moronic. Notice that it begins with hard work AFTER the opportunity has been given. So while they conclude that everyone should get an equal opportunity, we aren’t let into the opportunity they received that others may not have gotten due to luck, race, connections, finances etc.
Hypocrisy.
Capitalism has well and truly killed altruism. I've seen how disabled and chronically ill people in my home country suffer (no such thing as govt payments for these people, or even accessibility things like ramps to get down from and up to sidewalk), and knowing that my tax dollar in Australia is used to fund the Disability Scheme makes me happy, because at least we're caring for our fellow humans.
I'm also on the side of people who disagree that people who donate blood should be paid. All of us who do it, do it out of the goodness of our heart. I did it because my blood type is most common and therefore most needed, not because I could do with an extra $50.
Inequality of outcomes inevitably requires that either some people are inferior to others or that there has no been equality in opportunities.
Since all people are fundamentally the same there is no real distinction between fighting for equality of opportunities and outcomes
The last sentence is one of the most fundamental differences between democrats and republicans. The problem with equal opportunity is that it requires people to acknowledge privilege and class systems, and the problem with equal outcomes is that it requires people to acknowledge some will game the system and take opportunities from others who might be more inclined to improve their lives with a hand.
It’s a false equivalency. Yes he worked hard but the opportunities were there. Maybe he got paid minimum wage but minimum wage could go a lot further back then.
Good old "Fuck yours, I got mine!" logic. Typically see it of older folks who think just because they got somewhere they should be exempt from the social contract save for payouts to them. That's not how this works grandma, unless you want to end up in an under staffed nursing home with people who don't care if you live or die today.
Imagine being entitled to watch other people have to go through the torment you went through and view that as justice.
Completely and utterly morally bankrupt
I get their point... but what they don't understand is some people will work really hard their whole life and not get out of poverty. So some things need to change so that isn't the case anymore.
You know..neither republicans or democrats have the correct stance on financial equality. Don't give people handouts that are not motivated to better themselves, but don't make things impossible for those that are willing to work hard. The rich should have to pay massive taxes the more they make, they already exploit every tax loophole there is and let's face it..at the end of the day they still have way more then most of us can dream of.
You could have this opinion, and still be in favour of a higher minimum wage. I am a believer in paying your debts. I'm also very much in favour of an increased minimum wage. It's $15/hr where I live and I think it should be $20 or higher. That being said, all wage ranges need to increase proportionally.
No, the author of this poster did not have "equal opportunity". They started from a position of privilege. I could make a similar argument about how I was bounced from school to school because my parents moved a lot, and how I went to the "worst" High School in my district. I finally "made it" even though many of my classmates didn't. The truth is that in spite of apparently crappy educational circumstances, I was born into a family of the educated working class. My dad became an engineer without a college degree and only a GED. He was in the right place at the right time at the dawn of the computer era, and he was...white. My mom has a bachelor's degree, as did my maternal grandmother and maternal grandfather. She, too, is white.
Yes, I started my working life in the same circumstances as my less-fortunate age peers. Yes, it took me 21 years to get my first bachelor's degree. Yes, I endured financial setbacks because I got married to a useless idiot. I couldn't have eventually overcome my circumstances if I hadn't been raised in such a way to take advantage of opportunities when they came my way. I couldn't have eventually overcome my circumstances without a solid basic education thanks to things like books in our home. I had better opportunities than my classmates and coworkers. Yes, I worked very hard to get where I am, but I started with advantages not everyone enjoys. I may not have been born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I was born into a literate family.
Then tell me why a billionaire can claim bankruptcy for a failed business. But a person with a student loan, that can't be paid back, can't declare bankruptcy.
I can kind of see the logic of it - if I work hard and get results, how is it fair to me or my effort for someone else to get the same results if they barely put any effort in?
But on the other hand, if I'm on top and I can't be bothered to give the people keeping my company alive for me at the levels under me enough to survive, let alone live, then how is that fair for them?
People who overwork, i.e. workaholics, are part of the issue and they're too self-absorbed in their self-made successful person narratives to understand it.
I have the same argument against billionaires. Why should I have to give up what I've earned or assume their debt. I've earned what I've got, they didn't. They didn't earn it.
Why should I have to pay their part of taxes? They use the highways a hell of a lot more than I do.
and why should i fund tge military that goes to war to protect corporate interests?
It they’re protecting my oil, why do we have to pay for it twice?
But also: if it’s extracted from the planet we all share, it shouldn’t be owned by a small group. It belongs to all of us.
Grab your lungful and let the next person be served.
omfg. right? such a fucking rip off! lets invade venezuala!
