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Mother Jones: "Romney Tells Millionaire Donors What He REALLY Thinks of Obama Voters"

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Open Source said:
That post you refer to was a response to (paraphrasing) "I only demonize/insult/belittle anti-gay racists". It was intended to show that stereotyping such a person by mocking their accent would be completely unacceptable for other targets who fit his criteria.
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Right, so to answer my questions, no one.

Sorry, but I'm not inclined to treat a bunch of racist, anti-gay morons the same as I do poor people that aren't racist and homophobic.
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=why you responded about how you know a black racist guy.
 
Open Source said:
I think you misinterpreted what I said. I never said remove the net when the tightrope gets slippery for a long time.

On the other hand, yes, I know quite a few people who use the system to different degrees, not so much because they need it, because they don't have an incentive not to.

"Awesome" is different for different people. Some don't need nice things, but they like being able to kick back every day instead of working some shitty low wage job that isn't going to pay them much more than they are already getting. Others want to wait for the perfect job offer, and they can afford to with unemployment, so why not?

I know people on disability for minor shit, people making big money selling weed and then grocery shopping with their EBT card, selling their EBT benefits to other people....

Again, I don't blame the people themselves - they're just taking what the system gives them. The system itself is imperfect - certainly better than nothing or too little, but it can be improved such that it does more to get people working again.
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i've covered wars you know
 
Open Source said:
I'm all for "safety net" programs. It's when they stop being a safety net that allows people to get back on their feet and start becoming a way of life that discourages people from trying to get back on their feet that they begin to have a negative effect on society.

In fact, although I offered no explicit opinion on SNAP and Medicaid above, I strongly implied that they were necessary. The only reason I bought them up, which some people apparently missed, is that someone wanted an actual number on how many people need government assistance to "get by" (and no, I am still not defining that).
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What the flying fuck...how exactly do you think these programs work? Have you EVER been on welfare? Have you EVER known anybody on welfare? The program VERY WELL encourages you to search for a job because lifestyle of welfare isn't pretty. If I recall correctly, you have to prove every month that you are job searching, and you cannot live a comfortable life with the money they give you. Also, the second you make even an iota above the cutoff point, you no longer receive money. In some cases, they will even make you repay the money. You can only afford the bare minimums. You won't be buying fridges and TVs with the money, contrary to what you hear GOP morons tell you, because you know you will starve if you do.

The vast majority of people don't just stay on it. It's usually 1-3 months max. You think people just go on it and then never get off? Like a lot of conservatives, you are completely uninformed about social assistance and how it works, and you are just spouting a bunch of nonsense the GOP told you.
 
The Technomancer said:
I'm not convinced that the system creates people who are unproductive who would normally not be.
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It's not universal, of course, but it happens. People respond to incentives and behave in accordance with human nature. Some people go down the path of least resistance...it's not a character flaw, just the way we're wired.

When I was a kid, my grandparents would say "you don't work, you don't eat". Of course, they were not going to withhold food, but they wanted to make damn sure I understood that to survive and thrive and benefit from others' work, we had to contribute something. Without a system that reinforces that concept, it's easy for us as humans to disregard long-term goals and intangibles in favor of activities that provide immediate, tangible positive feedback. Again, it's just how we are wired - we have to do significant rewiring when we are young to make us more compatible with modern civilization. If it doesn't stick, or you're deprived of it, or whatever, you'll need a stronger incentive structure to encourage you to be productive.
 
Open Source said:
I was just responding to the "Romney polls are way down because of Egypt gaffe" assertion. Obviously, they are not. The thread goes back a ways.
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Certainly you are correct to say we haven't seen Romney's numbers collapse to any great degree since the 11th -- and in some polls, such as Gallup and Rasmussen, he's gaining. But I would also suggest that Obama was expected to lose some ground in the last week as the convention bounce deflated, and in many polls it hasn't dissipated at all, so it's difficult to conclude anything one way or another. In a week or so I hope the polls will give us a better look at both these events -- if Obama stabilizes with a consistent 3-5 point lead, that's a significant lift from his previous 1-3 point lead, which could be due to any number of factors.

Open Source said:
Ahhh. What about a black person in Hollywood? And hello, neighbor.
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Depends if Hollywood is in a country in which black people were enslaved for a hundred years and in which they still face institutionalized racism in countless areas of life, pushing them towards ethnic enclave behavior even after several generations in an attempt to create a "separate but equal" society that will treat them with the equitableness they have come not to expect from ours. And howdy.
 
ultim8p00 said:
You have obviously never been around anybody that is on social support. The program VERY WELL encourages you to search for a job because lifestyle of welfare isn't pretty. If I recall correctly, you have to prove every month that you are job searching, and you cannot live a comfortable life with the money they give you. Also, the second you make even an iota above the cutoff point, you no longer receive money. In some cases, they will even make you repay the money. You can only afford the bare minimums. You won't be buying fridges and TVs with the money, contrary to what you hear GOP morons tell you, because you know you will starve if you do.
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I've been on unemployment myself, and I know people on various programs (like I said, I'm in Oakland).

