From: kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy)
Subject: Re: Spoken Like a True ProLifer
Organization: Who, me???
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 22:35:18 GMT

In article <C0Cv0I.7BG@news.cso.uiuc.edu> vengeanc@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu () writes:
>cj@eno.esd.sgi.com (C J Silverio) writes:
>
>>---
>>vengeanc@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu () recommends this course for a 
>>impoverished couple faced with an unwanted pregnancy:
>>|>>They should put it up for adoption and then be reimbursed the expenses
>>|>>of pregnancy and childbirth if the situation you proposed actually occurred.  
>>|mcochran@nyx.cs.du.edu (Mark A. Cochran) writes:
>>|>You're a truely cold hearted bastard aren't you?
>
>>Then vengeanc@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu writes:
>>|By your definition, perhaps.  I'm sure you consider it cold-hearted to
>>|be more concerned with the needs of helpless, desperate children than the
>>|irresponsible, uncaring desires of their parents.
>
>>This is a spectacular case of Blame the Victim.  
>
>Since when am I blaming those kids (the victims) ?
>
>>Dad gets laid off from his auto mfg job because the company 
>>closed the factory in Michigan & reopened it in Mexico.  Mom 
>>can't make ends meet in her job as a waitress.  Dad can't find
>>work which uses his skills.  And how would
>>"vengeanc@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu" solve this sad problem?  RIP THE KIDS
>>AWAY FROM THOSE HORRIBLE UNCARING PARENTS!  Do ANYTHING other
>>than use "vengeanc@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu"'s tax dollars to support
>>those parasites!
>
>Mom and Dad should have gotten an education or trained themselves to 
>increase their marketability on the job market.  

I just love 20/20 hindsight. How realistic is it to expect someone who feels 
secure and comfortable in their job, and doesn't, as both a full-time worker 
and parent, really have the time or the money to "get and education or train 
themselves", to anticipate shifts in the economy that even the so-called 
EXPERTS can't predict, whereby they lose their job?

>Mom and dad would
>not have their kids RIPPED away unless they showed NO WILLINGNESS to
>improve themselves to increase their job skills.  Mom could learn to,
>God forbid, TYPE! (or Dad for that matter).  A run of the mill 
>secretary rakes in 20k a year, plus benefits.  

There's more to secretarial work than just typing, and it's often hard
to find a good "fit" between secretarial positions and candidates for 
them: there's all sorts of subtle discrimination that goes on -- age
discrimination, appearance discrimination (how the person dresses, are
they overweight, are they _too_ attractive, i.e. likely to exacerbate 
lechery in the office, maybe leading to a harrassment suit, does their
skin color match the office decor), but often nothing that can actually
be proven. Not all entry-level secretarial positions rake in 20K, by
the way, at least not in Michigan (and that WAS the example we were using,
wasn't it?).

>Unemployment compensation is good for 12 months.  If you can't find
>SOME kind of work in 12 MONTHS, you are incompetent.  

See above.

>It's not that
>dad COULDN'T find work, but that Dad insisted on ONLY looking at jobs
>he WANTED.  A responsible adult would take any work he could find if he
>was in this situation.  If my kid needed food, I'd take absolutely
>any job I could find to feed him.  

Children do not live by bread alone, "vengeanc". Do you have any idea how
devastating it is for a kid to be ripped away from a nice suburban 
neighborhood, and all of their friends and neighbors, into a filthy, unsafe
apartment downtown, where there are no kids around except ones who want to 
push drugs, and where they can't walk the streets safely without an 
accompanying adult? It's important, for the sake of the children, to try and 
maintain a STANDARD of living, not just bare subsistence. Often times, 
unemployed people think that good jobs are constantly "just around the 
corner" -- they go from one interview, to the waiting_not_knowing period, to 
the letdown, to the next interview, and so on and so on. Like a donkey with a 
carrot always dangling a few feet from its nose. Granted, with your wonderful 
hindsight, you can say that their expectations were unreasonable, but when 
you're directly INVOLVED the situation as it unfolds, it's hard to be quite 
so objective.

Were you brought up in poverty, "vengeanc"? Have you ever been unemployed
for any significant length of time? Have you ever tried to get an education
while holding down a full-time job and raising a family? I empathize with
these situations, and that's why I refrain from making the grand 
pronouncements and sweeping generalizations that you do. Sure, lazy
people exist. But being out of work for an extended period of time is not, 
in and of itself, sufficient evidence of laziness.

								- Kevin
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