Conservative streamer Asmongold suggested a list of things he’d like to see an ideal political candidate support, and most of them are probably things a lot of law-and-order conservatives would also nod along with:
You are, of course 100% right, but the left blames any anyone’s hunger, crime, homelessness, poverty, and every other personal failure on society (except of course of you’re talking about white males) and demands that society redistribute the wealth of the producers to the looters (after having siphoned off a large percentage for vote buying, NGOs, etc.).
Unfortunately, there are more looters than producers, and the right has failed to make the case that our focus should be on making everyone (who can) a producer, this enriching society as a whole.
You're correct, though I might point out The Right makes the mistake of assuming people are more knowledgeable than they actually are.
The writers of conservative op-ed journalism assume the reader is thoroughly versed in the Federalist Papers and The Wealth of Nations, and that's often not the case.
Similarly, the admonition to pull oneself up by one's bootstraps falls flat if the reader simply doesn't know how because they've never been taught.
Building your training program around such principles as "drink from the fire hose" and "ask if you don't know" is a great formula for a partially-capable staff.
So THAT would be something we could - SHOW people how to succeed.
JFK was assassinated a few months after I was born. My mother made sure I knew about him and what he advocated. My favorite quote is, "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country." He was against welfare because it made people lazy.
My parents divorced when I was 7 because my father beating her and us kids and then started to push his Nazi beliefs, especially the idea that Germans are the master race.
My mother was 6 months away from graduating from nursing school when the divorce was final. My father resisted paying child support and mom was working as a nurse's aid at night and going to school during the day. We got government food aid, which meant once a week, we got a box of surplus government food. Food stamps were not a thing.
After she passed her boards and became an RN, she stopped accepting the food aid because it was just temporary and she could now provide for us kids. We did not eat fancy food, but we never starved. There was a lot of peanut butter and bologna sandwiches. We did qualify for the free lunch program, but mom would not accept it. She could provide lunch for us and made it every morning. Personally, I preferred what she made us than the cafeteria food. Even back then it was bad.
To this day I bring my lunch to school every day and refuse to eat in the staff cafeteria.
Mom passed her work ethic to me. You pay your way. Life is tough so deal with it. She also made it clear the government does not owe us anything.
I was teaching high school when Obama came into office. He was no JFK. One of the early quotes I remember from him was, "I think if you spread the wealth around, it's good for everyone. So steal from those that are working and earning their way to give to those who are capable of working but refuse to do so. I was teaching at a school with a high poverty rate and I had students who were the 4th generation living on welfair. For four generations they have lived off of taxpayers and taught their kids to not worry about school, the government will pay you to not work.
Now, I am teaching a large number of students who refuse to do anything. They do not have to because either the government or their parents will take care of them. They refuse to put in the effort to learn, why do that when you can use AI to do your school work for you. Cheating is so widespread that teachers have to do weighted averages and make tests count for 80% of their grade. The assignments they turned in were copied from someone else ore done using AI.
During my career, I have watched as the government has provided more and more for children. First was free lunch, then free breakfast, and now, free dinner. A large number of our students only eat at home because their parents do. not have to feed their own children. In CA, we have to provide everything a student needs for school. So, I have to provide pencils that are suppled to me from the school. Many students will make sure to pick up there free pencil every day and at the end of class I find them on the floor after they pulled the eraser off and broke it into several pieces. They do not care, they will get a new pencil in their next class.
If a student is sick, the parents send them to school because the school nurse will evaluate them and if they need to see a doctor, they take care of it by taking the kid to a local doctor.
Parents today only have to produce children, the government will raise them.
You mentioned workman's comp for when you have an on the job injury. The government does a poor job of running that. In CA, government employees are not covered by workman's comp. The state mandates all private sector employers pay into it but the state is exempt from paying into it for their own employees.
