Newt Gingrich Hates Poor Children

[homasse]

Newt’s War on Poor Children
By CHARLES M. BLOW

Newt Gingrich has reached a new low, and that is hard for him to do.

Nearly two weeks after claiming that child labor laws are "truly stupid" and implying that poor children should be put to work as janitors in their schools, he now claims that poor children don’t understand work unless they’re doing

Comments

[schmanda]

John Scalzi's "Being Poor" blog entry, ever relevant.

[nothingmuch]

Newt practically lives on a different planet from this.

[kitanabychoice]

I hate that there's parts of that blog I can relate to. :/

[roseofjuly]

There are people being disgusting in the comments. No seriously, even in the sea of horrible things people keep recounting about being poor, there are a few "What about me? i'm not poor and my life is shitty too!" assholes, bootstraps assholes, and "Why don't you just not be poor then?" assholes in the comments.

I hate everybody.

[roseofjuly]

The comment referred to "being locked in your room doing your homework while your mom goes to get whiskey and your dad doesn't give a shit that you're alive," which seemed to imply alcoholism and possibly neglect or abuse. But it just smacked of "So what you're poor, I'm not poor and I have a bad life, anyone can suffer!"

[kitanabychoice]

Why don't you just not be poor then?

That sentiment makes me want to punch people in the face. Repeatedly. Forever. If we could all just say, "you know what? I'm done being poor. I've had enough," and it actually meant something to say those words, and those words made a difference, and we could back them up with easy actions, I am sure none of us would be poor. People who say that act like you can hand wave yourself into a better paying job with no debts. what the fuck ever man.

[roseofjuly]

Someone who posted up a follow up about this - a version about being poor in the Third World - said it best: people like to believe that everything they have that is good they earned, and everything they got that is bad was a series of bad luck or unfortunate events. On the other hand, people who are better off than you are lucky and people who are worse off than you made poor life decisions or are somehow responsible for their problems

[elialshadowpine]

Considering that I have also heard this in regard to my disabilities (that I'm disabled because I didn't pray hard enough, or because I obviously didn't take care of myself, or that I obviously just want to stay sick because I'm not trying every single New All Natural Fad, etc)... yeah. People are assholes.

[sephystabbity]

Annnd the ones whining about how rich people are being called assholes, and how they're rich but not an asshole. And I'm just sitting here thinking "This is not about you, stop making it about you."

[sesmo]

The saddest part of that is that Scalzi nukes comments that he considers sufficiently out of line, and he nuked a lot of comments in this thread. These were the ones that weren't gross enough to nuke.

[roseofjuly]

I was wondering why there seemed to be so few assholes. It's really telling that in a post like that, I expect to see more assholes.

[elialshadowpine]

Scalzi is really good about nuking the comments that are outright abusive or just obviously trolling. He lets some stuff through that I wouldn't, but for the most part, I can read the comments on his blog without wanting to spork my eyeballs out, which I appreciate.

[sephystabbity]

Oh my god, that brings back some memories that I had almost forgotten. And the worst thing, I'm sitting here thankful, that even though I had it had at one point, I never had it bad as some of those people in the comments. :(

[romp]

Thanks, I hadn't read that before. Well, okay, I made it until it listed crying when food spills on the floor but it's a good list.

[bushy_brow]

Thanks for that link, bb! I've been reading the comments on that and the other post linked at the end ALL DAY.