Different programs have different degrees of proof (mine was "check the box that says I looked for work this week") but others are stricter. And I agree that it's rare that you can be "comfortable" in one - especially in terms of where you live.

Someone of the people I've known who were on various aid programs for a long time were there not because it was comfortable for them, but because they'd given up hope of a better lot in life and wouldn't even try. I can certainly understand that feeling, as I've been there before myself in my early 20s.
 
I think the problem with welfare reform as a, for lack of a better term, talking point is that it implies that there are people who are somehow against welfare reform, as if we shouldn't continually be refining the system in careful ways. Like, just saying "I believe that we should improve the system because there are freeloaders" is almost insulting.

Well, that and the current Republican approach to welfare reform seems to basically amount to "there should be less of it"
 
pigeon said:
Depends if Hollywood is in a country in which black people were enslaved for a hundred years and in which they still face institutionalized racism in countless areas of life, pushing them towards ethnic enclave behavior even after several generations in an attempt to create a "separate but equal" society that will treat them with the equitableness they have come not to expect from ours. And howdy.
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Haha. Okay then.

They have their congressional districts, and we have ours. Separate but equal!

I actually mostly agree with you, although I think that some elements of the various "_____ justice" movements actually encourage that kind of behavior. And I think that our broken public education system is, as Romney put it, "the civil rights issue of our time".
 
The Technomancer said:
I think the problem with welfare reform as a, for lack of a better term, talking point is that it implies that there are people who are somehow against welfare reform, as if we shouldn't continually be refining the system in careful ways. Like, just saying "I believe that we should improve the system because there are freeloaders" is almost insulting.

Well, that and the current Republican approach to welfare reform seems to basically amount to "there should be less of it"
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Even if the safety net was 95% freeloaders, I'd still support it for those 5% that genuinely need it.
 
Trent Strong said:
Shouldn't we liberals be making better arguments than Republicans though? Should't we be above insulting poor, rural people?




The "liberal media bias" idea has been around since long before Palin. And some people just pronounce liberal as "librul" because that's the predominant accent in their region, and these regions are usually poor and rural. So if someone says "yeah, lets get them libruls, right Open Source?", they're 1) insulting poor rural people, and 2) ignoring the arguments that Open Source is making, and just trying to caricature him as some sort of uneducated redneck. It's a cheap and dirty tactic to use.
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I meant the folksy talk crap, not the liberal media paranoia. I am pretty sure that started with Palin mocking.
 
Open Source said:
I've been on unemployment myself, and I know people on various programs (like I said, I'm in Oakland).

Different programs have different degrees of proof (mine was "check the box that says I looked for work this week") but others are stricter. And I agree that it's rare that you can be "comfortable" in one - especially in terms of where you live.

Someone of the people I've known who were on various aid programs for a long time were there not because it was comfortable for them, but because they'd given up hope of a better lot in life and wouldn't even try. I can certainly understand that feeling, as I've been there before myself in my early 20s.
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I could see that, and I know such people too. Those are the lazy bums. The point I am making is that those people are a small minority, and so to say that people in support of social welfare are "just voting themselves money" is completely disingenuous. You could make the argument that we need to come up with a better way of deterring lazy bums, and I would agree. But it shouldn't be at the expense of the vast majority who use the system like it was intended.

The problem with the GOP is that they demonize the system and claim all liberals are lazy bums because they support the system. This in turn makes it hard for liberals to take the GOP seriously when they want to deter lazy bums because the GOP is sounding like a bunch of evil villains.

Jimothy said:
Even if the safety net was 95% freeloaders, I'd still support it for those 5% that genuinely need it.
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I hope you mean you would support to keep it and reform it, not keep it in its current state. That would be helping no one in the long run if 95% of the people are cheating it.
 
ultim8p00 said:
I could see that, and I know such people too. Those are the lazy bums. The point I am making is that those people are a small minority, and so to say that people in support of social welfare are "just voting themselves money" is completely disingenuous. You could make the argument that we need to come up with a better way of deterring lazy bums, and I would agree. But it shouldn't be at the expense of the vast majority who use the system like it was intended.

