Reply #21: You can say all you want about personal responsibility but the rich use that as an excuse for [View All]

[gtar100]

bleeding communities of vital funding through unfair wage practices, low-balling small businesses out of existence, and constant lobbying for lower and lower tax rates on their fat asses.

Poverty has its consequences and that is a community problem, a problem that needs to be handled correctly at the macro level. People need opportunities, possibilities and hope (yes, that newly denigrated word 'hope'). Just shoving academics at our kids won't do it either. We need artists, doctors, scientists, engineers, craftsmen, entrepreneurs, day laborers, etc., etc. And we need to trust that it's a natural part of our human nature to want to do good work regardless of the type or title. But as long as big business has only the intention of bleeding money out of people so that a small minority has the *overwhelming* percentage of the profits, then the good stuff just isn't going to happen.

Yes, people need to be personally responsible. But just like the libertarian pipe dream of the free market fixing all problems, it just isn't going to happen by telling everyone to shape up, buck the system, and pull yourself up by your boot straps. We need sanity in our economic laws that prevent monopolies, nurture innovation and stop the hording of the wealth we all help to create and sustain.

We don't throw seeds onto the ground and tell them to get their own god-damn water. No, we nurture them, help them to take root, and ensure they have access to the nutrients and water they need in order to grow to their potential. We should be just as understanding of people. We aren't perfect and most of us need to be taught, to be educated, to be shown our potential before our true selves can even become a possibility.