I confess I took my midterm and think it went really well! Very happy it worked out!
I'd say her parents taught her exactly what I'd expect. She's the daughter of a agribiz small company. However, considering how they run the business in Humboldt, I think it's a mediocrity (I've been near Silicon Valley biz and it's much more cut-throat). Regardless, she's using her father's complaining about how he has to pay more to cover his employees and that the same money he pays goes to the wacky hippies growing pot in the forest. Her solution? Drug test everyone who gets food stamps and throw them in a facility (and basically cut off all aid).
I was just horrified. Pragmatically, using the word "drug" is very general. I dinged her on how coffee and cigarettes are drugs and she twitched and practically tried to run to the door (I'm also a little ticked that this is an unfortunate result of the DARE movement. Kids are ignorant of what drugs are: compounds and molecules used for a particular pharmaceutical effect. The result is puritanical "all drugs are bad and alcohol is not a drug", up to the point that many college students jump to the opposite extreme because "hey this drug feels good, why was I told I would swell up and explode if I did it, so I'll just do more and more and..". The reality is neglected in this peculiar American morality complex over pharmaceuticals. Honestly, I've never done a stronger drug than tylenol and coffee and that's because right now I don't want to introduce something in my life that I could lose control over, like how I don't want a boyfriend. But associating morality with drug use is crazy.)
Tangent aside, I was pissed with her because people generally use drugs to ease the pain of their life. The worse the circumstance, the easier to get addicted to the few good things you have left. So these people need help - medical, employment, housing, etc. We can't eliminate people because of this insane morality standard.
As for her situation, I outlined that in her area, the reason why there might be people who are always "high on pot and remaining on welfare" is that there is a nuisance black market industry of growing pot there. The solution is not to cut off these people but to remove the attractive nuisance. But she ran away from that because she had to have her morality complex.
At the core of it all, it's the strange, almost abused, attitude that "if I could achieve the American Dream for myself and my life is full of pain, then why can't they? I never used drugs or government help!"
It's sickening, because there is a failure to recognize their own situation. They were fundamentally lucky. If everyone could achieve what they had, we wouldn't be having the unemployment problem. The system is rigged, but they like to declare "it's easy!". It isn't. I see this every day that my employed 20-something brother gets anonymous recruiters asking for meetings and my 50-something parents get turned away from positions because they are too old and "can't possibly know any of the new tech" (which is ludicrous, because the principles behind the tech industry have never changed. There are new products, new technologies, but the fundamental discipline hasn't changed.)
Everyone is fiscally conservative on everything but their interests these days. And one of the most distressing things I heard last night is "if I choose what charities my money goes to, I should be able to choose who my taxes go to."
It's this strange "I don't have to help anyone, you can't make me" and "I want to only support the purest Americans who are white, evangelical single mothers with three kids who do no drugs" attitude. Because of fear that they will be fools for giving "hard earned money" to people who will live on the given dime and do nothing. Just like the fear that terrorists could attack, so we must search everyone from a Middle-Eastern country.
) with...
But listen to Lori, if you're not sure you like her that much, it's pointless. Try to be more around her. If she's calling you, I don't think she would mind hanging out one-on-one. And do you two actually hang out often, just the two of you?