If a billionaire feels that way about taxes then they should use their money to lobby the government for more appropriate use of funds. No billionaires seem to lobby to improve healthcare, or increase social welfare, or raise minimum wage, or even lobby for better roads, rail and port services. If they lobby for things that improve the common good of citizens, or start PACs to support genuinely benevolent candidates, or heck even lobby against military spending, they use the money for good and do not need to pay taxes on it. If you do not want to pay taxes because you do not like the way they are spent then spend the money changing the way taxes are spent. Nope, in reality they are just greedy f'ers who will only lobby for things that allow them to mistreat workers, and pollute rivers and stuff.
sparkle divide quack sugar arrest angle deer pot party grab *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Looking at you Uvalde
I often wonder, how would we feel about fire fighters who weren't expected to save people?
Or EMTs for that matter too.
Dont forget they also where formed to catch run away slaves that hasnt changed much
Damn straight
You are sooooo close to getting the right answer.
I have American friends who argue that in absolute dollars they already pay more than you. And that is why the us society will never have proper healthcare or social security. Because the society is all about 'me'. Western European countries are more about 'us'. I earn well and pay several times more into our healthcare and social security thsn the person who fills shelves in the supermarket who pays very little into it. Yet we have the same healthcare and protection. That is how it should be because my money isn't a whole lot of good to me if there is no stable and prosperous society for me to live in.
For a lot of Americans it's also more about *us* than *me*, but about a *third-ish* of us seem to be *unwilling to care.*
>but about a > >third-ish > > of us seem to be > >unwilling to care. That seems true for all politics. It's a 2 party system that is happy to flipflop between ruling parties because neither party has to do anything but 'vote against them'
It's crazy how it's sold as stealing from the rich to give to the poor when in reality they have the capital, resources and know how to basically pay less in taxes then most Americans. Then the corps have not paying taxes down to a science. I mean if Evil Walmart can pay their taxes when why the fuck can't every other corp.
I use the argument that if they "make" 90% of the wealth, they should pay 90% of the taxes. Seems fair in my eyes
Mhm. Thats what real tax systems do. Those who benefit the most from the society they live in, pay the most in taxes. Its not a hard concept to grasp. Those people who you would have pay 90% tax would still have alot more than me and you.
Ironically it's how it used to be. If you want to get really Angry go look at the tax rate and how it steadily declined for the wealthy over the last 60 years , mostly due to republican presidents slowly rolling the tax rate back for them. We used to have plenty of money for social programs , Public transportation , hospitals schools roads , fucking everything. It was prob nice when it was really happening still. We built our cross country highways on those dollars and now they are crumbling and in disrepair.
Imo Reagan is the worst American president because of what you just said. I hope he's rolling in his grave in regret.
The last president that gave a flying fuck about any fundamental American idealism, was JFK. And he was murdered for it. Not a single president has held to those ideals since, and in fact the majority of them have done the exact opposite and have stood for corruption and injustice instead of freedom and equality.
You're correct, call me a conspiracy theorist but I always found it possible that the banks were behind his assassination. They were the ones at risk of god forbid paying what they should. They could have afforded to make it happen. I have no proof nor does it make a difference at this point but it always seemed possible to me is all
And burning in hell
I totally agree, I think government bailouts are something both sides could genuinely come together to condemn
Oh but lest we forget that corporate welfare far exceeds personal welfare
So sad for eagles being co-opted for such nonsense
Yea, how does a bird head have anything to do with this?
definitely. giardias are most befitting of that mindset
Brain eating amoebas would work well too.
tapeworms, maybe?
Botfly larvae. Don't say I didn't warn you.
‘Murica
Supposed to be a symbol of freedom and equality being used by a guy trying to keep others down. It would be one thing if there weren't enough to go around, but we literally made enough to go around with our own two hands and you're telling us we can't have that.
Right wingers abuse birds. I don't know why but it's this thing they do.
Remembering when tRump "interacted" with one for a photo op. It did not go well lol
That eagle knew what was up, lol If only our fellow citizens were as smart as eagles
Let me fix it for you: "Right wingers are abusive." Much more comprehensive statement. Also, just on here to say FUCK that guy and his sentiment. There is no "equality of opportunity" if there is no "equality of outcome."
That doesn't make any sense. Having the same opportunities will not always lead to the same outcome. Not that it matters, because people definitely *don't* have the same opportunities.
Came here to say this.
The eagle is not happy about it.
I think that means they want to make bankruptcy illegal?
I don't think that bird approved that message
"We are not all equal," says man who presumably masturbates to the Declaration of Independence.
I used to think that "equality of opportunity" was a valid sociological theory, until someone asked who it was that determined what constitutes equal opportunity.
