Trump vs Hillary

[MichaeltheGreat]

They cite a variety of factors, prescription painkillers being just one of them. As for "oppressed," I suppose that depends on how you define it. Put yourself in the place of a 43-year-old factory worker. You've spent the last twenty years of your life making, say, outboard motors, or refrigerators, or some other big mechanical widget. It's not exciting work, but it's steady, and it's paid the bills. You're the primary breadwinner for your family (though your wife also does some hours as a waitress to buttress your income, while her mother watches the kids). Suddenly, the factory closes down, because the company has decided to cut costs by moving operations to China. You, and about five hundred other people, are all dumped onto the local labor force with no relevant job skills.

Imagine you're a Roman legionnaire. You've spent the last 20 years of your life expanding the glory of Rome and killing barbarians. It's not exciting work, but it's steady and it's paid the bills. Then some inbred ****wit in Rome starts another civil war, and the empire collapses. Guess what? **** happens. The world changes. You adapt to those changes, or you fail. And if you planned inadequately because you figured you'd have the factory job for life then retire off that pension and the whole world would stay the same just for you, then you're responsible for your own condition, and you're just as entitled as the clowns who think flipping burgers for life should entitle them to some standard of living.

[Elok]

I take it you have several tens of thousands of dollars saved up for the express purpose of retraining yourself should your profession disappear from under your feet?

[Elok]

Also, your legionnaire analogy is a poor one. We're talking about how you get Trump. Your example, in modern terms, is more how we get ISIS. When the enormous group of people losing their livelihood are trained killers, it's an entirely different (and even worse) scenario. Still, I appreciate that you would have the moral integrity to lecture them just as firmly about bootstraps and gumption as they sharpened their gladii.