Check out "Protecting Family Members Who Lose a Loved One" on
Kerry's page.

To mari:

Yeah, you'll definitely need ID, like birth certificates for all family members, any paycheck stubs (usually two month's worth, if you have them), any bill stubs, things like that.

Sidhe

I have not been posting much, I have not returned to my Lurkum (hi thelorax!) I have started an
intensive Portuguese course, I've been having to clear my workload to be able to do this course and
to top it off our youngest has caught chickenpox!

I have not being following this thread but earlier the concepts of entitlement and self sufficency were
contrasted and I have been thinking a bit about the issues, here is my take.

Warning long post, perhaps a bit rambling!

I think those who emphasize the need for self sufficency and the idea that a welfare state breeds a sense
of entitlement that endangers to sense of self sufficency are missing a few points, one of those is inheritance.

If our lives consisted of equal quality education and after the age of 18 each child was on its own
unable to profit from their parents then you could better make the case that ones fate in life was determined
by ones actions and abilites.
Why should the children of the poor suffer the sins of their parents?
Why should the children of the rich and middle class get a head start in the rat race?
The rich and well off are often not in their privillaged position solely through the merits of their
own abilities and efforts but often through the gains of their ancestors either through direct
finincial aid or through the achievemnts of all our many ancestors who have gifted us the advanced cililization
we live in.
It would be nonsense to ban inheritance as I proposed above, parents would always find ways to help
their children, in the cold war communist countries inheritance supposedly didn't exist but nepotism was
rampent, children can expect an inheritance from their parents. We are all the children of our civilisation, that civilisation has an inheritance to give why should one group of people be more deserving of it then another?
Another way of looking at this concept of social inheritance would be for example the national health system of the UK, that was created in the aftermath of WWII as a desire to bring good from bad, it is the fruit from the sacrifice of that war, to remove it would be to squander their inheritance, many of the western worlds social security systems have been born of struggles.

So we should not forget that most owe their lot in life to the throw of the dice, why should the rich care
about this? Would not the natural goodness of the human soul allow for a safety net to be provided willingly by the well off to catch the worst excesses of unequal wealth? I think no, there have been many cililizations on this planet and as far as I know none have operated so.
The arrival of civilisation in a part of the world can be noted in the bones of the dead, in hunter gatherer societies there is little difference between the health of individuals that can be noted in their bones, the arrival of civilization brings a large population and also greater differnce in the health of its peoples, some better of, most worse off, and on average the diet and life span of the civilized person drops from the health and life span of a hunter gatherer. The history of civilazation has been one long series of exploitions by a ruling class of those who have no power or wealth. Until recently that is, democracy is unpresedented, power (the vote) has been given to all as a birth right.
How did this happen? I personnally can think of two causes: 1 industrialisation and the end of serfdom/slavery required an educated workforce, this educated workforce was not going to stand for the status quo and unionised 2: The enlightenment allowed shiften the subject of mans study to man, no longer could suffering be glorified in the name of God.
The wealthy elect were made to surrender total power to the masses in order to maintain the life of privillage, I don't think they would have done this left to themselves, so I advance the notion if we were to remove all social support from an advanced nation and instead rely on charity, it would not work and the wealth divide would increase. Why should the well off care? they have no choice, in a democracy the poor have a vote and will use this power to obtain wealth, take that vote from them and you will have massive social unrest and the weathy would lose their wealth all the same. Human nature left to itself sucks, at our core we are not nice people, it has taken the long march of civilization and learning to advance good behaviour to our nonbloodline neigbour, remove all hope from the bottom of society and take all obligation from the top and it would not take us long to revert again.

I choose Social Redistridution (socialism) because it is unnatural.