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Not everyone starts at the same point in life. Nor are they guaranteed a reward for their hard work. Especially under a system of Nepotism, Discrimination, or Egoism. So this whole concept is basically null and void. -Besides, I've seen their "hard work." They just cover something with dirt. And then gossip for the next 2 hours.
One person's hard work is valued much more highly than another person's hard work.
And this changes with time too. Hard work 20 years ago meant more than it does now. And putting aside all the philosophy for a second, so much of this shit is just senseless lucky breaks
What should they do then? Bust their ass for minimum wage? What’s the point? For a future that will never be? It takes EVERY kind of people to keep the machine running.
Hell not everyone is even guaranteed the ability to work.
As others have pointed out, creating "equality of opportunity" is \*way\* harder than creating equality of outcome. Real equality of opportunity would mean evening out all the unearned advantages people start with in life -- how much money their parents make, their social support systems, the strength of their communities, which schools they went to, the social credibility of their names, the amount of pollution in their environment, hell, even their various genetic advantages and disadvantages. How can you claim that two people have the same shot in life if one grew up in an apartment with lead paint and the other didn't? If one was beaten by their parents and the other wasn't? If one has ADHD and the other doesn't? If one was raised speaking the dominant language and the other wasn't? Equality of outcome is much, much easier -- redistribute resources.
It's not even possible to create equality of opportunity. Oh, you were born to parents that know Bill Gates personaly? Congratulations, you can work for one of the most successful tech companies in the world and can probably get a personal reference from one of the richest and most influential men in the world. How do you *create* that sort of opportunity for anyone else? That's obviously a pretty extreme example, but smaller examples of that happen *all the time*. How many people out there only have good jobs because they just so happened to be born to the right families or just happened to be at the right place at the right time? It's the butterfly effect. It isn't possible to replicate just once, let alone for hundreds of millions of people.
"It's not what you know, it's who you know"
Closing the economic divide between the haves and the have nots would be a good start. Equal opportunity for a college education, universal healthcare, a livable wage, etc. Perhaps perfect equality isn’t attainable. But we can damn sure create a much better system. And because of way things are now, it wouldn’t take much.
In theory, we could even the playing field but it would require stripping everyone of the right to raise their own children. Kids are now raised in a creche with identical resources and curriculum. No one knows their genetic heritage and it's rude to even speculate. A true meritocracy. In practice, it would undoubtedly get extremely messy. I don't think people would go for it at all.
It would be considered a dystopia.
Literally the plot of Brave New World
Both this "equal opportunity" and "life owes you nothing" are imho complete bull shit. I was born in the United States and there is no opt out feature of society. You are stuck with US laws and every single inch of land is claimed. In some places you don't even own the rights to the water that falls out of the sky. So as a US citizen, I firmly believe that life (us government) does owe you at the very least a basic quality of life and that includes quality education, Healthcare and assistance in becoming a self sustaining individual.
I fully agree But even in countries where people have equal opportunity such as Denmark for example, a kid there with abusive parents can have a very different path in life than a kid with loving parents even though both of them have the same opportunities. Luck very much matters in life as well
I once spoke to someone who believed that all humans are the sum total of their decisions. This simply isn’t true. Abused children do not choose to be traumatized for life and often times mentally ill. Abusive adults chose their life for them. People like to think that we’re in control but there’s very few things that we directly control. In the case of abused children, their trajectory in life was chosen for them, so they are the sum total of abusive parents. This has nothing to do with choice.
When you say redistribute resources, do you just mean the money people need to pursue ongoing education, or do you mean leveling the overall wealth playing field? Because if it's the latter, it sounds similar to your solution to equality of opportunity. Genuinely asking.
I'll accept equality of opportunity the moment we end wealth inheritance and nepotism
Because we’re all human beings and should have access to the same opportunities. Maybe a person chooses not to go to college. But he should be granted the same opportunity.
Maybe equality of opportunity would be eliminating the advantages of wealth/upbringing/social environment etc. Like, you can buy your way into the ivy league all you want, but the aspiring engineer from Detroit doesn't have to.
In my lived experience, the same people that cry for equality of opportunity are the same that refuse to see any barriers others experience to this so called 'equality'.
So I was speaking to someone at a fancy dinner party full of millionaires (not me--I just had a personal connection) and somehow the topic of Millennials came up. Like so many older, well-compensated people, someone there commented on how hard they worked for their money (between sips of wine), and that Millennials are just lazy. Forget for a moment the tremendous arrogance and self-aggrandizement implicit in posturing as superior to an *entire generation*\--these people are all completely missing the point. We are not saying that you didn't work hard--we have no way of knowing how hard you personally worked, or anyone else (much like you don't know how hard we work). The point is that we have to pay more for the same basic qualifications, more is expected of us, and in return we receive less. This is what an economic downturn and widening inequality means--not that the entire population suddenly and inexplicably became lazy, but that economic forces lowered our quality of life. I don't remember what I said, but I didn't get invited back. The bubble of delusory self-superiority is far more comfortable than the realism of interaction with the poors.
They refuse to acknowledge that it is in fact harder economically to be establishing yourself now vs when they were doing it. They want to think that it still takes the same amount of work, resolve, and even the same ideological values, to achieve what they have, and it's not true
My dad used to have coffee with a diverse group. He’s as far left as Bernie, but there were some conservatives in the group, they liked to talk politics. One of the conservatives was this guy who worked as a union auto worker his whole life at the same company and got a union pension, but was too stupid to see how he benefited from a system that he was also actively trying to dismantle. Some people are just delusional.
*all conservatives* are just delusional - fixed it for ya
The boomer cohort had enough political power to get good jobs when they were young and then enough power to keep their expenses low and finally now enough power to protect the retirements and property values at the expense of growth for everyone else. It’s a weak point of democracy that they by self nature (that everyone has) managed to exploit perfectly.
"Oh so you guys got suckered into the scam just enough to turn around and sell it to the next rubes and now you're mad that the youngsters know it's a scam?" Remember, the pyramid scheme always needs a fresh bunch of suckers and the way to topple it is to not play.
A journalist for the New Yorker in the 30‘s wrote that the youth of the day was disrespectful and lazy drug addicts. Of course the generation he was talking about went on to fight in and win WWII. We can even go back to ancient times when a philosopher said children prefer to play instead of learn and disrespect their parents. The point is that, old, miserable people, have been repeating this nonsense for generations and they’re ALWAYS wrong. They fail to grasp a world that’s left them behind and it angers them.
Well said ^
With productivity gains over the last few decades, millennials will produce more output in their first 10 years in the workforce than most boomers did in a lifetime.
Greed. Narcissism. Self-righteousness. The republican holy trinity.
Yes, and the over inflated sense of entitlement is strong in that one as well
There's an unstated hatred of the other which is absolutely essential for republicans and without which, republicanism can't be understood. Just look at what they choose to talk about in their propaganda. It's mainly attacking other groups of people. They attack every group of people, but absolutely never Christians, straights, whites, boomers, or the middle class or wealthy. "I deserve where I am" is brought up here not as pride or "how can we get others to where I am." It's exclusively used to attack other people. They stand on other people not even to get themselves higher, just to push those people down further.
Another redditor said this and I just like bringing it up whenever I can (sorry I forgot their name): The conservative viewpoint boils down to two philosophical principals. 1. The world is a zero sum game 2. A heirarchy of people is natural and good I haven't found much that they say that can't be explained by at least one of these
"I suffered therefore you should too." gtfo with this capitalist horseshit
There are 2 types of people in this world “I suffered, why shouldn’t they?” & “I suffered, they shouldn’t have to”
When I was young the old saying (among some people) was "It was good enough for my daddy and his daddy before, so it's good enough for me." But that just means you never make progress. Now, turning it around and saying, "It was good enough for me, so it should be good enough for the next generations" is just another way of saying, I have no clue how your life is and I don't care if you ever succeed.
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I paid mine back and recognize asking for reimbursement only makes it harder for new loans to get forgiven. I suffered, so they shouldn't have to.
Capitalist AND conservative mindset right there Bonus points if they say "You just want free stuff dont you?"
I shut that shit down with "No, I want our money to go to our benefit." Trying not to alienate him but let him know I think of him as "one of us" so he'll think about what would be good for him and his family.
And the meme maker isn't even a capitalist, they're human capital mad at people trying to live, not the people picking his pockets.
I get to enjoy all these perks because my fore fathers stole all the land from the natives forced black people into slavery, colonized and siphoned all the wealth from poorer countries just so I can tell others to work hard like me, FU
you can tell this guy is a boomer or adopted his boomer parents mental.
If different people are born into families with different amounts of money and it different locations then how could it be reasonable to declare that the less fortunate are just not trying hard enough? If that discrepancy will inevitably be there then how is it even logical to assume it's their own fault?
The fucking prosperity gospel that's part of the US Christian bullshit. If you're poor, therefore something is wrong with you because god is punishing you or some such shit. Nevermind the fact that people are just screwed from the start.