As a government employee though, I can purchase private workman's comp insurance. I did that immediately after I was hired. When I had my stroke, I was glad I had private insurance. They immediately processed my claim and started paying me on the first day. I was off for 2 years and those payments helped me pay for rehab services not covered by health insurance. I remember the first neurologist to treat me said that he would certified that I was 100% disabled so I would not be forced to do rehab. I would receive disability payments for life and never have to work again.
I turned him down because I had every intention of doing rehab and going back to work. I had a family to support and I was going to do one way or another.
My son was in high school at that time and saw me refusing 100% disability and doing rehab for 2 years. and eventually going back to work. Today he is a USDA inspector and tells me about federal employees who are more than happy to take a full disability because it is like winning the lottery, No more working. He told me he cannot fathom doing that. He and his wife recently ha their first child and he told me he was glad I showed him how to be a father by my actions. It is a matter of pride for him to support his family.
Unfortunately, many today want government handouts so they do not have to work so hard.
Good topic, John, because any phrase that starts out; "the wealthiest country in the history of the world should..." is always the start of shame and blame for the producers, who don't want to start or expand yet another government give away to non-producers. Was there ever be a kinder, gentler, more loving person than Jesus of Nazareth? Yet in 2 Thessalonians the apostle Paul tells us that God says that those who won't work shall not eat, so how can it be cruel or uncaring for the United States to require work, like Trump is doing with some benefits? It's just wrong to have a class of parasites who insist that they may lounge while others work, as if this is a right that they are owed simply because they are here.
I mostly agree but I would argue a small technicality also.
There is a saying, if you meet one person and they are a jerk, it's no big deal, you met a jerk. But if every person you meet is a jerk then.... the jerk is you.
In much the same way, if one person can't afford a home, they have failed. If an entire generation can't afford a home until a median age of 40, then yes, "society" has failed.
Society has, at minimum, failed to instill values and work ethics, failed to incentivize productive behavior, and things like that. What you say is true, roughly, "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink". But we can also ask "are we leading the horse to water" and even "is there any water there at all".
Every generation going back forever has helped instill values into the next, sometimes to good effect.... sometimes not.
But aggregating millions together into "society" is misleading. We have lots of individuals and subgroups that make up "society" and it's worth asking which of those individuals and subgroups are failing and which are not.
And any honest analysis will pretty much show you that the "blue model" / socialist / left wing subgroup is the part of "society" that has failed.
If the left is serious about fixing the part of society that has failed, they need to take a good long long look in the mirror. The failures have their fingerprints all over them.
The examples you (John Hawkins) list are just a sampling (and I am sure it was meant that way). But yes, SNAP -is- an example of how society has failed, and continues to fail. Fixing that failure of society means fundamental reforms to SNAP.
It is not really possible to say SNAP has failed without arguing that society has too, because SNAP is part of the social fabric in which these people are steeped.
I do agree both that societies can do a poor job of transmitting values and that our society is one of those societies.
I think where we've gotten into trouble in the modern era is that so many people are desperately looking for victimhood and "society" has become one of the catchall villains that a lot of people like to use to explain failures. In other words, if society was perfect, they wouldn't have those problems. Of course, that means the reverse is also true, which is that everyone were perfect, society wouldn't have any problems.
In a sense, it's a philosophical argument. In a merit based society, some people are going to fail. Whose fault is it? I would argue that somewhere like America, it's almost always their fault. If we were somewhere like Afghanistan or Lebanon, it would be a different discussion.
I believe others have written about the home owning issues at length and better than I ever could, but part of our problem now is what people's expectations have become. My grandparents first lived in old rundown farm houses, with outhouses in their backyards, then when they got old they moved into town into tiny little houses. They didn't have attached two or three car garages, they sometimes had a broken down shed in the back down a gravel or paver block lane. They had no central air, no basement beyond a root cellar, single pane windows, one TV with an antenna that might get decent reception on three or four stations, one land line phone- I mean, these were very basic, cheaply built homes on tiny lots. We *could* still afford to do that today, but no one is willing to set their sights so low. Of course I grew up in rural WI, and your mileage may vary depending on your zip code. Thanks for your thoughtful comment.
