To my conservative coworker: "I want my effing money back!"

[CTyankee]

We've worked together and I heard your tale of woe practically constantly. You divorced your first louse of a husband after two children were born, he became disabled and your kids had SSI benefits until they were 18. You have no health insurance as you can't make enough money to buy it and you have a (low) salary, so if you go the the ER I'll wind up paying for it. Because I am a liberal.

I've paid into all the benefits you receive all of my working life. I never begrudged your kids the benefits. I wouldn't want you sick.

You told me you were a conservative. You don't like Obama because he said his white grandmother was a "typical white person." You are probably gleeful that Brown won in MA. You're mad as hell because all those "illegals" (your word not mine) are using your tax money (never mind that your grandparents came here in wretched poverty and maybe illegally).

Well, what if I were to say to you that I wanted all that tax money back that I paid for YOU??? Maybe I'm sick of hearing from people like you and I can't listen to it anymore. I just can't. I'm sick and tired of folks like you who suck from the system and then kick the liberals. Where do I send the bill?

Sorry, but you are a hypocrite and I'm done with you forever...

[Orrex]

1. Tell them that they're wearing ugly shoes, too

I find myself bracing for the nauseating backlash as Conservatives hail this as a supreme victory. "It's a referendum against Obama/against Obamacare/against the nanny state/against his stimulus/ etc."

[zbdent]

2. I want the money I've paid in which went to Social Security and Medicare for

anti-"Big Government" Republicans and tea-birthers who apparently were physically able to march on Washington ...

[hughee99]

3. I've heard this basic speech before...

I hear this "I'm sick of footing the bill for other people who can't afford it, I'm sick and tired of folks who suck from the system" schtick all the time, and especially at election time. It's my freeper brother's mantra.

[Bettie]

4. The point here though is that these same people

ARE the ones who suck from the system.

I have an acquaintance like this too...

He believes that public schools should be abolished, but his kids attend public schools

He believes that medicaid should be abolished, but his family receives medicaid.

He believes that food stamps should be abolished, but his family uses them.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

Basically, he hates our government, but he receives assistance for nearly everything in his life.

He works at a part time job which cannot support his family because he claims that his adult ADD keeps him from working a full time job. So, he receives these things from the government while complaining of their very existence.

Oh, and he also likes to prattle on about how everyone should be required to be armed and that it is unconstitutional to keep the mentally ill and felons from owning firearms.

Seriously, wingnuttery is just scary.

[hughee99]

5. I get what your saying...

but on the flip-side, but there are also people who complain about wealthy (or wealthier) Americans but use all the service their tax dollars provide.

What's the suggestion, though, that we require these people to believe or vote a certain way or they're not entitled to the benefits? Hypocrisy though it may be, it's their right to be ungrateful for the services provided by other taxpayers and the government.

[Bettie]

7. The point was not to actually demand the money back but

to highlight the hypocrisy.

We all pay taxes and they go to the common welfare.

To some that means paying for "deadbeats" for others that means providing for those who need a hand.

I don't begrudge anyone their piece of the pie. I do think that the wealthy often get much greater privilege than simply being affluent deserves and that the poor get the short end of the stick far too often.

This guy I know, well, he's an idiot. I accept much of what he says as part and parcel of his wingnuttery.

For me, it comes down to being mystified as to why people vote against their own interests time and again.

And, FWIW, it is not only the tax dollars of the wealthy that provide services, it is all of our tax dollars.

[hughee99]

8. I agree, but when referring what one puts in and takes out

I'm not sure how much the poor are getting the short end of the stick (when strictly comparing tax revenue in vs. benefits received). For "wealthy" I'm not really talking about the "wealthy" just the middle class (roughly 50K and up). If I remember right from the people making 50K and up pay about 90% of all Federal income taxes, while accounting for only about 25% of the returns filed.

[newtothegame]

6. You're mad as hell because all thos...

"You're mad as hell because all those "illegals" (your word not mine) are using your tax money (never mind that your grandparents came here in wretched poverty and maybe illegally)."

I'm sorry, but I get sick of these "in the past" arguments. Today's world is not the same world of 100 years ago. Or a thousand years ago. Blowing yourself up in a Iraqi marketplace today is not justified by the Crusades a thousand years ago. Today's immigration situation is not acceptable just because people came to the US illegally in the past.

Have we not evolved? Why are we excusing things just because something else happened in the past to "justify" it? Human rights have come a long way, so there is no excuse for justifying the sick acts of someone today just because somebody did something years ago.

[CTyankee]

9. My argument is not really that this coworker GETS the benefits. It's that she gets them

and then wants to kick the ladder away from anybody else on a lower rung. That drives me insane.

My point is also that she wouldn't even HAVE those benefits if it weren't for liberals like me. I would point out to her that my mother cast her first vote for FDR who created that awful Social Security and she was a liberal. I voted as a young woman for LBJ and his Medicare and Medicaid programs. I'm enjoying the benefits of Medicare and hope to god I never have to be on Medicaid but I don't begrudge anyone who is.

This is how things "evolve" if you want to put it that way. I would agree with you that we have a serious problem with immigration in this country but letting people who are here rot in poverty.

[newtothegame]

10. Fair enough :)

:hi: