Reply #16: I'm not giving them excuses, though. [View All]

I can understand how it could be read that way, but I rarely if ever excuse people's ignorance on this subject. Rather than excuses, my comments should be read as indictments.

As for hope, I find that my own mental and emotional landscape is more tolerable without too much of that particular drug. Jesus said "the poor ye shall have with you always" and I tend to believe him. Human nature being what it is, I find I can't afford to invest too much energy in hope. Rather, one of my main priorities in life is figuring out how to live with the hand I've been dealt, for better or worse. That's a tough enough task without having to ride the roller coaster of misplaced hope.

That being said, I've spent years advocating for deeply unpopular things like a guaranteed minimum income, simply because I see it as the right thing to do. Will it ever happen? Highly unlikely, at least during my lifetime. I'm not optimistic about ever seeing it. But as John F. Kennedy said, "we do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard."