but an important element is missing from the analysis. Compassion. This article is basically a good thing to point to when saying "I have no sympathy for those lazy people". Also missing is the crime element. When living in a poor neighborhood there is always the fear of violent crime to make your life miserable. The cars that the article sites are not always safe or reliable transport and the expense of maintaining an aging vehicle is not counted in the article.

But the main element I think is the lack of options. When a person is poor they have little choice but to go to work if they are sick. If they are sick they have only the emergency room for medical care. These people are doing the economic equivalent of treading water and any crisis may sink them permanently.

From the vantage point of this article there are few poor people here when you think of Ethiopia as your example of poor which is what they seem to be doing. we have it good here in America no denying it but too many are stuck in situations where they have no choice but to work like slaves to keep what comforts they have managed to accumulate.

Few if any opinions are based on fact alone. Somewhere in any opinion is an element of assumption. There is never a true opinion, only an opinion of the truth.

Adam and Eve gained true consciousness when they ate of the fruit. They gained understanding of the opposites, good and evil,birth and death, naked and clothed. But maybe the most important is future and past. The ability to shape your environment for A favorable future outcome based on past experience.

And I can think of A group of people who are just overjoyed to see all this division among democrats, and they hate both sides. The only way this whole thing makes sense is that both sides are being played against each other. I don't know A whole lot about this but issuing ultimatums is A republican habit that we need never adopt. Isn't rational negotiation supposed to be our way? Fanning the flames of this dispute with threats can only serve the purposes of the people we are trying replace.

is a texas conservative who tells me every time I call him how angry he is at the "losers" and "liberals" and "welfare n-----s". Especially the latter. He has A picture in his mind that all african-americans are on welfare and have no desire to work. He gets all emotional when he thinks of how blacks and the liberals who he thinks enable their perceived laziness have ruined this country. But the thing that pisses him off the worst is the idea of providing health care for them. Since "sicko" came out he has been in a lather about the subject in spite of never having seen the movie.

Flashback to 1988. My brother had just completed truck driving school and was on his first trip. He was team driving which meant that two men went out and drove in shifts. In the middle of the night crossing A bridge somewhere in missouri his partner feel asleep at the wheel. My brother asleep in the back was badly injured. So here he was 1000 miles from home and his company would not cover his medical bills at the hospital. The only thing that they would cover was a greyhound bus all the way back to south florida. He had two broken ribs and a possible concussion. When he got back he needed medical attention badly and the only possible way was to go to the emergency room and throw himself on their mercy. The bill was outragious and he complained bitterly about the state of this countrys' health system.

When it was his ass out in the cold the system was unjust. But now that he is successful enough to have health insurance he would rather the uninsured just die than pay for the "welfare n-----s". You can hope that these people would see the error of their ways by being on the short end of the stick themselves but as my story shows even that is not enough to turn a selfish horses'-ass into a compassionate human being.

M Jagger/K Richards

Let's drink to the hard working people
Let's drink to the lowly of birth
Raise your glass to the good and the evil
Let's drink to the salt of the earth

Say a prayer for the common foot soldier
Spare a thought for his back breaking work
Say a prayer for his wife and his children
Who burn the fires and still till the earth

And when I search a faceless crowd
A swirling mass of gray and black and white
they don't look real to me
In fact, they look so strange

Raise your glass to the hard working people
lets drink to the uncounted heads
Let's think of the wavering millions
Who need leaders but get gamblers instead

spare a thought for the stay-at-home voter
His empty eyes gaze at at strange beauty shows
And a parade of the gray suited grafters
A choice of cancer or polio

And when I look in the faceless crowd
A swirling mass of grays and black and white
they don't look real to me
or don't they look so strange

let's drink to the hard working people
let's think of the lowly of birth
Spare a thought for the rag-taggy people
Let's drink to the salt of the earth

Let's drink to hard working people
Let's drink to the salt of the earth
Let's drink to two thousand million
Let's think of the humble of birth

Let's raise our drink
To the salt of the earth
Let's raise our drink
To the salt of the earth

says people without health Insurance should turn off the cable and internet, Use coupons and buy cheaper food, and do research to find the best deal on insurance. Then they would be able to afford it. He has insurance through his work and he thinks people should just quit A job not offering it and get work that does. Just got off the phone with him and my fists are still clenched. I love him and would die for him if it came to that but some times I just want to beat the crap out of him.

