Poor and Homelessness

[PruePhillip]

Interesting. Can you link me to this?
Supported what? CNN? I don't know of any corporate support for CNN.
It's more a bias toward facts.
Universities analyze. They study multiple, intertwined facts and historical outcomes of various movements and policies. They know social psychology, anthropology, and sociology, history and ecology.
The scientific facts are simply more congruous with the policies promoted by Democrats or Greens. Nobody is promoting any political platform.
Republicans simply don't critically analyze multifarious facts. They're not usually economically or historically literate. They're intolerant of nuance or ambiguity. They make quick, efficient decisions based on emotion and intuition. ????
Have you read Mayers' Dark Money, or any similar historical analyses?
Read. If you find it too dense, I can recommend other, more readable histories.

Google 'CNN bias Trump' and you will get 2.8 million sites. One guy did a book or documentary on his time at CNN during the Trump years. I am not a Trump supporter BTW, nor American. But... I don't recall reading too many pro-Trump articles, even when he did achieve positive things. That alerted me to the fact I wasn't reading American news, but left wing opinion.

You don't get away by saying the left wing is facts and the right wing is lies. You can't tell me anti-Americanism, neo-Marxism, woke politics, self-hate and the like is truth.

 

[MikeF]

Arguably they want you to buy in almost completely. As far as I understand it, you cannot buy a piece of land and just set up a tent, or tiny house, in many places. Instead, they want you to hook up to the grid, meet their structural standards, and pay the taxes that fund things you may well not be interested in.

Hmmm. I would think this depends on zoning laws. I would assume there is plenty of land, in the US any way, that does not have such strict requirements placed upon it.

Also what about a right to land once you are born? If you were for every individual reaching their full potential, wouldn't you agree that each individual should have more of a foundation?

Minimum income should permit renting an efficiency apartment, not a grant of land. Choosing to purchase land would depend on one's budget and the cost of some quantity of land. The land price would very by size and location of course.

People can certainly combine their resources to purchase something beyond their individual capacity and share if they choose.

I did not see the granting of land as an enabler of potential. We should look to education for that

 

[PureX]

I am strongly in favor of a society in which each individual can grow to their full potential. That being said, living requires effort; it takes work. Food and shelter do not magically occur. Every member of society can't devote all their work hours expressing themselves in an art form because they find that to be the most meaningful and satisfactory use of their time.

I am curious why you automatically assume that artists don't do anything else. Which I assume is connected why you insist on calling support for the arts 'welfare'. Why is supporting an artist in training any different from supporting a doctor in training? Except that there are far more idiots that don't understand society's need for the arts as compared to their need for doctors.

Artistic expression is a luxury, not a necessity.

And how did you conclude this? Could it be that you did so based on your philosophical materialist paradigm that considers the immaterial world of ideals mostly extraneous nonsense? You know, like religion, philosophy, and art. Mere hobbies compared to science and technology.

I would argue that it is less important to focus on the wealthy few, and more important to focus on an acceptable minimum standard of living. That minimum standard is not gifted however. One must participate in society to earn that guaranty. Such participation is not required, it is only required of you want access to social institutions and infrastructure. It of course would be a priority to meet the needs of those incapable of participating/contributing to society.

I am curious who you think is NOT participating apart from those that we have consigned to misery and death thanks to our "greed is good" culture.

I do not see limiting or restricting wealth accumulation as a priority, rather, it is more important to structure society such that wealth does not provide disproportional power and influence in society as is the current state of affairs. This to me, should be our greatest concern.

Well, no offense, but that's just stupid. In our culture money is EVERYTHING! It's freedom, opportunity, health, respect, justice, and security. It determines who lives and who dies. Who is happy and who is miserable. Who is safe and who is in danger. So when we allow lots and lots of money to pile up in the hands of the most unscrupulous and greedy among us, we are just handing them the ability to corrupt and abuse everything and everyone around them. Which they will inevitably do. So there is no creating a safe, equitable society while we allow vast sums of wealth to pile up in the hands of the very people among us that should not have power over others.

You bang on about the super rich and what they spend their money on, but it is rich people who have the excess resources to buy the fine art, hire the artistic craftsman, donate to theater companies and opera houses, fund park improvements, etc.

All the more reason why those responsibilities belong in the hands of everyone, and not just some super rich ignoramus. You don't seem to be able to grasp a world apart from capitalist greed and stupidity.

