(no subject)
Nov. 8th, 2004 07:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vicarzI didn't finish my week's homework even though I didn't go out, but I have thursday off from work. I have hit my ceiling in terms of knocking myself out - I'm crispy. And I suck at boxing.
I could easily be a drunk. I look towards alcohol as being able to provide relief. I know the feeling I will feel if I drink, whether with friends, in a club, or at home in front of the computer or TV. People and my life are providing me no such feelings, with no where near such reliability. I haven't drunk much lately, only for lacking the time to do so. The last time I drank was on halloween, and it just made me mad - all the barriers were strained and I had to stop as the release I was feeling was of negative emotions exclusively. Nothing is making the pain subside anymore, not $bling$, not booze, not friends, hell you people are pissing me off - stop being so petty, and booze - I guess I should conclude it's not working either. I almost have relief in the gym, but the endorphins do not make up for seeing everyone larger than me, the fact that while I box better than people that don't that I generally suck more than people that have been there less than half the time as I, and the amounts I lift -while impressive for a lil skinny guy- are not something to brag about compared to the average male. Alcohol and a movie, escapism - moods you can program with simple code. It's probably a good thing I lack the time, for I don't know that I really have the discpline to avoid the short-term release in the name of more responsible long-term behavior. First priority - end the pain.
I think I'm about to give up on recycling. I mean I'm not going to stop, but I no longer think it's a viable way to be environmental. Most smokers throw their cigarettes out the window, most people don't recycle - I'm worrying about people not reusing things, while the bar is much lower. I should be happy with the people that put their trash in a receptacle. I liked the point someone once made to me, noting that it seemed odd to require 500 million people to clean up the messes made by the whopping 25-30 companies making non-biodegradable products. Perhaps the solution is to regulate, to require that all food wrappers be bio-degradable. At least we could build on dumps, or burn the crap for fuel without poisoning the air. Still I rinse and sort.
I've done it again - I'm really fucked up in the head. At least I know it - it's amazing how much misery you can take when you know there is an end. I just wish I thought there was some reason I was doing this to myself. Sure I'm disciplined and all that, but it gets lonely in here. One of my prime motivators is social interaction.
A good quote from my f-list:
if Democrats pander to the middle...they'll just come off as looking like Republican Lite again...I think a polarizing figure like Hillary might be just what the left needs to re-energize their base and provide clear demarcation between the two major parties.
Yes, a good burst of rational liberalism would be nice. I'm sick of fear-based votes. It seems short-term fear trumps social responsibility. Social conservatism blows my mind - it simply makes no sense. I mean I don't like football, but I'm not out to stop if from being played. So, why do people want to regulate who and how I fuck? Is that where they want their tax dollars to go?
I don't even mind fiscal conservatism. Here's a fiscally conservative argument no one will dare make - fuck social security. Why create a system which rewards irresponsible fiscal behavior? What moron doesn't plan for their financial future? I have always known better - when I made $12 an hour, I lived on beans and rice, tweaked my own car (sometimes with duct tape), rented rooms in shitty apts, and wound up with 13k in the bank WHILE paying for and finishing grad school. It's very possible, yet we act as though
1) it's abnormal to expect people to plan for financial crises. Hey, an accident, illness, or injury occurs to most people every 10 years. It's not out of people's control to plan for such things, yet whenever the inevitable happens, the 'victim' cries and begs for handouts as though their irresponsible living from paycheck to paycheck, eating in restaurants and putting the best car they can afford on credit is the only way to live.
2) social security is a retirement program. It's a supplement, and was never meant to be the sole means of support. With that being the case, it's irresponsible the way people treat it as their sole expected source of income, and by not being a full support program the question is easy to raise that it shouldn't exist at all. Financial planning can be forgone, but the consequences should not be. I'm an ant who would happily let the grasshopper starve.
