Life can be hard. The answer is to do the best you can for yourself, your family, and your neighbors with what you’ve got. Never expect any gifts from on high, and make sure those gifts you do receive bear fruit that feeds many.
This is beautiful.
For my part, with the kids that I am blessed to be an "uncle" to, I try to buy books on Christmases and Birthdays. They explain to me that the Hulk toys are better than the children's collections of Wallace Stevens (this really happened!!! amazon.com/Poetry-Young-People-Wallace-Stevens/dp/1402709250 ) but I buy books for them anyway.
For some reason, of the eight children in our "tribe", all eight (!!!) are boys. Half have turned seven. The half that have, have received copies of Peter Frampton's Comes Alive! and a cd player if, for some reason, they don't already have one.
I cannot save every starfish. But I can do what I can with this one.
I don't know that it is. My ancestors lost their tobacco farm in Kentucky when the crops failed two years in a row. They had an outhouse. My great-grandmother could not read the Bible that she loved so much. They had to move to Michigan, of all places, where they were mocked as Hillbillies and made a new life there with indoor plumbing and everything.
There were a lot of things that happened to Detroit.
There were a lot of things that happened to Michigan.
There were a lot of things that happened to my family.
Perhaps my observations are outliers. Sure. I assure you, they're based on things that I've seen with my own eyes.
I'm just going to copy and paste my comment from 107 (it's 107 now, it may change later) here:
Have I ever said that you weren’t allowed to complain?
My God, man. Do you know me at all?
Jesus Christ. I have no idea where these people see my posting a comment on a blog post saying “here is how I see the world” as me dictating to them that their freedom of speech be squelched.
Hey, let me ruin your day and make you feel like your 4th Amendment rights have been violated: I had a really good dinner last night. Nachos.
Seriously, this is not helping me come to any conclusion but that it’s about how people feel inside as opposed to what’s actually happening.
Anyway, it seems to me that my responsibility to you, if any, has to do with me not infringing on your first level Maslow's needs and with me contributing to the existence of institutions that protect your access to the stuff we've in place to deal with the second level of Maslow's stuff.
For the most part, society has done that and done that quite well.
Where we have failed is primarily in provision of crappy education (and I have theories about how to make that better, believe me) and in societal cultivation of and reward for arrested development/prolonged adolescence (of which I am exhibit A).
It's not that I'm crazy about the status quo. It's that, historically, there are people who would *DREAM* of the level of poverty that we have achieved for our lowest quintile. There are those who still do. They die trying to get here.
That's an achievement.
I'm not saying we should rest on our laurels and stop trying to be better. Of course we should always try to be better. I don't know that where we are is necessarily immoral.
Also, it’s the bear, not the other thing ;)
I'll try to take as my duty to be more serious in these discussions.
First off, know that I don't have any kids. My wife and I are childless by choice. As such, my ideas about childraising are all speculative.
So, when you say "so why would I think you think the homeless should be entitled to anything but your scorn for not having the perfect parents?", let me ask you what any given child out there is entitled to.
Let's say that my wife and I have a kid. Mazel Tov! It's a mitzvah!
What are your responsibilities toward my child?
Asking the question makes me feel weird because my inclination is to say that my child is not any of your business.
Indeed, for all of the scorn you're heaping on me for not seeing The Children as entitled to the jetpack that I have not invented (and, most likely, will not invent), I wonder what else are The Children entitled to that I haven't invented.
Your anger is not directed at me for not paying taxes (which I do) and it's not for me not doing my best to be a good "uncle" to my friends' children (which I try to do)... it's for me not seeing The Children as entitled to something that doesn't exist.
For the life of me, I honestly don't see how in the hell they can be entitled to such a thing.
Should you have access to a government appointed attorney regardless of whether or not you can afford it, as of right? That’s what I meant about the less meaningful exercise of your right to due process without this complimentary positive right.
That's a good way to look at it. I suppose I would agree with this. The problem is that anybody who can afford it knows that they'd be better off with a private practitioner who hasn't gone out of business yet than a government-appointed one. Which likely indicates a problem right there. (Additionally, if someone is a prosecutor for 20 years, it likely means that they're very good at their job... if someone is a court-ordered defense attorney for 20 years, I don't know that it necessarily means the exact same thing.)
Did you mean on balance you favor more social mobility to more wealth/income equality?