Sorry for taking all your time :)

Your post makes a lot of sense, Yelof. Obrigada. I imagine the US must seem a very strange country to other civilized western nations. The American people seem to have no difficulty with what amounts to welfare for the rich (corporate tax dodges, tax cuts for the wealthy, frank corporate nepotism on the level of the White House), yet scream bloody murder if a senior citizen is allowed a free meal once a week at the local soup kitchen. I very much doubt if a single conservative who posts to this board can define the term "enlightened self interest." They certainly can define the terms "selfish" and "lazy," however. They are too lazy and too complacent to attempt thought "outside the box," and I believe this will bring about the downfall of this country. If you refuse to see a problem, you certainly are not going to be able to solve it. Sometimes I just want to withdraw from public dialogue altogether, turn off the news, stock pile a ton of canned goods and go become a hermit in southern New Mexico and spend the rest of my days in peaceful oblivion to what is going on in this nation and the world. But I don't really want to be a hermit, and every time I set foot on the streets of any town or city in this nation, the things I see make me sick at heart. I would lead a happier life if I could adopt a hardened "they deserve it" attitude which seems to be the mindset of so many of my fellow Americans. I really wish I didn't feel as much as I do.

That's an awfully broad brush you're using, don'cha think?

Oh hell, its late and I've had two glasses of cheap wine. I'm lucky I can hold a brush at all.;)

Mari, perhaps they see different problems than you do.

Why is it just assumed that those who have wealth either inherited it or screwed others over to get it? Why is it so hard to believe that most people with a sizeable net worth just went out and made it happen? Certainly chance plays a huge role in the accumulation of wealth, but one must be in the right position to take advantage of chance happenings.
Those who accumulate large wealth were often flat broke in the past because they were willing to take large risks, and some didn't pan out. But they keep on plugging ahead until something does work.
It all boils down to choice. I'm not a statistic junky (83.6 of statistics are made up on the spot :) but I remember seeing an article that tracked former lottery winners - there was a very high percentage that were flat broke and filed BK in just a few years. They made exceedingly bad decisions with their money even though they are started out wealthy.
On the other hand I have several clients who have never made more than $40,000 in a single year and have well over $1 million saved for their retirement.
Life is full of choices, some work some don't. It doesn't make sense to blame others when your choices don't work. There is no rational reason to force others to give up their earned wealth (in the form of taxes) to support long-term welfare recipients.
Short-term rebound-type programs are a wonderful thing but they should be limited to short term.

You know, I'm sure that they do, and I think the large majority of people are good at heart. They're doing the best they can within the construct of their own lives and beliefs. I feel so strongly in part beause I used to be a member of that complacent middle class I speak of. Oh sure, I had a social conscience and contributed to worthy causes, but I really didn't understand about the lives of the people forced to exist on government subsidies. Then I fell through the looking glass and what a rude awakening it was!

Exactly so. One must be in the position. How does that happen? People are in a position to get ahead when they've had an education, when they believe in themselves, when life hasn't knocked them around so badly that they've given up in despair. For example, take two children. One comes from a working class home with two parents. The child sees Mom and Dad struggle to make ends meet, but those two parents are there for their child. They make sure he does his homework, they instill him with a sense of self respect and give him a good value system. The kids he hangs out with all want to make something of their lives and believe they can do it. The second child comes from a single parent home and suffers abuse at the hands of his Mom's various boyfriends. Mom is too busy trying to survive to put much energy into her child. He cuts class and the school can't inform Mom about this because she didn't have the money to pay the phone bill and the telephone company discontinued her service. The kid hangs out with the druggies when he does go to school. Now which child is most likely to jump at an opportunity and make a go of it? Sure, its possible for the second kid to overcome those handicaps of upbringing, but they ARE handicaps and the ARE real.

Its true that in our country, there has arisen a sort of welfare lifestyle. Children are raised in homes where the father is absent. The males who do come into their lives may be abusive (and the women as well). They live in subsidized apartment buildings where everyone is in the same boat. The public schools in the area are underfunded and of lower quality than the ones in the suburbs across town. All the kids see modeled for them is dependency on the government, crime, drugs, and despair. The girls get pregnant at 16 and do what Mom modeled for them to do - go on welfare. The boys do what Dad modeled for them to do, impregnate the girls, get in trouble with the law and vanish off into jail somewhere. Its a vicious cycle.