I came from the bible belt and was almost raised in church and came by my atheism on an individual basis. I once believed in god with all my heart. I was trying to offer insight into the mind of A person who believes in prayer. Not defend it as valid. As to the Question of learned or inherent maybe I was reaching there, not being A developmental psychologist, but the need to believe in something greater than ones self is universal across all cultures. whether it is learned or not is like the chicken and the egg.

in the human brain. children will make up imaginary friends almost from birth.What is god except An imaginary friend who will listen to your secrets and tell no one.

I doubt anyone was born an atheist. My point is that if A person gets what they pray for money,fame,power etc. from their point of view god exists and is available to do requests. Atheists at some point became disillusioned with god for whatever reason.

Let me tell you my own story in brief.

In 1976 I was in 6th grade and had just been tested at IQ 185 so I was assigned to the gifted program. This involved A 45 minute bus ride to the county tech school one day A week. I was expected to go to this place and keep the grades in my regular classes steady. The class was a JOKE. Half the time it involved college students giving us psychological tests on which to base their own papers. The other half was basically playing with puzzles and games. Worthless. No steady teacher, No structure whatsoever.

In the meantime back at everyday school things were not well either. By being singled out as A "genius" I was unmercifully tormented by the other kids. I went to A small rural football school and some days I got beaten 3 or 4 times before I could get home. My teachers did not like having to take the trouble of making sure the assignments I missed were made up or tests retook and started bitching openly in class to the point That I went to the guidance counselor and asked to go back to the normal curriculum. The label "gifted" followed me until I graduated.

As the official nerd in A hick school I was subjected to some pretty horrible treatment at the hands of the football jocks. The teachers, who were allowed to paddle in front of the class and did with frightening regularity, Were unimaginative hicks themselves and did nothing to protect my 98 pound frame from the brutality of the football team that they worshiped like gods. Really the only thing I learned at that school was how to take A punch.

I turned into A bitter loner weirdo who spent hours reading and dreaming of revenge instead of having fun. I all but quit participating in school, doing the minimum to pass to the next grade so that my time in hell would be over. In 1980 I moved to Florida with my parents and went to work right out of high school and never spoke to anyone from that town ever again

I'm still kind of bitter about it sometimes. Sometimes I wake with my fists clenched, having had A dream where I was back there again being made to crawl by man-sized boys with pea-brains. I almost weep for the kids who are still going through the same or worse from A school system that does not know what to do with them and A society that hates them and will beat them down to their level out of sheer spite.

Wanted to have my own one man business all my life. Had went through the massive paperwork nightmare to become legal. After many fees I was all ready to go and for 3 months I did well. Then in month of October I think, the Fl legislature came back and rushed an act through that was to be enacted just 2 1/2 months later.

It seemed innocent enough, No one is allowed on construction sites without workmans' comp. insurance. I don't know how it is elsewhere but in Fl. no insurance company will cover fewer then 3 employees. The act forced people to declare themselves LLC's with a president,vice president, secretary, stock certificates, corporate meetings with kept minutes and at the mercy of complex corporate laws and taxes. All for the honor of naming your own price to work like A dog in the hot Florida sun.

So here I am facing end of year taxes with x-mas coming on and two step kids and no hope of coming up with the cash to pay fees and hire accountants so I like many others had no choice but to let my license lapse and go back to work for A construction company at dramatically reduced wages. The economic stress of losing that much money, about $1500 a month, Broke-up my marriage. I then went on A two year drinking binge that nearly killed me. I am off the booze now and have been for 2 years. The road back has been long and hard and for the rest of my life A hatred will burn for the republicans of Florida who broke my dreams with the stroke of A pen.

They had made A deal with the large construction and insurance companies where they would pass this law for A 14% decrease in workmans comp rates for large construction companies. The kicker is that this happened in oct. 2003 two weeks later GB came to Florida and actually praised the small business man as the backbone of the American economy. That was the day I was the maddest.