Here's one thing we absolutely should do: Not let anyone on the government dole vote. It's a gigantic conflict of interest.
You are, of course 100% right, but the left blames any anyone’s hunger, crime, homelessness, poverty, and every other personal failure on society (except of course of you’re talking about white males) and demands that society redistribute the wealth of the producers to the looters (after having siphoned off a large percentage for vote buying, NGOs, etc.).
Unfortunately, there are more looters than producers, and the right has failed to make the case that our focus should be on making everyone (who can) a producer, this enriching society as a whole.
You're correct, though I might point out The Right makes the mistake of assuming people are more knowledgeable than they actually are.
The writers of conservative op-ed journalism assume the reader is thoroughly versed in the Federalist Papers and The Wealth of Nations, and that's often not the case.
Similarly, the admonition to pull oneself up by one's bootstraps falls flat if the reader simply doesn't know how because they've never been taught.
Building your training program around such principles as "drink from the fire hose" and "ask if you don't know" is a great formula for a partially-capable staff.
So THAT would be something we could - SHOW people how to succeed.
I couldn’t agree more, on both counts.
JFK was assassinated a few months after I was born. My mother made sure I knew about him and what he advocated. My favorite quote is, "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country." He was against welfare because it made people lazy.
My parents divorced when I was 7 because my father beating her and us kids and then started to push his Nazi beliefs, especially the idea that Germans are the master race.
My mother was 6 months away from graduating from nursing school when the divorce was final. My father resisted paying child support and mom was working as a nurse's aid at night and going to school during the day. We got government food aid, which meant once a week, we got a box of surplus government food. Food stamps were not a thing.
After she passed her boards and became an RN, she stopped accepting the food aid because it was just temporary and she could now provide for us kids. We did not eat fancy food, but we never starved. There was a lot of peanut butter and bologna sandwiches. We did qualify for the free lunch program, but mom would not accept it. She could provide lunch for us and made it every morning. Personally, I preferred what she made us than the cafeteria food. Even back then it was bad.
To this day I bring my lunch to school every day and refuse to eat in the staff cafeteria.
Mom passed her work ethic to me. You pay your way. Life is tough so deal with it. She also made it clear the government does not owe us anything.
I was teaching high school when Obama came into office. He was no JFK. One of the early quotes I remember from him was, "I think if you spread the wealth around, it's good for everyone. So steal from those that are working and earning their way to give to those who are capable of working but refuse to do so. I was teaching at a school with a high poverty rate and I had students who were the 4th generation living on welfair. For four generations they have lived off of taxpayers and taught their kids to not worry about school, the government will pay you to not work.
Now, I am teaching a large number of students who refuse to do anything. They do not have to because either the government or their parents will take care of them. They refuse to put in the effort to learn, why do that when you can use AI to do your school work for you. Cheating is so widespread that teachers have to do weighted averages and make tests count for 80% of their grade. The assignments they turned in were copied from someone else ore done using AI.
During my career, I have watched as the government has provided more and more for children. First was free lunch, then free breakfast, and now, free dinner. A large number of our students only eat at home because their parents do. not have to feed their own children. In CA, we have to provide everything a student needs for school. So, I have to provide pencils that are suppled to me from the school. Many students will make sure to pick up there free pencil every day and at the end of class I find them on the floor after they pulled the eraser off and broke it into several pieces. They do not care, they will get a new pencil in their next class.
If a student is sick, the parents send them to school because the school nurse will evaluate them and if they need to see a doctor, they take care of it by taking the kid to a local doctor.
Parents today only have to produce children, the government will raise them.
You mentioned workman's comp for when you have an on the job injury. The government does a poor job of running that. In CA, government employees are not covered by workman's comp. The state mandates all private sector employers pay into it but the state is exempt from paying into it for their own employees.
