What's the term intelligent? Deductive reasoning?
No, certainly not intelligent, nor would deductive reasoning be the term. The term is "stereotyping", or more accurately, "prejudicial stereotyping". Stereotyping is when you create a set of inaccurate, simplistic generalizations about a group that allows one to categorize them and treat them accordingly. In this case, prejudicial because of the abject disdain you show against an entire class of people because you think they are lazy, are on government assistance and like it, and you are lumping a very large group of people into the same category.
I hope you are not trying to call me a racist, if you want I can send a copy of an obituary for my black friend where I am listed as a pall bearer.
Well, no, race actually hadn't crossed my mind, UNTIL NOW. Using the whole "Hey! My best friend is <whatever>!" routine as somehow being proof of not being racist is pretty lame and it never works. It's like that one guy here who railed and railed about how evil Muslims are, all Muslims, and then when he got called on it we find out that his best friend for zabazaba years is a Muslim and they eat dinner together 11 nights a week and go for long moonlit walks on the beach together on Sunday afternoons.
No, I really don't think you are racist. Although I do wonder about the phrase "my black friend" instead of "my friend". You may want to watch that in the future, as well as using that as being some proof that you're not. It looks bad and conveys the wrong message, assuming that it's the wrong message. But like I said, I don't think you are racist, but I do think you are bigoted against people who are of the poor and less-fortunate ilk.
Actually I specifically said the handicapped should have been helped. The whole limo comment was obviously a joke but I was just trying to say these people stopped thinking for themselves and couldn't make simple choices without the government telling them what to do. Yes there were tens of thousands that stayed. As far as taking a car I wouldn't consider them bad people if they took a car that was left behind I would look at it as a reasonable choice.
No, the limo comment really wasn't a joke. You may have thought it funny or clever, but it was a biting sardonic illustration of just how you feel about these people. The only thing missing was the <snort>.
You can bring up the robber or the child molester or whatever as having less of a value of life, and in those extremes I'd agree with you. But the tens of thousands people in New Orleans that you have all lumped together were most certainly not all robbers and child molesters. They were simply people that were trapped in a bad situation, many of no fault of their own, but simply because they were born there and cannot figure a way out of it all. Their life has value.
You say it's not about class, yet everything you post says otherwise (that's another reason "racist" never occurred to me). You say they put themselves in the position they were in, but that's patently not true for the vast majority of them. Some, sure, but not in the numbers you like to believe. Most are a product of their environment, and do not have the education or the opportunity or the ability to get out. If you think it's so easy for the poor to figure out how to get out from being poor and to start a new life, especially since both the environment and the government practically encourage it, I see a new life mission for you. You'll be famous 'round the world. But the solutions you're coming up with are just ridiculously unworkable. Just leave, walk out, OK, then what? No money, no education, no place to live. Yeah, I can see that being much better.
Trying to use the golden rule would work against you in this case since they let everything go to heck it would mean we should do the same.
That's not even remotely close to what the Golden Rule means.
"...since they let everything go to heck..."
That right there is prejudicial stereotyping at it's finest. Wow, you
really hate poor people, don't you? Broad, cold hatred for those who cannot live up to your standards. I'm really glad your life has been peaches and cream and you've always been able to pick yourself up and get back on your feet when things have gone wrong, but you may want to do a little introspecting on the fact that not everybody can do that. Just because they can't help themselves, or don't know how, or find it more difficult than you think it is, I don't think their life has no value.
