Why the poor aren't getting ahead.

[OldWiseGuy]

What if they lacking on intelligence or IQ, mentally handicapped?

Is it their fault too?

As stated earlier, they get a pass. In fact I'd rather provide their support then try to teach them how to be productive.

 

[majj27]

You can't see the whole picture unless you lived in exactly the same circumstances as they did with the same physical or mental handicap they may have.

We ought to be careful when judging other people:

Matthew 7:2
For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Agreed. I've BEEN poor. As in "Should I eat this week or keep the heat on during January" poor. And during that time of my life I've been told by many, many "upstanding" folks that I was lazy, unmotivated, and a drain on society.

This was when I was working 2, sometimes 3 jobs, 50-60 hours a week. It left me with a rather dim view of people who broadly paint poor people as shiftless bums and lazy parasites. And a great deal of respect for those in that very same situation and the struggles they have to overcome.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Agreed. I've BEEN poor. As in "Should I eat this week or keep the heat on during January" poor. And during that time of my life I've been told by many, many "upstanding" folks that I was lazy, unmotivated, and a drain on society.

Sorry to hear that. When I was down and out I got many offers of help, never criticism.

 

[Non sequitur]

Too many are,

Undereducated
Under motivated
Unwilling to plan
Unwilling to sacrifice
Unwilling to work hard
Unwilling to obey the law
Unwilling to care for their health
Unwilling to abstain from drugs and alcohol
Unwilling to remain unmarried until they can afford it.
Unwilling to present themselves to an employer properly.

I think you need to change the title of this motivational poster to "Why people aren't getting ahead"

 

[381465]

Yea, and I'm sure the judgmental attitude and stereo-types from *some* people don't help all that much either. If I were a betting man I would bet that OldWiseGuy is white and does not have many, if any, black friends.

Click this Link: A black church went in search of a white church to talk about race

It might help.

Because there are no white poor or black rich. Got it.

 

[grasping the after wind]

I think a lot of people don't want to accept that "The poor will always be with you" is not supposed to be a goal.

Some people think the goal is to erradicate the poor by giving them stuff for free. The poor don't need to be given stuff they need to be helped and cared about as if they were not a different species of creature than the rest of society. An addict doesn't need another government handout. A single mother doesn't need another government handout. They already have those and those handouts have not and will never suffice no matter how large they might become or how many there are. What the poor need is some form of success and, by only making them wards of the state keeping them dependent with their financial position being just tenable enough to survive with a few luxuries to distract them from being dissatisfied, we remove that possibility. Additionally, to those that think it is, I can assure everyone that being poor is not a disease that needs a cure nor is it confined to a race or ethnicity. It is merely a financial situation that under the right circumstances ought to be temporary. Unfortunately the social welfare policies of governments in the western world have tended to make that condition more permanent for way too many people.

 

[majj27]

Sorry to hear that. When I was down and out I got many offers of help, never criticism.

The people who offered help, ironically, were the people who were in the same boat as me: those least able to help were the most willing. The people most able found it easier to just chalk up my situation to some assumed character failure on my part and leave me to what they were convinced were my just rewards.

I refuse to do that to someone else.

 

[grasping the after wind]

Not a goal but it is a fact. But as your somewhat snarky comment infers, we shouldn't settle. Are we all familiar with this verse?

James 1:27 Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

In addition to remaining pure before the Lord, taking care of those who can't help themselves is part of our religion. But the word for religion there, thrēskeia, is really the idea of "worship." Our worship should include taking care of those who can't take care of themselves.

And taking care means so much more than just giving people stuff. It is much easier to feel superior or virtuous by giving people stuff than it is to actually care for them though.

 

[Ken Rank]

And taking care means so much more than just giving people stuff. It is much easier to feel superior or virtuous by giving people stuff than it is to actually care for them though.

Amen... often just "giving" is enabling... which you don't want to become either.

 

[majj27]

And taking care means so much more than just giving people stuff.

I have no argument with this. It has to be a multifaceted approach, involving support, care, emergency aid, education, removal of unfair restrictions and hurdles, and above all, compassion.

 

[KWCrazy]

As the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, the poor are poor by choice. To a large extent this is true. When you choose to goof around in school, cause trouble from the back row, harass the teacher, disrupt the education of others, not do your homework and not apply yourself, you'll leave school almost as ignorant as you started it. Of what value are you to a high tech marketplace?

When you sit around and smoke weed, drink excessively and do other drugs you disqualify yourself from lucrative careers. Girls who have babies when they are 15 don't have the job skills to support themselves and become a burden on society while sentencing their baby to a life of poverty. There are exception, but relatively few.

The problem is there is not enough incentive to work. I deal with business people every day whose biggest problem is getting people to come in to work on time and ready to do the job they were hired to perform. The laziness of others is the biggest obstacle to their own success. For whatever reasons our youth has very little work ethic. We have an entire generation of people who think they are entitled to live in Mommy's basement until Mommy dies and leaves them the house.

For the poor young gang member who lives on the streets because his mother works two jobs and is never home and his father was a one night stand she had when she was partying, they can either get the heck out of the street and go to school or go enlist in the military, learn a skill, and when they get out move anywhere else.

