Obama
Watched Obama's speech last night with nightskyre. Made snarky comments, although there was plenty he said that I agreed with, too.
He was almost done with the speech before I realized WHY I felt the need to snark so much: "the plural of anecdotes is not data". He kept saying things about how the "real America" was all sorts of virtuous people, like "the workers who cut their hours, even though they can't afford to, so their fellow workers can keep their jobs" and "single mother who works as a waitress and wonders if she takes a day off to take care of her child, if her job will still be there when she gets back"...
These people certainly do exist. But to pretend that our country is not ALSO full of selfish bastards who are willing to do anything to get ahead (or, on the flipside, slackers who want to work as little as humanly possible) is disingenuous. And you can't legislate morality into people.
He was almost done with the speech before I realized WHY I felt the need to snark so much: "the plural of anecdotes is not data". He kept saying things about how the "real America" was all sorts of virtuous people, like "the workers who cut their hours, even though they can't afford to, so their fellow workers can keep their jobs" and "single mother who works as a waitress and wonders if she takes a day off to take care of her child, if her job will still be there when she gets back"...
These people certainly do exist. But to pretend that our country is not ALSO full of selfish bastards who are willing to do anything to get ahead (or, on the flipside, slackers who want to work as little as humanly possible) is disingenuous. And you can't legislate morality into people.