From you, it's an honor. Thanks.

place for all.

we paid for it.

You're correct in its usage, but it would probably be easier for us to change how we describe these things than it would be to explain to people what the word really means.

I think it grew out of the common idea/phrase of people sometimes feeling entitled to things they didn't earn, and that negative usage of the word has given the word a negativity regardless of context.

decades branding the word entitlement to evoke images of Reagan's "welfare queen", "lazy bums", "druggies" -- and these translate to people of color as well as for some "white trash".

But I agree, we need to describe the social safety net differently, rebrand it to evoke a more positive reaction.

The word has come to be short-hand for those who think society owes them something. It's been used from a non-Republican perspective in conversations about people like "pharma bro" or the "affluenza" kid.

What's been lost is the understanding that, yes, sometimes society DOES owe you something, because you paid for it. That there is a difference between feeling entitled, and legitimately being entitled.

The distinction is, unfortunately, too subtle to describe in a bumper sticker.

So we can spend our time and energy educating people about what the word really means, but it might be easier to modify the terms we use than it is to explain to people why the word as it is so commonly used doesn't mean what they think it means.

And their threats to gut both are closer to reality than ever at a time when they are going to be needed most.,

I had a major medical situation last year when I needed a second Cataract surgery. The replacement lens in my left eye slipped out of place from Cataract surgery I had in 2010. Due to a degenerative disease and Macular Degeneration I have been battling for 33 years, I am totally blind in my right eye. I was literally blind. With Tri-Care and Medicare, I was covered. I can see as well now out of the left as I had prior.

I am in the throes of another Medical situation with nose bleeds and had to have the right side cauterized. I have been miserable all this week, unable to breathe, headaches due to sinus pressure, a true sticking out of my face, meds thatvmake me loopy and unable to work or engage in any fun activities. I see the ENT today.

Without Medicare, I would be broke. As millions of other Seniors would be. But Republicans don't care. Which is why we must stop them at every turn from eliminating the two major accomplishments that have keep kept older Americans from dire poverty. My adult children have families and problems of their own. They are not responsible for mine.

I hear ya. With the added pressure of no health insurance it would put you over the edge.

People who wanna stand up on their own two feet like you (and all of us) just need a little help sometimes. What kind of country are we if we can't encourage that kind of self-sufficient spirit?

We PAID for them.

Technically, they aren't entitlements at all. They are benefits.

I was just piggybacking on the current terminology but you are 100% correct to say "benefits".

I'm thinking "anything but entitlements alone". "Self-funded benefit" is another useful replacement term.

Which brings up another point. I could go on a rant about self-funded benefits and every time a right-winger asks, "what's a self-funded benefit?" I could say, "Social Security and Medicare! Don't you realize you pay for them?"

😉

We paid for and are entitled too.

Maybe my issue is with standalone "entitlement" usage that has been given a nuanced meaning by Republicans to mean "free stuff".

I'm always suspicious of their word usage because they are snake-oil salesman, not stewards of democratic government programs, assets, and citizens. They harbor an ulterior motive for every commonly-repeated word they use.

I’ll just keep saying it.

"Entitlement" alone has been "captured" by GOP propagandists to mean "free stuff". That slang usage needs to be turned around by adding "paid","earned" or some other adjective to mean "worked and earned".

But I hear your point, simplicity is usually best. This is one of the exceptions, or so it appears to me.

They say it with blood dripping from their fangs like being well read, educated, open minded and kind, are bad things.

re-write history, we are going to allow them to re-write the dictionary too......
"entitlement" is the right word. u are entitled to it bc u paid for it!

I've always maintained this view.

….my Democratic represenative to STOP saying "entitlements" for years. Never changes. It's too linked in the average non-political American mind to the memes of "Welfare Queens" and conversely, the hated "elite".

They are earned benefits. We paid for them. This should be communicated every time the programs are discussed.

