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Debate Score:57
Arguments:59
Total Votes:67
Ended:09/01/19
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 Poverty in the United States is self inflicted (47)

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Poverty in the United States is self inflicted


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2 points

The vast majority of the 39.1 million people in the United States that are unable to adequately support themselves and are living in poverty are not victims of society. Rather they live as do by personal choice and or as a consequence of making poor life decisions.

AlofRI(3294) Clarified
2 points

It's really a shame to hear YOU say that, since a LARGE number of those living below the poverty level are military families! Many of which are making in the low $30's … at or below the poverty level!

I have 3 Marines in my family, one is 88 and "living" in Florida. Two are struggling ….. lazy bastards????

"Personal choice"??? "Poor life decisions?" One with back problems, one with PTSD! Fornicate thou! "MARINE"!

Marine_Sgt(29) Disputed
1 point

Interesting that you bring up the military. I'll assume you just saw the same news piece I did. The particular family that was featured on the news is a family of 6 and lives on $34,000. That's the husbands pay only. It's assumed in the news piece that his wife has chosen not to work and prefers to stay home while the kids are in school.

The husband has a rank of E4. This is a rank more typically held by a 19 or 20 year old single first time enlistee. Clearly there is more to this picture and story. The man has no business fathering four children knowing his limited income. Further why does he have a rank more often held by a teenager... I'd call that personal choice and personal failure.

outlaw60(15368) Disputed
1 point

AL you are STUPID as they come and your failure to address the issue shows how GOVERNMENT and your POLITICIANS have poisoned your BRAIN !!!!!!!!!!

https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-2020-homelessness-presidential-campaign-20190610-story.html

When new figures released last week showed a jarring rise in homelessness around Los Angeles, the response throughout Southern California was shock and indignation.

The reaction from the crowded field of Democratic presidential candidates: silence.

While White House hopefuls crisscross the country, making big promises on issues such as college debt relief, climate change and boosting the working and middle classes, they have largely ignored an issue — the soaring number of unsheltered Americans — that has reached a crisis point in communities on the West Coast and elsewhere.

The silence is particularly notable coming from California’s Sen. Kamala Harris, who lives in L.A. Her campaign declined requests for comment on the latest homelessness figures. Harris and her rivals broadly address issues relating to homeownership or rent affordability, but offer little aimed at the desperate plight of those already living on the street.

LEFTIST LAP DOG your PARTY thrives on HOMELESSNESS and when questioned they refuse comment for the DISASTROUS CONDITIONS that they create and all through the eyes of the SOCIALIST UTOPIA that is proven an UTTER FAILURE !!!!!!!!!!!!

outlaw60(15368) Disputed
1 point

May 25, 2016

For more than two years, the Veterans Affairs department has struggled to deal with a long-buried crisis in its service to veterans, a systemic and widespread fraud that concealed long wait times at its hospitals and clinics.

Now, the length of time that veterans are forced to wait for initial medical care has long been an issue in the single-payer VA system. Both Barack Obama and John McCain made the lack of responsiveness at the VA a campaign issue all the way back in the 2008 presidential election. Obama appointed retired Gen. Eric Shinseki, who had a reputation for bucking bureaucracies and challenging established leadership, specifically to clean up the VA. Among the reforms adopted were incentives for improving wait times, including bonuses for executives who succeeded at making the VA competitive with private-sector providers.

Five years later, however, whistleblowers produced evidence that dozens of veterans had died while being denied access to care at the Phoenix VA. Evidence emerged that the wait-list fraud was not localized to one VA center but was standard operating procedure in much of the country. VA executives earned bonuses while veterans languished in medical limbo — and some of them perished in it, too. Obama sacked Shinseki, the only Cabinet official to resign under pressure from the president, and appointed Robert McDonald to clean up the VA.

The measure of how well that worked out came in McDonald's shocking suggestion this week that wait times don't matter in medical care. While discussing reforms with reporters, McDonald wondered why anyone worries about them at all. "When you got to Disney, do they measure the number of hours you wait in line?" he asked. "What's important is, what's your satisfaction with the experience? And what I would like to move to, eventually, is that kind of measure."

So would many veterans. Unfortunately, they first have to board the actual ride to have that "experience," and unlike at Disney's grand facilities, veterans don't come to the VA for their own amusement. For many, they only come when their health is in serious question, when time is of the essence for both accurate diagnosis and effective treatment.

