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Eponymouse posted:What's the best way to refute the conservative talking point that black people are kept in perpetual poverty by welfare? It's sometimes combined with: "Democrats supported slavery!" or "Planned Parenthood is committing black genocide!" which I know are easily refutable. For this argument to work you have to assume that black people are lazy and would prefer not to work because the government gives them a pittance to live on. You have to handwave away all of the huge problems with modern labor and what it means to try to achieve in the face of stunning adversity and instead substitute a genetic or cultural argument that black people just aren't cut out to function in a white dominated economy and it's all the black people's fault. I guess for a refutation, point out that more white people are on welfare and nobody's saying that white people are kept in perpetual poverty by handouts. There's a lot of kneejerk refutations they could say, almost all of which get back to this inherent idea that black people are on the whole inferior and deficient. boner confessor fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Nov 23, 2013 |
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Nov 23, 2013 22:10
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GROVER CURES HOUSE posted:If you feel like bending the truth a little, remind them that food riots are A Thing and played a part in the Arab Spring. Play up the fact that people who have literally nothing to lose, not even food off their table, are more than willing to commit crime. You know, crime that lands them in courts and jails, both of which are far more expensive than just handing out food stamps like candy. This usually leads to the person passive-aggressively wishing they were lazy and amoral enough to threaten to commit crimes so that they can get free goodies from the government instead of having to work like a sucker.
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Nov 23, 2013 22:13
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Dr.Zeppelin posted:This usually leads to the person passive-aggressively wishing they were lazy and amoral enough to threaten to commit crimes so that they can get free goodies from the government instead of having to work like a sucker. Then you can just call them rear end in a top hat hypocrites or just plain unamerican for admitting they would be lazy idiots if they could get away with it. You aren't going to convince anyone who thinks like this using logic or sound arguments, the best you can hope for is to shame them into shutting up for the most part.
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Nov 23, 2013 22:16
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Dr.Zeppelin posted:This usually leads to the person passive-aggressively wishing they were lazy and amoral enough to threaten to commit crimes so that they can get free goodies from the government instead of having to work like a sucker. Funny, because I ran into this rebuttal once and just repeated the obvious: either you give them food stamps or you pay even more money to lock them in concrete boxes. You can't argue about morality with a Christian hellbent on snatching food out of children's mouths. Pull everything back to basic economic calculus. This also has the side effect of throwing people way off their game, as in my experience they're used to being able to use twisted moralizing as a rhetorical bludgeon. It's also "politically neutral" because the whole argument is based on their preconceptions of food stamps and people who use them. I'm no rhetorical genius, but the average person who rages against food stamps simply hasn't thought about the topic for more than five minutes in their life.
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Nov 23, 2013 22:34
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Dr.Zeppelin posted:This usually leads to the person passive-aggressively wishing they were lazy and amoral enough to threaten to commit crimes so that they can get free goodies from the government instead of having to work like a sucker. Tell them that their principled poverty will be an example to us all, but if they steal a real person's bread you're going to chop their hands off.
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Nov 23, 2013 23:14
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Zeroisanumber posted:You can't collect TANF for more than 60 months and you have to be either working or educating yourself 30 hours a week in order to qualify for TANF benefits. Also, only 1/3rd of TANF recipients are Black. The rest are mostly White and Latino. Is this also lifetime capped?
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Nov 23, 2013 23:22
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GROVER CURES HOUSE posted:Funny, because I ran into this rebuttal once and just repeated the obvious: either you give them food stamps or you pay even more money to lock them in concrete boxes. You can't argue about morality with a Christian hellbent on snatching food out of children's mouths. Pull everything back to basic economic calculus. This also has the side effect of throwing people way off their game, as in my experience they're used to being able to use twisted moralizing as a rhetorical bludgeon. It's also "politically neutral" because the whole argument is based on their preconceptions of food stamps and people who use them. This problem is solved by convict labor. If they don't have jobs and do crime instead then you lock them up and force them to work.
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Nov 23, 2013 23:31
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ToxicSlurpee posted:This problem is solved by convict labor. If they don't have jobs and do crime instead then you lock them up and force them to work. If you can get someone to argue for involuntary servitude, you've effectively won. 
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Nov 23, 2013 23:35
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GROVER CURES HOUSE posted:If you can get someone to argue for involuntary servitude, you've effectively won. Except that a lot of people truly and genuinely believe that the right thing to do is to gut food stamps, lock up all the poor, and force them to work. If there's no work that needs done then you go out, get a pick, and break rocks.
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Nov 23, 2013 23:38
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Orange Devil posted:Is this also lifetime capped? For the most part. If you're truly needy once the TANF runs out, most social workers worth their salt will try to find a way to shift you onto SS Disability. The whole thing would work a lot better if we threw down some long green to support more adult education and job training, but unfortunately Republicans.