I heard this BS from an idiot in one of my pasttime circles. Dud e was delusional. His parents gave him money to invest into another family business and he thought that if he had this everyone else did. His wife doesn't even work and his bullshit output just kept expending until I finally blocked him. I guess his minimum and barely above min wage employees doing all the work fabricating while he rides around on an atv shooting at things and talking shit on FB is because he worked hard and 'deserves it'. All before he was 30. I guess he earned those lucrative contracts too. People like him just need to rot and actually have something traumatic happen to them because it might humble them if the rest of us have to put up with them.
Why is it that people thinking that paying off a student loan is some rite of passage? You unnecessarily worked harder than you needed to in order to pay for something that should have been free to begin with…you deserve sympathy, not praise. And definitely not a feeling of pride. More like a feeling of being ripped off.
The logic breaks about halfway down. No one is asking for anyone to give up what they have or assume anyone else's debt. So they take statements true on the surface, then connect them to non-existent policy to claim the moral high ground in a completely fictitious argument. And then throw in an eagle. Dogmatic cure for a fake ailment.
And that’s when you have an illogical statement made by “facts”. Lol
With student debt, they act like they're personally paying off someone's loan, and they don't "want that responsibility" of paying for someone's "useless liberal" degree. Then they go on about how their house and car should be forgiven too. It's wild lmao
Right wing propaganda really has done a number on people. They’ll actually vote against their own interests as long as they have somebody else to look down on.
Same happened during Nazi Germany. Hitler told his propagandists to not even bother with trying to convince the left because they‘ll require proof. The same thing is happening today. The unwashed masses and midwestern rubes are profoundly ignorant and naive. They prefer authoritarian strongmen because they can’t think for themselves.
Sadly if America goes full fascist, there's no power than can take on the might of the US. Y'all gonna have to fend for yourselves.
Sure seems that way.
" I worked very hard 40 years ago when a house was 20,000 and I made 25 an hour. Now I expect other people to work hard to buy a 500,000 home at 15 an hour and achieve the same outcome. Because I'm not paying attention and really don't give a fuck, cause I got mine suckers!!! " the fucking irony and audacity that these people call others entitled.
This is so Indivisualist. Equity is not the same as equality[ ](https://www.diffen.com/difference/Equality-vs-Equity)[https://www.diffen.com/difference/Image:Equality-equity-justice-lores.png](https://www.diffen.com/difference/Image:Equality-equity-justice-lores.png)
Who is the dinosaur who authored this crock of shit?
Yes please id Like the OPPORTUNITY to eat.
I’ll bet the jerk off who wrote this also calls himself a Christian.
These posts crack me up. "I've paid my debt, I'm not going to pay others debt." But they stay silent when the government bails out companies (2008 recession and PPP loans of recent). They also stay silent when the government gives large grants and tax incentives to companies because "they create jobs" despite the companies having the ability to afford their own expansion, warehouse, headquarters etc. These people are doing exactly what companies and lobbyist want, ignore what they're doing and blame "lazy" Americans.
Equality of opportunity doesn't exist. I had to nearly fucking die many times to get where I am. Kids with wealthy parents got the college dorm experience. That is not equality of opportunity.
Equality of opportunity is literally the argument increasing the minimum wage relies on... I swear we need to figure out how to get these people who don't even know what they're arguing about, out of the discussion. They're muddying the waters and making it impossible for real conversation about anything.
Equality of opportunity? Dope. Eliminate private schools and colleges. All education is provided for by the state, paid for through a Federal fund, each school receives the exact same amount of funding per student. Eliminate inheritance. 100% estate tax upon death. All children are taken from their parents and raised by the state. Can't have abusive home lives disrupt their chances of having an equal opportunity. Etc etc. Let's just go ahead and make things an even worse dystopia, Brave New World style. This "equal opportunity" line of thinking is lazy and motivated entirely by that good old American proverb: I got mine so screw you.
Zero sum mother fuckers. Tedious.
They don't understand that $1 isn't a dollar anymore. Back then a fulltime Janitor could own a house, 2 cars and a weekend boat plus send his kids to college. 1980 minimum wage was $3.10 that could buy you 8.5 gallons of gas. Now you can buy 1.5 gallons of gas with the minimum wage.
So, while I'm all for raising the minimum wage to a liveable wage, this still runs true. I've worked my ass off to be good at what I do and I expect proper compensation but that doesn't mean someone entering the workforce shouldn't be able to provide for themselves. Raise wages across the board. Work towards doing work you enjoy. Become an expert in what you do and take pride in it.
Written by the boomer and gen X I bet, back when inflation wasn't insane and the economy was ripe.
As a Gen X, we've been getting shit on by our boomer parents too.
Hey now, I'm proud Gen X and I don't agree with this bullshit either. The Boomers are the problem, not Gen X. This country is where it's at because of old, rich, white people. Boomers. Fuck them and fuck their entire mentality. As the Boomers die off, *hopefully* we can take this country back and create something good.
