1. I do feel somewhat privileged to have been born in America, as opposed to some Third World sh**thole where my life expectancy and overall quality of life would be significantly lower, although to act like America is the pinnacle of the "birth lottery" where industrialized countries with significantly higher upward mobility, public spending, welfare services, and economic equality exist is downright laughable.
2. Happiness is not possible without a baseline—work which can afford us a decent place to live, nutritious food, and something for which to remunerate us when we are ill or injured. Given that the United States has the lowest protections for the working class among developed countries, as well as among the lowest union density and some of the most unaffordable housing (especially for the youngest generation), this seems more like posturing than anything.
3. Absolutely rubbish. I saw a "help wanted" sign at a McDonald's earlier today pledging a $10/hour starting wage. Ten dollars an hour. There is no place in this country where that is an acceptable amount of money, and "showing up early and working late" at a fast food joint will won't get you much more than a few lost hours of your free time.
4. Most jobs are soul-crushing and designed to be so on purpose.
5. Does that principle also apply to the United States government?
6. Even the few labor laws that do exist in this country blatantly prove that to be false.
7. Great. You will now be known as the guy who is so enthusiastic in his drudgery that he does not even have the leverage to negotiate for a better position in his life. These are the same docile people who would have been happy as plantation darkies in the Old South. (This is not meant as ridicule. To their credit, most of the slaves were
not content with their servitude. To those who
are content with such a servitude in this life are, however, worthy of ridicule.)
8. Isn't this whole list essentially a form of "whining" and "complaining" about people who criticize wage-slavery?
9. I don't disagree with this, but of course you can't advocate that education is "absolutely critical" to one's success, and then bemoan those who go into debt making education their responsibility. Unless, of course, you favor free college tuition, or undoing neoliberalism's tendency to make jobs increasingly more likely to require degrees due to increased competition.
10. No one is a product of their circumstance? Even putting socio-economics aside, that isn't even true on the biological level.
11.
I'm just gonna leave this here.12. "I can't believe those WV coal miners are all still living in poverty after all these generations of doing the same kind of work. Hard work is obviously a sufficient element for economic success, rather than merely a necessary one."
