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| Rob's Soapbox | ||
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Congratulations!
You have finally landed on the one page on this entire site (and on the entire internet for that matter) that is purely without bullshit... my soapbox page. There are a lot of times during our show that, whether it's because of time constraints and other obligations, I don't always get to address some issues that I feel don't get the attention they deserve. There are even more times when I just don't feel like waiting until the show the next day to get some things off my chest. Thus, I have started the "Rob's Soapbox" page. If you have clicked on this page looking for someone to coddle your fragile sense of self-esteem, or tell you what you want to hear or to reinforce your outdated world view, then exit this page right now and go somewhere else. If you are in search of the last forum for reason and common sense left in the world, then sit back, relax, and enjoy. I make only one promise with this soapbox page... if you read long enough and often enough, you will eventually be offended. So here's my latest soapbox. Listen up, 'cause you just might learn something... |
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July 7, 2003 The Asinine Things You People Say... Part 13 I have started referring to my "favorite" (insert sarcasm here) phone calls into the show as "Hall of Fame" calls. Anytime I see on my computer screen that someone is ready to make a complete ass of themselves by making a comment we have addressed 1,000 times before, I now use that term. Over the next few weeks, months, Hell maybe years, I will document them all for you in this forum. Week number thirteen's entry usually comes on the heels of one of my tirades about personal financial responsibility. I will often talk about sacrifices that have to be made in order to buy a home, for example. Sometimes I will talk about having to forgo a concert or a night out so that you can pay down your credit bills. It's all basic stuff, which can read much more about on my "Rich Rob, Poor You" page. Even though everything I say is right, I still get a call from some jackass who says "Easy for you to say." I presume this comment is supposed to insinuate that since I am doing well financially, I am no longer qualified to speak about sacrifices, since I never have to make any (which is absolutely not true, but we'll get back to that). What a joke. I realize that the real reason behind the "easy for you to say," remark is to alleviate people of the truth of the matter, which is that they have screwed up financially, and they'll be damned if they're going to take the blame for it. They hear me telling them that the only person who can fix their money problems is them, and they don't want to hear that, so they find a way to discredit what I am saying by discrediting my legitimacy. Since, in their eyes, I am "loaded," I have no idea what it means to sacrifice and I "probably had everything handed to me anyway," so what do I know about being poor in the first place? Garbage, garbage, garbage! It's not totally the callers' faults, though. We continue as a society to encourage people to be victims rather than responsible adults. If someone doesn't get a job we tell people it's because of racism. If someone gets arrested we tell people it's because of their childhood, etc etc. In the end, the "easy for you to say" comment simply delays the inevitable which is either bankruptcy or actually taking personal responsibility for your financial situation and doing what you have to do to fix it, regardless of what caused it. As for the very nature of the charge that I don't know sacrifice, I find the comment to be ignorant and insulting. I had nothing handed to me and I didn't come from a wealthy family (Christ, I support my Mother financially now! how could we be a rich family???)! In order to achieve my success I have had to make a lot of conscious decisions to forgo fun things or toys or in some cases, bare necessities. Additionally, to presume that because I have had some financial successes recently I therefore no longer ever sacrifice is just stupid. Ask my wife about how often we have to say "no" to something we really want to buy, simply because it wouldn't be financially prudent at that time. Finally, even if I didn't know about sacrifice, and even if I had come from a wealthy family, how would that change the fact of the matter that what I say is TRUE? It wouldn't, of course, but as long as you feel better, you keep on calling in from your cheap phone, in your cheap-ass studio apartment and tell me it's "easy for you to say."
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