Good Points

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
41

[quote]nopal_juventus wrote:
Wow, you have a pretty morbid view of people in general. I’d be extremely depressed if I thought like you. Believe it or not, I think the opposite of your post. I think people are generally good. Every one has weaknesses but I don’t think they’re generally bad at their core.

How can you not lose faith in people? Just take a look out the window. Turn on the tv. Go to google news. Hell, just go to any source of information. It’s terribly sad the way the world is.
How can you not feel guilty, knowing that you had it so good from the start, when there’s billions that are worse off than you? How can you not feel guilty knowing that it was nothing but chance that gave you such a life, while giving some poor bastard in somalia a rape victim mother with AIDs, a dead guerilla father, 9 starved siblings, 7 of which are dead, and a life expectancy that can be measured in days? How can you not feel bad about the way the dice rolled? How can you live with yourself, knowing that you don’t give a damn?[/quote]

Is this a joke or are you serious? I can’t tell which one from just reading the words on your post.

Dude, get some help. If you think the whole human race is a waste and you feel guilty all the time for living I’d suggest going to see a psychiatrist pronto.

42

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Professor X wrote:

One thing you won’t ever seem to get, is how to actually make a valid argument.

Given Pro X’s track record, anyone else here think this statement is hi-larious?

[/quote]

Your slip is showing. Please point out where my invalid argument is.

43

[quote]Is this a joke or are you serious? I can’t tell which one from just reading the words on your post.

Dude, get some help. If you think the whole human race is a waste and you feel guilty all the time for living I’d suggest going to see a psychiatrist pronto. [/quote]

Are you serious? You think I’m mentally unstable for caring about the suffering of others? Damn, I never figured people were that coldhearted. Maybe you’re reading too much into my words. My biggest anguish about all this is that I have enough of an idea about the world to know how messed up it is, and yet I delude myself into not doing anything about it. I don’t feel guilty for being alive, i feel guilty for knowing that I have it way better than so many, and seeing no reason for me bein in any way better.

44

[quote]nopal_juventus wrote:
Are you serious? You think I’m mentally unstable for caring about the suffering of others? Damn, I never figured people were that coldhearted. Maybe you’re reading too much into my words. My biggest anguish about all this is that I have enough of an idea about the world to know how messed up it is, and yet I delude myself into not doing anything about it. I don’t feel guilty for being alive, i feel guilty for knowing that I have it way better than so many, and seeing no reason for me bein in any way better. [/quote]

Ah yes… “Buyer’s Remorse”.

So you look out at the world, and you see how crappy it is? That’s friggin’ weak. I don’t mean that as an insult, it’s just an observation. Turn off the TV and take a walk. Honestly, the world doesn’t think of itself as crappy, so why do you?

I see human suffering of one kind or another every single night I step into this hospital, and it does nothing but hearten me. I do not have any real problems. The guy puking his guts out in room 5 due to the chemotherapy he’s receiving for his cancer does. But guess what? We are doing something about it.

My advice to you:
Find a career in the healthcare field. You will be making a difference. You will be needed. We can use folks around here who give a damn.

45

i dont know if any of you have been around any of the people who are in these shelters. but i have been.

ive been with them since they got off the plane here in TX. the first time i was volentold to be there by the AIR FORCE. then i was posted out there while i was on duty. and then volentered my off duty time to help.

anyway. what im trying to say is there are alot of people who are sitting around not doing anything.

i met this on guy not gonna say his name. but he was one of the first to get off the plane here at the base.

he stoped and said sarge i need to know 2 things. first where is the bathroom. second where do i need to go to get a job. is there something i could do here on base or what ever i dont care i just need a job.

well, right then i had great respect for this man.

when i would come back on my off duty time. we would talk and he said that some of these people make him sick.

that all they do is sit and wonder what they will do. what is the gov. gonna do to help them.

now this $2000 that they are giving out is good. and i asked him if he got his yet. he told me no. but that he would take it. but he wouldnt sit and waite for it. that was just a temporary fix.

3 weeks later he had a job. and is now trying to find a car and a place to live.

that is the type of person that im sorry to say doesnt even represent half of the people here.

the majority are just sitting and waiting for the gov. to give them something istead of going and doing it for themselves.

there 13000 people here. and i see them almost everyday. i talk to alot of them on duty and off.

most are waiting for the hand out.

i hate to say that but it is true.