 

[PureX]

So tell me, what is the RATIO of Liberal to Conservative media sources in America?
And what is the ratio of Liberal to Conservative universities in America?
Do you believe CNN, NY Times and Washington Post for instance, are paid corporate mouthpieces?

Yes, I do.

When was the last time any of them investigated the wholesale bribery of our legislative body of government? When was the last time they sent reporters to infiltrate those 'secret' meetings where the corporate funded lobbyists tell their paid off politicians (both republican and democrat) what the upcoming agenda is, and how they intend these legislators to achieve it? When was the last time they dug deep into who is paying for who's political career and named names? And published lists? And what politician's family members have high-paying do-nothing jobs with the corporate conglomerates that want their favors? And how all of those politicians get very high paying lobbyists jobs after they leave office corrupting their predecessor.

Except for a very cursory mention here and there, they report nothing. On the single most important and destructive issue in American politics.

 

[wellwisher]

I was a child and teen in the 1960's and 1970's, respectively. I remember the young generation of that time, consciously chose to become poor. You still had parents to take care of basic needs. It was about a return to simplicity, away from the material world of prestige and shallow pretense. It was more about developing the inner man though a spiritual awakening and with alternate reality, things that you cannot buy at a store so you can pretend.

I remember having a pair of Levi blue jeans that I would wear until it was totally wore, with holes, with this sacrifice of materialism; shabby clothes, a badge of honor. Look back at videos of the Hippie Generation. Their clothes were often from second hand stores or custom made by each girls/women of the day, to look like humble peasants or Jesus with a beard in a robe; blessed are the poor.

This taught us that poor was a state of mind, with being poor much easier to be when the shallow and pretentious were not trying to compare you, to their world of the shallow. Being poor was easy among the youth who were on the same humble page.

Many of the homeless you see, accumulating in large cities, are sort of protesting the shallow people who avoid any type of awakening; godless. One slogan of the hippie days was; turn on, tune in and drop out, to help find your inner self, apart from the pretentious and shallow herd of shells. It is not as organized as before and the world of shallow PC and Woke makes it harder to be humble and poor.

On paper, the poor of today in the USA have more creature comforts than the middle class of 40 years ago. The middle class then, did not feel poor with less material things. It is not about material things, that make you not count your blessings. It is about being compared, so you are made to feel poor. The Left needs the poor for political reasons and does so, by rubbing their face in it and using a blame game. Many have gone, too far the other way; street homeless.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

Minimum income should permit renting an efficiency apartment, not a grant of land.

It's too bad there isn't some kind of computer simulation, so we could run civilizational models, and see which model is more prosperous, in conclusion. But besides that, why shouldn't a person have a natural right to some land? What's the basis of you not liking that, whether 'potential' grows or not? As well, who is defining the productions of that potential - is it the individual, in self-determination, or is it some other core of determination?

I did not see the granting of land as an enabler of potential. We should look to education for that

And what, to your mind, is the minimum set of things that do enable potential?

 

[MikeF]

Why is supporting an artist in training any different from supporting a doctor in training? Except that there are far more idiots that don't understand society's need for the arts as compared to their need for doctors.

Um .... medical students pay for their training. I have no problem with artists paying for their training.

You are referring to someone as being an idiot for not assigning the same level of importance to a subjective preference as you do. That's akin to someone calling me an idiot for not valuing football or stamp collecting.

Different strokes for different folks, my friend. One can appreciate all forms of art, some forms, only one, or none. And any version of that is ok.

And how did you conclude this? Could it be that you did so based on your philosophical materialist paradigm that considers the immaterial world of ideals mostly extraneous nonsense? You know, like religion, philosophy, and art. Mere hobbies compared to science and technology.

I'm all about striving for ideals, as I said I'm for a progressive society. But we have to work within reality. Any social system one designs must function in response actually human behavior and capabilities, not simply on how we wish them to be.

Well, no offense, but that's just stupid. In our culture money is EVERYTHING!

Indeed. And I'm all for changing the dynamic in which more money means more political power and money is considered protected speech. This should be done through law, not capping or limiting income.

All the more reason why those responsibilities belong in the hands of everyone, and not just some super rich ignoramus. You don't seem to be able to grasp a world apart from capitalist greed and stupidity.

Art is a subjective value. Calling anyone's subjective value stupid is objectively meaningless.

 

[metis]

On paper, the poor of today in the USA have more creature comforts than the middle class of 40 years ago. The middle class then, did not feel poor with less material things. It is not about material things, that make you not count your blessings. It is about being compared, so you are made to feel poor. The Left needs the poor for political reasons and does so, by rubbing their face in it and using a blame game. Many have gone, too far the other way; street homeless.