I'm certainly in favor of welfare reform. Give those people on welfare the education and training to find work. Provide day care for the kids, so they're not unsupervised, out on the streets. Give people private housing vouchers so they're not "ghetto-ized" into these vast government subsidized building complexes. Offer them hope and the tangible skills to find a way out of that life style. Establish goals for the people who are on welfare. "In 3 months you must show us that you have enrolled in this training program or that school. You must provide us with progress reports at 3 months intervals there-after, showing that you are continuing to progress in your school. At the end of two or 4 years you will show us a certificate of completion, etc." Then give them the support to accomplish this. Encourage people to be self sufficient and beleive in themselves, but don't spit on them and kick them when they're down.

That's pretty stupid.

You're claiming to be on disability subsequent to brain damage, and continue to use substances which even in small amounts contribute to brain damage.

See? The act of a brain damaged person!:p

Yelof, here's my problem with wealth redistribution as a basis for social construction.

As you so eloquently stated, human beings are inherently selfish. Call it a corrupt human nature, call it an evolved survival skill, whatever the case, we tend to do the thing that is in our best self-interest.

The beauty, the balance, the strength of capitalism is that it creates a self-interest toward benefiting society. If you make yourself useful to society in your capacity as a productive member, you are rewarded with money. The more useful you make yourself, either by quantity of work, or by rarity of your particular skill, the more you are rewarded. In a capitalist structure, you are free to make yourself useful to others, and you are rewarded in proportion to that usefulness.

When we remove the financial incentive to becoming useful to others, through taxation and wealth redistribution, the prime self-interest changes. In a community where usefulness is not rewarded, where gains made through productivity are confiscated and redistributed, then why expend energy in being useful? Why not expend that energy in amusement, entertainment, in selfish acts?

There is an underlying assumption to socialism that wealth is a static thing, that each culture has a certain amount of it, and that if some person has more of it, it must be at the expense of someone else. That’s simply not the case. If the economics and the politics of the United States bewilder and frustrate you, at least be objective enough to learn this lesson from us. Wealth is the cumulative effect of the productive members of society. The more productive each member is, the more productive the whole society is. And the more direct the compensation is for productivity, more self-interest each person in that society has toward making themselves useful. Our staggering national wealth comes from an economic system that maximizes the usefulness and productivity of the greatest number of people.

That is the strength of this culture. We allow the individual to be rewarded for their productivity, in direct proportion to their usefulness. The cumulative effect is a nearly unsinkable economy.

-sm

Marichko had asked where the numbers come from ... Here is one Source

It's called the "Green Book" and is a gov't report.

And, btw, illegals are eligible for emergency funding through medicaid.

The differences between benefits and distributions to resident and non-resident aliens is striking. California supports more than three million such persons ... Colorado around 71,000.

As far as the hispanic/latino origin info goes, you can check the 2000 census for the racial/ethnic demographics ... Colorado's population is 74.5% white (nonhispanic - the overall figure for persons identifying as "white" was 82.8%), Calif 46.7% white nonhispanic. Hispanic populations are respectively CO 17.1% and CA 32.4%

First of all, try reading my complete posts. I agreed that Colorado has a lower Hispanic population, and merely wondered why, this being so, Colorado felt the need to post statements about eligibility for social services programs in Spanish, while other adjacent states with far higher Hispanic populations felt no need to do so.

Actually, I have no quarrel with the thinking that the US should not provide public assistance to every illegal immigrant who happens to wander over the border. We may still be a comparitively wealthy country, but it is not our job to provide assistance to the entire population of Mexico and Central America. Those countries need to make reforms in their own educational and economic systems to address their own widespread poverty problems.

What I was curious about is the percentage of people who are found to be cheating the system. That's something I would truely like to know and I'd like to see the statistics from an impartial source with neither a conservative nor a liberal agenda to fulfill.

Yes, illegal aliens can get emergency medicaid care. That means if an illegal is involved in some terrible car wreck or has a heart attack, we won't leave them bleeding to death on the street. This is simple human decency, and I don't see why anyone would have a problem with it. On a more pragmatic level, it puts one off to have to step over dead bodies on the way to work in the morning. When I spent some time in northeastern Brazil, it was not out of the question to encounter somebody lying dead on the sidewalk. Such incidents would trouble me for long afterward, but maybe you have a stronger stomach than I.

