Individually, the people in the classes want the same things: a life
with a bit more happy than sad, food shelter, comfort in time of
need, etc

But I read Al's statement not as reflecting the individuals of the
classes but rather the class itself, which doesn't have a sentinent
mind but rather exisits with purpose.

I don't buy it. I don't walk around wondering or worrying what "class" I fall into.

I'm fortunate to have a job that's helping me through school, because I busted my ass and proved I was worth the effort on their part. I used to be one of the "poor souls" that picked up your garbage (at almost 50k a year). I didn' bitch about it then, I don't bitch about it now.

I do complain about the chunk of money taken from my check each pay check, but that's rather common I'd say. What irritates me the most is the rampant waste prevalent in seemingly every facet of government (top to bottom Mike). Or the schemers that beat the system (bottom up Mike). OR, those that fit in both categories at once, and yes there are those that do.

My goal, day to day, is to work for the most I can make, to support my family the best I can.

This statement irritates me though.  If they can't pay then they shouldn't do anything other than work, come home and wait to go back to work. No phone, no cable, fuck it man a car is a goddamn luxury.

It's not a right to have a car, a cell phone, cable god damn t.v. People are soft anymore, and seem more and more that they are entitled to the good life. Or even the so-so life. You're not. Get off your ass and go to work, or if it's legitimate, get the disability you damn well better deserve. I cannot believe there's a government program out there to give everyone under a certain income a cell phone. How can that be an inalienable right when no one had them 40 years ago? Some of you need to pick up a dictionary, or talk to your elders about what life used to be like, and realize just how good you have it now.

I don't know what's in the monstrosity that got pushed through, most of the pushers don't, but this I do know. There's going to be a crap load of unintended consequences because it wasn't fixed a point or two at a time, but thrown out with the bathwater and whipped up all brand new and untried.

And all any of us can do is watch and wait. Or at least thats what congress thinks.

You don't have to buy it, you have to have it, either by: Getting it through someone, your work, your parents, your spouse, or buying it, or getting some sort of government care though Medicare or Medicaid.

As for Huber - of course you don't think about it - thats what I wrote - the individuals involved don't consider these things, it's the act of the classes as a whole that prevent movement.

 I was trying to get you to empathize with me. To show that I was coming from the same place as you.

Sorry I misunderstood you. I very much empathize.

Holy cow - I didn't mean for that last line to come off as vitriolic as it
did - my intention was, sorry that happened to you and in the spirit
of my post a few prior, I would rather they got help.

It's perfectly OK. They were criminals and in some ways child abusers. They never beat us or molested us, but in alot of the ways we were very mistreated. The problem with the help they did get was that they wasted it and my sister and I still went to bed hungry and never had decent clothes

 anyone that can't afford insurance, shouldn't be allowed to even enjoy their life

I said that people who receive assistance should pay for necessities before they buy non essentials .Of course common sense dictates that everyone should do that. No matter what their income.

 I don't know what kind of life you had growing up Paul, but it made you into a bitter douchbag.

That very well may be true. If you knew everything that happened to me you would probably understand why. I'm hardly the first person to grow up destitute with some bitterness toward my parents for what was done to me as a child.

Walk to work you lazy no good bum

Walked to work many times. I can't drive because of my epilepsy.

You lay in your bed tonight secure in how much better you are than the guy who picks up your trash, rings up your groceries, etc

I don't think I'm better than anyone based on their job. I spent  more than the first half of my life working those kind of jobs and much worse. We were working at a grocery store when my wife and I met.

 Not everyone is able to go to college,

I never said a word about college. I was talking about getting out of high school. I believe the vast majority of people are capable of getting out of high school

 Contrary to what you may believe, people don't lack insurance to fuck over the people who have it.

Never said that.

My above post was a reply to Jeff, not Paul - and Paul, I hear ya, man. We can agree to differ on points, but I think we get each other.

Back to Jeff - I am perhaps being overly optimistic about the future of Medicaid, and all other government programs, but I feel, on the other hand, people who are opposed to said same programs are often too quick to call them bankrupt, etc.

I am all for these programs - all of them - all social safety net programs. As much as I hate the insurance industry (Health, that is!), I love the idea of insurance; just as much as I hate the idea that someone can be financially destroyed by one twist of fate. You get sick? Your life is over - you are now forever in debt. Someone smashes your car? You lost everything. Etc. Those scenarios drive me nuts - so I love a system where you kick in some small funds regularly and when something horrible happens, you're covered.

Like with car insurance - I hate kicking in the funds each month, but if anything ever happens to my car, I'm sure glad I did.

Same with the social insurance programs I pay into with taxes on each check. I've been lucky to not use most of them (I did get state disability checks after my multi-week hospital stay when I had MRSA. Being sick also cost me my job, so those disability checks sure came in handy in the month I was unemployed. I didn't even have to file for unemployment. And I felt fine getting them - I was, even after discharge, still weak, having to learn to walk again, etc.. and I had paid into the fund for years with my tax dollars) but I rest easy knowing that if something horrible happens, I'm ok.

So, clearly, I'm ok with the programs. I do agree with our President that there is waste going on and that our budget can be tightened without losing essential services, and I believe that, given a chance, he can, as Clinton did before him, turn the economy around. Cutting Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, etc and so on isn't the way to do it, any more so than cutting off the military.

I hear a lot of talk from the corporate media about how Obama isn't running the economy the way people would run their home finances, but in fact, it is. If you had financial problems at home, would you stop paying your heatlh insurance while keeping other non-needed expenses?

On Al's point:

There have been done some serious  and credible statistical surveys and psychological studies about how people feel about the well-being of their neighbours and they found as a general trend that people were happier with less as long as they were better off than their neighbours.

Extrapolated to what Al is hinting at - in an equal society where there is less of a lower economic class and less of a visible upper class, the middle class is going to be extremely unhappy, even if they're in all material ways better off than the middle class in a country with big class differences.

Might explain the high rate of depression in Scandinavian Countries.

But the middle class (as a group) are genuinely made more happy the greater the distance between them and the lower class, even if that difference is not because they're better off but because the lower class is worse off. Same goes with the difference between the upper economic class and the middle class.

It is not about anyone intellectually striving for others to fail, it is about how one responds to the situation emotionally.

"Knut why think in classes?"

Economic/educational/socio-cultural  class di fferences are a reality. I'm just one of those dangerous radicals with a reality-based world-view I guess.