The problem with the GOP is that they demonize the system and claim all liberals are lazy bums because they support the system. This in turn makes it hard for liberals to take the GOP seriously when they want to deter lazy bums because the GOP is sounding like a bunch of evil villains.
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They're not the lazy bums. I'm not saying that those people don't exist, but that's not these people. These are the people who are in the system, that the system does its best to not let them leave. Make a little more money so you can get your bills paid down? Nope, cuz now you have to pay more of your medical expenses. My mother got a cost of living increase on her Social Security disability, and less than a month later, they notified her of a nearly identical drop in her food assistance. Social programs keep you alive, but they make it hard to get ahead.
 
ultim8p00 said:
I could see that, and I know such people too. Those are the lazy bums. The point I am making is that those people are a small minority, and so to say that people in support of social welfare are "just voting themselves money" is completely disingenuous. You could make the argument that we need to come up with a better way of deterring lazy bums, and I would agree. But it shouldn't be at the expense of the vast majority who use the system like it was intended.

The problem with the GOP is that they demonize the system and claim all liberals are lazy bums because they support the system. This in turn makes it hard for liberals to take the GOP seriously when they want to deter lazy bums because the GOP is sounding like a bunch of evil villains.
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I wasn't talking about lazy bums - I think it's more along the lines of not being able to hope or or imagine anything better, or maybe just a mental block that impairs the ability to work towards long-term goals (as I said earlier, we as humans are wired for shorter-term behaviors and feedback).

Agree with the GOP "red meat" on welfare. Politics these days is all about exploiting preconceived notions and tribalism - getting people motivated, not educated.
 
Volimar said:
They're not the lazy bums. I'm not saying that those people don't exist, but that's not these people. These are the people who are in the system, that the system does its best to not let them leave. Make a little more money so you can get your bills paid down? Nope, cuz now you have to pay more of your medical expenses. My mother got a cost of living increase on her Social Security disability, and less than a month later, they notified her of a nearly identical drop in her food assistance. Social programs keep you alive, but they make it hard to get ahead.
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Actually my mistake, you are correct. Some of them aren't lazy bums. My aunt went through something similar. She was afraid to get a job because she knew they'd stop helping her. The way I understand it, at a certain point, they give you enough to cover most basic things, but if you decide to make a little bit more money just to pay for medical bills, they cut everything completely while you aren't yet at a position to afford living without it, so you never get anywhere. In my opinion it should be a gradual decrease but I'm not an expert on the subject.

Open Source said:
I wasn't talking about lazy bums - I think it's more along the lines of not being able to hope or or imagine anything better, or maybe just a mental block that impairs the ability to work towards long-term goals (as I said earlier, we as humans are wired for shorter-term behaviors and feedback).

Agree with the GOP "red meat" on welfare. Politics these days is all about exploiting preconceived notions and tribalism - getting people motivated, not educated.
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Fair enough. THAT part needs work, and it needs reform and rethinking. But the GOP seems to think we should just have less of it altogether, which is why they don't get poor people and minorities on their side.
 
ultim8p00 said:
Actually my mistake, you are correct. Some of them aren't lazy bums. My aunt went through something similar. She was afraid to get a job because she knew they'd stop helping her. The way I understand it, at a certain point, they give you enough to cover most basic things, but if you decide to make a little bit more money just to pay for medical bills, they cut everything completely while you aren't yet at a position to afford living without it, so you never get anywhere. In my opinion it should be a gradual decrease but I'm not an expert on the subject.



Fair enough. THAT part needs work, and it needs reform and rethinking. But the GOP seems to think we should just have less of it altogether, which is why they don't get poor people and minorities on their side.
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That is such an elegant solution that no one in the government would support it. I agree with it wholeheartedly.
 
Open Source said:
I wasn't talking about lazy bums - I think it's more along the lines of not being able to hope or or imagine anything better, or maybe just a mental block that impairs the ability to work towards long-term goals (as I said earlier, we as humans are wired for shorter-term behaviors and feedback).

Agree with the GOP "red meat" on welfare. Politics these days is all about exploiting preconceived notions and tribalism - getting people motivated, not educated.
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And I would have to wholeheartedly agree with you on this. You know what I think is a large part of this problem? Our growing inequality program. That's part of why upward mobility in countries with smaller inequality is so much greater. If you can look to your neighbor and see he can do well, he's making a great amount of money, then you might think to yourself that you can do it, too. If you look at everyone else around you and they're all making nothing and worth nothing (1 in 4 hourseholds has a net worth of 0 or less), then why bother? When you have to work 2 full time jobs to even make a decent life, then why bother? If the upper part of society is literally unattainable for you outside some chance event like the lottery (our upward mobility is painfully low), then... why bother? At some point when you get kicked down you realize maybe you should just stay down there. The fall hurts less. That's what's wrong in our country.
 
MidgarBlowedUp said:
I would rather let a few people play the system and live than offer no help and let all of those less fortunate die.
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This. Part of being an enlightened, healthy society is having the political and social maturity to accept the fact that some tiny amount of people inevitably will abuse the system. We just have to live with them while realizing that it's being used as intended by vastly more people.
 