As a government employee though, I can purchase private workman's comp insurance. I did that immediately after I was hired. When I had my stroke, I was glad I had private insurance. They immediately processed my claim and started paying me on the first day. I was off for 2 years and those payments helped me pay for rehab services not covered by health insurance. I remember the first neurologist to treat me said that he would certified that I was 100% disabled so I would not be forced to do rehab. I would receive disability payments for life and never have to work again.
I turned him down because I had every intention of doing rehab and going back to work. I had a family to support and I was going to do one way or another.
My son was in high school at that time and saw me refusing 100% disability and doing rehab for 2 years. and eventually going back to work. Today he is a USDA inspector and tells me about federal employees who are more than happy to take a full disability because it is like winning the lottery, No more working. He told me he cannot fathom doing that. He and his wife recently ha their first child and he told me he was glad I showed him how to be a father by my actions. It is a matter of pride for him to support his family.
Unfortunately, many today want government handouts so they do not have to work so hard.
Good topic, John, because any phrase that starts out; "the wealthiest country in the history of the world should..." is always the start of shame and blame for the producers, who don't want to start or expand yet another government give away to non-producers. Was there ever be a kinder, gentler, more loving person than Jesus of Nazareth? Yet in 2 Thessalonians the apostle Paul tells us that God says that those who won't work shall not eat, so how can it be cruel or uncaring for the United States to require work, like Trump is doing with some benefits? It's just wrong to have a class of parasites who insist that they may lounge while others work, as if this is a right that they are owed simply because they are here.
I mostly agree but I would argue a small technicality also.
There is a saying, if you meet one person and they are a jerk, it's no big deal, you met a jerk. But if every person you meet is a jerk then.... the jerk is you.
In much the same way, if one person can't afford a home, they have failed. If an entire generation can't afford a home until a median age of 40, then yes, "society" has failed.
Society has, at minimum, failed to instill values and work ethics, failed to incentivize productive behavior, and things like that. What you say is true, roughly, "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink". But we can also ask "are we leading the horse to water" and even "is there any water there at all".
Every generation going back forever has helped instill values into the next, sometimes to good effect.... sometimes not.
But aggregating millions together into "society" is misleading. We have lots of individuals and subgroups that make up "society" and it's worth asking which of those individuals and subgroups are failing and which are not.
And any honest analysis will pretty much show you that the "blue model" / socialist / left wing subgroup is the part of "society" that has failed.
If the left is serious about fixing the part of society that has failed, they need to take a good long long look in the mirror. The failures have their fingerprints all over them.
The examples you (John Hawkins) list are just a sampling (and I am sure it was meant that way). But yes, SNAP -is- an example of how society has failed, and continues to fail. Fixing that failure of society means fundamental reforms to SNAP.
It is not really possible to say SNAP has failed without arguing that society has too, because SNAP is part of the social fabric in which these people are steeped.
I do agree both that societies can do a poor job of transmitting values and that our society is one of those societies.
I think where we've gotten into trouble in the modern era is that so many people are desperately looking for victimhood and "society" has become one of the catchall villains that a lot of people like to use to explain failures. In other words, if society was perfect, they wouldn't have those problems. Of course, that means the reverse is also true, which is that everyone were perfect, society wouldn't have any problems.
In a sense, it's a philosophical argument. In a merit based society, some people are going to fail. Whose fault is it? I would argue that somewhere like America, it's almost always their fault. If we were somewhere like Afghanistan or Lebanon, it would be a different discussion.
I believe others have written about the home owning issues at length and better than I ever could, but part of our problem now is what people's expectations have become. My grandparents first lived in old rundown farm houses, with outhouses in their backyards, then when they got old they moved into town into tiny little houses. They didn't have attached two or three car garages, they sometimes had a broken down shed in the back down a gravel or paver block lane. They had no central air, no basement beyond a root cellar, single pane windows, one TV with an antenna that might get decent reception on three or four stations, one land line phone- I mean, these were very basic, cheaply built homes on tiny lots. We *could* still afford to do that today, but no one is willing to set their sights so low. Of course I grew up in rural WI, and your mileage may vary depending on your zip code. Thanks for your thoughtful comment.