The title above is the result of a comment I came across while playing Star Trek Online. And it's one I hear all to often because those who say it think that those who are poor choose to be because of the typical 'they're just lazy' bullshit. If anyone is lazy, it's the people who actually believe shit like this. But they aren't the only ones who are lazy.
People actually think the plutocratic billionaires worked hard to get where they are. Very few, if any, did. And even those who worked their way up had a pretty good start and a decent amount of support to boot (e.g. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. People say they're the perfect rags to riches story, but they were hardly poor to begin with.).
Lectures about poor people and money management piss me off to no end. Why? Because I have never forgotten where I came from. I spent most of my life dirt poor and nearly homeless until nearly 10 years ago when I met and eventually married my wife while attending college. I sometimes have to explain to my in-laws very harshly that they could just as easily end up in some of the situations I've been in.
In fact, this point is very easy to demonstrate with stories like the one about Mr. Lang. Remember him and his wife's ignorance about the ACA and the whining when he couldn't get coverage? Or all the support he got from Liberals and other left-leaning folks when he set up his GoFundMe to help with his medical bills? Or how he walked away from the Republicans after the fact?
If any so-called conservative reactionary happens to be reading this, heed my advice: Don't judge the poor. They fight battles that are difficult enough as it is without being told to get off their ass and get a job; especially when most already work and those jobs they do have don't even pay the fucking rent. So they get a second. Or a third. Or a fourth. And no matter what they do, they're bitched at by people like the reactionaries.
Oh sure, they'll pay lip service when you hear about a worker who died precisely because they worked that many jobs, but then they go back to bitching about the poor, including the person who just died if they can find a reason that's convenient enough.
So let me just end this by being blunt: Eventually, most of these people who judge the poor just for being poor will likely end up in that position themselves and become the very thing they've been taught to hate for so long. If that's what it takes for them to understand, then I say so be it. Because sometimes, it's the only way some people learn.
See you around,
Homer