I do not believe in equality

My only beef with the 9/11 GI Bill was the transition timing. You had to do a required amount of time after 9/11 to qualify for the full benefits. I got out in June 2002 (after a 6 year enlistment), so I only qualified for 50% of all rates. Added to the fact there is a limit on how long after you separate that you can use the GI Bill. I have been doing contracting work overseas for about 14 years now, where nothing but shitty online degrees are available.

I have only 1 year left to go back to the US and get 50% benefits. I would up and move back tomorrow and go enroll if I had 100% benefit and a few years to finish a degree.

The program is great though if you didn't get fucked over in the transition period like me.

mkopec_sl said:

Sure, so what about it? Life is a cruel ass bitch. You or I could get hit with a car today and be in that same place. Or get hit in the head with a stray rock or some shit. Whats your point?

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You're honest about it, and I have no problem with that. I am not an altruistic person either. What I do have a problem with is people being willfully ignorant about reality just because they don't want to admit some people are just fucked. I don't know why they can't admit that, maybe it makes them feel bad for not trying? I have no idea.

a_skeleton_03_sl said:

I know, I got cancer and went on disability, hint the .mil paycheck doesn't pay into state disability so I got $0, so basically leave without pay for 9 months to do cancer treatment. I prevailed though because I put effort into my life and finances.

If I thought like Khane I would have given up on life, no way could I overcome a disability and bounce back!!

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You have no idea how I think about my own life. All I've been doing in this thread is pointing out that you're either out of touch, or being willfully ignorant by pretending everyone has the same opportunity in this country.

I never said I cared, I never said I'm trying to fix it or that it's not fair and everyone should get everything. I'm saying "this is the reality".

a_skeleton_03_sl said:

I didn't say your own life, how you think about people that have experienced a shred of adversity. They can't make it. They can't bootstrap. It is impossible for them to rise above their current situation. They are stuck.

The REALITY is that ANYONE can become something.

If one person, a single person, has overcome a specific adversity it invalidates every argument you make.

You are being willfully ignorant in saying they can't overcome, what you should be saying is that they won't.

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Never said everyone who is stuck is stuck through no fault of their own. Never said people can't overcome adversity to make something of themselves. Never said it's impossible to rise about your current situation.

I said some people have much larger hurdles to overcome, and some people do in fact have no chance. SOME. Not every, not even most. Some.

Typical RR arguing style though. Someone disagrees with a basic tenet of an argument, and it gets extrapolated as if I'm making some wild claim about entire populations of people everywhere and that I'm championing a cause.

Cad_sl said:

And you want us to do what with that information?

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Did you read a_skeleton_03's accusation the post above?

a_skeleton_03_sl said:

Everyonehas equal opportunity. It's just the reality of it.

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In case you want to keep trying to argue an indefensible position and come to his rescue Cad. That is what I was arguing against.

Cad_sl said:

I think, given certain circumstances, there is equality of opportunity... but most people are denied those opportunities by their parents, or their culture, or their choices.

For any individual kid, if you let me steer his decisions from birth, I'd argue there's equality of opportunity. But given that most kids get those opportunities shit on by things arguably beyond their control (largely by their parents and the culture they are raised in) it's tough to say each individual has the same chances.

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You're agreeing in some weird roundabout way. Like you don't want to admit that your surroundings, upbringing and mentors (or lack thereof) doesn't contribute to opportunity, education, and adjustment to polite society.

EDIT: I mean... you say they have the same opportunities and then in the very next sentence they are being denied those opportunities. If you're being denied an opportunity, how is it an opportunity?

Khane is right. a_skeleton_03 is also right, but less so. People do not have the same opportunity. People are allowed to fail upwards in society while others have to essentially mortgage a future on something that may or may not come to fruition. People DO need to take cautious but deliberate steps to get them out of a bad situation, the government should help those willing to help themselves more than those who feel "entitled" because a black guy is president.

The reality of the world is that it takes 3 real generations to get out of poverty unless you are semi lucky or doing something really illegal. Which the second has to be the fulcrum point due to having both feet in the "poor" and "has money" categories. They fall / get dragged down into the muck because of "family" and "cousins" and whatever gaslit bullshit society gets put on them(see Serge Ibaka). The first generation have traditionally, but not ALWAYS, been the hard working "illegals" be it the Irish at the turn of the century, the Armenians, the African Americans who benefited from the deconstruction of Jim Crow and other racist shit from the 60s. The shitty thing is, you now have to decide that you are going to be that first generation of people that works their ass off for that second generation, you will never make it, but your kids may. So you have to do the deliberate thing, you have to sacrifice every day so that second generation actually has a chance to get somewhere, and hope that they will have the sense to take the opportunity and run with it.


I am the second generation. My kids are going to have a ton of money when I die, and the sense to manage it. The sense I was never given when I was young but the opportunity to learn it in my late 20s. I thank my Dad farming and cutting down trees for a tree service until he got cancer and died for that, and my Mom cleaning fucking condos until her back blew out.