I had never heard of Poe's Law, and learned something new today !
It is an interesting description for the behaviors of some people, especially the ones who are "totally bonkers"

Thank you, HM.

Gentlemen, I am a voice of adult thought around here. Adult thinking sounds like me. If you are going to insist on behaving and sounding like subadult imbeciles, how do you think you're going to be treated? Should you be treated in some other fashion?

Huh.

I hadn't realized we were running low on condescension.

Full up now, though. Thanks!

No, no you're not. We're mostly adults, majority rules.... you just missed the people skills boat and fashioned yourself as you feel adults should be from whatever bizarre material you watched in your formative years ...Gone With The Wind, maybe? You're truly insane with delusions of grandeur among other issues. Amazing you weren't kicked out of the navy. Or were you?

"You'd rather live with that silly little fool who can't open her mouth except to say "yes" or "no" and raise a passel of mealy-mouthed brats just like her "

Yup, my money's on GWTW. You should have picked Rhett as your model, though.

Classic UG.

So...basically, all adults sound like you. And if they don't sound like you then they are not adults.

Sticks are brown. This is brown. Therefore this is a stick.

:eek: ... you've been doing some DNA splicing!

Not even UG deserves this. Why do you go way off your rocker just to be ugly? Attacking someone's wife,kids?? wtf

Hey skysidhe--

That is a quote from the movie "Gone With The Wind", (GWTW). It is in context with the rest of monster's comment, in that she's suggesting that UG's .... attitudes were influenced by the characters in the movie. It is not an attack on his wife or kids, though she does score a touch with Scarlett.

She is a conceited narcissist; it is an apt comparison.

<strike>/end captain obvious</strike>
/end captain pedantic

Betta?

Wasn't captain obvious to me either. I thought the same as Sky.
I also agree with you on this part.

ETA - OH wait, you were talking about Scarlett weren't you? lol unintended, but funny.

I can't say as i immediately recognised the quote. But the fact it was in quotation marks did suggest it was a quote and not Monster's own words to UG.

Hey sycophantic moron # 1: BigV meant Scarlett.

Hey sycophantic moron # 2: No matter how hard you try, UG will probably not sleep with either you or crassic. Now, do we really also need to point out your recent meltdown and subsequent screaming at 3 Dwellars?

Pitiful how you two glom on to anything UG and his ilk say about anyone who is on your vendetta list. Little dogs in tall grass: what are the cool kids doing?

I'd cry of inner shame were I either of you two.

;)

PS Nice late edit, Mr Accuser of Calling People Out on Late Edits. Piti (wait for it) ful.

Now why don't you find someone else's ass to ride? Ride mine, I'm only here to tell you that you suck, anyway.

:lol:

I'm laughing at you.

edit- Mostly, I'll try to forget about you, and yours. You'll both ruin my Christmas cheer.
You two (Shaw & Monster) go right ahead and make the world a better place ,in your own way, for your particular statures,I see what that is.

From now on,I'll ignore you and your bosom buddy, for my happiness sake, not yours. :)

:nuts:

Ok darlin', you just go about the good work of Feeding America
as is the wont of any pious, humble, and caring person such as yourself.
:rotflol:

I'm with sky. You pop back in just to be a bitch and attack someone about something you have nothing to do with.
Gee thanks. Way to add to the discussion - not.

You're welcome. I forgot how much fun this is. :)

And you, grand man, just sit around like a spider waiting for someone's comment to hop on to, being bereft of any original ideas or thoughts: even when it comes to who you want to insult. You hate monster, UG and monster have a tiff, you blow UG (and you're ALWAYS with sky, because you share a mutual hatred.) You are so very transparent.

UG, sweetie, your cult is going to SUCK!

Riled up yet?

Oh, yeah, and I did see your sweet post where you almost forgot you hate me and asked me to come back (before you deleted it.) It was very sweet, though full of the sugary lies so often perpetuated by you and your kind.

I can't believe I ruined this fine discussion...what page was that on again?

More like I prefer to confine any combats to their original arena, rather than dueling throughout all the forums on the site -- that's too jerkish for me. There are things you write I find variously agreeable, and for clarity's sake I will say so as they come up. There are others I oppose with every fiber my being has and every value I've got.

I've initiated threads before. If you missed them, too bad.

I tiff with monster from time to time. Hatred's not what I feel, though.

As for your understanding of "my kind," I put it to you that it is scant, third-hand, and pretty much off. And I can't remember deleting a post here, come to that. Sugary lies? Not from me.

A reliable sign that I think you're being stupid enough to embarrass yourself. When you're not coming up to scratch, I condescend to you and make stupid hurt.

If you do not enjoy this, you know what to do.

This is multiply erroneous. Let us count up the ways:
1) The voters do not want to do Socialism.
2) Obama does.
3) The Republicans are there to stop Obama from doing the Socialism the voters do not want.
4) Buttscrewing the fools who don't appreciate the Republic, capitalism, or the strong dollar is not bad either for the electorate or the Republic in which it dwells. Uncomfortable for fools, though.
5) What the Republicans hope to do therefore is protective of my proper interests. Which are, I think, consonant with the good of the Republic.

So once again, unclean Spexx, your rabid bigotries both discredit you, and disorder your thoughts. Radar has the same problem, you know. Is he the company you want to keep? The example you would follow?

Silly wabbit...

That post was for crass, not you. You just got caught in it because of all the glomming crass does.

Re-read it and know that the only part for you was that your cult is going to SUCK. I have seen your initial struggling membership, and it does not bode well for future advances. You can't have ALL the brain power in your imagined land of the free and the brave, can you? Surely you need a couple other people, at the very least, who can master skills beyond slobbering all over you and placing the correct part in each widget?

But you, UG, with all your superiority...well, I just think you're the grooviest! :rasta: Though I agree with very little you say, I admire your original thought and your ability to form complete and eloquent sentences.

BUZZZZZZZZZZZ Well this is your classic "straw man" fallacy that UG depends upon so well. Instead of arguing Spexx's point, he creates a straw man "Socialism" to argue against. It's only Socialism because he calls it that; what Obama has done is so far short of actual Socialism that it would be unrecognizable by that term in an *serious* discussion.

This is a continuance of the straw man, but it is always helpful to remind everyone that only 2 short years ago the Republicans were spending like drunken investment bankers in a strip club where the strippers were wearing guaranteed notes for thongs.

True intellectualism requires true intellectual honesty. I will recognize it in you, UG, when I see it.

Yes, yes I do.

When I am being condescended to, I consider the source. If it is one that is worthy of my respect, then I reflect on my own behavior and attitudes, searching for what is in me that warranted such communication. You imply with your remarks that I am being stupid, stupid enough to embarrass myself.

This is multiply erroneous:

1 -- I am not stupid. Nor are my posts here evidence of stupid. I would agree that engaging you in this kind of serious fashion is borderline stupid, and quixotic at best.

2 -- In practically every area where we have social intercourse, but most especially regarding politics and human relations, you are not a source worthy of my respect. This makes my self check very quick, practically moot. Your remarks do not hurt me. Your opinion of me is a matter of monumental indifference to me. You have show over a very long time that you do not care for me, or for the other dwellars here. It is precisely because of this long established behavior that your rebukes like this do not sting. All of your comments like this therefore have have no corrective power. They rise only to the level of irritating noise.

So, you are right, I do know what to do. I will filter out such noise so I can continue to focus on the communication here, offered by those dwellars that are worthy of my respect.

:speechls:

See, Rich? Right there is where your problem is.

UT, the people who insist that the socialistic features of Democratic Party policymaking and of Obama's vision in particular are somehow non-socialistic do not seem to really know what socialism is. They persist in a denial not supported by evidence.

And repeating to yourself that Glenn Beck is "not a credible source, not a credible source, not a..." shall not win the argument, nor diminish the statist and socialist features of Dem Party policymaking in the least. Democrats out of power is what will manage that, particularly with libertarians and libertarian-leaning Republicans in power.

If Glenn Beck isn't going to do it for you, then hew to Mark Levin. He's got a legal background in constitutional law. The Donkey Party drones that call in from time to time can't lay a glove on the guy. Yet somehow, they believe their road has virtue to it... somewhere.

Quite the dodge, UG, but I was talking about you and your own intellectual honesty, not the intellectual honesty of "the people who insist..."

Oh please do tell, wise one. What is socialism?

Socialism

An economics professor at Texas Tech said he had never failed a single student before but had, once, failed an entire class. The class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said ok, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism.

All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. After the first test the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. But, as the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too; so they studied little.. The second Test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame, name calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for anyone else. All failed to their great surprise. The professor told them that socialism would ultimately fail, not because the harder to succeed the greater the reward, but when a government takes all the reward away; no one will try or succeed.

