[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

excuse me? You are kidding, right? We should "fix" the disparity HOW? Living in Europe gives you no insight to the problems here.

Personally, I was raised to pay my own way. This is something people can't understand nowdays.

"Paying your own way" is only possible when you're given the tools early to be able to do so. People born into poverty aren't given access to the *opportunity* for the kind of education & training that would let them get out of it. (And that's before we get into the issues of racism and cultural bias that work to keep anyone who's not white and Christian from getting ahead.)

Lets start with the free breakfasts and lunches at school. If you cannot afford to feed your kids, by golly I sure as heck won't. What does oatmeal and a peanutbutter/jelly sandwich cost?

1) Sandwiches are one of the most expensive foods possible.
2) What oatmeal & sandwiches cost is time. A single parent, working full-time or more, may not have those fifteen minutes every day. Not without driving herself to exhaustion, and I don't mean "missing a few minutes' sleep;" I mean "drove the car into a tree because she's been living on 5 hours sleep/night for six months."

A lot of poor parents could feed their kids breakfasts & lunches if they got to choose the schedule. But school schedules aren't built to work with job schedules; they were arranged on the notion that 1 parent would work, and the other would be available to ferry kids back and forth to school. And, of course, not have a job outside the home.

Can't afford health insurance? Don't get it, but sure as hell don't depend on anyone else (except possibly family) to bail you out. lts not a god given right.

No, but it is a right granted by all civilized countries, because they're aware that health is everyone's problem. If my kid gets pneumonia, your kid is at risk; if I have a cold for four months running, but can't afford health insurance so I just work through it, my entire office suffers. My work isn't as good, and everyone else is at risk for illness. Allowing poor people to die from bad kidneys or heart disease, when it's fixable with an available transplant, says "this person will never be worth $100,000 to the rest of society." And maybe that's true, in some cases--but believing it's always true, means losing out on some incredible people.

Can't afford a house? Don't buy one. It isn't a "right" Bought a house and now are losing it due to no fault of your own? Sorry, thats tough. Pull up your big girl panties and start over like our forebears did. I do NOT own you a bailout! Does no one remember the 30's? Who bailed out who then? No one, and we came back a stronger, more reliant society.

FDR's "New Deal" bailed out a lot of people. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) saved a lot of people from starvation--and from it, we got Orson Wells, John Steinbeck, and thousands of ugly, functional buildings that are still in use today.

Can't afford a college education? Bull hockey. Go to work, take out loans, and do like anyone who really wants something does.....sacrifice until you get what you want. You may graduate with horrendous debt, but where is it written higher education should be free? My daughter and son both did this.......and they are now debt free, and have a decent job.

My daughter's college education is covered; Kaiser accidentally killed her father on the operating table and they'll be paying her a ton of money when she's an adult. However, they'll be paying her nothing in the meantime, so I get to hope that the slums of Oakland have schools and neighborhoods good enough to give her both an education and the attitude it takes to make it through college.

I believe the saying is "You have the right to PURSUE happiness", not happiness is guaranteed. That goes for wealth, homes and everything else you might want in this life.

There's a lot of impediments to that pursuit.

Also, the "every man for himself" theory also means "if I'm strong enough, it's my right to take it." I notice you don't talk about millionaire drug lords as successful... but they are wealthy enough to have the house and lifestyle they want. Of course, they're criminals. But they also haven't been given any reason *not* to be criminals, other than "it would offend some people who don't give a damn what happens to me."