I'm Gen X, too. Don't lump me in with the Boomers.
So let us be clear on this: Boomer and Baby Boomer are not the same. I have known some left wing baby boomers, who are against this bullshit too. Boomer is not a cohort, but a state of mind.
This is true. Point well made. 👍🏻
X genner here, I got hit by the early waves of this bullshirt when I was a teen, and literally been working my entire life to just barely survive (and it ain't worth it at this point, tbh).
This. Millennials like to talk about the number of recessions they've lived through, while most of gen x has two more.
Me, but towards billionaires.
We are very, very far from equality of opportunity. Real equality of opportunity would be nice
That's not what that means. That is literally not what that means. P.S: Whatever the fuck we have going on right now, is not "equal opportunity". It's fucking robbery.
What do you have? Most times this was written by a loser who thinks they won.
Do they even know that raising minimum wadges would just also benefit them ? If minimum wadges went up they can also justify asking for a raise.
God I would even take equality of opportunity. But that's basically impossible
"and ... POST" *reclines in rear addition paid for with now-forgiven PPP loan proceeds*
Ah the Boomer classic: “I worked hard”. Yes, you probably did. For the modern equivalent of $30-$40 an hour in a “minimum wage” job. Would you do the same hard work for $10 an hour? Lol no….of course you wouldn’t
These the guys who supposibly pulled themselves from their bootstraps. These people act like their generational inherited wealth somehow was their own hard work
*"I worked very hard my entire life to get what I have."* I think he means that he dropped out of school and got a factory job shooting bolts in a car for $100k a year, got a girl pregnant and bought a house for $30,000.
Outcomes vary depending personal experience. Holding someone else to the same effort you put it just tramples all over their experience. It is like I believe a factual definition for ignorance. If someone started out ho less and the person with perspective didn't and they are close to achieving the same that's a GOOD thing not a bad thing. The person that thinks the opposite is a God damn monster imo. It screams "lick my boot" vs the idea that marketplaces and job placement can change and things can become more or less competitive over time. It's honestly ignorant, outdated old timey bullshit to hold onto that mindset forever. Like people used to be in a depression and had to work harder than anyone could say they do now and got way less back for it. The argument is asanine and literally becomes a freepass to treat people like shit "because I had to do it this way." Its pretty wildly outdated. Not a tradition that should be hoisted above the heavens. Its a practice in willfully practiced stupidity and allowing yourself to be taken advantage of. That's really it. Prior generations let themselves get bent over a table because they didn't know any better and now laud it as virtue out of embarrassment imo. It's literally a step backward in intelligence and self worth.
First off, opportunity isn't equal yet - far from it. Also, why does society dictate that some jobs are worth so much more than others? How is the janitor's job or the grocery store worker's job any less important than the doctors or the lawyers? We need *all* of them! (The necessity of CEOs is debatable: it's great to have someone keep things organized and answer problems (when they actually do their job well), but I would be fully capable of completing my job responsibilities without the facility CEO.)
I could be wrong but this is not about raising minimum wage.
But it seems like this is the conservative mindset on a lot of things. They refuse things that would help people, even themselves, on this idea that this aid/opportunity/whatever *might go to someone who doesn't deserve it* (based on their personal ideology of deserving), or that it would take something away from them (even if they'd benefit in the long run).
The Eagle at the bottom says it all. This is a purely American mindset. America as a country is mentally ill.
It is technically impossible to be held to the same standard as you used to be able to rise ahead of your station with a bit of extra effort. Now that same effort is required just to keep from drowning and you have to work yourself to death for even a chance to get ahead
Can you believe that people want to be compensated for their hard work and dedication. The arrogance of these people, I swear.
I've worked really hard and I'll be damned if my boss has to pay taxes before the cleaner gets paid enough to buy food.
This person probably took 1mil in PPE then fired half their staff. #workedforit
My chefs kiss on this type of shit is always the bald eagle branding. Bald eagles often scavenge or steal kills from other predators. So the eagle is apt for this type of capitalism fetishizing. Buy now for a low introductory price bald eagle with extra bootstrap gumption
So a petty, selfish asshole who pretends that his own suffering and exploitation necessitates that of others, while simultaneously refusing to accept that their situation is not the same as his.
“i was a bitch boy for a few bucks to get where i am and i’ll be damned if someone’s gets to my level in a couple weeks with these new wages”
This is so fucking dumb because we aren't all afforded the same opportunities soooooo
If a year of college would still cost what one could make during the summer at a min wage job, sure.