Socialism isn't about removing rewards.

There is a great distinction between 'grades' and 'money'/'ownership of the means of production'. Grades are not necessary to exchange for shelter, food and warmth. Nor did giving them a mass grade in anyway place the means of acquiring those grades (production) into their hands.


[eta] My own personal opinion is that those things necessary to survival and basic human dignity should not be seen as 'rewards'. They are a starting point.

Arguing the finer points of socialism with UG is like trying to discuss atheism with the Spanish Inquisition. :thepain:

As an aside, I am amazed how we characterize socialism as "da debbil' while at the same time allowing our economy to become ever more dependent on the whim of communist China. Everyone tries to excuse this by saying that China has become "capitalist" or more like us. Actually, the US is becoming more like China. Our government pours money into failing corporations and subsidizes financial entities that have acted to the detriment of the country, and politicians pass these actions off as sound economics.

The Chinese government gives loans at low or no interest to Chinese corporations which allow them to flood the world with cheap products. Chinese manufacturing is heavily subsidized, and the Communist system allows workers to get by on such a low wage that no capitalist country can compete with it.

Because it isn't about socialism or communism. The fatcats only ask themselves if it makes them fatter. If it makes them fatter, of course it's good ol' American capitalism.

Yeah, well I'm gonna trot this out again, we live in a socialist country, All the corporate risk is socialized and the profit is privatized.

Socialism only for corporations is ok, but don't cut the hoi polloi any slack

But now don't you think you are adjusting the model to fix your own personal opinion? Because any idealist could put anything they want into that opinion as you define it. If I think some form of person transportation is necessary to my survival then someone else should provide it to me. And if I don't think I make enough money to get those things that I think I should have, for what ever reason, then someone else (the government) should provide it for me. And the government should be available in selected cases to do that. But for the majority of situations it should be a stop gap, not a means to an end.

Apparently I have been drinking too much coffee (the gateway drug). Still, this is an excellent statement.Why? Because Glenn Beck said it.

Try being unable to afford a car and living in a town with no public transportation. Uncle Sam doesn't owe me or anyone else a car, but some sort of public transit is invaluable to the population at large for any number of reasons.

Various groups still adhere blindly to the dogma that the US is the land of opportunity and anyone who works hard enough can obtain entrance to the upper middle class, no matter what their background. Certainly, its possible to work hard and live better here than in many other less fortunate countries.

But the "land of opportunity - fields of waving grain" construct died with the passing of the 19th century. In the 1800's an immigrant could land in New York and make his way West to claim 160 acres of land at little or no cost, work hard, and create a new life for himself. No more.

Today our resources are finite and our society is stratified. A child brought up in the semi-war zone of the urban housing projects simply does not have access to the quality of education and opportunities that a child of upper middle class parents living in a gated community does. I continue to be amazed that there are people who argue otherwise.

I don't expect the government to provide me with silk underware and a 60 inch flatscreen TV. However, a society which provides it children with a good education, basic health care and the food to mature into healthy adults is making a very wise investment that will pay off in terms of increased worker productivity and greater economic well-being.

If you don't believe this, take a visit to the city of Receife (pop one million plus) in northern Brazil where I once lived. Only children of the well to do go to school. The rest run in packs on the streets, always hungry, often suffering chronic disease, and poorly clothed. Girls 10 years of age or younger resort to prostitution - the only work available. The Brazilian government either cannot or will not intervene on the behalf of the country's children or its adult citizens. If you want a road to your house, you build it yourself. If you want security for your home or neighborhood, you hire private thugs. Its a libertarian's dream, but its not mine.

So isit a Right that you are owed to some form of public transportation? The majority of cities and towns in the US do not have one. The days of a RR station for every city and town are long gone.

How would you explain the success of the Chinese or Korean grocery store in many black dominated areas of the inner city? How about the success of the Cuban-Americans in Miami?

I would agree completely. And the sooner that we all recognize that society is stratified the sooner we can stop with all the class warfare and attempts at wealth redistribution.

I would agree. To bad we don't live in a utopia. Because we have been throwing money at those issues and they have improved marginally at best.

[quotet]If you don't believe this, take a visit to the city of Receife (pop one million plus) in northern Brazil where I once lived. Only children of the well to do go to school. The rest run in packs on the streets, always hungry, often suffering chronic disease, and poorly clothed. Girls 10 years of age or younger resort to prostitution - the only work available. The Brazilian government either cannot or will not intervene on the behalf of the country's children or its adult citizens. If you want a road to your house, you build it yourself. If you want security for your home or neighborhood, you hire private thugs. Its a libertarian's dream, but its not mine.[/quote]I have been to plenty of Third World countries. Thank God we don't live in one.

Public transit, universal education, fire and police protection, etc. are not rights. They are sound investments that a society makes in its own well being.

Those who benefit from our current system, yet complain about paying for it suffer from a narcissistic world view at best. "I've done great. The rest of you are on your own."

Immigrants from other countries who make good here are by definition largely members of the middle class in their own countries and/or have useful connections in the US. Our immigration laws ensure this.

The spunky oriental immigrant who hits the big time in the ghetto is largely a myth. And for everyone like him, there is a woman from Thailand who comes here and opens up a "massage parlor' where sex is sold in the back room. She eventually becomes caught up in the legal system and costs the local taxpayers thousands.

Individual annecdotes are a dime a dozen. They are fun to relate, but useless for implementing policy.

The term "throwing money at" is shop worn and was a questionable analogy from the start. Schools in poor and rural areas have been underfunded for decades if not forever. No tycoons from the exclusive side of town come through and throw dimes at kids in the ghetto. I have yet to see a wealthy matron from Denver's posh Cherrycreek neighborhood travel out here to the small and very distressed town of Paradox, Colorado to endow a new school library filled with comic books.

The only thing Congress throws money at are special interests (wealthy campaign contributors) and its own boondoggles.

As for the third world, the US is working on joining it.

At what cost and to what end?

And like others here, I hear another cry along the lines of class envy. I do agree with what you are saying, they should charge higher rider fees to make it work better.

I agree. Yet those who live here and have all the same advantages and in fact more advantages and connections still can't do as well. Why do you think that is?

Yet they are making a dollar and completely support themselves. I would support the legalization of prostitution like it is in NV.

Damm right. Which is why I am tired of hearing the politicians telling me another story about "Betty Johnson from Bumbfuck USA" and how because of one party or the other has been screwed by the system. It only contributes to more class envy and warfare.

BS, it is not about some "wealthy matron" tossing dimes, it is about the billions wasted by state and federal governments on throwing money at failing schools.

Agreed and agreed.

:eek:

You mean because I'm currently on disability, my viewpoint is skewed? My eyes have certainly been opened due to the events of the past 10 years, I'll grant you that. But I had a solid middle class upbringing, was fortunate enough to earn an advanced college degree and spent most of my career in a professional position. Other than a brief flirtation with your pal, Ayn Rand, at age 17, I am a life long humanist. I owe my outlook to intelligence, enlightened self-interest, and compassion. :p:

Absolutely not!

Congrats, and you're posts reflect your depth of experience. This was nothing personal. It was a comment on what people's perceptions are about the role of the federal government and how much they should take from others to support bloated and inefficient systems that continually fail the electorate.

But it does provide a place to dump sex-offenders. ;)

Turning to Sam's particular situation and considering a fix: how big and flat is that town, there on the "Edge of the Land of Enchantment?" Bicycles are easier to afford than cars -- and give practicable mobility to about a 15- to 20-mile radius, coupled with a flexibility no mass transit could possibly match, which taken together I think somewhat shrinks the field for grousing and bitching. But if that disability thing means legs no good or eyes not so good, a bicycle is still no solution -- dang.

Speaking of bitching: tw, the man who categorically despises and damns Glenn Beck is a man who categorically despises and damns the stuff and breath of life itself. Beck believes in capitalism, hence in life. You? No, not so much. Never did, AFAIK. That's why ol' Glenn is a happier man than you are.

Maybe he's happier because they're paying him 30 or 40 million a year for his dramatics.

Well, V, after a couple of days for thought, this is what I've got.

There is no obligation upon me to respect that which is stupid. There is instead an obligation to challenge it. Showing certain of the more mulish anticonservative bigots the error of their thinking is sometimes like explaining anal sex to an echidna: certain referents seem to be wholly lacking.