I could easily be a drunk. I look towards alcohol as being able to provide relief. I know the feeling I will feel if I drink, whether with friends, in a club, or at home in front of the computer or TV. People and my life are providing me no such feelings, with no where near such reliability. I haven't drunk much lately, only for lacking the time to do so. The last time I drank was on halloween, and it just made me mad - all the barriers were strained and I had to stop as the release I was feeling was of negative emotions exclusively. Nothing is making the pain subside anymore, not $bling$, not booze, not friends, hell you people are pissing me off - stop being so petty, and booze - I guess I should conclude it's not working either. I almost have relief in the gym, but the endorphins do not make up for seeing everyone larger than me, the fact that while I box better than people that don't that I generally suck more than people that have been there less than half the time as I, and the amounts I lift -while impressive for a lil skinny guy- are not something to brag about compared to the average male. Alcohol and a movie, escapism - moods you can program with simple code. It's probably a good thing I lack the time, for I don't know that I really have the discpline to avoid the short-term release in the name of more responsible long-term behavior. First priority - end the pain.
I think I'm about to give up on recycling. I mean I'm not going to stop, but I no longer think it's a viable way to be environmental. Most smokers throw their cigarettes out the window, most people don't recycle - I'm worrying about people not reusing things, while the bar is much lower. I should be happy with the people that put their trash in a receptacle. I liked the point someone once made to me, noting that it seemed odd to require 500 million people to clean up the messes made by the whopping 25-30 companies making non-biodegradable products. Perhaps the solution is to regulate, to require that all food wrappers be bio-degradable. At least we could build on dumps, or burn the crap for fuel without poisoning the air. Still I rinse and sort.
I've done it again - I'm really fucked up in the head. At least I know it - it's amazing how much misery you can take when you know there is an end. I just wish I thought there was some reason I was doing this to myself. Sure I'm disciplined and all that, but it gets lonely in here. One of my prime motivators is social interaction.
A good quote from my f-list:
if Democrats pander to the middle...they'll just come off as looking like Republican Lite again...I think a polarizing figure like Hillary might be just what the left needs to re-energize their base and provide clear demarcation between the two major parties.
Yes, a good burst of rational liberalism would be nice. I'm sick of fear-based votes. It seems short-term fear trumps social responsibility. Social conservatism blows my mind - it simply makes no sense. I mean I don't like football, but I'm not out to stop if from being played. So, why do people want to regulate who and how I fuck? Is that where they want their tax dollars to go?
I don't even mind fiscal conservatism. Here's a fiscally conservative argument no one will dare make - fuck social security. Why create a system which rewards irresponsible fiscal behavior? What moron doesn't plan for their financial future? I have always known better - when I made $12 an hour, I lived on beans and rice, tweaked my own car (sometimes with duct tape), rented rooms in shitty apts, and wound up with 13k in the bank WHILE paying for and finishing grad school. It's very possible, yet we act as though
1) it's abnormal to expect people to plan for financial crises. Hey, an accident, illness, or injury occurs to most people every 10 years. It's not out of people's control to plan for such things, yet whenever the inevitable happens, the 'victim' cries and begs for handouts as though their irresponsible living from paycheck to paycheck, eating in restaurants and putting the best car they can afford on credit is the only way to live.
2) social security is a retirement program. It's a supplement, and was never meant to be the sole means of support. With that being the case, it's irresponsible the way people treat it as their sole expected source of income, and by not being a full support program the question is easy to raise that it shouldn't exist at all. Financial planning can be forgone, but the consequences should not be. I'm an ant who would happily let the grasshopper starve.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-11-08 04:52 am (UTC)I'm lucky that I've been able to start saving young, but if I had a kid or two, I'm not sure if I would be able to do it.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-08 04:56 am (UTC)I don't actually mind social security, but I think that the arguments against it have more merit that people give credit to. It's just politically untouchable based on old people as a voting block.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-08 05:57 am (UTC)100 years ago he'd have only lived to be 50, and probably have had to work every day in unsafe, unsanitary conditions.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-08 05:48 am (UTC)A lot of people make less that $12/hour. And you can call having kids "irresponsible" all you want, in the real world, people are going to have them. It is also worth considering that you have been luckier than most.