The "Great Society" was designed to create a permanent underclass dependent on government for everything so they would continue to vote for Democrats who tossed them a few scraps and kept them in the chains of poverty. Our schools are infested with liberals who tell people that tossing scraps to the poor is good and teaching them to support themselves is bad. There is no honor in being burden to your neighbors.

 

[timewerx]

As stated earlier, they get a pass. In fact I'd rather provide their support then try to teach them how to be productive.

Quite many of the poor are actually mentally handicapped or mentally challenged individuals due to life circumstances.

I know this because I had the opportunity to live and work among the poor for a long time.

Because their parents were likewise poor. These poor folks had to endure malnutrition, substance abuse of their parents, and lack of positive mental stimulation during their infancy and childhood.

They missed proper brain development at the most opportune time - during infancy and childhood.... So it's not surprising they adopt anti-social behavior especially if that's the only thing they knew from their parents or environment.

We can't have high expectations of them and they absolutely need help to become productive individuals, they can't do it on their own.

 

[grasping the after wind]

Too many are,

Undereducated
Under motivated
Unwilling to plan
Unwilling to sacrifice
Unwilling to work hard
Unwilling to obey the law
Unwilling to care for their health
Unwilling to abstain from drugs and alcohol
Unwilling to remain unmarried until they can afford it.
Unwilling to present themselves to an employer properly.

Why do you think so many people take an immediate position of saying you are a terrible person or even a racist for pointing out that too many people that are poor are unwilling to do the things you pointed out that they are unwilling to do. Are they saying you arr wrong to think too many are like this? Do they think that there are no poor that are like this? I also noticed they act as if you are saying all poor are like this but you did qualify it as being too many. You did not specify how many were too many. I do not know but it could be you see 5% of poor like this. Would they object to you thinking 1% of poor being like this was too many? I find it interesting that instead of asking for clarification on the actual message you are sending that they simply attack the messenger. Could it be they have such a black and white view of reality that any questioning of their stereotypes is beyond their ability to cope with so they immediately assume you are working solely from some sort of contradictory stereotype from theirs?

 

[ForsakenGirl]

To be rich in this world is more of a bad thing because our world is evil. -- 1 John 5:19, John 15:19

And:

Luke 6:20-26

Looking at his disciples, he said:

“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
21
Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
22
Blessed are you when people hate you,
when they exclude you and insult you
and reject your name as evil,
because of the Son of Man.

23 “Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.

24
“But woe to you who are rich,
for you have already received your comfort.
25
Woe to you who are well fed now,
for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will mourn and weep.
26
Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you,
for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.

i don't get the part about the false prophets, surely wealthy people are not the only to support false prophets..

 

[Non sequitur]

As the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, the poor are poor by choice. To a large extent this is true. When you choose to goof around in school, cause trouble from the back row, harass the teacher, disrupt the education of others, not do your homework and not apply yourself, you'll leave school almost as ignorant as you started it. Of what value are you to a high tech marketplace?

It seems like you are saying that the only reason poor people are poor is bad choices. It's a little bit more nuanced than that.

And for those who are poor that don't make those bad choices? Is that not a possibility?

 

[timewerx]

i don't get the part about the false prophets, surely wealthy people are not the only to support false prophets..

Verse 26 is not exactly about false prophets but simply being compared to false prophets.

In context, it is saying that it is a bad thing if evil (worldly) people speaks well of you because evil people have also spoken well of their false prophets.

 

[ForsakenGirl]

Verse 26 is not exactly about false prophets but simply being compared to false prophets.

In context, it is saying that it is a bad thing if evil (worldly) people speaks well of you because evil people have also spoken well of their false prophets.

i understand, thanks

 

[OldWiseGuy]

I think you need to change the title of this motivational poster to "Why people aren't getting ahead"

That assumes that most people aren't getting ahead, not true.

 

[grasping the after wind]

The people who offered help, ironically, were the people who were in the same boat as me: those least able to help were the most willing. The people most able found it easier to just chalk up my situation to some assumed character failure on my part and leave me to what they were convinced were my just rewards.

I refuse to do that to someone else.

You do understand though why people unacquainted with your personal situation would simply put you in the box they reserved for all people they saw in that situation. The tendency to stereotype is a very hard one to fight. They had most likely in the past seen a similar situation caused by a real "character flaw" on the part of the person in that situation. Leaving "character flaws" aside as a bit of a subjective term and one I would not use as descriptive of the unwillingness that the OP is talking about. Pointing out that "too many" have an unwillingness to do things which keeps them from in improving their financial situation is not the same as ascribing that unwillingness to all in that situation. If the the reality, is that there are those that are unwilling to put forth the effort to become self sufficient then I would tend to say that no matter what percentage that amounts to there are "too many". If that is the case then pointing it out may not be pleasant to consider but it is something worthy of discussing rather than simply dismissing it and surely not cause to label the messenger with a distasteful label.

 

[Non sequitur]

That assumes that most people aren't getting ahead, not true.

That title wouldn't assume they are or are not; it has no agenda.

It would just offer reasons why people aren't getting ahead.