![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Oct. 19th, 2011
~~politics~~
Oct. 19th, 2011 06:07 pmGuys.
I realized something last night. You know how there is a group of people out there who blindly refuse to believe that they are privileged and that the government has helped them in their lives?
These people - mostly Republicans - believe that the world we live in is exactly like the world the Sims live in.
It's true. Think about a sim's life: sims are born and cared for, no matter how poor their parents are. They begin gaining life skills immediately, without even preschool. They go to public school and get a perfect education, no matter where they live, as long as they do their homework. They go to college for free, even if they don't earn any scholarships - which they probably will have done, as scholarships are quite easy to earn. As teenagers they can have almost any job they want. Any job. With no qualifications, just the will to work. In college they spend only the tiniest bit of money on bills, and are given more free money every semester assuming they earned it, which of course they will have because all they have to do is go to class a few times, do a few small assignments, and maybe write a term paper, if they feel like. After college they can immediately - immediately!- get a job in any field they like, even if that's not what their degree was for. They have no student loan debt. They only get pregnant if they want to. Very quickly they'll earn enough money to buy whatever they want and live wherever they like.
THIS IS WHAT REPUBLICANS THINK LIFE IS LIKE. That if you just go to school and Work Hard, you'll be okay. They forget that some public schools suck. They forget that without taxes, college couldn't possibly be free, especially not a college with any kind of useful degree. They forget that no matter how badly you want to work, sometimes people just don't want you to work for them. They forget that even if sims don't care about each other's skin color, people in real life sure do. People in real life sure do care what you look like and who your parents are and where you live. You can create sims and drop them into a neighborhood and no one will ask where they came from. No one will ask them to immediately provide PAPERS and prove that they deserve to live here.
In real life, there isn't a kind hand guiding every aspect of a person's life. In real life, people get sick. In real life, people make bad decisions that affect other people, especially children. In real life, some neighborhoods suck. In real life, some people are racist, sexist, homophobic...
Republicans will babble on about making your own fortune, about becoming rich on your own talents. They forget that some of us are sick, some of us are mentally or physically handicapped. They forget that some of us are born to those who cannot possibly care for us. All sims are healthy. They occasionally get colds, but you can go an entire generation without anyone getting sick. That is not real life. In real life, people get sick, people get very, very sick, and if no one is there to care for them, they die. And sometimes even if someone is there to care for them, they die anyway. It happens. They forget that some of us were raised by very bad parents who never taught us how to use our own talents. They forget that you can follow all the rules and still end up poor, or sick, or damaged.
Republicans will have you believe that, like in the sims, sexuality is a choice. You can simply choose not to be gay, or transgendered, or anything else but cisgendered and straight. Republicans will have you believe that there is no such thing as racism, like in sims where you have green people wandering around unnoticed. That's very obviously not real life. I know this isn't real life.
Sims are very privileged little people, who never know prejudice and can escape poverty in a matter of days. Female sims will earn the same amount of money in the same positions as male sims as long as they have the skills.
I wish I could make this point more clearly, I was sure I had more parallels to draw, but what it comes down to is this: Republicans are sims. We can't really fault them for believing that our world would be the same as their world if only we could get rid of those pesky taxes and brown people wandering over The Fence and everybody just Worked Hard.
I realized something last night. You know how there is a group of people out there who blindly refuse to believe that they are privileged and that the government has helped them in their lives?
These people - mostly Republicans - believe that the world we live in is exactly like the world the Sims live in.
It's true. Think about a sim's life: sims are born and cared for, no matter how poor their parents are. They begin gaining life skills immediately, without even preschool. They go to public school and get a perfect education, no matter where they live, as long as they do their homework. They go to college for free, even if they don't earn any scholarships - which they probably will have done, as scholarships are quite easy to earn. As teenagers they can have almost any job they want. Any job. With no qualifications, just the will to work. In college they spend only the tiniest bit of money on bills, and are given more free money every semester assuming they earned it, which of course they will have because all they have to do is go to class a few times, do a few small assignments, and maybe write a term paper, if they feel like. After college they can immediately - immediately!- get a job in any field they like, even if that's not what their degree was for. They have no student loan debt. They only get pregnant if they want to. Very quickly they'll earn enough money to buy whatever they want and live wherever they like.
THIS IS WHAT REPUBLICANS THINK LIFE IS LIKE. That if you just go to school and Work Hard, you'll be okay. They forget that some public schools suck. They forget that without taxes, college couldn't possibly be free, especially not a college with any kind of useful degree. They forget that no matter how badly you want to work, sometimes people just don't want you to work for them. They forget that even if sims don't care about each other's skin color, people in real life sure do. People in real life sure do care what you look like and who your parents are and where you live. You can create sims and drop them into a neighborhood and no one will ask where they came from. No one will ask them to immediately provide PAPERS and prove that they deserve to live here.
In real life, there isn't a kind hand guiding every aspect of a person's life. In real life, people get sick. In real life, people make bad decisions that affect other people, especially children. In real life, some neighborhoods suck. In real life, some people are racist, sexist, homophobic...
Republicans will babble on about making your own fortune, about becoming rich on your own talents. They forget that some of us are sick, some of us are mentally or physically handicapped. They forget that some of us are born to those who cannot possibly care for us. All sims are healthy. They occasionally get colds, but you can go an entire generation without anyone getting sick. That is not real life. In real life, people get sick, people get very, very sick, and if no one is there to care for them, they die. And sometimes even if someone is there to care for them, they die anyway. It happens. They forget that some of us were raised by very bad parents who never taught us how to use our own talents. They forget that you can follow all the rules and still end up poor, or sick, or damaged.
Republicans will have you believe that, like in the sims, sexuality is a choice. You can simply choose not to be gay, or transgendered, or anything else but cisgendered and straight. Republicans will have you believe that there is no such thing as racism, like in sims where you have green people wandering around unnoticed. That's very obviously not real life. I know this isn't real life.
Sims are very privileged little people, who never know prejudice and can escape poverty in a matter of days. Female sims will earn the same amount of money in the same positions as male sims as long as they have the skills.
I wish I could make this point more clearly, I was sure I had more parallels to draw, but what it comes down to is this: Republicans are sims. We can't really fault them for believing that our world would be the same as their world if only we could get rid of those pesky taxes and brown people wandering over The Fence and everybody just Worked Hard.