Yep, it is a funny business.

so, where I am in life is not in the least attributable to me, you say. How then can it be attributable to my parents? They were also mere human beings, caught in this big mess of genetics, experiences and upbringing. Oh, and their parents too… and their parents’ parents… and still, who I am and what I do constitute part of other people’s experiences and upbringing! Funny thing, that.

Funniest part of this great exchange, is the how educated argue about the disenfranchised. Not a bad thing, but funny as hell.

If I may:
- “defenders of the poor” – shut the f*** up. Patronizing is debasing and arrogant. You (and me) sit at a computer, in a rich country (internet access!), with an education cumulated and provided by others. The rich aren’t all bad – everyone one of us is *loaded* in comparison to the average human existing on this planet right now (let alone history past).

- “defenders of the rich” (sorry John) – wake up. You have little claim to your education, your station in life, or even your intellect. All of this is built on others (parents, western culture’s predecessors, God. Hell, anybody but You).

Everyone is a big ball of genetics, experiences and upbringing. Nailing down the failings of some folks and the ascension of others is – in my view – too complex to assess in platitudes.

Lastly, John, don’t know you, nor have I read your books (sorry), but that is a beautiful post and the fair and judicious moderating is generous. I submit to any flaming you choose and appreciate your instigation of a good discussion/argument.

Whereas some less well off people I know have never complained about how “poor” they are in comparison. They just get on with life.

So is that why the rich are soooo rich? Their fear that someone else might have more, pathologically locks them into this cycle of always having to get more?

(Just as an aside, this reminds me of a line from an old 80’s/90’s song: “…The rich declare themselves poor….“. Who sang that? Maybe they knew something? :) )

“But simply saying it’s stupid instead of engaging it or pointing out where I may be wrong makes you the one demonstrating an intellectual deficiency.”

Well, no. It means that one doesn’t want to waste large amounts of one’s time correcting you because you yourself don’t appear to have put a great amount of thought into the post. And as I suggested you check out actual property crime statistics to correct what appeared to be your confusion that someone might wish to rob the poor, I think, as you demand, you were sufficiently encouraged to learn why you were wrong (or at the very least, came across as so).

Aside from that, the quality of one’s initial statements can and should dictate the quality of response. You appear to be under the impression that things should go as such:

Commenter #1: [Overly broad and somewhat jackassedly phrased post tangential at best to the original entry]

Commenter #2: [Patient and thoughtful examination of Commenter #1's post, with amply intelligent responses]

When in fact this is how it goes:

Commenter #1: [Overly broad and somewhat jackassedly phrased post tangential at best to the original entry]

Commenter #2: Wow, that was a jackassed post.

Which is to say that if you want people to take your comments seriously, dial back your rhetoric and avoid making badly-phrased comments which then have to be clarified in subsequent posts to get to what you really mean. This shouldn’t be too hard.

Now, re: your comments to Eric, since he was rude to you, I’m going to let your equally rude comments to him stand, but from now on play nice, please. And thank you also for agreeing to stick more closely to the topic at hand. I do appreciate it.

I didn’t say poor people were never robbed or taken advantage of. That’s a strawman.

I said a cynical reason the rich don’t rob the poor is because there’s not enough there for the rich to bother stealing from them.

My post may not have made that clear. But simply saying it’s stupid instead of engaging it or pointing out where I may be wrong makes you the one demonstrating an intellectual deficiency. If all we’re going to do is call names, there’s no chance of reaching an understanding of what each other’s point is. If you don’t want to take the time to argue, then I suggest you express your disagreement by saying “I think you’re wrong, here’s an example of why, but I don’t have the time or motivation to get into a long debate over why.”

I agree it’s not right to blame the poor for being poor. What Orion said is true about bad life decisions leading to a bad life, but the fundamental tools to make good decisions are often denied to poor people. In my opinion, that denial is not by the rich, but by their parents.

And now I would like to be a mite hypocritical and cut a little ad hominem rant of my own loose:

Eric, Parroter of Banalities – how’s it going with the plastic surgeon with getting the impression of Scalzi’s belt-buckle off your forehead?
How about doing some reasoned argument instead of simply saying “oooh! look at me agreeing with you please Mr. blog host! I want to mock the new poster also! Please notice me and my passionately revolutionary use of the f-bomb on those rich bastards!”
Shmuck.

The topic here is stupid journalistic cliche’s, and the host has asked that we stick to that, so I won’t go back to the “class warfare” issue again.
Thanks.

It’s an utter lie that there’s only so much economic pie and if someone else has a big piece it’s because they took it from someone with crumbs.

Actually, John, the first part of that utter lie is a lie that the rich and those who expect to be rich cling to: namely, that there’s only so much economic pie, and if somebody gets crumbs they must have taken them off my big piece.

And they also like to wallow in the kind of defensive attribution Orion models for us above. Work hard, be virtuous and you won’t be poor, therefore if you’re poor you clearly are lazy and unvirtuous and deserve your poverty.