Yes. Absolutely.
Because I think social immobility is in tension with equality, more social mobility requiring more equitable distributions and more unequitable distributions reinforcing social immobility.
Really? Because it seems to me that there's a lot more "equality" historically in places like India or China (entire swaths of the country in penury!) with a lot more "sticky" social strata. There is less equality, historically, in, oh to pick a country out of a hat, the US. I suspect that the same is true in Europe. The more equality in the country, the stickier. Now, of course, if you're stuck in the resoundingly large middle middle class, maybe you don't see this as such an imposition. That's a fair take too.
When it comes to phone, at least, he has an embarrassment of riches. Does he want an iphone? Does he want a land line? Does he want a cheap clamshell? Does he want to pay $20/month? $30/month? $99/month?
Is there any coherent way to look at this that isn’t a zero-sum game?
One can put oneself behind a veil of ignorance.
Let's say that you live in America. You don't know whether you'll be rich or poor, black or white, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Miscellaneous, Atheist, male, female, or other. You just know that you will be born in the US. You don't even know where, particularly. Maybe Alaska, maybe Wyoming.
What year would you most like to be born in, knowing that you might be poor and black? Knowing you might be female? Knowing you might be gay?
When I shuffle through the various upsides and downsides, I come to the conclusion that I'd always (without exception) rather be born later than sooner. The kids being born today? Man, they're going to have access to a lot of stuff that I'm never going to have access to. I have access to a lot of stuff my grandparents couldn't dream of dreaming of when they were my age.
Heck, let's not limit it to America.
Let's put you anywhere in the world. Maybe rich, poor, red, yellow, black, white, male, female, straight, gay, tall, short, or whtevs.
All you get to pick is the year.
Wouldn't you pick, at least, the year you were born and not before? Aren't you more likely to pick more recently than that than before?
Doesn't that indicate that there is more going on than rich people picking the pockets of the poor?
On “The Middle Class Isn’t Dying”
I don’t think we’re in much danger of achieving “wealth equality” any time soon
Given that wealth inequality is seen as a problem, yea, a *MORAL* problem, I think it's a point worth addressing.
"
Life can be hard. The answer is to do the best you can for yourself, your family, and your neighbors with what you’ve got. Never expect any gifts from on high, and make sure those gifts you do receive bear fruit that feeds many.
This is beautiful.
For my part, with the kids that I am blessed to be an "uncle" to, I try to buy books on Christmases and Birthdays. They explain to me that the Hulk toys are better than the children's collections of Wallace Stevens (this really happened!!! amazon.com/Poetry-Young-People-Wallace-Stevens/dp/1402709250 ) but I buy books for them anyway.
For some reason, of the eight children in our "tribe", all eight (!!!) are boys. Half have turned seven. The half that have, have received copies of Peter Frampton's Comes Alive! and a cd player if, for some reason, they don't already have one.
I cannot save every starfish. But I can do what I can with this one.
"
I don't know that it is. My ancestors lost their tobacco farm in Kentucky when the crops failed two years in a row. They had an outhouse. My great-grandmother could not read the Bible that she loved so much. They had to move to Michigan, of all places, where they were mocked as Hillbillies and made a new life there with indoor plumbing and everything.
There were a lot of things that happened to Detroit.
There were a lot of things that happened to Michigan.
There were a lot of things that happened to my family.
Perhaps my observations are outliers. Sure. I assure you, they're based on things that I've seen with my own eyes.
And if life is absurd, take that up with God.
"
I'm just going to copy and paste my comment from 107 (it's 107 now, it may change later) here:
Have I ever said that you weren’t allowed to complain?
My God, man. Do you know me at all?
Jesus Christ. I have no idea where these people see my posting a comment on a blog post saying “here is how I see the world” as me dictating to them that their freedom of speech be squelched.
Hey, let me ruin your day and make you feel like your 4th Amendment rights have been violated: I had a really good dinner last night. Nachos.
Seriously, this is not helping me come to any conclusion but that it’s about how people feel inside as opposed to what’s actually happening.
Jesus.
"
non sequitur
"
It wasn't completely irrelevant! (pounds table)
Anyway, it seems to me that my responsibility to you, if any, has to do with me not infringing on your first level Maslow's needs and with me contributing to the existence of institutions that protect your access to the stuff we've in place to deal with the second level of Maslow's stuff.
