This is why you'll never be a Parliament Funkadelic fan, an affluent Western hatred for audience participation.
It's not curable I fear, so I'm going to put you down on my list here as a TI... NOW, don't panic, TI just means "Truly Interesting," nothing bad. Do you like my car? It has a headlight out...
I have a "friend" in Durham who makes god knows how much working for Red Hat and argues that Americans and first worlders shouldn't complain about things like this or protest because their worlders have it so much worse. He's right that they have it worse but we'd rather not join them if we can help it. He also argues that 18 grand a year is an obscene salary compared to the third world. Never mind it's nothing here. I dunno. He's really made me feel like shit all week, but again he's still able to be upper middle class so he can comfortably say bullshit like that. Asshole.
Why doesnt he give up all of his money and live off of minimum wage then? That's a lot of potatoes in a third world country! They have a great healthcare plan there too. If you get really sick, you just die and you dont have to worry about being sick anymore.
Fuck people like that who try to justify American greed by saying the poor are living comfortably compared to someone less fortunate. Your "friend" needs to be dragged to the street and beaten for being fucking stupid.
Maybe the multimillionaires voting themselves welfare checks the size of Lotto jackpots and paying next to nothing in taxes complaining about how it's not fair that some of the taxes are going right back to the poor people that paid them so they can spend them on food and medicine should stop complaining.
I heard the exact same thing from jackass Libertarian acquaintances when I got involved with Occupy, so I'm guessing it's a talking point they're fed.
Let's be real: your friend doesn't give a damn about ending inequality anywhere, he doesn't care about the corrosive effects it has on his own society, and he supports a system that allows for undemocratic oppression on many different levels while pretending that it is 'freedom'. My current stock response is that I'm working to end capitalism everywhere, but it's easiest to start locally. That shuts them up quickly.
This is why you vote EVERY year. The Republicans gerrymandered the hell out of the legislative districts in 2010 and just won the governorship last year so now there is nothing stopping them.
I look forward to this nascent movement changing things and helping the republicans see the error of their ways, like all of the other similar movements in recent memory have done.
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