Here is what the document you cited states on the issue:

Unlike earlier Federal law, the 1996 welfare reforms
expressly bar illegal aliens from most State- and locally-
funded benefits. The restrictions on these benefits parallel
the restrictions on Federal benefits. Illegal aliens are
generally barred from State and local government contracts,
licenses, grants, loans, and assistance. Exceptions are made
for:
1. Treatment for emergency conditions (other than those
related to an organ transplant);
2. Short-term, in-kind emergency disaster relief;
3. Immunization against immunizable diseases and testing for
and treatment of symptoms of communicable diseases; and
4. Services or assistance (such as soup kitchens, crisis
counseling and intervention, and short-term shelters)
designated by the Attorney General as: (i) delivering
in-kind services at the community level; (ii) providing
assistance without individual determinations of each
recipient's needs; and (iii) being necessary for the
protection of life and safety.

See? The act of a brain damaged person!:p

You phrase that in such a disdainful and doubful way

Oh, Wolf's just pissed at me because I mistook her for a guy when I first started posting here. She seems to have disliked me every since. Oh well, you can't please everybody (and I DID apologize). ((shrugs shoulders));)

Everybody mistakes me for a guy. There is a long cellar tradition of mistaking me for a guy, because I don't have traditional girly opinions and style. That's not the issue. Never was.

I stand corrected, Ma'am!;)

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news...36/detail.html


This is why I think some people should be sterilized....they aren't able to protect themselves because they don't know any better, and it seems no one is protecting them. At the least birth control should be mandatory in these kinds of places. They can't take care of themselves, much less a baby. There's no point in putting another, possibly profoundly mentally disabled, child into a system that doesn't give a shit.

Why is your emphasis on changing the fertility of people unable to parent instead of tackling the system which "doesnt give a shit* ? Surely the answer should be to make the system "give a shit"

Jeez, Sid, here you've got a state employee who rapes a severely mentally retarded victim, and your response is "Let's sterilize the retarded"? Don't you think your priorities are a tad out of whack? How about let's ensure that state employees NEVER in any way abuse the people who are under their care whether mentally ill, retarded, anything else. That story is about a terrible abuse of trust against an innocent victim, completely unable to take care of herself, and your response is let's sterilize her? Why? So she can be thrown to the rest of the male employees of that institution and used any way they please, without the unpleasant consequence of a pregnancy? I knew you were conservative, but Jesus Christ, does conservatism preclude humanity?:worried:

Oh, I think the guy who did it should be sterilized too. No point in letting a rapist pass on his genes.

And yes, I've said this before: people who are too mentally deficient to take care of themselves should NOT have children. That's not cruel; it's common sense. Our child welfare system is already overburdened, and you wouldn't believe how many children in foster care are abused by people who just take them in for the money. Why subject MORE children to an already overburdened system?? I mean, DAMN, at the very least, make sure the aforementioned mentally deficient individuals have NORPLANT. These aren't baby dolls we're talking about. They're CHILDREN.


As to making the system give a shit--well, when you've got state employees who are WAY underpaid and WAY overworked....you can't MAKE them give a shit. There are around 200 kids to a SINGLE social worker. Better to make sure the kids aren't born in the first place. I don't see what the problem with that is.

I mean, damn....it's like someone who won't get their cat fixed because the kids should be able to see "the miracle of life." What they DON'T let the kids see is the poor, unwanted kittens being gassed to death in the local animal shelter. It's the same thing. People who are not able to take care of themselves should not be able to have little people that they can't take care of, just to experience the "miracle of birth," or whatever reason people give for wanting to let them have kids nobody wants.

It's not cruel. It's a hell of a lot more humane to NOT let them have kids than to take away their baby doll at birth, then let that baby doll slip through the cracks and end up in an abusive foster home.