For the most part, society has done that and done that quite well.
Where we have failed is primarily in provision of crappy education (and I have theories about how to make that better, believe me) and in societal cultivation of and reward for arrested development/prolonged adolescence (of which I am exhibit A).
It's not that I'm crazy about the status quo. It's that, historically, there are people who would *DREAM* of the level of poverty that we have achieved for our lowest quintile. There are those who still do. They die trying to get here.
That's an achievement.
I'm not saying we should rest on our laurels and stop trying to be better. Of course we should always try to be better. I don't know that where we are is necessarily immoral.
Also, it’s the bear, not the other thing ;)
I'll try to take as my duty to be more serious in these discussions.
"
Hey, Dex. I'll try to address this now.
First off, know that I don't have any kids. My wife and I are childless by choice. As such, my ideas about childraising are all speculative.
So, when you say "so why would I think you think the homeless should be entitled to anything but your scorn for not having the perfect parents?", let me ask you what any given child out there is entitled to.
Let's say that my wife and I have a kid. Mazel Tov! It's a mitzvah!
What are your responsibilities toward my child?
Asking the question makes me feel weird because my inclination is to say that my child is not any of your business.
Indeed, for all of the scorn you're heaping on me for not seeing The Children as entitled to the jetpack that I have not invented (and, most likely, will not invent), I wonder what else are The Children entitled to that I haven't invented.
Your anger is not directed at me for not paying taxes (which I do) and it's not for me not doing my best to be a good "uncle" to my friends' children (which I try to do)... it's for me not seeing The Children as entitled to something that doesn't exist.
For the life of me, I honestly don't see how in the hell they can be entitled to such a thing.
"
Should you have access to a government appointed attorney regardless of whether or not you can afford it, as of right? That’s what I meant about the less meaningful exercise of your right to due process without this complimentary positive right.
That's a good way to look at it. I suppose I would agree with this. The problem is that anybody who can afford it knows that they'd be better off with a private practitioner who hasn't gone out of business yet than a government-appointed one. Which likely indicates a problem right there. (Additionally, if someone is a prosecutor for 20 years, it likely means that they're very good at their job... if someone is a court-ordered defense attorney for 20 years, I don't know that it necessarily means the exact same thing.)
Did you mean on balance you favor more social mobility to more wealth/income equality?
Yes. Absolutely.
Because I think social immobility is in tension with equality, more social mobility requiring more equitable distributions and more unequitable distributions reinforcing social immobility.
Really? Because it seems to me that there's a lot more "equality" historically in places like India or China (entire swaths of the country in penury!) with a lot more "sticky" social strata. There is less equality, historically, in, oh to pick a country out of a hat, the US. I suspect that the same is true in Europe. The more equality in the country, the stickier. Now, of course, if you're stuck in the resoundingly large middle middle class, maybe you don't see this as such an imposition. That's a fair take too.
On “The Death and Life of the Great American Middle Class”
When it comes to phone, at least, he has an embarrassment of riches. Does he want an iphone? Does he want a land line? Does he want a cheap clamshell? Does he want to pay $20/month? $30/month? $99/month?
Options, options, options.
On “The Walker Roadmap”
Is there any coherent way to look at this that isn’t a zero-sum game?
One can put oneself behind a veil of ignorance.
Let's say that you live in America. You don't know whether you'll be rich or poor, black or white, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Miscellaneous, Atheist, male, female, or other. You just know that you will be born in the US. You don't even know where, particularly. Maybe Alaska, maybe Wyoming.
What year would you most like to be born in, knowing that you might be poor and black? Knowing you might be female? Knowing you might be gay?
When I shuffle through the various upsides and downsides, I come to the conclusion that I'd always (without exception) rather be born later than sooner. The kids being born today? Man, they're going to have access to a lot of stuff that I'm never going to have access to. I have access to a lot of stuff my grandparents couldn't dream of dreaming of when they were my age.
Heck, let's not limit it to America.
Let's put you anywhere in the world. Maybe rich, poor, red, yellow, black, white, male, female, straight, gay, tall, short, or whtevs.
All you get to pick is the year.
Wouldn't you pick, at least, the year you were born and not before? Aren't you more likely to pick more recently than that than before?
Doesn't that indicate that there is more going on than rich people picking the pockets of the poor?