Threads like this just exemplify everything that's wrong with american voters and the american political system. You spend so much of your time chasing your asses over all this poltical vitrol which ends up being false the vast majority of the time. You see this year after year after every election leading to another 4 years of deterioration of anything closely resembling progress in the country. Enormous amounts of money and energy goes towards this cyclical charade any yet no sizable portion of the population even starts to push for a change in the political system that only exists as a distraction from any real problems that could be solved through government policy.
 
Shambles said:
Threads like this just exemplify everything that's wrong with american voters and the american political system. You spend so much of your time chasing your asses over all this poltical vitrol which ends up being false the vast majority of the time. You see this year after year after every election leading to another 4 years of deterioration of anything closely resembling progress in the country. Enormous amounts of money and energy goes towards this cyclical charade any yet no sizable portion of the population even starts to push for a change in the political system that only exists as a distraction from any real problems that could be solved through government policy.
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I'd say the Romney quotes themselves are more indicative of what's wrong with our country - disinformation and willful ignorance. If he gets slapped down for sharing an opinion that is morally repugnant and factually incorrect, that's a step in the right direction.
 
Shambles said:
Threads like this just exemplify everything that's wrong with american voters and the american political system. You spend so much of your time chasing your asses over all this poltical vitrol which ends up being false the vast majority of the time. You see this year after year after every election leading to another 4 years of deterioration of anything closely resembling progress in the country. Enormous amounts of money and energy goes towards this cyclical charade any yet no sizable portion of the population even starts to push for a change in the political system that only exists as a distraction from any real problems that could be solved through government policy.
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Sorry bro, this event is the wrong example of a broken system.


What your seeing right now is the immediate and viral delivery of information. Its a good thing. This video was delivered exposed responded to and exploited within days and wit very little money involved.

And as mentioned above it's an insight into what these candidates actually believe and what they peddle to the deep pocket contributors.
 
Haha Jon Stewart tore him apart and used a really old interview with Mitt's mom to do it. In it she describes how his dad needed welfare to survive and what a blessing the assistance of the government was.

I love when bad things happen to bad people.
 
Open Source said:
When I was a kid, my grandparents would say "you don't work, you don't eat". Of course, they were not going to withhold food, but they wanted to make damn sure I understood that to survive and thrive and benefit from others' work, we had to contribute something. Without a system that reinforces that concept, it's easy for us as humans to disregard long-term goals and intangibles in favor of activities that provide immediate, tangible positive feedback. Again, it's just how we are wired - we have to do significant rewiring when we are young to make us more compatible with modern civilization. If it doesn't stick, or you're deprived of it, or whatever, you'll need a stronger incentive structure to encourage you to be productive.
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This sounds like an argument for increasing funding for education, lowering income inequality, and raising minimum wage.
 
ronito said:
47% of people don't pay I income tax = outrageous free loaders!!

60% of corporations don't pay federal tax = well you really gotta understand sometimes business is cyclical and...
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Don't the people living in states that charge no income tax get counted in that 47%? Or am I getting that wrong?
 
Timedog said:
This sounds like an argument for increasing funding for education, lowering income inequality, and raising minimum wage.
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It's also an argument that falls flat on its face when you look at countries that do a much better job of providing for their citizens. If people are 'wired' to just kick back and live on the dole, why do so few actually do that when given the chance?
 
ronito said:
47% of people don't pay I income tax = outrageous free loaders!!

60% of corporations don't pay federal tax = well you really gotta understand sometimes business is cyclical and...
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Those corporations are people. Shouldn't they be counted in the 47% figure?
 
Timedog said:
This sounds like an argument for increasing funding for education, lowering income inequality, and raising minimum wage.
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We already spend way more money than other 1st world countries on education per capita, with mediocre results. We need to fix the system, rather than funneling more money into a broken one. Right now, it's inefficient, is not geared to prepare students for the job market, and does not guide them onto learning tracks that will be most beneficial to their future careers.

The conventional wisdom on minimum wage is that it hurts (with businesses willing/able to hire fewer employees) more than it helps.

As far as income inequality goes, I haven't seen any evidence that it has a negative effect on incentives to be productive. I'd imagine that it would be the reverse, since my natural reaction to seeing someone with a lot more money than me would be to try to replicate their success, but I could be wrong.
 
Two weeks until the debates.

tumblr_maff5kM7Ww1rss9sh.gif
 
You're missing the point. It doesn't much matter if welfare and food stamps cause a parent to be unproductive and to mooch of the system for their "living". If these programs feed one, just one hungry child, then they've done what they were supposed to do.

And should you deny these programs, and God help you, one child should go hungry, or sick, fall ill and die. Then you are no longer "pro life".

Make your choice.
 
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