Usually one encounters magical thinking in a cloak of a conservative stripe, such as Iraq War dead-enders from the Cheney regime. Religious wingnuts who quite literally believe and expect that their invisible buddy, the same guy who lets infinite, routine evil take place every day and everywhere, is looking out for them, if only they believe correctly and sufficiently. Climate-change deniers, birthers, people who are simultaneously convinced that Obama is both singularly dumb and inept, yet cunning and ruthless enough to pull off incredibly baroque conspiracies. You know the type.
There are liberal magical thinkers as well, and one of the more interesting types is the bien pensant reproductive rights absolutist, the pastry-brained doofuses who will write impassioned defenses of the "rights" of people who refuse to take personal responsibility for their lives, yet have nothing to say at all for the rest of society, who are forced to financially support those rights.
This is just awesome:
Right, so let's punish everyone else by making them foot the bill for your "decisions". Is that how this works? Setting aside the fact that, in California and most other large states, car seats are free through the WIC program, there is this tone, this preening tone of expectation on the part of both subject and writer. They were owed this stuff, see.
Lady, I doubt most people care whether you "decide" to have two or four or ten children. I don't, except to the extent that the planet is already overcrowded with the human virus. But the tacit deal that you accept when you sign up for public assistance is that you're in a bit of a hole, and so maybe it's time you stop digging. Is it too much to ask that you at least put down the shovel?
I get that what families receive on CalWORKs or CalFresh or TANF is a relative pittance, and that compared to what corporations and super-wealthy individuals skip out on tax-wise, it's practically nothing. Still, there is something immensely off-putting about someone complaining about having to wait in line for free shit. I know, if I drop it by your house during my lunch hour from work, would that be easier on you, dear? I mean, come on. Birth control is free. No one is making you have kids you can't afford. There is no excuse for this nonsense.
But what's worse is the insinuation by the writer of the article that the family cap is just eugenics in a different guise. Old wine, new bottles, yada yada. Well, bullshit. I sure as hell couldn't care less about race as it pertains to this issue, and I doubt most people do either. What I care about is working my ass off to just get by, and having 25% taken off the top of my measly paycheck, getting nothing for it, and these people fucking complain about stuff being given to them.
Or the deadbeat douchebag who got incentivized into doing the planet a favor and getting a vasectomy, only after having seven or eight kids by almost as many women. This too apparently is the nose of the eugenics camel poking into the proverbial tent. Why does Melissa Ortiz get to "decide" to have more kids that she can't afford, and the rest of us can't "decide" in turn that we shouldn't have to support them for her? Why does everyone else have to pay for a dipshit like Jesse Lee Herald (who is white, btw) to mindlessly spray his seed into every available orifice? Hell, if anything, this should be standard procedure. If there's one thing the world could use less of, it's freeloading dipshits.
Flying Spaghetti Monster knows I shudder at the prospect of being on the same side of an issue -- any issue -- as the denizens of the feces-throwing Faux News monkey house. I don't want to be on the same side of anything as Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity. But goddammit, I think working-class taxpayers are being squeezed quite enough, thank you. Anyone between 40-50 years of age is already looking at a royal reaming in the decade to come, as retiring boomers hoover up the medical and Social Security dollars. The goalposts will get moved on us, because we should have to retire later and poorer so those motherfuckers can get their hip replacements. And we'll get jack shit in return.
And to add insult to injury, we're supposed to just sit by and subsidize people who refuse to get out of their own way. Well, forgive me if I politely decline. I'm absolutely in favor of helping people who have had a run of bad luck, are doing what they can to get rolling again. I'm glad there is a safety net for those folks, and it should stay there, and in fact be increased to some extent (increased funding, better job training). And I've talked to them personally, listened to them while they break down over losing their jobs, having a spouse fighting cancer, any number of things. It breaks your heart. They want to get back to what they've earned, and I hope we continue to help them as much as possible. But that's not who we're talking about here.
So in the meantime, perhaps the folks that can control the major aspects of their lives -- such as whether or not to have four kids while on the dole -- should start taking a little responsibility for themselves. I have very little patience for that "tough love" shit, the Dr. Phil sort of hectoring at hapless bumpkins who never got the memo about impulse control and decision making. But this is one of those times when it's true. No one's proposing to bring back Buck v. Bell, but there is an expectation that people make an honest effort to pull their own weight.
This is one of those externalities of the vaunted "post-scarcity" society we have apparently sought as a by-product of globalizing outputs through Third World despotisms. But the thing is, when you have more people than you have things for them to do, you have to be careful about the activities you continue to incentivize. I mean, if someone's willing to pay me to sit around and fuck all day, I'll take their money. But as misanthropic as I am, I'd like to think that even the average 'murkin is at least smarter than that.
