Pay my college loans, D***it!!!
Danny Lemieux on Mar 17 2012 at 9:56 am | Filed under: Uncategorized
Same old, same old, I’m afraid.
Here is an anguished cry for help by a student that feels she got shafted by the system. Let me summarize:
1. Latina (not wise, but special)
2. Grew up middle class Ft. Worth.
3. Went to small private college in Boston.
4. Wracked up >$100,000 in student loans, cosigned by parents.
5. Subsequently, got a law degree at Southern Methodist University.
Now, wants us to support a Democrat (of course) bill to have government “forgive” (i.e., have taxpayers work extra hours to pay for) up-to $45, 520 in student loans. to help pay for her bad judgment to bail her out.
That this is even taken seriously provides incontrovertible evidence that we are doomed as a society. John Galt beckons.
Email This Post To A Friend
17 Responses to “Pay my college loans, D***it!!!”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Greetings:
Perhaps she should follow the methodology of Ms. Sandra Fluke (of “free” contraception infamy) and find herself a million-heir boyfriend ???
I really like the phrase “John Galt beacons”, Book! It brings to mind couragous souls lost in the darkness, desperately seeking the Truth in this vast liberal darkness… and they see those few shining, glowing lights in the distance that offer hope and promise. They head towards such a beacon, and upon arrival, are welcomed home to individual liberty, personal responsibility, wisdom, and freedom.
John Galt beacons!
Somehow, I suspect you *meant* to write: John Galt beckons. :-) But your inner poet won free for a moment!
Ha, good catch, MikeD. This does tend to happen when I post in a rush.
Fixed it!
The problem is it’s such a different world than it was when Rand wrote. There is no valley in Colorado any more; you can’t hide. You can only leave, and then only if they let you. John Galt beckons, yes; but so does somewhere else. They might let Galt go – as a single crank he’s not much threat - but the moment he begins to attract a community of followers, they’ll pull up in the Humvees and croak him pretty quick.
I like “John Galt Beacons.”
The amazing thing, jj, is that if you read Atlas Shrugged now, you will be struck by how eerie the similarities are. I had read Atlas Shrugged several times in the past, but two years ago when I re-read it again, I was actually shocked. We’re not that far from her terrible vision. Not that far at all.
I think when Ayn Rand looked way down the road toward her dystopian future, she was prescient and simply nailed it.
I read your linked article, Danny. It is discouraging. She correctly notes that her parents made bad decisions. But she was 17 – plenty old enough herself to figure it out! And she thinks of it all as “debt forgiveness”. Well, either the taxpayers pay for your “debt forgiveness”, or you are sticking it to the loan company by simply saying “No, you’re not getting this $45,000 – screw you”, which would probably be illegal. The loan companies would LOVE the taxpayer subsidy, being corporate welfarists. As long as they get their money, they’re happy. Soak the taxpayers! The loan companies know they’re in trouble with these student loans; the default rates are rising. Soak the taxpayers! Too big to fail!
Bookworm posted this link the other day. If you haven’t clicked on it – do. The wiki page is anything but amusing and the list (45 items) is depressingly spot on.
And just for your own amusement, you might want to see how many of the goals set out in The Naked Communist, a book written from the conservative perspective back in 1958, the Obama administration has already achieved.
The community here may or may not know about this, but I thought the entire Mass Effect 3 incident is a very telling story in miniature of modern US political and economic realities.
http://ymarsakar.wordpress.com/2012/03/15/all-the-reasons-mass-effect-3-somehow-ended-up-disappointing-fans/
I mean, when a spontaneous social group mobilizes to make things better, and are called “homophobes”, “whiners”, and “entitled fanatics”… what does that remind you of?
And it also addresses media (game journalism) bias. It’s a story in miniature, just like I said, that has all the elements we are familiar with, but the subject matter is about something entirely different. Something your KIDSs may be aware of, but you won’t be, unless you are somehow part of the ME1-3 community or fan base.
jj writes: The problem is it’s such a different world than it was when Rand wrote. There is no valley in Colorado any more; you can’t hide.
I have never found a Utopia in a novel that I’ve liked, not one. That includes Ayn Rand’s Colorado Utopia. It was always the part of the book I struggled to read through. As an intellectual exercise, it was stimulating. I can see how some aspects of it are thought-provoking. But when you remark that the valley couldn’t exist these days, and therefore “you can’t hide”, you’ve nailed what she created there: A place of absolute refuge. Not a model for a functioning societal Utopia that a civilization could thrive on.
The problem for me is that such utopias always seem out of step with human nature. We see that most clearly with liberal utopias. ”If only people behaved in such and such a way, this would work PERFECTLY!” they exclaim. But people never behave the way leftists require, and their ivory tower dream worlds collapse. They collapse all the more quickly, the more closely any real-world “utopia” attempts to match the ivory tower plan and dream.
