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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   25610 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 20, 2024

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Most welfare is welfare-for-the-old, not welfare-for-the-poor. Westerners find the Indian alternative to welfare-for-the-old a lot less attractive than just ponying up on tax day.

  • Social Security: 5.5% of GDP
  • Medicare: 3.2% of GDP
  • Not having your demented mother-in-law around the house: Priceless

There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's the fiat currency printing press.

Not having your demented mother-in-law around the house: Priceless

A simple question then: Why would you marry your wife then if you can't stand your mother in law? Sounds like the western courtship and mate selection process has some issues if mother in law problems are so common. Remember when you marry someone you're not just choosing your spouse but rather you're choosing your inlaws too. We also have lots of mother in law issues in our cultures to the point that the wife/mother in law tussle is one of the staples soap writers use for their dramas, but it's never seen as OK to throw out your elders and generally eventually people find a compromise all the parties are happy with.

Plus your children will get 25% of their DNA from your mother in law, which means they'll probably be somewhat like her. Choosing a mother in law you dislike is indirectly choosing your children to be more predisposed towards traits you dislike compared to a mother in law you like.

Also you do realise that some day you will be the parent in law getting booted out of the family home to be "cared for" by strangers, yes?

All this reminds me of the opining lines to Gertrude Stein's "The Making of Americans":

Once an angry man dragged his father along the ground through his own orchard. “Stop!” cried the groaning old man at last, “Stop!” I did not drag my father beyond this tree.”

Plus your children will get 25% of their DNA from your mother in law, which means they'll probably be somewhat like her.

Assuming these undesirable traits are not in your wife, that means that they probably will have less than 25% of any DNA associated with the traits, or more likely, the traits are just learned and not genetic.

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