It's pretty difficult to save for retirement when you can't work for 10 months due to illness or injury, especially early in your career. I can speak from experience when I say that can put you in a hole out of which will take years to climb.
Most importantly, as far as I'm concerned, SS also supports people who are DISABLED at any age. If you're spine gets crushed or you schizophrenia kicks in before your 401k matures, it's nice to know there is at least a little something there to live on.
I'm an ant who would happily let the grasshopper starve.
OK, what about the grasshopper's wife? Remember, we're only a few decades into the era of two-income families. An awful lot of retired women depended entirely or in large part upon their husband's income and pension, not out of laziness, but because that was the way society was structured.
It would be nice if everybody was able, and had the forsight, to save money for a rainy day. But they can't and they don't. The alternative to Social Security is to let them starve in the streets, or start sticking them on iceburgs.
On another tangent, I'll raise the argument that it is impossible to be a fiscal conservative without also being a social conservative, because the economic status-quo is reliant on various extant social structures. Changes in these structures pose a threat to the economic status-quo, so, regardless of a fiscal conservative's personal feelings on social issues, he must oppose changes to the social status-quo in order to protect his economic interests.
Take a good long look at who you're siding with before adopting a "fuck 'em, I've got mine" swagger, little girl. You want to know why it's somebody else's business who or how you fuck? Because a lot of people are making money by keeping things the way they used to be.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-08 05:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-08 06:07 am (UTC)And while, yes, life expectancy has increased dramatically, USEFULL life expectancy, not so much. A 70-year-old may have another 10-20 years of breathing to do, but he's probably not going to be able to work for most of them. Indeed, instead of having people keel over at 68 from a nice quick bout of pneumonia, they're lingering on for years with slow cancers and degenerative neurological disorders and such. The increase in life expectancy, rather than making care of the elderly cheaper, is making it more expensive. And since no sane person, saving for retirement 30-40 years ago, would have anticipated living to 95 while shelling out $700/month for prescription drugs, it's a little unrealistic to blame the problem on individuals' poor planning.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-08 06:39 am (UTC)They just keep living and living and living and costing a fucking fortune. I can only hope I have the good luck to just die before I get to be a burden.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-08 06:47 am (UTC)The whole business could be made a lot cheaper if we just instituted universal health coverage like the rest of the civilized world, but NOOOOOO, that would be SOCIALISM!
no subject
Date: 2004-11-08 09:11 am (UTC)He however doesn't need to work because being an accountant makes enough money to raise *6* kids and still save something. If he was a librarian or a gas station attendant or something like that he wouldn't have been able to save the money. The problem isn't that people then didn't save, it's that the people that were able to did and the people that couldn't can't make it on SS because they can't pay for their medicine and food.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-08 06:00 am (UTC)I have been lucky, but I've also worked my ass off. I'm not so bad that I take full credit for my situation - I have luck and a middle-class background in my favor. I chill to think where I would be had I been raised in SE DC and poor. My same efforts would undoubtedly leave different results.
Still, at all stages of my life I have lived beneath my means. If I couldn't afford kids, I wouldn't have them - it's as simple as that. I refuse to concede that kids just happen - hell that's one of the reasons I support abortion rights, that you should only have kids when you chose to. I do think that kids should be a choice, and I don't like supporting people who rely on people who make poor choices. You make some good arguments, but if conceding to all of them encourages a system in which no one is held accountable for failure in planning.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-08 06:31 am (UTC)And not having a uterus, that's a foregone conclusion.
I refuse to concede that kids just happen - hell that's one of the reasons I support abortion rights, that you should only have kids when you chose to.
No, they happen when people have sex, and what business is it of yours who and how other people fuck?
