Had a friend bring up that old argument of “if we give poor people more $$, they just end up lazy or still poor, so let’s give them training!”
I blew a gasket.
My response:
“Oh jesus-fucking-christ. Not this idiotic argument again.
Sorry [name redacted] but I’m fed up with this beyond tolerance.
WE ARE NOT A BUNCH OF LAZY FUCKERS!
Let me repeat that again. Poverty IS NOT cured by ‘teaching people how to not be poor. It is not a lack of life skills.
THAT IS COMPLETE AND UTTER BULLSHIT.
You do not fix this problem by saying “you just have to try harder.” You fix this problem by -fixing the problem- which is inequal access to wealth and opportunity, often because some rich fucker is stomping on your face.
And you are backing this up. You’ve bought the line. You’ve swallowed the bait.
I’m trying to get a fix on this because I know what the other option has traditionally been and that involves things like guillotines and death.
I’d like to avoid that.
But by placing the blame on the poor — “we just need to teach them new skills” — you are literally pushing this towards a bloody solution.
I’m done with tiptoeing through this. This vision of the poor is wrong, ridiculous and downright fucking dangerous.”