In Reply: Are the long term unemployed lazy, unmotivated, dishonest slobs?

In reply to Lee Stranahan's March 22, 2011 at 3:28 pm comment at his post, Addicted To Unemployment.:
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Repsac (is there another name I can use?)

James, if you wish… but I’m fine with repsac, as well… It’s my online persona, at this point.

This is in a sense just a disagreement about human nature. You’re saying people like redhead really WANT to work — but when I talk to her for 5 minutes, it’s obvious that she’s more about excuses than honestly trying to solve the problem she purports to have.

For the sake of argument, I’ll assume you’re correct for the moment. Redhead actually likes sitting on her ass collecting…

Some of what you’ve written though–including this post–takes what you discovered about her in your five minute conversation, and applies it to all long term unemployed, including folks like Tiffani’s husband who–though she chose not to confirm it in her second comment–probably didn’t spend his 99 weeks (and more… he remains unemployed, even without the seductive draw of that unemployment check to keep him fat and lazy) sitting on his butt waiting for the employment fairy to leave a shiny new job offer under his pillow, while he watched Law & Order reruns.

It is a disagreement about human nature, as well as about political ideology…

Perhaps you’re right, and people are lazy slobs, who need daddy conservatives to figuratively kick them out of the house and make them fend for themselves… but I don’t think so. I believe that the long term unemployed by and large are no more lazy or unmotivated than you are, though there are, of course, exceptions like Redhead (and that’s only assuming you’re correct about her, which I don’t really believe you could determine from a five minute twitter exchange.)
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Posted March 22, 2011 at 6:34 pm, LS blog time