Originally a comment by iknklast on Fox to oversee hen house.

In his autobiography he stressed that individual effort, not government programs, were the key to overcoming poverty

His individual effort? Or his mom’s?

Most of the Republican candidates spent a lot of time pointing out that their parents were poor, hard-working, etc. In other words, someone that was not them sacrificed a lot of effort to send them to school, to push them to succeed, and to get them where they are today.

Some of us had moms who committed huge effort to push us away from school, to push us toward marriage and a dozen kids, to push us to stay barefoot and pregnant. What I wouldn’t have given for one of their poor (we were poor, too) but hard-working mothers who encouraged them, gave them what they needed, and sacrificed themselves for the benefit of the men who now are grown to become men who would like to take away a lot of the ability of the poor women (and men) to help their children in the same way. If I had been given a fraction of what they were given by these mothers (or bartender fathers), I might be in the running for president, too.

I guess what I’m saying is that it isn’t hard work and talent alone that take you there, it’s having support from family, from community (which is where I got most of my support) and from society. That sometimes means financial support.