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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWonkette: Take Ben Stein’s Money
http://wonkette.com/546232/take-ben-steins-money#more-546232Why is Ben Stein still talking? Who is unironically listening to Ben Stein? Who hears anything but Bueller? Bueller? come out of the mans facehole every time he talks? These are the questions we ask ourselves late at night. So, what is Big Ben on about today? The poors, of course! The poors who are lazy and drunken and slovenly and ungodly and there was probably something in there about bootstraps but we stopped listening.
First up, how awesome are rich people? The awesomest, right?? Sure are, says Ben.
They fund symphonies and ballets and schools for inner city kids, he argued, while recovering from an illness and listening to Big Band music. They are a bulwark against tyranny because they can afford lawyers to fight overweening government.
Man, we thought that the Second Amendment and unlimited guns for all forevermore was the bulwark against tyranny, but now we know we could just stack some rich people up, sandbag-style, and no tyranny can get through. See? Rich people ARE awesome.
As great as how rich people are is exactly how much poor people suck. Thats just simple math.
My humble observation is that most long-term poverty is caused by self-sabotage by individuals, he argued. Drug use. Drunkenness. Having children without a family structure. Gambling. Poor work habits. Disastrously unfortunate appearance. Above all, and counted in the preceding list, psychological problems (very much including basic laziness) cause people to be unemployed, have poor or no work habits, and enter and stay in poverty.
We like that he threw disastrously unfortunate appearance in there as a poverty cause. Ben, old boy, you are not a Hottie McHotterson, and if wealth did indeed correlate to attractiveness, you would not be sitting on the unwarranted pile of money you likely possess. Also, have you SEEN the Koch Brothers? Seriously, Ben. Your empirical reasoning sucks.
Ben is also pretty certain that poor people, aside from being ugly and lazy and drunk, actually have it pretty good because they have indoor plumbing.
Yes, the government designates many tens of millions as poor, but they almost always have indoor plumbing (which my mother did not have in her small town in the Catskills) and they are super nourished as opposed to mal-nourished, he said. They get food stamps. They get free medical care. They get vouchers for many of the needs of life. [ ] In olden times, poverty was the common human condition, Stein said. In the USA, as recently as the Great Depression, poverty was commonplace. FDR might have exaggerated when he described one-third of the nation as ill housed, ill fed and ill clad But surely he was not far off.
You know, we dont often hear people speak with quite such an amount of unvarnished longing about the Great Depression, so kudos to Ben for that bit of boldness. Way to stake out your territory as one of the most craven douchebags ever. Ben has a solution to all this poverty, though, even though he seems to actually kinda dig the whole people dying in the streets thing. Did you guess his solution was God? You are super smart!
More at link: http://wonkette.com/546232/take-ben-steins-money#UYaiMzSY0sd1wa5W.99
tularetom
(23,664 posts)geardaddy
(24,931 posts)calimary
(81,304 posts)We often decry the republi-CONS because they only hang out with rich people and the rich are the only demographic that means anything to them and with whom they can identify. You know, like beginning and would-be writers are always encouraged to "write what you know"?
Well, ben stein seems to argue his own case - as plain as the potato on his face (uh - or is that potato his actual face?). Ugly is as ugly does, ben ol' boy.
justhanginon
(3,290 posts)Johnny Depp, the ugliness inside you would still give away the kind of person you truly are. And that is an ugly and uncaring troll that should be living under a bridge somewhere. You should not be out here with the good common folk of this country,
Rex
(65,616 posts)Currently it is groveling for money from a faceless corporation.
whathehell
(29,067 posts)He doesn't know, and doesn't want to know about "poor".
geardaddy
(24,931 posts)at her house in the Catskills.
Yep, he's a putz.
Warpy
(111,267 posts)There are derelict trailers out on the West Mesa in little colonias where water must be brought in and pits are dug for waste.
Or the relative civility of 3rd rate campsites, the "dwellings" campers on cinderblocks. Again the toilet facilities are elsewhere and the showers are topless, uninsulated cubbies that are meant to be used in summer, not in 40 degree daily high weather in December.
And these accommodations are for the lucky ones. You can lock them up enough to deter teenage vandals. Unlucky people live under tarps in the woods near the river or in the human warehouses called shelters.
I do love entitled putzes like Stein telling me how luxurious poverty is in the US. I've lived much of it and all I want to do to Stein is make him poor and that means making the whole billionaire empire poor.
ProfessorPlum
(11,257 posts)First, you steal all of the people's money. Then you despise them because they have no money.
Ben Stein is a much uglier person than I thought he was.