There are liberal magical thinkers as well, and one of the more interesting types is the bien pensant reproductive rights absolutist, the pastry-brained doofuses who will write impassioned defenses of the "rights" of people who refuse to take personal responsibility for their lives, yet have nothing to say at all for the rest of society, who are forced to financially support those rights.
This is just awesome:
“When we first had the twins, the only person in my family getting aid was my oldest son,” she said. “We didn’t have money to buy them car seats to get home [from the hospital]. …We didn’t have money to pay for diapers, wipes, shampoos, and toiletries. … I am here to tell you that I am trying my best to be a great mom. I do not need to be punished for deciding to have children.”
Right, so let's punish everyone else by making them foot the bill for your "decisions". Is that how this works? Setting aside the fact that, in California and most other large states, car seats are free through the WIC program, there is this tone, this preening tone of expectation on the part of both subject and writer. They were owed this stuff, see.
Lady, I doubt most people care whether you "decide" to have two or four or ten children. I don't, except to the extent that the planet is already overcrowded with the human virus. But the tacit deal that you accept when you sign up for public assistance is that you're in a bit of a hole, and so maybe it's time you stop digging. Is it too much to ask that you at least put down the shovel?
I get that what families receive on CalWORKs or CalFresh or TANF is a relative pittance, and that compared to what corporations and super-wealthy individuals skip out on tax-wise, it's practically nothing. Still, there is something immensely off-putting about someone complaining about having to wait in line for free shit. I know, if I drop it by your house during my lunch hour from work, would that be easier on you, dear? I mean, come on. Birth control is free. No one is making you have kids you can't afford. There is no excuse for this nonsense.
But what's worse is the insinuation by the writer of the article that the family cap is just eugenics in a different guise. Old wine, new bottles, yada yada. Well, bullshit. I sure as hell couldn't care less about race as it pertains to this issue, and I doubt most people do either. What I care about is working my ass off to just get by, and having 25% taken off the top of my measly paycheck, getting nothing for it, and these people fucking complain about stuff being given to them.
Or the deadbeat douchebag who got incentivized into doing the planet a favor and getting a vasectomy, only after having seven or eight kids by almost as many women. This too apparently is the nose of the eugenics camel poking into the proverbial tent. Why does Melissa Ortiz get to "decide" to have more kids that she can't afford, and the rest of us can't "decide" in turn that we shouldn't have to support them for her? Why does everyone else have to pay for a dipshit like Jesse Lee Herald (who is white, btw) to mindlessly spray his seed into every available orifice? Hell, if anything, this should be standard procedure. If there's one thing the world could use less of, it's freeloading dipshits.
Flying Spaghetti Monster knows I shudder at the prospect of being on the same side of an issue -- any issue -- as the denizens of the feces-throwing Faux News monkey house. I don't want to be on the same side of anything as Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity. But goddammit, I think working-class taxpayers are being squeezed quite enough, thank you. Anyone between 40-50 years of age is already looking at a royal reaming in the decade to come, as retiring boomers hoover up the medical and Social Security dollars. The goalposts will get moved on us, because we should have to retire later and poorer so those motherfuckers can get their hip replacements. And we'll get jack shit in return.
And to add insult to injury, we're supposed to just sit by and subsidize people who refuse to get out of their own way. Well, forgive me if I politely decline. I'm absolutely in favor of helping people who have had a run of bad luck, are doing what they can to get rolling again. I'm glad there is a safety net for those folks, and it should stay there, and in fact be increased to some extent (increased funding, better job training). And I've talked to them personally, listened to them while they break down over losing their jobs, having a spouse fighting cancer, any number of things. It breaks your heart. They want to get back to what they've earned, and I hope we continue to help them as much as possible. But that's not who we're talking about here.
So in the meantime, perhaps the folks that can control the major aspects of their lives -- such as whether or not to have four kids while on the dole -- should start taking a little responsibility for themselves. I have very little patience for that "tough love" shit, the Dr. Phil sort of hectoring at hapless bumpkins who never got the memo about impulse control and decision making. But this is one of those times when it's true. No one's proposing to bring back Buck v. Bell, but there is an expectation that people make an honest effort to pull their own weight.
This is one of those externalities of the vaunted "post-scarcity" society we have apparently sought as a by-product of globalizing outputs through Third World despotisms. But the thing is, when you have more people than you have things for them to do, you have to be careful about the activities you continue to incentivize. I mean, if someone's willing to pay me to sit around and fuck all day, I'll take their money. But as misanthropic as I am, I'd like to think that even the average 'murkin is at least smarter than that.
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