Sidhe

Sid, you don't get it. Your priorities are way out of whack. You are so high up on your bandwagon that you can't see what is going on. This is a news story about an atrocious breech of trust committed against a completely innocent victim. This is not the place to start whining about your personal agenda in regard to the mentally defective. It will win you no adherants to your cause. Trust me on this one.

1. I'm not looking to win adherents. People have their own opinions on this, and trying to change them won't do any good.

2. I'm more worried about the potential children. These people are in institutions that should screen employees a hell of a lot better, and watch them a hell of a lot better, than they do. However, there's no excuse for the clients not to be on NORPLANT. Some people shouldn't reproduce. Period. It just ends up hurting the kids.

3. The SOB who raped the girl should be put in a cell with Bubba for the rest of his life. I'm not sorry for thinking that way, either.

Some people can't take responsibility for themselves, and it's up to the people who are supposed to be taking care of them to do so. That doesn't always happen, and there's nothing I can do about that. But there are ways to minimize the damage, and ways to punish the offenders, if they'd just do it.


Seems we have more care for stray animals than we do for human beings. We'll sterilize a stray so it won't have unwanted babies, but god forbid we do it to humans so THEY won't have unwanted babies. Unwanteds are unwanteds. They all suffer. So what's the problem with preventing the suffering in the first place?

All people see is the word "sterilization," and they lose their minds. They don't think of the larger picture, or the ramifications of all these unwanted children. To them, I say the same thing I say to anti-DP folks:

You take these kids home with you when they're born, and take care of them. If you're not willing to do that, then don't complain when someone puts forth an idea you don't like.

I don't have any personal animosity towards people who are mentally slow. And I don't have any problem with functionally retarded people having children. I just don't think that people who can't take care of themselves should be able to give birth to people they can't take care of, who will end up being abused by the system, whether the system intends to abuse them or not.


Sidhe

I couldn't agree with you more on your third point.

I will now address the question of eugenics, since I feel that I have made my own priorities clear on this one.

I couldn't agree with you more that every child should be brought into this world by parents who are able to love and care for it. Ideally, if you realize that you can't take care of a child, you should take steps to ensure that you don't bring one into the world. What about people who lack the capacity to make this decision for themselves? There you place a foot on that damn slippery slope. Human beings are not cats and dogs that we make decisions for in order to bring the population of domestic pets under control. At what IQ level do you set the line for enforced sterilization? 90? 80? What about a person who has an IQ of 79? Intelligence is not a matter of simple Mendelian inheritance. Multiple alleles, as well as environmental factors all play a role in a person's eventual IQ as an adult. If we set the precedent of sterilizing one segment of the population as "undesirable", isn't it that much easier to go after the next group and then the next? Where does it stop? I think the answer of "sterilize the bastards!" is too simplistic an approach to a very complex and potentially lethal question. Do we really want "Big Brother" intruding into our lives and deciding if we are fit to be parents or not? Would everyone who gave birth have to present some certificate of "eugenics" to the government or be forced to have an abortion? I am extremely wary of the seeming fast and easy solution of "sterilize them all!"

How about a simple competency test? If you aren't competent to feed, clothe, and shelter yourself, you probably shouldn't be responsible for tending to those basic needs for someone else.

-sm

SM said it very well.

Actually, the way I see it is this: you have to take a test in order to get a driver's license, so that you can be trusted to be on the road. Why is it that you don't have to take a test to be a parent? Doesn't being qualified to raise kids rate just as high on the priority scale as being able to drive?

Secondly, environmental factors don't have that big an effect on mental retardation. You don't become functional if you're profoundly retarded, and you don't go from being functional to being profoundly retarded short of something like lead poisoning or an accident. There's a difference.

And why shouldn't we take steps to bring the population of unwanted children under control? I'm not advocating abortion, I'm advocating PREVENTION. For those who lack the capacity to make the decision for themselves, or who are, because of that lack of capacity, subject to possible sexual victimization, SOMEONE has to make the decision for them. You don't miss what you never had.

As to the IQ level one sets for enforced birth control or enforced sterilization, I've already established my opinion on that one: if you're not able to take care of yourself to the point where you must be institutionalized so that someone else can take care of you, then you should not be allowed to have children.

