CMdad mentioned “pride”. Where’s the pride anymore? Every job I had, as shitty as it was, I took a lot of pride in doing the best I could.
[quote]StevenF wrote:
CMdad mentioned “pride”. Where’s the pride anymore? Every job I had, as shitty as it was, I took a lot of pride in doing the best I could. [/quote]
Agreed. I busted my hump stocking shelves and putting roofs. It didn’t matter I felt underpaid, I was going to work hard enough to earn a raise and get some praise.
[quote]StevenF wrote:
CMdad mentioned “pride”. Where’s the pride anymore? Every job I had, as shitty as it was, I took a lot of pride in doing the best I could. [/quote]
Pride in work stopped when everyone became a winner as they grew up. They learned that everyone wins and you don’t need to outwork the competition because our trophies are all the same. We have lost our toughness in the name of feeling good all the time and self esteem.
Of course you guys are correct…able bodied people shouldn’t be on the dole.
However; approaching the issue as if the people at the bottom are responsible for our troubled economy is short sighted at best. People at the bottom do not have the power to influence anything to that degree. They follow the example set for them by our political and finance/business leaders, and there behavior is generally a generation or two behind that curve.
We are in the situation we are in because it is how the wealthy and politically connected want it, simple as that. Votes are not purchased with public assistance dollars, they are purchased with huge campaign contributions. I assure you the corporate business class is not interested in reducing the flow of public assistance dollars being handed out because the majority of them go directly from the individuals hands into the company cash register. We live in a ‘managed economy’; it has been that way for at least a century.
Every administration from both parties has contributed to the mess we are in. Believing that either of them has the slightest interest in doing anything about it is how they [both parties] perpetuate the situation.
[quote]H factor wrote:
[quote]StevenF wrote:
CMdad mentioned “pride”. Where’s the pride anymore? Every job I had, as shitty as it was, I took a lot of pride in doing the best I could. [/quote]
Pride in work stopped when everyone became a winner as they grew up. They learned that everyone wins and you don’t need to outwork the competition because our trophies are all the same. We have lost our toughness in the name of feeling good all the time and self esteem. [/quote]
x2
[quote]dmaddox wrote:
[quote]H factor wrote:
[quote]StevenF wrote:
CMdad mentioned “pride”. Where’s the pride anymore? Every job I had, as shitty as it was, I took a lot of pride in doing the best I could. [/quote]
Pride in work stopped when everyone became a winner as they grew up. They learned that everyone wins and you don’t need to outwork the competition because our trophies are all the same. We have lost our toughness in the name of feeling good all the time and self esteem. [/quote]
x2
[/quote]
You deserve a trophy d. You showed up today. You are so special and so great. We are so lucky to have you as part of the team 
Participation trophies are ok for things like t-ball, but let’s get real with kids as soon as possible. The real world doesn’t work that way and it is ok to fail. It’s how we learn.
What happened to pride in a good pay check 
[quote]H factor wrote:
Participation trophies are ok for things like t-ball, but let’s get real with kids as soon as possible. The real world doesn’t work that way and it is ok to fail. It’s how we learn. [/quote]
Yeah, kids younger than like 6-7 I really don’t have an issue with the “everybody wins, lets go get some icecream” stuff.
But by nine, they need to start to get a taste of harsh reality while they are young enough to be able to cry on mom and dad’s shoulder. You know what I mean?
In college I saw kids denied and/or fail and lose for the first time at 18 and 19 years old. Shit isn’t pretty.
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]H factor wrote:
Participation trophies are ok for things like t-ball, but let’s get real with kids as soon as possible. The real world doesn’t work that way and it is ok to fail. It’s how we learn. [/quote]
Yeah, kids younger than like 6-7 I really don’t have an issue with the “everybody wins, lets go get some icecream” stuff.
But by nine, they need to start to get a taste of harsh reality while they are young enough to be able to cry on mom and dad’s shoulder. You know what I mean?