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Nov 23, 2013 23:52
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Except that a lot of people truly and genuinely believe that the right thing to do is to gut food stamps, lock up all the poor, and force them to work. If there's no work that needs done then you go out, get a pick, and break rocks. "I thought Republicans weren't fans of makework."
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Nov 23, 2013 23:58
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ErichZahn posted:"I thought Republicans weren't fans of makework." Not "Uncle" Phil Valentine. He unironically presented the idea Friday afternoon that a minimum of 6 months years hard labor for initial and lifetime for secondary for anyone abusing Food Stamps.
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Nov 24, 2013 00:16
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So I guess Saturday afternoons on one of ny local poo poo conservative stations they host a crazy old liberal. I've been listening for about 30 minutes and so far he has read several quotes by prominent Republicans opposing the flibuster when Bush was in office and said Rush Limbaugh prefers sex with young Dominican boys. Yeah it's just the same lovely mudslinging, but it's refreshing to hear it from my side. Anyone have any idea who this guy is? He is conveniently not listed anywhere on the radio station's site. It is very likely a local, but I thought I would share and see if anyone else has heard him.
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Nov 24, 2013 00:25
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I like to shame them with the numbers. How much do you think you spend on food a month? How much do you think food stamp recipients receive?
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Nov 24, 2013 00:38
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I think you can lead most of these folks down the path to understanding that assistance programs lead to a better society, but in the end they will still be opposed to them because they truly believe that the poor should face a harsh and punitive lifestyle until they aren't poor anymore. If more people slip into homelessness and commit crimes, just build more prisons. It's What They Believe, and it's a perfectly consistent position to hold if you are scum.
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Nov 24, 2013 00:53
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SedanChair posted:I think you can lead most of these folks down the path to understanding that assistance programs lead to a better society, but in the end they will still be opposed to them because they truly believe that the poor should face a harsh and punitive lifestyle until they aren't poor anymore. If more people slip into homelessness and commit crimes, just build more prisons. It's What They Believe, and it's a perfectly consistent position to hold if you are scum. That's why I've pretty well given up on several of my relatives. Not just "talking to them at holidays" giving up, but "any sort of contact that isn't impossible to avoid" giving up. I can demonstrate to them clearly and unambiguously that the policies they espouse are actually economically self-destructive, and they still talk them up because it lets them be cruel to people they think deserve it getting to hide behind the rationalization of law. Life is too short to deal with evil people except when you absolutely have to.
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Nov 24, 2013 00:56
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Vriess posted:Not "Uncle" Phil Valentine. He unironically presented the idea Friday afternoon that a minimum of 6 months years hard labor for initial and lifetime for secondary for anyone abusing Food Stamps. The convenient thing is even if this proposal of his was introduced, they'd still have no one sentenced to it. Due to that whole "almost never actually happens, and when someone is defrauding SNAP it's usually a store manager" thing.
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Nov 24, 2013 00:56
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SedanChair posted:I think you can lead most of these folks down the path to understanding that assistance programs lead to a better society, but in the end they will still be opposed to them because they truly believe that the poor should face a harsh and punitive lifestyle until they aren't poor anymore. If more people slip into homelessness and commit crimes, just build more prisons. It's What They Believe, and it's a perfectly consistent position to hold if you are scum. That's the core of it, really. You can throw numbers all you want. Things like food stamps are actually a net gain for the economy. I forget the exact number but every dollar spent on food stamps creates $1.50. It indirectly benefits people paying taxes because a strong economy means more jobs. Fancy how that works... It also boils down to a lot of people just fundamentally being spiteful, selfish pricks. They're not OK with a dime of their tax dollars going to help somebody who can't afford to feed their family or paying for that person to get job training so they have a shot at a less lovely job. But if you want to tax the state $100,000,000 to build a new prison they're all gung ho for it. I'll point to my own home state of PA for an example of this. Governor Corbett, notorious Republican rear end in a top hat, promised to lower taxes by going after education by slashing its budget in half. That's right, he literally proposed cutting the entire state's education budget in half but was also proposing spending more money than these cuts would save on new prisons. This is their world view. It's better to punish people for failing and use the threat of punishment as motivation than it is to open doors to success.
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Nov 24, 2013 01:06
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It's discouraging because when you refute one argument, it seems like the noise machine just creates two new unsubstantiated claims that get disseminated by the right wing media and quickly find their way to water coolers, Facebook feeds, and comments sections. It feels like the Left is constantly on the defensive against the eternal avalanche of bullshit mountain.
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Nov 24, 2013 01:22
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Eponymouse posted:It's discouraging because when you refute one argument, it seems like the noise machine just creates two new unsubstantiated claims that get disseminated by the right wing media and quickly find their way to water coolers, Facebook feeds, and comments sections. It feels like the Left is constantly on the defensive against the eternal avalanche of bullshit mountain. I had a coworker who went from not seeing why Obamacare was such a big deal because he didn't even know what the law did to being outraged that the government was wasting taxpayer money on telling people what the law did in the span of two weeks.