46

[quote]lothario1132 wrote:
nopal_juventus wrote:
Are you serious? You think I’m mentally unstable for caring about the suffering of others? Damn, I never figured people were that coldhearted. Maybe you’re reading too much into my words. My biggest anguish about all this is that I have enough of an idea about the world to know how messed up it is, and yet I delude myself into not doing anything about it. I don’t feel guilty for being alive, i feel guilty for knowing that I have it way better than so many, and seeing no reason for me bein in any way better.

Ah yes… “Buyer’s Remorse”.

So you look out at the world, and you see how crappy it is? That’s friggin’ weak. I don’t mean that as an insult, it’s just an observation. Turn off the TV and take a walk. Honestly, the world doesn’t think of itself as crappy, so why do you?

I see human suffering of one kind or another every single night I step into this hospital, and it does nothing but hearten me. I do not have any real problems. The guy puking his guts out in room 5 due to the chemotherapy he’s receiving for his cancer does. But guess what? We are doing something about it.

My advice to you:
Find a career in the healthcare field. You will be making a difference. You will be needed. We can use folks around here who give a damn.[/quote]

I agree with this. Anyone emotional about how “crappy” the world is needs to actually put themselves in situations where people are much worse off than they are…and help out. I am beyond thankful for everything I have been blessed with. This world has an equal amount of good as it does bad. Focusing on either one at the expense of the other is delusional.

If you think it is that bad, what are you doing about it? How many lives have you saved or helped to be better off? if the answer is none, you have no room at all to complain.

47

[quote]Goku_SS4 wrote:

that is the type of person that im sorry to say doesnt even represent half of the people here.

the majority are just sitting and waiting for the gov. to give them something istead of going and doing it for themselves.

there 13000 people here. and i see them almost everyday. i talk to alot of them on duty and off.

most are waiting for the hand out.

i hate to say that but it is true.

[/quote]

How is this different than any other facet of life? Do you know how many people I saw in college not going to class? How many people basically farted away their education in favor of getting laid, getting drunk or both. They had no balance. For some, it was either party all of the time or none of the time. That doesn’t have shit to do with being poor and everything to do with some people being unmotivated and only living to satisfy every urge or impulse. If anyone says you can’t see this in every corner of life regardless of social staus, they are lying to themselves.

That factor is what seperates those who can turn a little into something more, and those who simply don’t advance. Does anyone here truly believe that being rich equals motivation? Does anyone think that there aren’t people riding in limosines right now who have less drive than most of the same people you just wrote about?

Unless you make war on everyone, rich or poor, who has no motivation to advance, this finger pointing at the poor is useless. There are people who work their asses off who are still poor. There are people who want to succeed who are still poor. There are people who don’t do shit who are rich.

48

[quote]nopal_juventus wrote:
Wow, you have a pretty morbid view of people in general. I’d be extremely depressed if I thought like you. Believe it or not, I think the opposite of your post. I think people are generally good. Every one has weaknesses but I don’t think they’re generally bad at their core.

How can you not lose faith in people? Just take a look out the window. Turn on the tv. Go to google news. Hell, just go to any source of information. It’s terribly sad the way the world is.
How can you not feel guilty, knowing that you had it so good from the start, when there’s billions that are worse off than you? How can you not feel guilty knowing that it was nothing but chance that gave you such a life, while giving some poor bastard in somalia a rape victim mother with AIDs, a dead guerilla father, 9 starved siblings, 7 of which are dead, and a life expectancy that can be measured in days? How can you not feel bad about the way the dice rolled? How can you live with yourself, knowing that you don’t give a damn?[/quote]

That is easy, actually that is a part of growing up.

Plus, “How can you live with yourself, knowing that you don’t give a damn?”. Well, not giving a damn really helps.

Sooner or later you will realize that your feeling guilty does not make a lick of difference, it just makes one more person unhappy. You are feeling guilty? What have you done to cause famine in Africa? Or crazy dictators, or droughts, or whatever.

49

i understand what u are saying X that each pesons values are different.

and that alot of people dont have there prioritys straight.

but i didnt say anything about these people being poor or rich.

all i said is they are waiting for the hand out because they think that they are owed something from the gov.

but if they sit around and waite that they will be there along time with nothing to show for it.

the motivation a person should have for getting out of a bad situation.

makeing something from very little in this sutuation should outway what u think u are owed.

i think this i a little different than collage though.

when u where in school youre familes life and well being didnt depend on u getting good grades and not drinking or getting laid. (for most anyway)

here it does. all im saying is that to have nothing. and i do mean nothing.

that sould motivate a person to try to find something.

