The solution to our problems...Tax the rich?

Not being born in a neighborhood like mine, where your pampered a** would have been beaten to a pulp, and then beaten some more.

 

...That's called "Tuesday" ...You don't wanna be around on Thursday

 

I was raised poor, on a farm....not much pampering. The difference is I made something out of myself (through my own effort) while you turned out to be, welllll..tom.

 

Congrats... you sound like the typical, hard-work-all-your-life kinda guy who is now relatively comfortable with his level of success. You deserve respect for your achievements, and I give it. However, it wouldn't hurt you to work on having more empathy for those that have failed while trying to get where you are now. Some, but not all, deserve respect for trying.

 

People who are convinced that they did it all by themselves. Alone. Without the support, sacrifice, and kindness of others, and without giving credit to the society and the infrastructure that made their success possible are pretty alien to empathy. I don't know if David is like this or not. Most but certainly not all of the "self-made" successes I know are not shy about acknowledging the debt they have both to the people around them and to society for helping to make their hard work pay off.

 

Yeah...I have a buddy that thinks that he did it all on his own (because he was raised on a farm, he worked, blah, blah, blah). What he doesn't realize is that his circumstances (that he was born in to) were already largely preset and controlled and was set up to inherit his success by design. His chances of failing were significantly reduced at the outset. He thinks that HE did it on his own. He didn't. Much like you, he thinks he paid the price and fully deserves all the benefits that he actually inherited. Daddy put out some trained hoops for him to jump through. He did. Now he thinks he earned it. He has no clue. He never will.

 

Florida has been and still is in a depression. We have over 11 percent unemployment the last time I saw it posted and that does not count the droves of people who went back to Mexico for thier jobs just disappeared, the droves of people who lost everything and went back to the midwest and northeast. There is serious hurt down here.

 

Anyone, including myself, who was born white, male, straight, and middle class already has an advantage many other groups have never had. What creates empathy in people like me is that we realize that we won the social lottery when we were born. The people from this group that tell themselves that they did it all on their own and believe that they have had no advantages just for being born who they were, are the people that have the most trouble feeling empathy for other groups. I think David is a prime example of empathetic challenged people.

 

I have as much empathy as anyone...I just believe it is more altruistic to help people do for themselves & show them how to taste success rather than spoon feed them & get them addicted to gov't. A little tough love goes a long way.

 

Show me a single case where I have exhibited a lack of empathy.

 

What an idiot.
My parents were poor- I can go into more detail if you like. I wasn't born into a suburban middle class household but I was raised right.
I've told you guys before, I didn't get any financial assistance from my family (or anywhere else) for college. I worked 2 jobs to pay my way & worked a third when I needed to. It killed my parents that they weren't financially able to help but I think I appreciate it more because I did do it on my own. I think I worked harder in order to do things I was never able to do when I was a kid.

 

You deserve respect for your accomplishments, and you have mine... but not for empathy lol

 

And it doesn't require anything of you except for you to look down on those that you have decided are less worthy of success entirely as a result of their own doing. How convenient.
My wife and I certainly have achieved a comfortable life for our little family but I can't imagine looking down on those who haven't achieved as much as we have. I grew up with very little and learned a long time ago that no one above me is any better than I am and certainly no one below me is inherently less than I am either. It's a lesson that anyone raised with compassion will understand. I don't know what makes people indifferent to their fellow human beings burdens and why they have to fault the people that were born into a society that pays lip service to equality while racism, sexism, classism, and every other discrimination is part and parcel of the American experience. We were built on slavery and inequality and have been working to overcome these legacies for hundreds of years. We have made progress but believing that the playing field is level requires an intimate relationship with denial I just haven't developed.

 

You're an ever bigger idiot. Mommy and Daddy were always available to provide you with a home when and if you failed at your hoop led experiments. You have no idea what the hell you're talking about. "You were raised right". Ding ding ding! That's called an advantage you nitwit! Mommy and Daddy were there to pick you up and brush you off when you fell. You have zero concept of what it's like to be have been raised in a dangerous, drug ridden, racist, criminal environment. You're a pansy that lives under the illusion that he "did it himself". What did you have to worry about growing up? When to milk the cows? Where to put the cow poop? You're a joke man, and now you're a wealthy adult, disconnected and shielded from reality by your wealth. You're a puss and you're living inside a big disconnected bubble. Idiot indeed.

 

My parents have much the same story as yours, David. Yet their politics are very different from yours although they do include helping people to help themselves. I think maybe the difference is that they feel grateful to this country for giving them the opportunities and institutions, most of them public institutions, and the public infrastructure that has allowed their hard work to pay off. They understand that what the government provides is not free. They just think that it's worth paying for so that others will have it too.

 

Ok, I'll ask again....show me a case where I have looked down my nose or exhibited a lack of empathy towards others.
I'll stack my altruistism up against anyone on this forum any day. My family and I spend a great deal of time helping others and we've taught our children to do the same. We adhere to the "time, treasure & talent" philosophy and we walk the walk while my guess is that many here simply talk the talk. How many here run a program that makes sure over 300 kids get Christmas every year? How many here have given up a huge portion of their salary to serve as the "executive-on-loan" for a charity? How many here volunteer their time in the inner city to give music lessons to underprivileged kids? How many here have given their time to organize & run a used sports equipment exchange for underprivileged kids? Anybody? I could continue......

 

I'm not going to get into a "my family was worse off than yours" argument with an idiot like you. The fact of the matter is I was able to accomplish something while you were able to become, well, you. At some point in your pathetic life you faced decisions that affected the course of your sad existence. Don't hold it against others that you chose wrong & failed. See tom, losers like you have made it easier for others to advance and become members of that comfortable class you envy.

 

Your generousity is admirable, and you've earned my respect for that, but when you call people losers and pathetic for not succeeding as well as you have then you lose some of that earned respect.

Respect is an important part of empathy. Some of us feel that you haven't shown enough of it towards the less fortunate. I'll back off a little on that since you do quite a bit of charitable work and understand why you feel that we are wrong to say you lack much empathy.

My opinion on that still hasn't changed though, since respect for the less fortunate is a major aspect of empathy.

 

...oh, and tax the rich! LOL

 

There just seems to be a mismatch between the David he claims to be and the David we all experience here. I have met very charitable people in many situations and they don't turn around when they are done being compassionate and call those less fortunate them themselves, lazy, system leaches that deserve their own situation..... Paraphrasing of course.

And David cannot deny that he has painted people in this light even if he hasn't used those exact words. His attitude has been consistently to blame those less fortunate people for their own situation. I know that there are people that try and game the system. I certainly know a few but you can't broadly paint everyone in that light just to make yourself feel better. That isn't the attitude you find in very giving compassionate people. I think David is either lying to us, himself, or at the very least is exaggerating the truth. I guess we'll never know but if he walks the talk more power to him but if he is simply talking the talk because he knows we have no way of verifying the truth, he is pretty much a sad, sad case. I'll let his words speak for him as they always have.