In college I saw kids denied and/or fail and lose for the first time at 18 and 19 years old. Shit isn’t pretty. [/quote]
When I was a kid I was an absolute sports nut. I still am a sports nut. Growing up I wanted to be the first ever professional basketball, football, and baseball player. I couldn’t figure out why mom kept wanting me to have a backup plan Early sports failures motivated me to work harder to become the best I could be in football and basketball (the two sports I ended up playing in high school).
We need to rethink losing. Losing is natural. Losing is healthy. Losing teaches lessons. Winning is hard. Winning consistently requires sacrifice, dedication, maybe even talent.
Now research is telling us what we already knew…this stuff is NOT helping out our youth and though the intentions sounded good it is having real effects. Kids are giving up instead of working hard at the first sign of failure like they used to. We are sending the wrong message.
[quote]H factor wrote:
We need to rethink losing. Losing is natural. Losing is healthy. Losing teaches lessons. Winning is hard. Winning consistently requires sacrifice, dedication, maybe even talent.
Now research is telling us what we already knew…this stuff is NOT helping out our youth and though the intentions sounded good it is having real effects. Kids are giving up instead of working hard at the first sign of failure like they used to. We are sending the wrong message.
[/quote]
You are assuming the goal was to benefit the kids. IMO…the approach accomplished exactly what the policy makers were after.
Zero Tolerance policies are another ‘trojan horse’ approach.
[quote]H factor wrote:
[quote]dmaddox wrote:
[quote]H factor wrote:
[quote]StevenF wrote:
CMdad mentioned “pride”. Where’s the pride anymore? Every job I had, as shitty as it was, I took a lot of pride in doing the best I could. [/quote]
Pride in work stopped when everyone became a winner as they grew up. They learned that everyone wins and you don’t need to outwork the competition because our trophies are all the same. We have lost our toughness in the name of feeling good all the time and self esteem. [/quote]
x2
[/quote]
You deserve a trophy d. You showed up today. You are so special and so great. We are so lucky to have you as part of the team
Participation trophies are ok for things like t-ball, but let’s get real with kids as soon as possible. The real world doesn’t work that way and it is ok to fail. It’s how we learn. [/quote]
Thanks I appreciate the trophy. You do love me…
I pretty much raised myself from 5th grade on. My parents were divorced when I was in 5th grade. I went to live with my father. My father would go to work before I woke up in the morning and came home after I had gone to sleep. I learned by mistakes. Things came easy to me in school though. Work was different. I made a ton of mistakes and learned from them.
[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:
[quote]H factor wrote:
We need to rethink losing. Losing is natural. Losing is healthy. Losing teaches lessons. Winning is hard. Winning consistently requires sacrifice, dedication, maybe even talent.
Now research is telling us what we already knew…this stuff is NOT helping out our youth and though the intentions sounded good it is having real effects. Kids are giving up instead of working hard at the first sign of failure like they used to. We are sending the wrong message.
[/quote]
You are assuming the goal was to benefit the kids. IMO…the approach accomplished exactly what the policy makers were after.
Zero Tolerance policies are another ‘trojan horse’ approach.
[/quote]
No I think the goal was like many others…a well intentioned one. We want kids to feel good about themselves and so instead of giving out winners and losers trophies we will give everyone the same trophy so no one feels bad. Society got so caught up in keeping everyone’s self esteem elevated that we forgot feeling good about ourselves is often the result of doing good things consistently.
[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:
Of course you guys are correct…able bodied people shouldn’t be on the dole.
However; approaching the issue as if the people at the bottom are responsible for our troubled economy is short sighted at best. People at the bottom do not have the power to influence anything to that degree. They follow the example set for them by our political and finance/business leaders, and there behavior is generally a generation or two behind that curve.
We are in the situation we are in because it is how the wealthy and politically connected want it, simple as that. Votes are not purchased with public assistance dollars, they are purchased with huge campaign contributions. I assure you the corporate business class is not interested in reducing the flow of public assistance dollars being handed out because the majority of them go directly from the individuals hands into the company cash register. We live in a ‘managed economy’; it has been that way for at least a century.