If we lived in a perfect world, with perfect sex education, and free, 100% effective, safe, passive contraception and free abortions if that failed, you might have a point. But I have known otherwise very intellegent and responsible people who have found themselves with an unwanted pregnancy, or unexpected child. Shit happens. Maybe they were able to afford it when the woman got pregnant, but weren't 9 months later. Maybe Baby's Daddy lost his job, or up an ran off. Maybe, for health reasons, this may be the only chance the woman might have to have a kid. And while you might think it best for them to give the child up if they aren't sure they can afford it, that's a pretty difficult thing, especially if the kid isn't newborn, healthy and white (read: adoptable).
Quite honestly, nobody I know could actually afford a baby when they had it, since fetility and wealth run on very different curves. If you wait until you're financially secure, all the baby-fixins'll go bad.
But what it comes down to, Jose, is that you are moralizing. You are saying, essentially, that since these people made mistakes, they DESERVE to suffer. This is the same mentality that leads Christians to oppose condoms because they believe sex is WRONG, and so people who do it DESERVE to get pregnant or AIDS, or that opposes harm-reduction measures because DRUGS ARE BAD. My mother smoked for 40 years, knowing full well for most of them that it was very bad for her. It was a mistake. Does that mean she DESERVES to have emphysema? Should she be denied health care because she didn't plan ahead for some potential cancer?
Maybe gramps did squander his money on that fancy Buick instead of saving it for a rainy day. Maybe he did have 8 kids because, growing up on a farm, he'd always assumed more kids meant more workers. Maybe he did live paycheck-to-paycheck to keep them in good clothes because he thought it would help them get a leg up. Maybe he didn't save up enough to cover mamaw's breast cancer, or the awful years he spent watching her disappear from Alzheimers. Yeah, maybe gramps dropped the bucket, but I can't accept that means he deserves to live like a pauper.
(How's that for an appeal to emotion? I swear, if I wasn't a foul-mouthed atheist mental patient, I really would run for office...)
no subject
Date: 2004-11-08 09:17 am (UTC)I've always said that children aren't cute and cuddle things that love you unconditionally like most people seem to think they are. They're work and damned hard work. People make mistakes, but when you make mistake for yourself it's one thing, when you have children you're making mistakes for two or more.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-08 09:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-08 08:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-08 08:15 pm (UTC)They are certainly more of a choice now than they were 50 years ago, but 4 more years of Bush may change that.
But considering the disparities in education and access to health care that exist in this country, it would be unrealistic to say that having children is 100% voluntary just yet.
I'm also just uncomfortable with the implication that it is somehow irresponsible for the poor to have children. It smacks of eugenics, especially when one takes into account the racial and ethnic makeup of the poor in this country.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-08 05:48 am (UTC)More accurately, as noted on this page (http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2004/09/red_states_feed.html) (linked from fuckthesouth.com (http://www.fuckthesouth.com/)), that's where they want your tax dollars to go.
Well, maybe not yours; you live in D.C., don't you? That's where they want my tax dollars to go.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-08 05:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-09 12:36 am (UTC)It's good to talk to you again too Jose! I might actually set up an LJ soonish, though I think I may have said that about a year ago.
Dana
no subject
Date: 2004-11-09 04:43 am (UTC)It would be nice to see you around though!
no subject
Date: 2004-11-09 02:54 pm (UTC)Re LJ usually I'm just not sure I see a point in setting one up, actually (don't want to write about too much personal stuff on LJ, & most of my close friends don't even have computers)
But I may, anyway.
I agree with blackjack's views on social security (have missed reading his ramblings too). People should save, and plan, but some can't save even if they try reasonably (and many others just won't). I actually think people should be able to retire in time to spend some relatively healthy years not working at the end of their lives too.
(I'll keep in mind the fact you don't usually read entries more than a day old or less. If anything involves much thought I don't always have it to give right that moment and off the top of my head; that's all.)
Dana