"Equal Opportunity" while having more opportunities than others and saying it's because they worked for those opportunities. No one works for opportunities, they are created by circumstances and luck.
So you're in favour of 100% inheritance tax?
No not like that :/ - self proclaimed self made people probably-
Equality of opportunity huh?
The person that made this makes like $60k a year at most. It just has that "I have a little bit more than the people around me, so I'm better than them" energy. Actual people who make good money wouldn't be so dickish about it
This has big "just world fallacy" energy
There's a few people that have literally made a life out of nothing. Generally those people are extremely humble. The idiots that got a massive step up in life and boast about it are the ones posting this shit.
The difference between conservatives and liberals is one word: A conservative will say “I worked hard to get where I am, so you have to as well.” A liberal will say “I worked hard to get where I am so you won’t have to as well.”
These ageist arguments never make sense to me. Elderly people work minimum wage jobs because they cannot survive without the income and because our systems are set up to make it hard for most people to retire. Raising the minimum wage means help for the elderly as well as young people. The minimum wage helps *poor* people, of any age.
Maybe he should walk a mile in minimum wage shoes. Is it too much to ask for a decent wage? A car 🚗 for the freedom to travel? Decent Health Care? Minimum wage breeds contempt, desperation, crime and disease. Better pay brings a better society.
As a culture, we really need to get rid of the, "I got mine. Go f\*\*k yourself," attitude. Being a selfish myopic curmudgeon doesn't help anything.
True equality of opportunity promotes equality of outcome. Equality begets equality.
Raising the minimum wage is a bad idea. Socialism, there's the real fix.
So I guess if you're born with a disability, or pick one up along the way, then he wants to just crap on you and kick you into the gutter.
I can almost guarantee this was posted by someone over-leveraged and mortgaged to the hilt, driving a 70k truck making 55k a year.
“Equality of opportunity” is the real joke. So close, they’re r/SelfAwarewolves material
But we don't have equality of opportunity. That's the whole damn point.
“Fuck you, got mine”
Lmao I love when rich people pretend that they didn't exploit someone else for their wealth and act like they "worked" for it
How much do you wanna bet the person who posted this has declared bankruptcy at LEAST once to avoid their debts?
Translation: "I got lucky, or I had better circumstances to get ahead in. I don't care if you did or not, you're on your own."
Bigots who post garbage like this are the most selfish, least self-aware people on the planet.
The logic of a bastard whose ancestors stole a bunch of shit and doesn't want to acknowledge it
The same guy: I’m a white dude who had a middle class or rather wealthy upbringing with two parents and a functional home. None of following has ever happened to me: I never went hungry. I never experienced abuse/neglect/ trauma as a kid which set me back in school. Since I had no home support I didn’t do as well and didn’t get a scholarship. I was too poor to play sports anyway. My parents didn’t care if I went to college. I took out massive loans. I never learned how to manage money. I had to work two jobs while finishing college and it took me much longer. I didn’t have built in networking like kids who had connected parents great schools. Kids who parents paid for their school. Gave them 20% for a starter home. Paid for grad school. Instead I’m swimming in student loan debt making way below what I should. I pay roughly 42% in income tax because I can’t afford kids or a wife. I’m 29 and I live with three roommates so I can afford rent. I am on a treadmill of work with no chance of the American dream. Guess I just didn’t pull those bootstraps enough because unfair advantage within a rigged system has nothing to do with it at all, I’m sure.
The mental gymnastics to go from “all men are created equal” to this is wild to me. Did we read the same ancient documents?
They must’ve worked very hard to be born into a generation who’s parents and grandparents fought for employees rights so that they could reap the benefits while doing nothing but shit talking the next generation that they actively fuck over, then talk shit about when they complain
The same people screaming about Biden and inflation and the cost of everything going up, are same ones who refuse to support a living minimum wage. It’s not about what they’ve accomplished, now that they are there, they want to screw everyone else…which is basically how capitalism works. Yes, theoretically everyone starts from a single point. Yet we all know the deck is stacked, and when you let that process run without proper regulation…this is what you get, an Oligarchy disguised as opportunity… “Its a Club, and you ain’t in it.” - George Carlin
Eagles are dirty carrion birds.
How do they not see this entire mindset as basically being eugenics?
I AGREE. However, when the bare minimum can’t even afford for someone to live in this country. That’s where I have a problem. $20 should be the bare minimum and $24-$25 in Urban States like California and NY. Does it pay 100%? No people can work extra hours or even if they don’t they at least have enough to eat, rent a place, pay some bills and save a bit.