I'm not saying they're "undesirable." I'm saying that they aren't able to take care of themselves, and therefore should not be allowed to bring into the world children that they can't take care of. I personally think people with a history of abusing children should be sterilized. It's nothing personal. It's what's best for the children, or potential children. There's nothing wrong with requiring profoundly retarded people to be on norplant or some other type of birth control. I advocate Norplant because it isn't something that has to be remembered, either by the individual or by the caretaker. It's continual birth control for five years.

Perhaps if there were standards for becoming parents, there would be fewer abused children out there. Do you think a floridly psychotic person with delusions of persecution, who won't take their meds, should have children that they could possibly incorporate into their delusions and possibly harm? And since we know that schizophrenia runs in families, should we expose these children to possible mental illness in themselves?

I'm not talking about a Big Brother situation. I'm talking about common sense. If you abuse your child, they take it away. You're not allowed to have that child anymore. If you neglect your child, the state likewise steps in. Profoundly mentally retarded individuals will neglect a child because they don't know any better. Therefore, they, like any other neglectful parent, should not have said child. The best way to prevent neglect on the part of the profoundly retarded person is to prevent them from having children in the first place.


Sidhe

Speaking of sterilization, I'd get mySELF sterilized if I could afford it. I have one child, which is all I want. I know I don't want any more children, and I know I can't afford any more children. That isn't to say I wouldn't love another child if I had one, but having to take birth control all the time, and worrying that it may fail (my daughter was conceived on birth control) gets to be tedious. If it were up to me, I'd get the plumbing taken right out and not have to worry about it anymore.


Sidhe

Had the parents given a shit to begin with, it wouldn't be necessary for the system to give a shit.

What about responsible, normal intelligence parents who have a child with down's syndrome, as just one example. And why do you want to let "the system" off the hook? Like it or not, there is always going to be a "system" of one sort or another. Do you advocate that it do as it pleases with no accountability to anyone? What's so damn responsible about that?

Real mental disorders are a different catagory to asshats.

Why?:confused:

Hhhmmmm... How do I weigh in with the lefties, without screwing up my credentials here? I've got it! Do you folks really want the Margaret Sangors of the world putting themselves into the position of controling who breeds in this country? We didn't have this arguement in the bad old days and the rascists here and in Germany won the day, however temporarily. What could be more intrusive than government controlling the breeding population, welcome to Red China. The limited government conservative is apparently extinct.

The supreme court test case for forced sterilization is Buck vs Bell check it out. There is doubt today that Carrie Buck was "feeble-minded". Justice Holmes dropped this sweet little plum for the Eugenics movement, "Three generations of imbeciles are enough." Since Miss Buck reportedly wasn't an imbecile, I'd say he was probably talking about Supreme Court Justices. It continues to amaze me that people blind themselves to the reality of what they argue for, when giving government the power to alter other peoples lives.

Why don't we just all treat pregnancy like a basic right afforded to all life-forms, and not a privilege?

Regardless of how infirm someone "seems", the basic instincts, bred through hundreds of years of human experience in this world, are survival and maternal protection. That goes a long way.

You can cite hundreds of examples of this and that, but I guarantee the number of infirm mothers who make horrible, uncaring mothers is a tiny minitory.

Oh, and if you're going to neuter people, you better not stop at the disabled, you better also hit the homeless, people who are poor, people who have off-main political ideas, and for good measure, complete arseholes.

Afraid you're on that list, Sidhe.

Tread carefully Carbonated_Brains.

To which category do you assert that she qualifies?

You're misunderstanding me. If an individual can take care of themselves, then they should be able to take care of another person. I am not advocating letting "the system" off the hook; I'm saying that the system is extremely overburdened, and the children in that system suffer because of it. I don't think that ANYONE should be able to breed rampantly. ANYONE. You shouldn't have more children than you can take care of; if you're not competent to take care of yourself, you shouldn't be allowed to put yourself in the position of taking care of someone else who may suffer from your incompetence; if you abuse children, you should not be able to breed little ready-made victims.