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Nov 24, 2013 01:28
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SedanChair posted:I think you can lead most of these folks down the path to understanding that assistance programs lead to a better society, but in the end they will still be opposed to them because they truly believe that the poor should face a harsh and punitive lifestyle until they aren't poor anymore. If more people slip into homelessness and commit crimes, just build more prisons. It's What They Believe, and it's a perfectly consistent position to hold if you are scum. I was at least able to get an acknowledgement that "Yeah, I guess that isn't very Christian" on the punish>therapy approach to incarceration. And whittled things down from "Death penalty is only more expensive because of appeals, we could streamline those" to getting them to think seriously about potential friends or family wrongfully on death row. The right-wing media machine tends to reinforce a perception that those outside your family and social clubs aren't "real" people, and that there's no such thing as society. You can persuade anyone with data, assuming they're willing to actually engage with you and accept similar end-goals. But it's like you have to make every systemic flaw intricately personal for them to consider broader frameworks or societal problems. It's why anyone who confronts Republican talking points with "I was on foodstamps/medicaid once" gets "Well you're an exception" in response. It's why those fluff pieces on Romney being charitable to his church-mates mattered more to them than hard data on SNAP/TANF, despite Romney's help doing nothing for the other 99.999% of the populace. The base aren't encouraged to think critically or analyze data, it's their community and their wallet and their taxes, the end.
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Nov 24, 2013 01:30
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Diet Lime posted:I like to shame them with the numbers.
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Nov 24, 2013 01:49
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I think it's basically how one views humanity in general; either you think people are bad or good. If you think they're basically good, then giving them gov't assistance is the right thing to do, since the number who will abuse it is so small. If you think people are basically bad - that if you give them help they will become easily "corrupted" and use it as an excuse to be lazy - then giving them help is bad. It's really just a matter of, do you have faith in the human race or not? Conservatives simply do not.
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Nov 24, 2013 01:59
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Also, ask them if people suddenly were hit by a laziness epidemic in late 2008 that made so many people drop out of the job market, or maybe if some other factor causes all those people to stop working and require welfare. From there, you may be able to introduce the concept of 'externality' and convince them that offering a way of keeping people afloat until they (or the economy) recover is better than dealing with all the crime, illness and despair that abandoning them to their own luck would create. Ask them if they would have wanted Rush Limbaugh to starve and go without health care when he was collecting unemployment. Or if Paul Ryan should have been left without proper means of support and education.
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Nov 24, 2013 02:35
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Sephyr posted:Also, ask them if people suddenly were hit by a laziness epidemic in late 2008 that made so many people drop out of the job market, or maybe if some other factor causes all those people to stop working and require welfare. If they're internally consistent about it, libertarians at least can usually be persuaded to support unemployment benefits because it gives people more of an opportunity to find work that they are most suited to instead of being forced to take the first thing that puts food on the table out of desperation.
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Nov 24, 2013 02:51
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Just ask them what percentage of SNAP beneficiaries are gaming them system. On the off-chance they actually give a number, be sure to ask them how they reached it.
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Nov 24, 2013 03:01
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mr. mephistopheles posted:So I guess Saturday afternoons on one of ny local poo poo conservative stations they host a crazy old liberal. I've been listening for about 30 minutes and so far he has read several quotes by prominent Republicans opposing the flibuster when Bush was in office and said Rush Limbaugh prefers sex with young Dominican boys. Yeah it's just the same lovely mudslinging, but it's refreshing to hear it from my side. Anyone have any idea who this guy is? He is conveniently not listed anywhere on the radio station's site. It is very likely a local, but I thought I would share and see if anyone else has heard him.
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Nov 24, 2013 03:21
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Good Citizen posted:Apparently every documented case of a black guy punching someone is now the knockout game. Independence Day is actually a super helpful test: how many people attribute the line as 'Earf' despite Will Smith saying it as 'Earth'?
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Nov 24, 2013 04:17
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Will Smith confirmed to have participated in knockout game 
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Armani posted:Independence Day is actually a super helpful test: how many people attribute the line as 'Earf' despite Will Smith saying it as 'Earth'? 100% 
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Nov 24, 2013 06:28
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If you don't say "Earf" when repeating that line then it is you who are the racist.