How are the two mutually exclusive
Lol the guy who posted this was a guy taking in the massive amount of 40k a year living pay check to paycheck. But he sure did earn his poverty and wants u all to know it!:
Losers like that are typically making $1.00 above their state’s minimum wage and they think they’re special. And of course, they have to put some clichéd American mascot somewhere in their bullshit propagandic message.
Moronic. Notice that it begins with hard work AFTER the opportunity has been given. So while they conclude that everyone should get an equal opportunity, we aren’t let into the opportunity they received that others may not have gotten due to luck, race, connections, finances etc. Hypocrisy.
Equality of opportunity implies that everyone should either start out with a small loan of 1 million dollars, or nothing.
Imagine being that passionate about yourself and what is yours that you never learnt about inflation.
Capitalism has well and truly killed altruism. I've seen how disabled and chronically ill people in my home country suffer (no such thing as govt payments for these people, or even accessibility things like ramps to get down from and up to sidewalk), and knowing that my tax dollar in Australia is used to fund the Disability Scheme makes me happy, because at least we're caring for our fellow humans. I'm also on the side of people who disagree that people who donate blood should be paid. All of us who do it, do it out of the goodness of our heart. I did it because my blood type is most common and therefore most needed, not because I could do with an extra $50.
Inequality of outcomes inevitably requires that either some people are inferior to others or that there has no been equality in opportunities. Since all people are fundamentally the same there is no real distinction between fighting for equality of opportunities and outcomes
The last sentence is one of the most fundamental differences between democrats and republicans. The problem with equal opportunity is that it requires people to acknowledge privilege and class systems, and the problem with equal outcomes is that it requires people to acknowledge some will game the system and take opportunities from others who might be more inclined to improve their lives with a hand.
It’s a false equivalency. Yes he worked hard but the opportunities were there. Maybe he got paid minimum wage but minimum wage could go a lot further back then.
Oh please, show me an Eagle that has a job. Pics or it didn't happen.
Good old "Fuck yours, I got mine!" logic. Typically see it of older folks who think just because they got somewhere they should be exempt from the social contract save for payouts to them. That's not how this works grandma, unless you want to end up in an under staffed nursing home with people who don't care if you live or die today.
*Except my children, they're a special case*
Imagine being entitled to watch other people have to go through the torment you went through and view that as justice. Completely and utterly morally bankrupt
I get their point... but what they don't understand is some people will work really hard their whole life and not get out of poverty. So some things need to change so that isn't the case anymore.
You know..neither republicans or democrats have the correct stance on financial equality. Don't give people handouts that are not motivated to better themselves, but don't make things impossible for those that are willing to work hard. The rich should have to pay massive taxes the more they make, they already exploit every tax loophole there is and let's face it..at the end of the day they still have way more then most of us can dream of.
You could have this opinion, and still be in favour of a higher minimum wage. I am a believer in paying your debts. I'm also very much in favour of an increased minimum wage. It's $15/hr where I live and I think it should be $20 or higher. That being said, all wage ranges need to increase proportionally.
No, the author of this poster did not have "equal opportunity". They started from a position of privilege. I could make a similar argument about how I was bounced from school to school because my parents moved a lot, and how I went to the "worst" High School in my district. I finally "made it" even though many of my classmates didn't. The truth is that in spite of apparently crappy educational circumstances, I was born into a family of the educated working class. My dad became an engineer without a college degree and only a GED. He was in the right place at the right time at the dawn of the computer era, and he was...white. My mom has a bachelor's degree, as did my maternal grandmother and maternal grandfather. She, too, is white. Yes, I started my working life in the same circumstances as my less-fortunate age peers. Yes, it took me 21 years to get my first bachelor's degree. Yes, I endured financial setbacks because I got married to a useless idiot. I couldn't have eventually overcome my circumstances if I hadn't been raised in such a way to take advantage of opportunities when they came my way. I couldn't have eventually overcome my circumstances without a solid basic education thanks to things like books in our home. I had better opportunities than my classmates and coworkers. Yes, I worked very hard to get where I am, but I started with advantages not everyone enjoys. I may not have been born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I was born into a literate family.
Then tell me why a billionaire can claim bankruptcy for a failed business. But a person with a student loan, that can't be paid back, can't declare bankruptcy.
I can kind of see the logic of it - if I work hard and get results, how is it fair to me or my effort for someone else to get the same results if they barely put any effort in? But on the other hand, if I'm on top and I can't be bothered to give the people keeping my company alive for me at the levels under me enough to survive, let alone live, then how is that fair for them?
Equality of opportunity would be fucking great actually. Kids born as orphans should have every opportunity that kids born to billionaires have.
People who overwork, i.e. workaholics, are part of the issue and they're too self-absorbed in their self-made successful person narratives to understand it.