Every administration from both parties has contributed to the mess we are in. Believing that either of them has the slightest interest in doing anything about it is how they [both parties] perpetuate the situation. [/quote]
This is just my opinion granted, but I greatly disagree. As a population, the bottom make up the majority of the population. The poverty level, lower class and middle class are the bulk of this country. They have the most power and influence when it comes to selecting and voting in our government. The larger, lazier and less motivated our population becomes, the more entitlement programs buy votes.
I still think there is a very big “chicken or the egg” thing going on, but you cant blame those in power without blaming those who voted them into power. Our inept leadership(on both sides btw) and our anemic economy are the result of the voting and purchasing decisions of the mass populous. Our masses are becoming a victim of our historical success in such a short time.
In the far past, being fat was a signal of wealth. Food was scare and only the wealthy had such excess that they could become fat. The ‘American Obesity Epedemic’ is litterally us as a country flaunting our wealth. We have obese poor. Our standard of living, cost of food manufacturing and distribution, access to money is so advanced and at such a great economy of scale that as a nation we have created an enviornment that allows those at the poverty level to be obese. Think about that detail. Fat is now a choice that our poorest of citizens can have. Tell that to Africa.
Our success as a country is breeding lethargy and entitlement. Those numbers grow and they want those in power that make things easier. We are not fucked up(relative statement, we still have it better than the rest of the world) because we are bad, but because in only 237 years we created the richest and most successful country in the history of the world. We made things so easy, that the majority no longer wants to, or is incentivized to work hard.
[quote]Waittz wrote:
As a population, the bottom make up the majority of the population. The poverty level, lower class and middle class are the bulk of this country. They have the most power and influence when it comes to selecting and voting in our government.
[/quote]
You think the poor and the lower middle class are driving this ship? I have to say I find this to be a very interesting perspective.
[quote]jjackkrash wrote:
[quote]Waittz wrote:
As a population, the bottom make up the majority of the population. The poverty level, lower class and middle class are the bulk of this country. They have the most power and influence when it comes to selecting and voting in our government.
[/quote]
You think the poor and the lower middle class are driving this ship? I have to say I find this to be a very interesting perspective. [/quote]
That is not really what I said. More on the lines that the the poor, lower and middle class are the ones choosing who drive the ship, and those people play on it which is why they get to drive it. They from a numbers standpoint are the majority. The low information voter is the majority of voters. Campaign money and promises are aimed at these folks.
that is the problem in a nutshell
[quote]Waittz wrote:
[quote]jjackkrash wrote:
[quote]Waittz wrote:
As a population, the bottom make up the majority of the population. The poverty level, lower class and middle class are the bulk of this country. They have the most power and influence when it comes to selecting and voting in our government.
[/quote]
You think the poor and the lower middle class are driving this ship? I have to say I find this to be a very interesting perspective. [/quote]
That is not really what I said. More on the lines that the the poor, lower and middle class are the ones choosing who drive the ship, and those people play on it which is why they get to drive it. They from a numbers standpoint are the majority. The low information voter is the majority of voters. Campaign money and promises are aimed at these folks. [/quote]
The people at the helm were chosen by those that make very large contributions to their campaigns, they could not get elected otherwise. I applaud your idealism and agree with much of your post; however I don’t think our current situation is a celebration of our success. It is the ‘chickens coming home to roost’ for many years of a mismanaged economy. From there all the remains to be determined is who is going to be punished the most. You seem to ignore the tremendous profits generated from public assistance dollars.
Our analysis was greatly bolstered by our becoming familiar with the new and exciting group of historians who studied under University of Wisconsin historian William Appleman Williams. From them we discovered that all of us free marketeers had erred in believing that somehow, down deep, Big Businessmen were really in favor of laissez-faire, and that their deviations from it, obviously clear and notorious in recent years, were either “sellouts” of principle to expediency or the result of astute maneuverings by liberal intellectuals.
This is the general view on the right; in the remarkable phrase of Ayn Rand, Big Business is “America’s most persecuted minority.” Persecuted minority, indeed! Sure, there were thrusts against Big Business in the old McCormick Chicago Tribune and in the writings of Albert Jay Nock; but it took the Williams-Kolko analysis to portray the true anatomy and physiology of the American scene.