And BTW, we need an infusion of new immigrant people in order to have enough young population to keep the coffers full. Our own young simply don't have the numbers. Any one who pays into it ought to benefit later when they are too old to work.

MAGA's racism is going to destroy their own retirement.

I get that GOPers have tried to make it a dirty word.

repugs have highjacked it the same way they have demonized LIBERAL. FUCK THEM

Because of Medicare, Medicare Advantage, and Medical Assistance which pays for my infusion therapy (now 2 per year) I am in remission and the damage is no longer occurring. My life expectancy for 5 to 15 months just 4 years ago has gone to 10 years+. If Medicare and Social Security take the proposed hit the Republicans are making, I will go back to the 5 to 15 month lifeline. For me, and for others, this is a life and death issue. I and my employers have paid into both programs for 53 years. Yeah, it's free - NOT!

Old geezers like me show up and vote. Even his base would go nuts if they go after their checks. I am entitled to what I put in plus interest, now if they want to write me a check for the lump sum with interest...

that they'll lose bigly, so now is the only chance to gut both programs.
If they're going to lose, might as well pass what they want.

Why is Paul Ryan retiring? He can now cause as much damage as he
wants, without any consequences.

And it's high time we start acting like the majority and wrestling silly things like this back from them.

that at home, at night, in the dark....the ignorant gop types aren't asking..."How's this all effecting(affecting?) me?" People don't change unless they are impacted, or in fear. This country will go back to the global bastion we were. The world itself awaits that day.

The problem becomes...once you're affected, the benefit to you is often gone, and too late. Like treating a spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend badly. Or your kids. It's cancerous to the psyche.

If you read the trustee report on page 25, it shows that even though the total income is expected to rise from $299 billion last year to $470 billion in 2026, it will be in a negative balance that year. The fund has started into deficit this year.

https://www.aarp.org/health/medicare-insurance/info-2018/medicare-trustees-report-2018.html

With the most economical risk pool there is.....we all pay in and can all benefit if we need to. Virtually all programs colloquially known as "entitlements" fall under this category. If one never needs CHIP, great! If you do, it's there for you and your children.

I've used this concept to explain to people SS, Medicare, universal health coverage, CHIP etc. These are people who regularly pay their home owners and car insurance, for good reason, and have benefited from such when unfortunate incidences occur, yet some still don't get it. If their house never burns down or they never wreck your car, they can't ask the insurance company for their money back. If their house does burn down, I'M chipping in to replace their house, as long as mine doesn't burn down. Why the hell this is such a hard concept to grasp, I'll never know.

You are giving in to nonsensical argument. You are accepting the misuse of words. You are allowing poltroons and liars to redefine the word to suit their own ends.

No. Call them out. Don't support their lies by saying "yes it's a nasty thing and a dirty word, but this one is one that we earned." Call them out by saying, "You don't know what you are talking about. All entitlements are earned by the person who is entitled to them."

Bought and paid for all one's working life.

One of my biggest pet peeves is right-wingers saying "entitlements." It grates on me!

by a few hundred thousand undocumented immigrants coming across the border this year, by gang violence or terrorism - or rich people not being able to buy their fifth private jet with cash so they need the tax cut.

You and yours are a million times more likely to lose work income and your prized possessions - home, car, "stuff" that makes you comfortable - from lack of medical care.
You and yours are a million times more likely to suffer a decrease in the quality of your lives.
You and yours are a million times more likely to die painfully, early and unnecessarily.


But, it's obviously more important to be focused on stranger danger than it is from the psychopaths in your own house, right? At least that's what Faux, "Conservative" talk radio, and the rich f'ers (who need their fifth jet to be able to fly over the pallet, cardboard, and tarp shack in a canyon or dump site they assume is all you are entitled to call home) want you to believe.

Enforcing Plantation economy. Make sure anyone who has to "earn" a paycheck to survive and thrive accept the unconscious propaganda that they're disposable because they're only important as their ability to work, and if you can afford it, you can pit them against each other for your own profit and pleasure.