It is not the persons, in essence, that I disdain, but the collectivist, aye socialist, ideals and the stupid ideas the ideals engender which I disparage, deprecate, blast and damn severally and collectively. I am a man of freedom, and unfreedom is a worthless abomination which helps millions to stunted lives and premature deaths. He who would reduce liberty is your enemy and mine, and your children's also, regardless of his -- or Michelle O's -- intentions at the outset. It is a thing that turns Earth into Camazotz.

The only known way to introduce socialism into the social order of the United States is to insist at every turn that it is not socialism. How many here are buying that denial? Does that sound a) smart, or b)not smart?

Taking me seriously involves taking virtue seriously. V is telling me he has great difficulty with taking me seriously, apparently because he finds me abrasive, and I am not going to deny being abrasive for a moment. He may also say abrasiveness erodes virtue. Mm -- it could if it's used wrongly. Too, a virtuous life, value given to virtue, a virtuous philosophy of life and being -- these are things that reproach those pseudosophisticates who think a good life can be lived without virtue, on the grounds that virtue is "not modern, not with-it."

Well, I hang out on another BBS, the Armour Archive, where a good many 21st-century people make a big thing, and a good thing, of virtue. They are the sort of people who would not seek in the State a surrogate parent. That's a thing which is bad for both parents and state -- and it bleeds the economy to anemia.

V, I have never thought you stupid, nor warped like two or three Dwellars I could name. I do have to work to keep you and xoxoBruce straight, so similar are your writing styles and philosophies -- I hope never to mix up which of you said what, and I figure the two of you would get along ever so well on a long road trip or a Carnival Lines cruise. I have held for years the opinion your heart stays in the right place, even if your head does not always. I hold that belief now.

You should not confuse an inclination to pout at me for annoying you with a matter of respect, though. There, you're kidding yourself. You can neither diminish me nor build up yourself by sneering. If you flee from me, you cut yourself off from something good that I have and you may never have sought: the pursuit of that virtue which makes a life worth the having lived it.

Or put another way, well pleased he can command that in the infotainment market -- and out of which he employs staff also. But there's the dawning of self-worth that he speaks of often -- his road back up from the depths of alcoholism. It's a good thing, to hit bottom -- and not to stay there. He found drink ruined his mind and his soul. Coulda shot himself.

There is no opinion-show host that doesn't engage in dramatics. They vary in degree, yes -- but when advocating, you must also persuade. That's sales: you must convey and transfer enthusiasm.

Oh drink did it, I wondered about that.

What you think is necessary to survival, and what can be shown/proved to be necessary to your survival are very different matters. As Sam pointed out: it is not government's job to provide each individual with a car. It is government's job to ensure that there is a functioning public transport system, accessible to all and with routes that aren't profitable given subsidies to make sure no one community is left unserved.

It is also not government's job to ensure that I personally have a PC in my house and a broadband connection. It is however, in my opinion, government's job to ensure that there are public terminals, in libraries for example, available to all. It is also government's job to ensure that all schoolchildren are given access to such technology in order that they are not disadvantaged by a lack of computer literacy.


To me, it seems obvious that it is in my nation's interest for as many people as possible to be able to participate in society and the economy. It is of social value that even the least resourced of us has a standard of living above and beyond abject and hopeless poverty. It is of economic value that those people who are at risk of being excluded from the economy altogether, be helped to retain an economic presence. So, for example, foodstamps make a lot less sense to me than a cash benefit payment which allows the recipient to 'spend' within the economy, without being effectively coralled into a closed and deeply uncompetetive, separate tier of that economy.


As a socialist, I believe in a very basic premise: from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Now obviously, in practice life is not that simple. People are not that simple. People do not always do what is best for themselves, or the rest of us. And without an impetus to work, or contribute, good intentions eventually dissolve into selfishness. Badly handled, assistance can exacerbate distress, or sanction selfishness to the detriment of the whole.

At the end of the day it is a matter of balance and judegement. Weighing up the social and economic harm of having large swathes of underclass alienated from the mainstream of the economy and engaged instead in a kind of sub-economy, from which are drawn few or no taxes, and which carry little or no consumer weight. Essentially, weighing up the harm of allowing people and families to fail to such an extent that they are no longer able to function as effective members of society. At the same time, weighing up the social and economic harm of giving assistance, of sanctioning a self-selected exclusion from the active economy, by a few, in order to prevent the unwanted exclusion of a much greater group (imo).