50

One more thing to nopal:

There might come a time in your life when you realize that the world doesn’t owe you a damn thing. And that’s good and all, but the real cool thing about this is if you are able to take it one step further, and realize that the world doesn’t owe anybody else a damn thing either.

All kinds of bullshit will fall away from you when you understand that. All we have in this place is each other, and if you are able to overcome distrust and fear, you will come to understand that it is more than enough.

Good luck, kiddo, and get that biology degree. I have a lab coat over here with your name on it. :slight_smile:

51

[quote]Goku_SS4 wrote:
but i didnt say anything about these people being poor or rich.

all i said is they are waiting for the hand out because they think that they are owed something from the gov.

but if they sit around and waite that they will be there along time with nothing to show for it.

[/quote]

I think this was basis of your post. My personal take on it is, it doesn’t have a thing to do with “expecting that the government owes them”. I think it has everything to do with the majority of the people on this planet being followers and not leaders. It is everywhere, not just in the poor class. There were several people who committed suicide during The Great Depression after losing what they had worked for. These were people who might have originally been well off. Why do you think they went that route?

It seems many want to ignore this fact and penalize the poor in this country…while turning a blind eye to the exact same sense of stagnation and complacency in every other aspect of society. Why is that?

To do the most good, wouldn’t it be better as a country to focus on ways to instill that sense of advancement in youth instead of acting as if an entire segment of the population needs to be forgotten?

I have seen much on these forums lately from a perspective that seems to think that being poor is a direct relation to not trying. They say these people all have the same opportunities…as they then give a story about someone in their family who came to this country with nothing and started a business. Let’s forget that most businesses fail in their first year of operation or…even more important… that role models, peers and guardians are what form your sense of character and drive to begin with.

Everyone doesn’t have the same opportunities…and some that do have opportunities weren’t raised to be able to recognize them…or are too afraid to venture out and take a risk.

The remedy to that isn’t to ignore the problem and turn your back on everyone that just happened to be born poor (while ignoring the complacency in those who happened to be born rich).

52

[quote]hspder wrote:
It’s amazing how America goes in cycles – the cycle starts with a great leader, who launches the USA into a great economic and moral revolution. It all goes well until people, that got comfortable, eventually forget what allowed the recovery, and start getting greedy and selfish. They want MORE. It then proceeds into decay into the Far Right. The cycle ends usually with an economic or political disaster and/or a great upheaval – and a great leader comes along again to save our collective asses again.[/quote]

At what point in this cycle does “going to war” fit in?

53

[quote]mica617 wrote:
Nothing prior to this even REMOTELY brought up the race issue, unless by saying poor and un-educated YOU define as a race classification.[/quote]

You completely missed my point. Which is no surprise, since most of you have no idea what was like to live in that time – hence the millions of conservatives praising the America of yesteryear that in truth only exists inside their minds.

The original post was about the fact that back in the twenties, when another powerful hurricane hit the region, no help was really given. Well, in those times, the Black population in that region (which was a majority already, like it is/was now) wasn’t exactly treated as human beings (I’m not going to waste my time explaining the details, because you can just pick up any history book and see what I mean). In fact if you bother to research the newspaper headlines of the time, you’ll see some people actually had the courage to freely admit – at the time – the fact that they weren’t worthy of the help precisely because they were black (actually they used the “N”-word).

So, to use smaller words: praising the time in question implies praising everything that happened during that time – including the black lynchings.

Got it?

I finish this with a quote of Thomas Jefferson, one of the few great men in our History that even conservatives haven’t yet had the guts to put in their blacklist:

"
Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."

54

[quote]Miserere wrote:
At what point in this cycle does “going to war” fit in?[/quote]

Good question… The fact is that there were many wars in the US History, but unfortunately, except for WWII, which fueled a recovery, wars usually serve as a distraction in the middle of the cycle… to prolong it a little bit.

The other arguable exception is the Civil War – however, as we all know, after Lincoln was murdered, the South was basically given back to the White Supremacists and unfortunately, at least for the black population, the Civil War served little to no practical purpose…

Basically, even though Lincoln was technically a Republican, his spirit has long been gone from Republican minds:

"
[…]Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding.
Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged.

[…]

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan–to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations." – Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865

55

[quote]Professor X wrote:
It seems many want to ignore this fact and penalize the poor in this country…while turning a blind eye to the exact same sense of stagnation and complacency in every other aspect of society. Why is that?

