Two baggers at work

[Narkos]

both government health care professionals (work in a DOD hospital), both whining about OWS, basically saying that if you played by the rules, got a degree and can't find work or if you got laid off during the recession that you should essentially go find work in a fruit orchard picking apples. And if you don't like it, tough shit, the rest of us shouldn't be paying unemployment benefits. Unbelievable. The conversation of course got started with one of them babbling about Atlas Shrugged. What do you say to these people?

[MedleyMisty]

1. Nothing

I'd back away slowly, and try to stay away from the soulless monsters.

[Systematic Chaos]

2. Nothing.

At least, not until it's them whose lives are in turmoil. Then you can remind them to keep their newly-broke and uninsured asses the fuck out of the unemployment office, emergency room, food bank, et cetera, all with a big smile on your face.

[shraby]

3. They are on the government dole also, and probably have

been most of their adult lives.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

4. Anyone who spouts Ayn Rand BS needs to be shunned.

You cannot reach them; as the first poster said, back away slowly...

These idiots are beyond reaching.

[opiate69]

5. Government health care professionals? Well then...

tell them to get their gold-bricking asses into the private sector, and quit living off the largess of my (your) tax dollars if they're so committed to their infantile ideology. And while they're waiting for all of those great apple-picking jobs to come through, they can maybe take a minute to educate themselves on how unemployment insurance works, because apparently they haven't the foggiest fucking clue as it stands.

[guitar man]

11. This

Spot on, +1000 ! :applause:

[Kennah]

6. Well, I guess if one were forced to say something to them, I would say ...

... fuck y'all.

[The Wielding Truth]

7. Tell them that you would rather your tax dollars go to help us working

people instead of feathering the nests of the uber wealthy. If some of our money goes to help out our fellow workers in between jobs then the whole economy runs better.

No economy can be stable if the wealth is concentrated and not spread out.If they would like to have less crime and a better life for themselves and their children then they should support a healthy commonwealth state.

The jobs created by those corporations were not for us. The jobs were created overseas with our tax dollars. Ask how they like that!

[Barbed Wire]

8. Shake your head in sorrow

Just shake your head in sorrow. There is no arguing with Ayn Rand ideologues; their core beliefs are primitive and rock hard. Nothing will break them. Not logic. Not loud arguments. Not emotional appeals for compassion. To them, selfishness is its own reward.

[Initech]

9. You honestly cannot argue with teabaggers, it's like talking to a brick wall.

[jtuck004]

10. We need to keep the conversation going.

I wonder how they think we can stand up in the world with countries building things out like crazy, sending us hundreds of kids that got (with a lot of hard work) 800 scores on their Math SAT's, while half a percent of our unemployed would crawl the nation in search of a harvest season (with their kids working for free, no health care, spotty or non-existant workman's comp), while the rest of the country sits unemployed?

It was taxpayer investment in our country that made us great, and since we have thrown that philosophy under the bus we are much poorer.

They are touching on a point - 99 (or in some cases 32) weeks of unemployment and then what? No investment, no training, no job, no nothin'. In the past unemployment bridged time between job changing for personal or larger reasons, now it has become just a source of payments that end with no better future in sight. It is sometimes a lifesaver for some, but increasingly not. For an increasing number it is nothing but a delay in the inevitable. Look at the last deal we made - the wealthy profited far, far more than most now unemployed people.

I don't know what you say to them. You know what they are thinking is bogus, so perhaps enough questions could expose the contradictions in their speech, maybe let you find common ground.

I thinking we may be screwed in any event, but just maybe if we figure out a way to work together again we may avoid going up in flames. How stupid we would be to let that happen if we could intervene to stop it.

[PETRUS]

12. You could take it in a number of directions.

But you might point out that the "rules" are supposed to represent the collective will of the American people (that's the intent of democracy) but do not. The rules, in particular the rules as re-written over the last 30 years, represent the will of powerful financial interests. Some significant outcomes of this arrangement (i.e. government of, by, and for economic elites) are the total absence of anything resembling a free market* and the housing bubble plus its subsequent collapse (made possible by financial deregulation), which produced extreme levels of unemployment.

*The lack of a free market or a "level playing field" is evident in a number of areas, I can tell you where to go for ammunition if you need it.

[patrice]

13. Atlas Shrugged was written by a narcissistic sociopath who idolized a child-murderer. nt

[trueblue2007]

14. how about ..... GUILLOTINE!!!!