Ayn Rand’s utopian problem: Murders, rapes, assaults, robbery, mayhem, drunken brawls in bars. Crime.
In an isolated haven of absolute last refuge, you can pick and choose carefully who is allowed in. But when you’re trying to base a society, a civilization, on a utopian model, you can’t. So you might have a John Galt at the head of such a society, and a Midas Mulligan, of complete integrity, dominating your banking industry; an Ellis Wyatt, of complete integrity, dominating your energy sector.
So what do you about high-level skullduggery? In a civilization, you are guaranteed that at various points in time, men of less than stellar integrity will occupy positions of power. (Hence: limited government with separate branches and separations of power to thwart tyranny, as envisioned collectively by the Founding Fathers.) What do you do when people in power employ “forces” of people in less fortunate cirumstances to, er, “enforce their will” upon others. Think the Mafia, think SEIU, think Obama’s Labor goons, etc…)
And murders, rapes, assaults, robbery, mayhem, etc, will occur, no matter what. Simply according to human nature. You’ve got to take human nature into account, or your Utopia is nothing more than a fun exercise, best left to University sophomores to argue about, during late Friday night drinking sessions.
Ayn Rand did not address any such concerns with her Colorado Utopia, because it wasn’t a model for a functioning society.
Lots of questions for little miss “It’s mom and dad’s fault”. You may have applied when you were 17 but you were an adult while you incurred you debt. So why a small private college near Boston? You got something against Texas schools? You go to the college you can afford. Sure some other schools may offer “connections” but then feel free to pay for the privilege yourself. Even 30 years ago, I didn’t even consider going “out of state” and I dropped the big school in my state because I had job connections in my town. Still after graduation, i put on a uniform, saw a bit of the world right along with those from the “better” schools.
And what happened to the Air Force commission? it was a good paying job, live frugally and you could have gotten ahead on those loans. You should have went in the Navy, sea duty is an excellent way to save money, Room and board provided for a minimal mess bill every month and salary just racking up as there are few places to spend it at sea.
Found at American Thinker a Pop Quiz.
Pop Quiz for College Students (non-students, too)
Mike – leaving aside the more philosophical problems inherent in such a concept, what I was referencing is the simple fact that you can’t vanish off the radar anymore. Your cell knows where you are. Your car – whether you have Onstar or not - has a gps, and knows where you are. Your laptop knows where you are. In my case, the microchip embedded somewhere in the withers of Doberman #2 knows where we are – or at least where he is; how tough is it to construe that we’re there too? In the cases of a growing number of people, the microchip embedded in the kid – for his own protection, of course, so he doesn’t get snatched – will make government able to track him forever – he’ll never escape. And even if they lose you, it’ll only be momentary, because the satellites can pick up a new wigwam in the Amazonian rain forest when somebody erects one – forget an actual collection of structures.
That’s the kind of stuff I was referencing – just the increasing physical impossibility of such a community. An individual criminal can disappear these days – not a community of people if anybody’s going to go John Galt, they’re going to have to do it on an individual basis.
The only way to vanish off the planet, is to go to another planet.
I have mixed opinions on the issue of college tuition debt. I was able to pay my tuition for one semester – $150- by earnings from a part-time dishwashing job.[The following semester, tuition got jacked up to $500']. That would not be possible today.
- who several decades ago pointed out that the federal subsidy for tuition loans would increase the cost of tuition. He was spot-on. Tuition has increased much faster than inflation, for at least a generation.
She could have gone to one of the UT campuses for a lot less money, instead of going the NE private school route.
I believe it was William Bennett- otherwise famous for having dated Janis Joplin
Where has the increased tuition gone? For the most part it has gone for superfluous add-ons. It has gone to administrators. The ratio of administrators to teachers is much higher today than it was a generation ago. It has gone for infrastructure. I attended a private school my freshman year in college, living in a cinderblock dorm room that was painted puke-pink. Very few college dorms these days are so Spartan.
What cannot go on indefinitely, will not. Colleges need to trim down considerably. Laying off half of administrative staff would be a good start.
One way or another, someone is going to have to take a haircut.
One suggestion: forgive half of tuition debt, and forfeit all rights to vote in federal elections.
Gringo: One suggestion: forgive half of tuition debt, and forfeit all rights to vote in federal elections.
Sadly, Gringo, I suspect that quite a few college students would take you up on that offer, partly because they can’t see very far into the future (so the benefit of voting would be purely hypothetical) and partly because the Federal government would thus guarantee them a spending binge on borrowed (taxpayer) money that would probably have very little to do with educational outcomes.
I had the same idea as Gringo. Although I wouldn’t like wher eit would lead 50 years down the road, but at least it would buy some time against Leftist aristocratic feudalism. The Left isn’t Progressive and it isn’t a political organization people. It’s a patronage system called feudalism. That’s the correct term.
[...] new entitlement. Pay my student loans. I think we have gone too far. End all entitlements and see what [...]