That simply is not true and defies the stats. It's absolutely terrible for you basically to accuse lower-income families for being poor because of their imaginations or for political purposes.

The Catholic Church has long taught that it is a "church of the poor", but instead you blame the poor for where they're at.

 

[PureX]

Um .... medical students pay for their training. I have no problem with artists paying for their training.

You're completely missing the point, here. The discussion was about helping people that can't afford to pay for the training, to get the training so as to maximize our human potential.

You are referring to someone as being an idiot for not assigning the same level of importance to a subjective preference as you do.

No, I am saying that it's idiotic to presume art is defined and valued by subjective preference. It's not.

Different strokes for different folks, my friend. One can appreciate all forms of art, some forms, only one, or none. And any version of that is ok.

Whether or not you appreciate art has nothing to do with defining it or valuing it.

Art is a subjective value. Calling anyone's subjective value stupid is objectively meaningless.

No, it's not a "subjective value". It's a fundamental aspect of human culture and society, It's how we humans understand each other and appreciate each other. And in many ways it's the glue that holds us together. It's the FIRST AND OLDEST evidence of mankind living on the Earth because it's how we recognize mankind apart from all the other life forms.

 

[PruePhillip]

Yes, I do.

When was the last time any of them investigated the wholesale bribery of our legislative body of government? When was the last time they sent reporters to infiltrate those 'secret' meetings where the corporate funded lobbyists tell their paid off politicians (both republican and democrat) what the upcoming agenda is, and how they intend these legislators to achieve it? When was the last time they dug deep into who is paying for who's political career and named names? And published lists? And what politician's family members have high-paying do-nothing jobs with the corporate conglomerates that want their favors? And how all of those politicians get very high paying lobbyists jobs after they leave office corrupting their predecessor.

Except for a very cursory mention here and there, they report nothing. On the single most important and destructive issue in American politics.

So when you see both Democrat and Republican as being right wing then that shows you are in the Marxist part of the spectrum. And Marxism is pretty well much a part of Fascism. Indeed, both Fascists and Marxists slogged it out in the 1930's, not becaused they oppose each other but because they were fishing in the same pond.

 

[MikeF]

It's too bad there isn't some kind of computer simulation, so we could run civilizational models, and see which model is more prosperous, in conclusion. But besides that, why shouldn't a person have a natural right to some land? What's the basis of you not liking that, whether 'potential' grows or not? As well, who is defining the productions of that potential - is it the individual, in self-determination, or is it some other core of determination?

Why should we not give every person born 40 acres and a mule?

Land is a finite resource. That limit is further constrained by a social desire to preserve a certain amount of that land in a natural state, to remain undeveloped. Then there is the requirement that some portion of land is relegated to food production. Additionally, not all land is equally habitable and not conducive to homesteading.

The other element of the equation is an ever growing population. Your expectation of a plot of land for everyone is simply unrealistic in my view.

As to what defines the production value of an individual, it would be the labor market.

MikeF said: ↑
I did not see the granting of land as an enabler of potential. We should look to education for that.​

And what, to your mind, is the minimum set of things that do enable potential?

I would first point out that there are factors that limit potential that we can have little or no control over. We cannot control the lottery of the genetic material one is born with. We cannot control the in utero conditions throughout a pregnancy. We cannot choose or dictate the home life environment, the social and economic environment of a developing child, etc. These factors all impact potential.

That leaves us with education and access to healthcare as society's primary tools for maximizing one's ability to reach their full potential.

 

[MikeF]

No, it's [art] not a "subjective value". It's a fundamental aspect of human culture and society, It's how we humans understand each other and appreciate each other. And in many ways it's the glue that holds us together.

Have to disagree. Lots of things are aspects of human culture, including subjective ones. The arts are subjective, malleable, and subject to cultural conditioning.

We human beings communicate with each other in a wide variety of ways, in a broad spectrum of mediums. I would count verbal language as the primary and most fundamental. Well above visual art.

You say that art is how we understand each other and appreciate each other, but since it can be so culturally specific, it also plays into our instinct to distinguish between self-group and other. It can just as easily divide and alienate peoples.

I get that art, or the arts, are subjectively important to you personally, but they do not have to be for everyone, nor regarded in the same degree in which you seem to.

 

[PureX]

So when you see both Democrat and Republican as being right wing...