To do the most good, wouldn’t it be better as a country to focus on ways to instill that sense of advancement in youth instead of acting as if an entire segment of the population needs to be forgotten? [/quote]

Brilliantly said… I couldn’t agree more.

56

[quote]hspder wrote:
Professor X wrote:
It seems many want to ignore this fact and penalize the poor in this country…while turning a blind eye to the exact same sense of stagnation and complacency in every other aspect of society. Why is that?

To do the most good, wouldn’t it be better as a country to focus on ways to instill that sense of advancement in youth instead of acting as if an entire segment of the population needs to be forgotten?

Brilliantly said… I couldn’t agree more.
[/quote]

I second that

57

To all those that responded:
Maybe I didn’t make myself clear. My whole point is that I see people every day suffering, and I see other people who feel guilty about it (especially people my age), and talk about the world’s problems, complain about x political figure, and delude themselves into thinking that they’re actually doing something to help. I don’t just feel guilty for being alive and well while so many others are rotting in the ground, I feel betrayed by all those that know so much more than me and know how much they could help, and don’t.

Sitting here whining about all the injustice in the world won’t make the slightest difference. That’s my whole point. I get mad at people’s selfishness when they do nothing, or next to nothing, to help others. Hell, I get mad at myself sometimes; I get mad when I’m eating my third fish sandwich and pass a bum mumbling to himself on the street, with a tin can holding him earnings for the day; I get mad when I’m playing soccer with my $25 ball in my $40 cleats, and see two little indian kids selling gum to white tourists, the third playing with an empty coke can; I get mad when I go to school and play ball during lunch, while I can see the kid with polio walking by; I get mad when I’m reminded that the only difference between me and them is pure, fucking chance.

It took me a long time to realize that it’s not my fault, I didn’t make the bum lose his job, or the kids poor mestizos, or give the poor guy polio. I didn’t cause any of that.
It took me even longer to understand that crying about it and feeling sorry for myself won’t bum the guy his job back, or those kids an education, or the guy his legs. I can’t change what other people do, but I can change what I do. That’s why I’m leaving, I’m going to Africa as soon as I graduate. That still doesn’t make me feel any better about people, or dull my anger towards all the other assholes sitting on their asses. There are only two things that comfort me about all this: that other people have gone through this and are helping, and most importantly, that we’ve been alive this long and have somehow managed to no kill ourselves off. That, at least, means that we may not scum, though tuning in to Fox News doesn’t help.

58

[quote]hspder wrote:

…unfortunately, at least for the black population, the Civil War served little to no practical purpose…[/quote]

Except that it did - without the Civil War, there would have been no Civil Rights Act. The process was - and is - a long one.

Well, he is a natural fit - the ‘Illinois Ape’ was ridiculed as a medicore intellect, a bad public speaker, a stubborn moralist, and guilty of waging an ‘illegal war’ all to try and get rid of an institution that would die an organic death if only we allowed it.

He was also a firm opponent of judicial activism.

[quote][…]Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding.
Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. [/quote]

Aside from the unalloyed references to God in his speech - which, I suspect, would ordinarily light afire your secular-left sentiments - this great speech of reconciliation was primarily to bring together two groups of people that had been at war with one another.

Presumably, your implication is that the current President lacks any such desire for unity, but your attempt is a miss.

Again, great speech, peppered with God-talk, and while Bush is no Lincoln, there isn’t any coherent complaint that Bush doesn’t seek ‘peace with all nations’.

Don’t forget that Lincoln created an ultimatum and waged a terrible war against his opponents. While your references to Lincoln’s desire for an ‘easy peace’ after the Civil War are notable, the kind of ‘hard war’ he waged would have had your Leftist righteous indignation at a fever pitch were you around in the 1860s.

59

[quote]Professor X wrote:

To do the most good, wouldn’t it be better as a country to focus on ways to instill that sense of advancement in youth instead of acting as if an entire segment of the population needs to be forgotten?[/quote]

This isn’t happening?

If not, how not?

If the youth are not getting a ‘sense of advancement’, who is responsible and what should we do?

60

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Professor X wrote:

To do the most good, wouldn’t it be better as a country to focus on ways to instill that sense of advancement in youth instead of acting as if an entire segment of the population needs to be forgotten?

This isn’t happening?

If not, how not?

If the youth are not getting a ‘sense of advancement’, who is responsible and what should we do?[/quote]

What programs are in place to instill that sense of drive in young people? I, personally, am not aware of any unless you include scholarships which are usually independantly sponsored by Universities or companies.

Who is responsible? This is America. Who isn’t?