Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 54 Editor's Choice: 3
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Oh, please....
[Read the article: I feed the poor but eat with the rich]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Responding with the inane "oh, I think you're actually agreeing with me" when I'm clearly NOT agreeing with you only shows that you have exhausted (or never had) any REAL worthwhile arguments.
No. It shows that you have completely failed to recognize my actual arguments.
What you said in your last post -- that you don't really "need" a quality haircut, but that you don't feel guilty for getting one, and that you feel entitled to spend your money the way you want -- is completely consistent with everything I've said so far.
I would even go so far as to say that the attitude you've exhibited on this thread demonstrates the rest of my point, which is that confusing the unavoidable reality of the situation -- that people will dispose of their things as they will -- with any kind of moral issue leads only to defensiveness or, at worst, self-righteousness. But since you agreed with that point, too, I'm not able to find a point on which we disagree.
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Getting over it....
[Read the article: WayLay]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Tom Davidson - would you write that Keith Knight needs to "just, you know, get over it already" when he does a strip about race relations? Asshole.
If every comic by Knight were an extended allegory on race relations, sure. (Heck, I'm already getting tired of certain tropes in "Tom the Dancing Dog.") I'd say the same thing about "Boondocks," but for the argument that "Boondocks" is about race relations; it'd be like saying that Jim Davis should just get over his lasagna issues. If Lay has decided that "WayLay" is going to be about how much it hurts to trust men, that's entirely her right -- but as someone who remembers her former versatility, I can't help missing it. I think her catharsis is important to her, but I'd like to see her work through it sooner rather than later.
(In related news, I will never forgive Batiuk for what he's doing in "Funky Winkerbean" right now.)
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*sigh* Once more around...
[Read the article: I feed the poor but eat with the rich]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's clear that you think that people like Lawyerette and myself are self righteous (our arguments are similar) simply because we shamelessy take care of ourselves (GASP!) with our own resources.
Rather, it's clear that this is what you THINK I think. I have repeatedly said -- in every single post I've made on this thread -- the opposite, and have been increasingly explicit about it as I realized the source of your misunderstanding.
The problem isn't that you choose to buy an expensive pair of shoes or get a top-drawer haircut. It's your money, and it would -- as I've said several times now -- break society for us to tell you not to spend your money on those things. The problem is that you feel entitled to spend that money on those things, and consequently justify those frivolous expenditures by promoting them to "needs." I believe these two components have significantly negative ripple effects on society.
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It's just a stage, I hope.
[Read the article: How can I love my Republican parents?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm assuming the LW is around 20 years old and has just taken the first history class he ever liked, or at least the first one ever taught by a passionate professor. If he's any older than that, his attitude's pretty inexcusable.
LW, you'll grow out of it. Just don't burn any bridges while you're being young and stupid.
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Magic bullets
[Read the article: I feed the poor but eat with the rich]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I quite understand what you're saying, but you don't seem to have a solution to our feeling "entitled" to spend one's own money.
That's because I don't. There's no magical, society-wide solution; that's part of why wealth is trusted at the brick level to the concept of personal property.
I think the "solution," such as it is, is for all of us to try to be a little more conscientious about what we seek to acquire, and conscious of the distinction between "needs" and "wants." To some extent, all of us who're comparatively wealthy have won the hypothetical lottery we discussed earlier; we were raised to work harder, perhaps, or didn't get a disease that someone else did, or married the right person young. Our efforts are a major component in this, but they're by no means the only such component; perhaps we should all try to treat our cash as magnanimously as if we'd won it on a scratch card, even if it's actually the product of our personal sweat and toil. (This might also reduce the amount of sweat and toil people sometimes pour into the rat race; if we didn't mentally link our labor to our income, it might help us slow down some times.)