I don't think that the system should be allowed to do as it pleases with no accountability. However, the system is already overburdened. It's like filling up a five-gallon container with infinite amounts of water...it can only hold so much, and the rest goes right over the edge and gets lost. You try having 100+ families that you, as ONE person, have to keep track of...a single person can only do so much.

Let's just lose the word "sterilization" for a minute, and replace it with ENFORCED BIRTH CONTROL. What's wrong with that? Would you let your 13-year-old have a child? Of course not. Why? Because you know she's not mature enough to take care of a child. She may be old enough to be subject to sexual desire, and may be physically old enough to breed, but she's not competent to take care of a helpless infant.

Well, most, if not ALL, profoundly retarded people are mentally below the intelligence and emotional maturity level of a teenager. If your teenager isn't mature enough to take care of a child, what makes you think a profoundly retarded person IS? Just because the body is mature doesn't mean the mind is. Some of these people (according to a few friends I have who work in the state school) have to be put in diapers because they can't understand or remember toilet-training. How are they going to understand taking care of a baby?


"Oh, and if you're going to neuter people, you better not stop at the disabled, you better also hit the homeless, people who are poor, people who have off-main political ideas, and for good measure, complete arseholes."


I'm not saying someone who is DISABLED should not be able to have children; I'm saying that profoundly retarded people should be on enforced birth control. There's a difference. And if the arseholes are abusing their children, yes, I think they should be straight-up STERILIZED. People bitch and complain about how murderer A and serial rapist B had such HORRIBLE childhoods, full of abuse...yet they have no problem with letting the parents of murderer A and rapist B have MORE children to abuse....then they bitch that SOMEBODY should've DONE something....

And you're just being absurd with the rest.


Sidhe

Troubleshooter - the arshole bit.

But that's just my opinion.

Nobody has any claim to anyone else's body what-so-ever, not even a fetus (parasite) inside of it. Government has no authority to tell anyone whether or not they must or must not have children. But if you can't afford and you have them, neither you, nor your children is entitled to reach into the pockets of others through force (government = force) to pay for their education, healthcare, food, shelter, or clothing.

No amount of your percieved needs or desires entitles you to steal from another person no matter how little you have or how much they have.

All people should be encouraged to help those in need, but nobody should be forced to. Charity begins and ends in the heart, not at the end of a loaded gun.

If you're starving, sick, old, cripple, uneducated, and cold from living outside, you are still not entitled to steal from others. You are free to ask for help and others are free to give it to you, but you needs don't entitle you to anything.

Man it's strange reading these boards these days. I only get a few posts with actual content. The rest are blocked because I've put the truly ignorant people on my ignore list. Sometimes entire threads are filled with nothing but the message I get when someone is on the iggy list.

It's better that way though. The average intelligence of conversations has increased 10 fold thanks to the omission of posts by those who truly have nothing of value to offer any conversation. (Jaguar, Marichko, Sycamore, Lady Sidhe, etc.)

Oooooh, we love you too, Rabid Radar.... You'll forgive me if I'm not insulted....

...oh...but he won't see this, will he, because I'm on his ignore list...:haha:

Can you hear me now? ;)

If I'm not on the list brother, you may want to consider that you're missing the whole point of the board when you ignore people. IMHO

Sorry, I just couldn't help it...after my first month here, I SO don't get offended anymore....:D

It's not about offending people, it's about being willing to bounce your ideas off other peoples and maybe revealing some truth in the process.

I was referring to the fact that he felt the need to name names. I'm pretty sure it was intended as a poke at the people he named.

Ah, got ya. I've been "listed" before so we may just be talking to ourselves anyway. What were we talking about?

