Comment by blurry | Hacker News Reader

Comment by blurry | Hacker News Reader

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You know what disgusts me? Your complete blindness to how good your father had it. As a not-so-recent immigrant to the US, I've found it laughably easy to have a good life here. I am not talking about myself since I came at 25 and spoke enough English to get by. I am talking older relatives and their friends, people well into their 50's who did not speak a word of English. There is an absolute wealth of opportunities - classes at community colleges that you can take for near free, paying jobs where you have plenty of time for studying while taking care of the elderly for example, charitable organizations that assist you in everything from relocation to getting jobs, government programs that give you bridge money to get you on your feet, and so on.

If you think your father had a rough life, you are truly a spoiled brat. My father almost starved to death as a teenager during World War II, almost died from tuberculosis as a young man, shared a small one-bedroom apartment with 5 people as an adult, and was forced to abandon even that little due to ethnic conflict. Your father on the other hand, had it so easy that he could afford to put his kids through college and still retire after just 25 years of work. Oh, excuse me, I forgot. Your dad had to endure a 2-3 hour commute because it would be so traumatizing for his kids to switch schools once.

Your father and his buddies are who needs to get off the high horse, my friend. They've worked in a little bubble with their cushy guaranteed pay and benefits for too long. It's about time they ventured out on their own into the big bad world that the rest of us happily inhabit.

Best comment on the thread. Thanks for injecting some much needed perspective. I'd venture to say that 99% of the people that post on HN (this obviously includes me) live like relative Kings.

Hear, hear. I was going to post something like this because I have lived among people in third-world countries who actually have it hard (total understatement), but it's better that it came from someone with immediate family who lived it.

woah woah woah! i appreciate your zeal and your need to direct your anger somewhere, but your sending it the wrong way buddy. my original comment was not meant to express how hard mine or my family's life is/was, it was to clear up statements like this:

"union workers at gm who make 8x the wages, do less work"

It's simply not true, and it does disgust me that we feel the need to degrade a whole class of people to make the point that the system is fucked up. i'll be the first one to say that all of us who live in the country are extremely lucky and this goes often quite unappreciated. maybe not my father, but both my grandfathers have similar story's to your own. i thank god everyday for the opportunity afforded to me and my family.

"Your father on the other hand, had it so easy that he could afford to put his kids through college and still retire after just 25 years of work. Oh, excuse me, I forgot. Your dad had to endure a 2-3 hour commute because it would be so traumatizing for his kids to switch schools once."

listen man, i'm not getting into a pissing contest with you. your taking little tidbits of my words and making them into the story that you want. you don't know my story nor my families.

the point of my original comment was that for the most part auto-workers are honest, working people like the rest of us. there's plenty of room for rational argument on what should happen to the auto industry, i just can't agree with the constant barrage of comments insinuating that people like my father are lazy, unappreciative, and somehow got what's coming to them for just doing what anyone of us would do in their situation.

How am I taking tidbits of your words and making them into a story that I want? I simply called you out on exactly what you said, both your facts and your angry, self-righteous tone.

You said your father has put you through college and has retired after 25 years. Presuming he started working at 25, we have him retiring at what, 50? Who pays for their kids' college and retires at 50? Investment bankers and plastic surgeons, that's who. The rest of the country works well into old age (most without adequate health insurance) and has their kids taking on student loans.

You opened your comment with anger, talking about your disgust, accusing crabapple of over-generalization and ignorance, and essentially dismissing all of us as moneybags who use hypothetical Denny's waitresses to degrade your family or ignore your hardship. (Read: shut up and fork over the money - or, pardon me, you stated that you are as of yet undecided whether it would benefit your family, so I guess we'll just sit tight and wait for your decision.)

You accuse me of zeal and psycho-analyze my anger but I am just reacting to the broad-daylight robbery that is taking place. People like you think that if they make a lot of noise and talk about their dads working their asses of for x number of years, we'll all get misty eyed and just hand over our money.

You are now getting a dose of your own medicine. I take your dad's 2-hour commute and raise you mine's World War II. Ridiculous, isn't it. When auto workers and their families stop blanketing the internet with their sob stories, we'll stop commenting on them. Over.

no where did i say my dad only worked 25 years. i said he worked for gm over 25 years. does this mean it was his first job, no? as for student loans, i certainly do have them. it's unfortunate that in this country simply getting student loans will not pay for a four year school. again, i believe i said "benefit my country or my family". do i have to go on? seriously, this is the classic case of reading what you want to read to form the picture to fit your preconceived notions.

sure, "you raise me" wwII. wtf? i'm sorry for what your dad went through, but so did my grandparents who were born in eastern europe and escaped to america. i just don't get this idea that you can't feel any compassion if someone didn't escape genocide. there's a lot more complexity to people's stories than you may realize.

my simple point is not that you should cry for any autoworker or even give them a dime. i'm just sick of hearing statement like crabapple's which completely exaggerate the facts.

* 8x wages - no * no deductable healthcare - not for 10 years * work less - by my personal experience, no

it comes from this characature of what the reality is. the fact is AMERICANS ARE PRIVILEGED. i get it. i'm not asking anyone to cry for my family. what i am saying is that chances are most auto workers are hard working people like the rest of us. i know my father didn't escape ethnic conflict in europe in wwII, but he certainly did the best of his ability to provide for his family. i'm not saying that deserves your money, but i am saying that it doesn't deserve to be belittled.

hmmm... you know i just wrote this, and i'm realizing i'm just falling into this trap needless argument. looking back at my thread i think i approached crabapple's initial comment with way too much zeal myself. the thing that irked me the most about crabapple's comment was not the point (ie agreeing with mit romney's position), but the way in which he/she went about making it. by perpetuating this characature of the "uaw king", i feel like it belittles honest, working americans like my father. i realize that my father was lucky for being born in america after wwII, but he did the best he could with the hand he was dealt and my pride certainly show through.

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