My upbringing and your upbringing (presumably) are a shit ton different from a lot of people's upbringing in America. Stop reflecting your own privileged life experiences on everyone else. That would make you a self-absorbed twat. Don't be a self-absorbed twat.
[as I so often say, apologies in advance for the length]
I respectfully disagree. I think everyone is entitled to the privilege of expectations, and I don't believe it is helpful to say that "Well, because your parent(s) didn't go to college, you can get pregnant in high school, and it's not your fault. You lack privilege." The seventeen year old mother of two with a tenth grade education doesn't fail to provide for them because she lacks privilege, she fails to provide for them because she lacks marketable skills (and now the ability to go out and obtain them). Please stop lying to her with the "privilege" narrative. We can debate whether or not it was the cause of her situation (at this point, as a certain fmr. Sec. of State would say, what difference does it make?). What is not up for debate is the left's bundle of lies (privilege, others not paying their fair share, etc.) will never
solve one iota of her problems. For her sake, knock that shit off and let's start with the truth, please. Were you and I privileged? In a 1,000 ways, very few of which are replicatable at the tip of the entitlement program spear. What we can do is build our social temple on a firm foundation, which is personal accountability and expectations that people control the things they can control.
Nothing else worth having is attainable without that.
If I'm giving you all the benefit of the doubt, your argument is "Jhmd, you self-absorbed twat, how dare you expect other people who didn't have your upbringing to complete a Small. Big. Tall. education and possibly rise to your upper middle class pedestal, what with like driving a Dodge Stratus, having a Netflix account and being able to buy your groceries at something other than a Food Lion? Jhmd, you titan of the upper middle class, not all of us can achieve your stunning successes. How dare you?"
Let's just assume that not everyone can grow in to attain the status of a jhmd (and certainly not a dv7 or of PhDeac) in a single generation. A Netflix account, pretentious niche fandom in European soccer and a sensible muscle sedan are all just out of reach. You've convinced me: they broke the mold when they made the three of us. Ironically enough, it is you who has led me to fully appreciate my self. dv7, you are like my self-absorption Ben Kenobi.
But what if we didn't calibrate the expectations scale to middle management message board poster and a job with a chair in one generation, like self-absorbed jhmd naively thinks we could probably get away with. What if we ratcheted the old expectations-o-meter down a few increments to "Don't actively harm your chances of upward mobility, finish your free education (I'm not talking about MSD, I'm talking about Speas, Cook and Parkland. Parkland High School is going to stamp out 300 graduates this year. Go be one of them, versus the alternative. Because the alternative has consequences.), make responsible choices with the structure of your family, take the best available job for your skillset while always working on improving and expanding it, and give it four decades and see what happens." Who do you believe is not ready for that advice? Who is incapable of that, guys? R.I.P. Content of One's Character. 1963-2015.
The crux of our dispute is that you guys think that personal responsibility and expectations show up after upward mobility, and that is not "fair" to believe other people are capable of wise choices until [some ambiguous point in the future which is always just over the horizon of the passage of the next round of subsistence entitlement programs]. I think the tough love of truth that other people and the government are not going to solve your problems for you has to come first, and I honestly don't see how anything useful happens until we start there. Twenty more years of failed programs and dealing the privilege opiate aren't going to make a positive difference, if past performance is any indication.
