Posted on 12/17/2002 12:02:32 AM PST by JohnHuang2
There's a dark little corner of the Internet where a gruesome assortment of leftists and socialists gather to post what passes for their "thoughts" on political issues. The site is called DemocraticUnderground.com, and it's certainly worth a quick stop the next time you go cruising. Several of my listeners keep a constant watch on this site and alert me to particularly interesting discussion threads.
I catch a lot of flak for my constant references to the Democratic Party as the Democratic Socialist Party. Maybe I can quell some of the dissension by telling you some of the postings I have read on Democratic Underground recently.
Last Thursday, a comment appeared with the title, "It's official, I'm a socialist at heart." This writer had visited a neighborhood of "multi-million dollars homes" that for the most part have only "two people (rich, old white couples) living in them." She wrote, "I really cannot stand rich, selfish people. I do believe in redistribution of wealth. Rich people do not get that way by themselves, they do it on the backs of others." Other Democratic Underground members chimed in with their responses. Among them:
That, my friends, is scary stuff, but it's nothing I haven't heard in 33 years of hosting talk-radio shows. There is burning envy – an envy that borders on outright hatred of the rich in this country. This envy is intense enough to consume the hearts and minds of many who call themselves "Democrats."
Where does this hatred come from? Why is it so important to so many people to believe that the evil rich got their money through anything but hard work?
To understand this, you need to imagine yourself struggling to make ends meet. You're renting an apartment and driving every day to a dead-end job that 's going nowhere. You work your 40-hour week, and have nothing to show for it but rent receipts and credit card bills. You hear about all of these people getting sick on cruise ships, and grouse that you don't have enough money to even get on the ship, let alone throw up on the poop deck.
So, just why aren't you rich? Why don't you have a fancy car? Why aren't you tossing your lunch on Caribbean cruises? Why do you make rent payments instead of mortgage payments?
The last thing you want to do is to admit that this all may be your fault. Your poverty couldn't possibly have anything to do with your decision to forego college for that great job at the mall. You're also convinced that your decision to hang out with your friends at night instead of getting some more education at the local community college was the right one. Hey! You work hard and deserve your fun, right?
And just why should you have to work more than 40 hours a week? That's what you're supposed to work, right? Forty hours, no more. After all, you're not a slave, are you? What about your huge car payments? Sure, you could be putting that money into an investment account, but you need that fancy car, right? And the rims? Hey! A guy's gotta be cool, you know what I'm saying?
So ? those rich people? Did they get that way doing the things you won't do? Working the 60-hour week, continuing with their education, buying cheap cars with ordinary wheels and investing the rest? Do they have the nice homes and the fancy cars because they make good choices and aren't afraid of taking a risk now and then?
No way! If a person could really get rich that way you would have done it already, right? No, that's now how they got their money. These people are rich because they exploited people. They got their money by climbing on the backs of working people like you! They were lucky! They inherited it! They didn't earn it. If it could be earned, you would have done it, right?
You have to protect yourself here, don't you? If you accept that the vast majority of those you call "rich" got there through hard work, then don't you have to ask yourself why you're not one of them? It's just so much easier to cast them as callous, selfish monsters and evil exploiters of the working class while preserving the mantle of goodness and righteousness for yourself. Hey, you may be poor, but at least you're a nice person, right?
He should have said: 'He worked smart." The reason that most folks are relatively poor is that they work stupid.
Just to stay intellectually honest here....
Not every Democrat subscribes to the views expressed by DU. DU is basically a website for liberal Dem activists -- that's a minority of the party. A pretty influential one, and one that often tries to steer the rest of their throng blindly to a socialist agenda, but still a minority.
Anyway, the point is that we should be careful before linking all Dems to DU, because we may end up looking like we are attacking a strawman to the extent the particular Dem doesn't subscribe to DU. It'd be a bit like citing to FR as the cornerstone of Republican beliefs.
You are 100% right. I see them all the time. They are called "Humanities professors."
(King Lear)
Those of us who have been lucky in many ways to have the opportunity for advancement due to education and hard work. Some don't have the luxury of education or possibly the smarts to make it through college or engineering school. But they have an extremely strong work ethic.
I often hear from those who have no idea what hard work is wonder how people like you have made it. And I've also heard from the people I just described above ask the same question. "I work two jobs 14-16 hours a day 7 days a week and still don't have a nice car, 3500 square foot home, take luxury vacations or have a boat."
I too work 60-70 hours a week and still drive through neighborhoods wondering how those folks afford the nice homes that I only dream of. And many also have 40 hour work weeks (or at least they appear to have ample leisure time). They make it to their sons afternoon football practice, go on the scouting trips, serve as room mothers. IT appears that both you and I have missed many of those precious hours because we are working extensively.
There's a lesson in irony in there somewhere...
Of course, there are some 'degrees' that aren't worth spit. 'Gender studies', 'Racial politics', 'Empowerment and diversity', etc.
Generally speaking, you don't put in long hours doing something you hate. There are other forms of compensation besides money.
I know guys who put in twice the hours I do, love their job ten times as much, work much harder, get about the same amount done, and make half as much. Their zeal for their job overpowers their common sense and even their ability to do the very job they love so much!
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