As Kolko pointed out, all the various measures of federal regulation and welfare statism that left and right alike have always believed to be mass movements against Big Business are not only now backed to the hilt by Big Business, but were originated by it for the very purpose of shifting from a free market to a cartelized economy that would benefit it. Imperialistic foreign policy and the permanent garrison state originated in the Big Business drive for foreign investments and for war contracts at home.
The role of the liberal intellectuals is to serve as “corporate liberals,” weavers of sophisticated apologias to inform the masses that the heads of the American corporate state are ruling on behalf of the “common good” and the "general welfare"â??like the priest in the Oriental despotism who convinced the masses that their emperor was all-wise and divine.
Murray Rothbard 1968
[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:
[quote]Waittz wrote:
[quote]jjackkrash wrote:
[quote]Waittz wrote:
As a population, the bottom make up the majority of the population. The poverty level, lower class and middle class are the bulk of this country. They have the most power and influence when it comes to selecting and voting in our government.
[/quote]
You think the poor and the lower middle class are driving this ship? I have to say I find this to be a very interesting perspective. [/quote]
That is not really what I said. More on the lines that the the poor, lower and middle class are the ones choosing who drive the ship, and those people play on it which is why they get to drive it. They from a numbers standpoint are the majority. The low information voter is the majority of voters. Campaign money and promises are aimed at these folks. [/quote]
The people at the helm were chosen by those that make very large contributions to their campaigns, they could not get elected otherwise. I applaud your idealism and agree with much of your post; however I don’t think our current situation is a celebration of our success. It is the ‘chickens coming home to roost’ for many years of a mismanaged economy. From there all the remains to be determined is who is going to be punished the most. You seem to ignore the tremendous profits generated from public assistance dollars.
[/quote]
Celebration isnt the right term, more like unintented consiquence.
We all know who will be punished the most, those without ownership of assests(land, business equity in any form, precious metal, etc) otherwise known as the poor and general middle class. This isnt a ‘new’ thing or an America thing. This is how the world always has and always will work.
I am not really ignoring your last point. My view is that the entire world is built for and runs in a manner for the wealthy and powerful and always at the expense of the poor. America didnt change that concept, rather as a country that represents weatlh, it exploited it. No government, no lobbying, no awareness can change that. The only thing you can do, is do whatever it takes to become the rich and powerful to reap the fruit, or spend a lifetime ripening the fruit for them to consume.
[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:
Our analysis was greatly bolstered by our becoming familiar with the new and exciting group of historians who studied under University of Wisconsin historian William Appleman Williams. From them we discovered that all of us free marketeers had erred in believing that somehow, down deep, Big Businessmen were really in favor of laissez-faire, and that their deviations from it, obviously clear and notorious in recent years, were either “sellouts” of principle to expediency or the result of astute maneuverings by liberal intellectuals.
This is the general view on the right; in the remarkable phrase of Ayn Rand, Big Business is “America’s most persecuted minority.” Persecuted minority, indeed! Sure, there were thrusts against Big Business in the old McCormick Chicago Tribune and in the writings of Albert Jay Nock; but it took the Williams-Kolko analysis to portray the true anatomy and physiology of the American scene.
As Kolko pointed out, all the various measures of federal regulation and welfare statism that left and right alike have always believed to be mass movements against Big Business are not only now backed to the hilt by Big Business, but were originated by it for the very purpose of shifting from a free market to a cartelized economy that would benefit it. Imperialistic foreign policy and the permanent garrison state originated in the Big Business drive for foreign investments and for war contracts at home.
The role of the liberal intellectuals is to serve as “corporate liberals,” weavers of sophisticated apologias to inform the masses that the heads of the American corporate state are ruling on behalf of the “common good” and the "general welfare"Ã?¢??like the priest in the Oriental despotism who convinced the masses that their emperor was all-wise and divine.
Murray Rothbard 1968[/quote]
Thanks for sharing that Blue. So much knowledge and information in so little words.