Phillip, encouraging frugality and having perspective is good, but the nasty flip side of your argument is that poor people aren't really poor, they're spoiled and have high expectations, because back in the 1950s we didn't have cable TV.
The fact that poverty was truly terrible 50+ years ago doesn't mean poverty isn't terrible today. And I don't mean air conditioning--I mean things like starvation, or people losing all their teeth to rot because there was no dental care. The Great Society programs came in response to the horrible suffering people went through if they were poor.
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Phillip, encouraging
Submitted by mythago on October 13, 2007 - 14:15.
Phillip, encouraging frugality and having perspective is good, but the nasty flip side of your argument is that poor people aren't really poor, they're spoiled and have high expectations, because back in the 1950s we didn't have cable TV.
The fact that poverty was truly terrible 50+ years ago doesn't mean poverty isn't terrible today. And I don't mean air conditioning--I mean things like starvation, or people losing all their teeth to rot because there was no dental care. The Great Society programs came in response to the horrible suffering people went through if they were poor.