Thursday, April 11, 2013

Why Don't You Get A Better Job?

Sitting at a dinner table with a bunch of committed lefties or conversing with them on Facebook has led me to come up with a simple question for them.

Why don't you earn more?

In some of my social circles, the people I associate with have no serious problems. They have good educations, they come from stable families and they were given all the advantages in life one has a right to expect. There's nothing holding them back from earning in the mid-6-figure range. If they were ambitious, they could climb the corporate ladder or expand their businesses until they brought in $500,000 or thereabouts. Oh, sure, they'd have to sacrifice other things in their lives, but such income is certainly within the realm of possibilities.

So, among the progressives, why don't they? They vote for spending, spending and more spending by the government, but they don't pay, pay and pay more in taxes. That's left for the rest of us. There's a serious disconnect there.

If you voted for Obama, but you didn't go out and work your tail off to earn more money, then you are implicitly telling the rest of us to pay for your self-regard.

There's a bumper sticker, Internet campaign or slogan in all of this, but I'm not coming up with it right now. Throwing out political personalities, this is the foundational statement made by the Obama voters in a certain class:
"I helped increase government spending. Now you need to pay for it. Get to work."
Next time I get involved in one of these discussions online or at a party, I'll see if I can gently bring this up. I did it once with one of my progressive friends on Facebook and the whole concept floored him. He tried to argue that the deck was stacked against people like him earning lots of money, but I think we both knew that was just an excuse to avoid work. At least I knew. I let him get away with it at the time, but I think I could continue the conversation without being abusive.

After all, why are we paying for someone else's decisions if they're not willing to do so?

Why am I your beast of burden?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

...or you should ask your friend who stacked the deck.

K T Cat said...

Oh, he had an answer for that and it came right out of the progressive paranoia manual. If it wasn't the Koch Brothers, it was the multinational corporations and if it wasn't them it was the "Oligarchy" or something similar. The proper response is to say, "Well, the Oligarchs need good employees and are willing to pay well for them. You should go work for them so you can pay your Fair Share."