Re: Social Contract

On Sat, Apr 29, 2006 at 01:34:29PM -0700, Steve Lamb wrote:
Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
Nice way to avoid the point.

Nope, didn't avoid a thing. As you admit your case was constructed.
Furthermore it did not address what I said.

You said, and I quote:
The short, short form is that EICs are issued for people being
irresponsible (like, having kids while well below the poverty level),

Your constructed example was that someone who had kids *then* lost their
job. My case is the more common no job or single, low wage job, have a kid
because the nanny state will take care of it or they can't figure out how the
darn things are made. That's two completely different cases.

read your quote above: ...EIC's are issued for people being irresponsible....

THAT is what I'm talking about. This kind of general statement is
innaccurate and inflammatory. I attempted to provide an example of how
someone could qualify for and receive EIC's without being
irresponsible. Obviously, I did not do a good job of communicating
that, but that was my intended point. It is similar to saying
"worker's comp exists to pay people who fake injuries". This is
obviously not true and neither is your statement.


I was not trying to make any judgement about EIC's in any way just
pointing out that conflating all EIC recipients into a group of
irresponsibles is wrong.



My point was that lots of people end up qualifying for EIC's due to a
variety of factors outside their control.

Uh, no, a lot of people qualify for factors entirely in their control;
having a child is a choice not a biological inevitability. Most people don't
have a kid then fall on hard times. Most people have a kid and do well or
have a kid to hell with their situation at the time. Furthermore my example
was to show when a person gets money sent to them for not paying anything into
the system. You are aware that EICs are not just for the poor and there are
cases where households with an income far in excess of the poverty level get
EICs as well. The reason I specified what I did was because at least those
households, in theory, are contributing something into the system in the first
place. Granted they often get it all, and more, back but for a time the money
was contributed.


I said LOTS. I did not say MOST. It is true that a lot of people
qualify for reasons within their control, but that does not exclude
that a lot of people qualify for reasons out of their control.

That is not being irresponsible. That is being unlucky.

So? There are ways to mitigate bad luck like planning for hard times.
Savings, sadly, is a dying breed in this nation of instant gratification
credit lines and a tax system which discourages actual savings.

I am only
pointing out how you have classified an entire group of people in one
sweeping generalization that has little or no bearing in reality.

No, you set up a strawman to knock down. I never said someone who already
has a child and loses a job. I said someone who is below that line and
decides to have a child. One is after the fact, the other is not.


Correct you did not say that. You said that EICs were for
irresponsibles and then went on to provide an example in someone who
chooses to have a child they cannot afford. I provided a counter
example where someone Responsibly has a child and then ends up getting
EIC's later without choosing irresponsibility. Your classification of
all EIC recipients, or qualifieds, as irresponsibles is just
wrong. its simple. thats all it is.

[snipping parts where we both wander from my original intended point]

Constructed? Nope. That's me from '02 to present day. EICs taken 0. Of
course I doubt I qualify based on the fact my dependents are a chihuahua and a
calico cat. So please, before you start with the handwaving about matters out
of people's control realize you're talking to someone who's been there, who's
faced the hard choices and didn't take the easy road out.


mee too.

It was hellish for
a while there. Toughest choice was moving from Long Beach to Las Vegas,
having my wife quit her job as it was the only security we had left on the
chance she could get a job here before we went completely under. We still
hadn't exhausted our resources. We still had friends and family that would
have helped us as best they could. Something you left out of your constructed
fantasy. There's always things people can do. They may not be easy choices.
They may not be what the people want. I certainly didn't want to sell my
bike as it was my only transportation but I would have. And I was willing to
fight until the last, even face harsher bankruptcy laws, so my creditors
weren't shafted for my problems. So realize that when I talk about all of
this it isn't from some lofty comfortable position of luxury. I've been
there, thank you.


I agree that the hard road is that, hard.

I repeat, for the sake of summming this up: I am only saying that it
is inaccurate to call someone who qualifies for EIC's "irresponsible".
That was my original point. Obviously, I did not communicate that in a
clear way. But that was my only intent, to call you on your sweeping
and inaccurate generalization.


A

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