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Nov 24, 2013 06:58
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sweart gliwere posted:I've gotten similar concessions from Republican acquaintances regarding the death penalty and state of our prisons. Pointing out the greater expense of execution vs lifetime incarceration. Highlighting the lack of possibility to correct a wrongful conviction beyond blood money for surviving family. Eventually confronting the idea of whether imprisonment is meant to repair the antisocial or just cage them and put them down, showing incarceration and recidivism rates here vs abroad. http://gawker.com/5827428/rick-perrys-killing-of-an-innocent-man-is-somehow-a-political-asset
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Nov 24, 2013 08:06
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beatlegs posted:I think it's basically how one views humanity in general; either you think people are bad or good. If you think they're basically good, then giving them gov't assistance is the right thing to do, since the number who will abuse it is so small. If you think people are basically bad - that if you give them help they will become easily "corrupted" and use it as an excuse to be lazy - then giving them help is bad. It's really just a matter of, do you have faith in the human race or not? Conservatives simply do not. I came to this same conclusion a while ago. Almost every conservative stance on an issue can be boiled down to just a basic distrust of other people and their motives. Which makes me think that conservatives are generally lovely people and they don't trust people because they realize how lovely they themselves are. FlamingLiberal posted:Mike Molloy or Dave Marsh probably Thanks for the reply but it turned out to be a guy named Doug Basham. He has a one hour, Saturday only show on a station that fired him in 2002 for "bashing the president too much" even though he apparently had higher ratings than the nationally syndicated shows they were airing. Also he looks like this:  He is amazing.
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Nov 24, 2013 10:02
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The interesting thing about dyed in the wool conservatism is that if you claim to them that they are paranoid and distrustful, 99% of the time they agree and justify it with (INSERT ENDLESS STRING OF FOX NEWS TALKING POINTS) E: I honestly don't know how to reach someone like that. I've tried for years with my mother and there is just no way. The world is constantly falling apart and trying to destroy her. (For reference she's a Cuban immigrant who grew up in Miami, so I understand where some of the misguided fear comes from)
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Nov 24, 2013 10:09
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mr. mephistopheles posted:Almost every conservative stance on an issue can be boiled down to just a basic distrust of other people and their motives. Which makes me think that conservatives are generally lovely people and they don't trust people because they realize how lovely they themselves are. If everyday conservatives were allowed to follow their hearts rather than be led around like sheep then we'd be living in a progressive paradise.
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Nov 24, 2013 11:00
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mr. mephistopheles posted:Also he looks like this:
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Nov 24, 2013 12:08
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ReindeerF posted:That dude has had sex in a Chevy Van at least once. Van Culture is a hilariously overlooked part of Americana. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdJ0y5ZyFGw
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Nov 24, 2013 12:35
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Popular Thug Drink posted:Van Culture is a hilariously overlooked part of Americana. I want a conversion van to tow my car to the track, and my friend said I can't get one until I'm married. Something about never, ever feeling the touch of a woman again.  (but Sega Genesis!)
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Nov 24, 2013 15:35
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mr. mephistopheles posted:I came to this same conclusion a while ago. Almost every conservative stance on an issue can be boiled down to just a basic distrust of other people and their motives. Which makes me think that conservatives are generally lovely people and they don't trust people because they realize how lovely they themselves are. You see this all the time when religious people openly wonder what keeps atheists from being criminals if they don't have any fear of eternal punishment.
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Nov 24, 2013 18:01
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beatlegs posted:It should be said that most conservative people (at least I think so) aren't lovely people, but just misinformed as a result of being saturated with non-stop media propaganda and group-think. The ones who are lovely (politicians, operatives, pundits, media types, regular smart conservatives who know better) are, I would hope, in the minority - but they poison the rest (which is another great reason they're lovely). Eh. I really want to agree with this on principle, but then this is how terrible beliefs propagate, when you excuse them because the person is otherwise likable or because you just want to believe they are inherently good. Like, "he's a great person other than the whole black/gays/Muslims are inferior and also constantly trying to rob you, rape your kids, and blow you up" bit. At what point does having lovely beliefs make you a lovely person? It's not like these people don't have a choice in information. This isn't the 1800s and most of these people have the Internet and total access to all the information they could ever need to disprove the stupid things they believe if they cared at all about reality instead of just sticking to things that confirm what they already think. It's also condescending to suggest that conservatives are just poor naive idiots being led around by malicious shepherds and gosh if we could just get rid of poo poo like Fox News and Rush Limbaugh then they would lose their terrible beliefs and start believing in peace and love and diversity. They can think for themselves, and they choose to be racist, xenophobic, homophobic assholes. They are terrible people. ReindeerF posted:That dude has had sex in a Chevy Van at least once. There is no way this isn't true.
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Nov 24, 2013 18:17
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Re: Will Smith in Independence Day In the most charitable view of the situation, there might be some confusion because he says his next line with altered speech ("Now that's what ah call a close encountah") because he's got a got a cigar in his mouth. Or maybe I'm just self-conscious about not realizing it was not, in fact, Earf immediately.
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Nov 24, 2013 18:32
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