I said nothing about both parties being right wing. I am saying that they are both totally corrupted by corporate lobbying money. To the point that they no longer represent the best interests of the people, but only the interests of the corporations that are bribing them. And the big media outlets are among those corporate interests, so they, of course, never investigate this wholesale corruption with any intention of actually exposing it for what it is.

 

[PureX]

Have to disagree. Lots of things are aspects of human culture, including subjective ones. The arts are subjective, malleable, and subject to cultural conditioning.

We human beings communicate with each other in a wide variety of ways, in a broad spectrum of mediums. I would count verbal language as the primary and most fundamental. Well above visual art.

You say that art is how we understand each other and appreciate each other, but since it can be so culturally specific, it also plays into our instinct to distinguish between self-group and other. It can just as easily divide and alienate peoples.

I get that art, or the arts, are subjectively important to you personally, but they do not have to be for everyone, nor regarded in the same degree in which you seem to.

And your disregard for (ignorance of) the importance of art in human culture and society does not diminish that importance. Appreciation is subjective, but the human benefits of art to society is not. Not the least of which is that it enables us to see ourselves through each other's eyes. Which is why the fascists can't tolerate it.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Have to disagree. Lots of things are aspects of human culture, including subjective ones. The arts are subjective, malleable, and subject to cultural conditioning.

We human beings communicate with each other in a wide variety of ways, in a broad spectrum of mediums. I would count verbal language as the primary and most fundamental. Well above visual art.

You say that art is how we understand each other and appreciate each other, but since it can be so culturally specific, it also plays into our instinct to distinguish between self-group and other. It can just as easily divide and alienate peoples.

I get that art, or the arts, are subjectively important to you personally, but they do not have to be for everyone, nor regarded in the same degree in which you seem to.

That is subjective, malleable, and subject to cultural conditioning. So if you learn to check your own subjective reason, you will find when you are not objective. That is real and a part of reality, it is just not objective.

 

[PruePhillip]

I said nothing about both parties being right wing. I am saying that they are both totally corrupted by corporate lobbying money. To the point that they no longer represent the best interests of the people, but only the interests of the corporations that are bribing them. And the big media outlets are among those corporate interests, so they, of course, never investigate this wholesale corruption with any intention of actually exposing it for what it is.

Government is a corporation. So too is the green movement. And there's the Black Lives Matter. All corporate behavior.

 

[PureX]

Government is a corporation. So too is the green movement. And there's the Black Lives Matter. All corporate behavior.

That's just foolish semantics. I presume intended to ... what ... excuse the corruption? Trivialize it? Make it sound inevitable and unstoppable? Promote the infantile fantasy of anarchy? Or do you even know?

 

[MikeF]

That is subjective, malleable, and subject to cultural conditioning. So if you learn to check your own subjective reason, you will find when you are not objective. That is real and a part of reality, it is just not objective.

Yeah, I'm going to disagree. If there is agreement on a particular standard or measure, then we can objectively measure or evaluate things and use that to compare them.

In this case, if there is agreement on what it means to be fundamental, then we can use that standard to evaluate and compare all forms of communication, one being art and another verbal language.

Now, even if the concept of something being fundamental is a subjective one, an abstract construct, we can still talk objectively about it within the bounds of the construction.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Yeah, I'm going to disagree. If there is agreement on a particular standard or measure, then we can objectively measure or evaluate things and use that to compare them.

In this case, if there is agreement on what it means to be fundamental, then we can use that standard to evaluate and compare all forms of communication, one being art and another verbal language.

Now, even if the concept of something being fundamental is a subjective one, an abstract construct, we can still talk objectively about it within the bounds of the construction.

You are not a "we" and you have no evidence for that. That is what you don't understand. You claim understanding for a "we", that is not there.

 

[PruePhillip]

That's just foolish semantics. I presume intended to ... what ... excuse the corruption? Trivialize it? Make it sound inevitable and unstoppable? Promote the infantile fantasy of anarchy? Or do you even know?

What's the difference between a large company and large government? Both are corporations.
The govt corporation yields vastly more power - even to state sanctioned killing in the USA case.
A govt corporation can kill a large company if it so desires - see it now with the oil industry in America, or see it with Microsoft monopoly, or Bell or Standard Oil.
The EU is another corporation - it's in the business in rewriting the rules concerning Social Media - it's bigger than these companies.

Can a company be corrupt? Sure
Can a govt be corrupt? Yes
Can a church, scouts, green group, supreme court, mother's club be corrupt? No doubt.
Corruption exists, on average, within 3% of all humans.