McDonald's remarks amount to a white flag of surrender on veterans care at the VA. After years of increasing concern and anger at long wait times and unresponsive bureaucracy at the VA, McDonald wants everyone to just shrug it off. Rather than fix the problem, McDonald wants to stop measuring the failures, leaving veterans locked into a system it takes weeks and months to even access.

https://theweek.com/articles/626239/obamas-va-scandal-much-bigger-than-callous-disney-analogy

ROAD ISLAND AL your BOY OBAMA could NOT clean up the VA so did he offer any help to MILITARY families living below the POVERTY LINE ????????

Nom_Chomsky(846) Disputed Banned
1 point

The vast majority of the 39.1 million people in the United States that are unable to adequately support themselves and are living in poverty are not victims of society.

Clearly, yes they are. The work that they do makes other people rich while at the same time prevents them from becoming rich themselves, and keeps them at a subsistence level never high enough to stop them coming back next week. Capitalism is a pyramid system and it's that simple. The people at the bottom do the work and the people at the top enjoy the spoils.

Rather they live as do by personal choice

Stop this ridiculous fucking propaganda bullshit. By the same logic there is no such thing as slavery, since slaves make a personal choice not to kill themselves.

2 points

Capitalism is a pyramid system and it's that simple

Many well off people were raised poor. What's your excuse?

1 point

The work that they do makes other people rich while at the same time prevents them from becoming rich themselves, and keeps them at a subsistence level never high enough to stop them coming back next week.

What a well created rebuke of the state controlled welfare system.

1 point

The people at the bottom do the work and the people at the top enjoy the spoils.

That's what happens when you save your money rather than buy skyrim games, $1,000 cell phones, and drugs when you can't afford them.

1 point

By the same logic there is no such thing as slavery, since slaves make a personal choice not to kill themselves.

Dumbest thing I've ever heard. Stop making excuses and do something with your life clown.

Marine_Sgt(29) Disputed
1 point

You are certainly right, capitalism does produce winners and losers. This debate is not that there will not be losers, rather it is about why some people become losers. My position is that they become losers not because of capitalism, but rather because of their own personal bad choices in life.

Regarding personal choice, Here are just a few of the more significant and common poor choices that leads to poverty:

1) Not securing an education that provides marketable skills. Most notably this would be those that drop out of High School one of the more significant factors that contribute poverty. Also, But to a lessor degree those that choose not to gain a specialized marketable skill. This includes post graduate schooling, But also includes OJT job skills such as carpenter, Plumber, Welder etc. The later requiring little to no cash investment.

2) A very significant percentage of those that are living in poverty produced (had) children at an early age. This often leads to a lack of education, An inability to work and a dependence on social program.

3) Those living in poverty are far more likely to be a single adult household. As to the reason the person is single, that may have be personal preference or it may have been a consequence of bad judgement. It is none the less a personal determination.

For the sake of not making this overly complicated, I will choose not to address, Alcoholism, Smoking, Use of drugs, Convictions of crime, Laziness, Etc. All of these are personal choice items. Let me just say that the percent of those living in poverty that have graduated from high school, Have secured a marketable skill and chose not to have children until they could support them is is extremely low.

Regarding my position that it is not societies fault that the individual lives in poverty:

I will very quickly agree that many of those living in poverty (not all) grew up in families and in areas that provided few good role models. However, I clearly stated "Society" and in that context, I am referring to what society may or may not have done to cause certain people to make the very poor decisions they made that put them in poverty. I believe it would be nearly impossible to convince those that critique this debate that the country or the state itself caused those that are living in poverty to get pregnant at 16, Drop out of high school, Never gain a marketable skill and remain an unmarried single person living on welfare. Set aside the other endless list of poor decisions that lead to poverty.

outlaw60(15368) Clarified
1 point

So do explain Whatever that Nanny is referencing here !!!!!!!!!!!!

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that Obamacare facilitates the type of “liberation” that the “Founders had in mind” because it allows you to quit your job and become a “photographer,” a “writer,” a “musician”--or “whatever.”

Is the Leftist Nanny telling her Leftist Minions that POOR LIFE DECISIONS are okay ?????

Please do clarify !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Marine_Sgt(29) Clarified
1 point

Please help me understand what this has to do with the debate regarding why most people are living in poverty.

Marine, you just summed up the difference between Democrats (Liberals) and Republicans (Conservatives).

The Socialist Democrat Party panders to irresponsible people to buy their votes.

Republicans are the adults in the room who understand common sense human nature. They know when we embrace irresponsibility with this no fault Progressive ideology, it will grow.

For Democrats, the greater numbers of people living off tax payers, the greater number of votes at the polls.