Haele

Hope you don't mind if I use it?

This response doesn't work on the long-term brainwashed - like the genial hate addict at work who just "lost" the lunch area TV remote after locking it onto Faux because he apparently so needed his Faux Frienemies and Hannity fix to be able to survive the work day and couldn't stand the effort the rest of us make to switch the channel back and forth to something more palatable -, but it can make those who are on the fence or aren't paying too much attention stop and think for a minute.
BTW, thanks to him, we're going to lose the lunch TV.

Haele

they've been allowed to make it into a dirty word.

The word "benefit" actually has a derivation history (implying a good gift) that is less entitling than the derivation history of "entitlement" (implying something that has your NAME on it because you OWN it). The other side may even have some evil intellectuals who know that only too well, and plan to use that fact to snuff out these entitlements. After all, the word "entitlement" was written into many of the documents and news stories about these entitlements when they were proposed and when they were put into place.

I agree that we will have to fight hard to prevent the degradation of this word "entitlement." By the way, I almost misspelled the word "degradation," just now. I want to thank my wonderful Chicago Public School English teachers for teaching me about spelling, derivation, and word definition. I recalled the derivation of the word "degradation" and how it has the words "de" and "grade" buried in it. The other side is based on DELIBERATE IGNORANCE, which will lead to degradation of many aspects of our civilization.

There are small indications of this everywhere. The word "dissent" is still pronounced with a short "i" sound. If you listen to documentaries made in the thirties, you will hear that the word "dissect" was also pronounced with a short "i" sound. My Webster's New World Dictionary gives that short "i" as the preferred pronunciation. Now, many people in power pronounce this word as if it meant "di-sect," and I know why. The words "dissent" and "dissect" actually have almost identical derivations, involving the word "dis" which means something like "not" or "apart." There is a deliberately ignorant group of people in our country, backed by ill-gotten wealth, contemptuous of poor people and virulently White Supremacist. Always careless and hasty, they assumed that the word "dissect" came from the word "di" (two), and should be pronounced as though it meant "di-sect" (to cut in two). There is a reason for that double "ss" in the middle of the word "dissect." They were too arrogant to listen to the people who knew it.

Now, this is a tiny detail, I know. But it shows how easily such a change can be forced. And once the change has been pushed into place, they will work it as hard as they can to push as many people as possible into starvation. So, yes, for now, we have to use extra words to reinforce the actual meaning of the word, as written in the original documents. We must emphasize the fact that THE WORD "ENTITLEMENT" HAS ALWAYS MEANT THAT YOU OWN THIS PAYMENT, YOU DESERVE THIS PAYMENT, THIS PAYMENT HAS YOUR NAME ON IT FOR A GOOD REASON.

The writers of the US Constitution knew the rules of English grammar, and so did most educated English speakers at that time. "The President SHALL appoint judges" DID NOT carry the same weak meaning as the phrase "The President WILL appoint judges." That little word "SHALL" in there carries an IMPERATIVE mood which SHOULD have decisive impact in a LEGAL document. A healthy LEGAL system would have forced the Senate to allow most or all of President Obama's judicial appointments, including that famous Supreme Court judge appointment he made almost a year before his term ended. Mitch McConnell and his ilk got away with ignoring this distinction, and they violated the US Constitution with impunity, because WE HAVE LOST this important detail of grammar.

I know this is slightly off-topic, but I mention this problem because it illustrates the LEGAL importance of these tiny details in semantics and grammar. I learned all this in eighth grade, and it was reinforced in high school. If they were listening, my classmates learned it, too. Education is crucial to our civilization, and the other side knows this. That is why Betsy DeVos suggested that maybe child labor might be a good idea.

“Earned entitlement” is silly and redundant. Reclaim the word “entitlement”. Don’t let the publicans distort our language. They are against entitlements. We are FOR entitlements. Don’t shrink from the word “entitlement “, or we’ll have lost the war.