Ooooh, I'm so excited! I made the cellar "A" team! Give me 5, Jag! Give me 5, Sycamore! You, too, Lady Sidhe, what the heck? You, too, "etc"., (and don't think we don't all know who you are!) This is the best news I've had all morning! It also means that never again will I have to read one of Radar's stupid responses to something I post. What a relief! Guess the big guy just couldn't stand the heat, so instead of getting out of the kitchen, he now wears an abestos suit and plugs his ears to things he doesn't like hearing. What a loss of credibility (not that he had a shred to begin with), and as usual done by his own hand. Yes! Yes! YES! (Does a war dance around the living room.) A toast to all my fellow "censored by Radar" celler members!
:beer:

PS The best part is that while he won't be able to read what I post, I can still read what HE posts and make fun of him. Its like having my very own star wars cloaking shield. I can poke fun at him and he won't know what the other two people he didn't censor are laughing about! Oh my, this a great bit of humor to start my day off with. Will someone whom he doesn't censor please pass along to him my heartfelt thanks?

I was pretty amused at being left off the list ...

Then you should reconsider how you choose to insult people.

Attack her arguments all you want, save the ad hominum for somewhere else.

How about posting a comprehensive list of everyone on your ignore list?

I'm a little curious.

You're not on the list griff. It's tough to qualify for my list. You've got to fit into one or more of the following categories.

1. Stupid beyond words
2. Purposely ignorant (avoid the truth at all costs)
3. Openly Support Racism (affirmative action, groups like the KKK, etc.)
4. Offer nothing constructive to any conversation
5. Religious Zealot
6. Literally Insane and in need of professional help
7. An asshole with no redeeming qualities
8. Deny facts or in some cases reality itself
9. Justify theft, murder, treason, terrorism, etc and call it humanitarianism.


I'm sure those on my list are probably stupid enough to be proud to be on it but I could care less. They've proven many times over that they have nothing intelligent, logical, reasonable, or worthwhile to add to any conversation on any topic. They can have their own little retarded party where they pat each other on the back and jerk each other off and it's all good with me because I won't have to see it.

I've spent a long time on this list and given these people every opportunity to show that they have even the slightest bit of anything resembling intelligence and they've proven over and over that they have nothing to offer but stupidity. Why waste my time on their ignorance when I can have rational and intelligent discussions with others. There are many offensive people who have not made it to my list yet because the jury is still out on them, but for those I mentioned and a few I didn't there is no doubt what-so-ever that they will never offer anything above the intelligence level of a bag of hammers.

Oh, my, is the man psychic or what? I think he's peeking, that's what I think. YES! I AM MORE POWERFUL THAN A BAG OF HAMMERS - my new tag line!

Can I join the war dance? =D :beer:

I always like bag of hair but bag of hammers has some merit I must admit.
If we're in a circle jerk Radar must be jerking himself off ;)

Yes, my friend! Give some big Indian war whoops and rattle their teeth over there in Switzerland!

Looking at the scorecard, radar is 7 for 9 himself ...

8 for 9 if you consider his constitutional interpretations as "religious zealotry".

I can see by the flurry of posts marked "This person is on your Ignore List." I must have touched a nerve. Either that or they're saying totally predictable things to congratulate each other or to suggest other names to be added. Whatever. Let them stroke each other.

Now, back to the topic at hand and how only voluntarily funded services are legitimate and all government funded services amount to robbery and slavery....

Hopefully we'll have a few intelligent people to discuss this and who won't waste their time on those who should be on everyone's iggy list.

I'm zero for 9 wolf. You need to work on your math skills.

High-five's ya.

Considering he can't prove half of what he considers reasons for inclusion into his list.....

edits to include the happy dance...

Ok...I vote to sterillize Radical Radar....


;)

As it happens I do agree with you in principle on this, although I don't think that the current social support network in this country would be able to provide adequate care to all in need. I DO think that there are a lot of abuses of the welfare and disability systems, however. There is a BIG difference between someone on disability because they are mentally retarded or severely mentally ill and need custodial care and someone whose disability is alcohol or drug use.

Substance abuse is NOT a disease, it's a decision, and I shouldn't have to pay for the consequences of someone else's stupidity.

(incidentally, by taking such a position, I'm cutting off my own nose to spite my face, because treating those worthless drug users on the county, state, and federal dime pays my salary. I'm guessing only about 1/4 of the people I see have private insurance coverage, the rest are uninsured or have medical assistance. I'll have to try to get a copy of our annual report. Those percentages used to be in there.)