This is what's so reprehensible about this extreme Liberal Socialist Democrat Party. They would see our nation take a third world status to win elections. Trump Loves America, while Democrats love Socialist Europe.

For any working American to vote for the Democrat Party, is the most stupid thing they have ever done.

Amarel(5669) Clarified
-1 points

Being poor as a consequence of personal choices doesn’t imply there is an intention to be poor, personal choice does imply intention.

Poor by consequence or poor by choice. You seem to be leaving out poor by lack of ability. That doesn’t necessitate retardation. Consider that half the population is at or below 100 IQ.

So why would someone intend to be poor?

If someone made a moral choice that inadvertently put them in poverty, does blame accompany their responsibility?

Nom_Chomsky(846) Clarified Banned
2 points

Being poor as a consequence of personal choices doesn’t imply there is an intention to be poor

Absolute classic misdirection. You are hiding your false implication, which is that being poor is a consequence of personal choices. It is not a consequence of personal choices. Nobody chooses to be poor.

Your corporate propaganda is vile. All of it is centred on the sociopathic premise that people exist to serve the system (as opposed to vice versa) and if they "fail" to do so to the satisfaction of the masters of said system, there is therefore something wrong with them, or they have been bad, or they made the wrong choices, or they were "unsuccessful", yada, yada, yada. It's fucking bullshit pal. Yours is the worldview of the oil and gas junta, bankers and people who have never had to work for a living.

FromWithin(8241) Clarified
1 point

Ameral, whenever I speak to irresponsible choices leading to a person's problems in life, I am not saying they deliberately chose to have problems.

I'm saying they have chosen to live lifestyles that create their problems. You seem to be suggesting that their low IQ is an excuse for these bad decisions in life.

I'm saying that, more then IQ being the culprit when making bad decisions, it's a person's lack of moral values.

No matter a person's IQ, for decades we have been telling people that smoking is bad for their health. This did not stop them from starting smoking prior to addiction. I guarantee you that many people, with high IQ's, also partake in vices that lead to many problems in their lives.

The same for alcohol abuse, illegal drug use, promiscuous sex, etc. etc.

It's not the lack of intelligence, but rather the lack of moral values. These people understand the dangers of their choices. They simply do not care. They will happily ignore the obvious dangers, chasing after one vice to the next, trying their best to escape reality, then screaming how they are entitled to tax payer bailouts.

The Democrat Party has truly taken advantage of these broken lives. The Left seldom comes up with policies to stem the tide of irresponsible lifestyles and the accompanying problems. Their policies embrace these broken lives with never ending social program.

It's all Politics and truly reprehensible. A truly loving compassionate person wants to break the cycle of generational poverty, not enable it.

Trump has shown how Government helping the job creators, lifts all ships, even the low income ships. Record low unemployment for many minorities.

Democrats have shown how never ending social programs do nothing to stem the tide of broken lives, but rather encouraging more of the same.

poverty in the United States is self inflicted

In a lot of cases. Some people like nom have mild mental retardation.

Nom_Chomsky(846) Disputed Banned
1 point

Some people like nom have mild mental retardation.

Lol. Because I get my information from the Encyclopaedia Brittanica instead of Bronto's choice selection of Joseph Goebbels quotes.

Nom_Chomsky(846) Disputed Banned
1 point

In a lot of cases.

Oh, people volunteer to be poor? Thanks for letting us know. How about you start with the basics? Learn how to read and write fluently first, and then we can move on to critical thinking.

Marine_Sgt(29) Clarified
1 point

Not once did I suggest people "volunteer to be poor", those are your words not mine.

My position is that the majority of those that end up in poverty are there because they made poor life decisions.

Marine_Sgt(29) Disputed
1 point

I don't believe either you or I believe that the majority of those in poverty are retarded. Therefore they have self determination and they have failed themselves.

Marine_Sgt(29) Disputed
1 point

I don't believe either you or I believe that the majority of those in poverty are retarded. Therefore they have self determination and they have failed themselves.

Nom_Chomsky(846) Disputed Banned
2 points

I don't believe either you or I believe that the majority of those in poverty are reared. Therefore they have self determination and they have failed themselves.

I see. So the system doesn't fail people. People fail the system. I congratulate you on yet another reversal of cause and effect, you imbecilic corporate fascist gobshite. If the system doesn't work for people then that isn't the fault of the people. It is the actual fucking JOB of the system to work for people. That's why it was invented. So if it only works for 5 percent of people, then it doesn't fucking work. In which universe is that difficult to understand?

1 point

Not always, and would Jesus say that? You have the right to free speech, and so do I.