Most western countries, the US included, have got a handle on the idea that they don't actually want large numbers of people starving on the streets. It is not desirable that we have children chasing tourists in the train stations, begging for coin. So, to varying degrees we implement safety nets. But because we wish to deter as many people as possible from seeking those safety nets, we make the assistance offered unpalatable and humiliating.

This seems a retrograde step to me. If the assistance on offer is unpalatable and humliating, then those who have no choice but to seek it for long periods can become psychologically damaged by the experience. Not only have they become excluded by circumstance from the economy, but they have also become excluded from mainstream society and culture. Far from encouraging greater levels of effort on their part, this is actually more likely to compound the problem: their life becomes demotivating, depressing, and deskilling. The ritual humilliations involved in accessing such assistance serve to damage self-confidence, increase the social gaps, and entrench the individual (and even whole families) in inactivty. It makes them less likely to get through an interview successfully, both because they are less able to finance jobsearch, travel, interview clothes and so on, but also because a lack of self-confidence and self-worth do not make for good interviews.

You said at one point in this discussion ( I think) that the answer is not to throw money at the problem. I see things a little differently. I see the past twenty-five years as a race to the bottom. Lower and lower benefits, harsher and harsher conditions, greater and greater levels of approbation. We have long since dispensed with the carrot and have been using bigger and bigger sticks. Yet, no matter how harsh we make life on welfare; no matter how humiliating we make the process; no matter how pitful the sum given; no matter how many people we exclude from assistance, the need has not diminished.

In the early 19th century, Britain altered its approach to dealing with poverty. Poor relief, once given to families out in the community, along with wage top-ups given to certain workers during periods of need (the speenhamland system) were scrapped. Instead relief would be given only through becoming an inmate in the workhouse. At the same time, those workhouses were deliberately made as terrible as possible. This was documented, in debates and letters, in which the main designers of the New Poor Law expressed the idea that, in order to ensure that the idle sought work and saw relief as an absolute last resort, it must be made as unpalatable as possible, that food should be sufficient for continued life, but not sufficient to remove hunger; that men and women should be separated, even if married, and children housed separately from their parents. They were given meaningless, body-breaking work and subjected to brutal regimes. Uniforms identified and dehumanised them in the same way as prisons do now.

It didn't solve the problem.

They chased the bottom: they never reached it.

That only works in high density areas. Financially impossible in this country. To run public transportation a hundred miles, to serve a hundred people, that may or may not use it on any given day, is out of the question.

*nods* I can see that rural transport might be more of a problem over there.

But you can see the principle. It's not about making sure everybody has everything they could want. It's about ensuring, as much as possible, that everybody has what they need to survive and has access to that which is needed to be a functioning member of society.

Yes I see that, and believe it or not, the necessities are available to every American. But not always in a dignified manner, which causes some to decline. Right now there are something like 10 to 20 million children that are eligible for free health care, but not getting it because their parents haven't signed them up.

Yah. We have a similar problem with some of the means tested benefits, especially those directed at older people. Which is one of the problems inherent in making assistance difficult and humiliating: often the people who most need that help are deterred from seeking it when they most need it and then end up becoming a bigger cost burden on the state, when they hit absolute crisis point or preventable health problems become acute enough to warrant emergency intervention.

One of the best things the labour government did (imo) was bring in the cold weather payments for anyone claiming incapacity benefit, disability allowance, or pension credits, and for anyone above a particular age (can't recall if it was 65 or 70). Payment was triggered any time the temperature dropped below freezing for 7 consecutive days. No need to claim: the cheque arrived by post automatically.

By attaching it to particular benefit types, and age bands, and making it automatic, the government made sure that the most vulnerable groups in society had some kind of response to an extended period of cold weather; and reduced drastically the number of pensioners who die of hypothermia every year in the UK.

Now that's counterproductive, the greater the number of elderly fatalities, the lower the cost of elderly benefits.

If they are socialized correctly, the same damage occurs if the assistance on offer is palatable and easy to receive. Productive cultures value productive work.

Well, thank you for your concern UG! And, no a bicycle is not an option for me. Most of the time I can find a friend with a car to take me where-ever, and I pay them for their gas.

The programs are in place, but many of them are badly under-funded. For example, most cities have a two year plus wait for housing vouchers with no emergency assistance available. Congress now wants to cut this program which could turn thousands of people onto the streets - especially low income elderly and disabled.

Depending on the state you live in, food stamps can be woefully inadequate. Social Services treated me like a criminal when I went in to apply and ultimately awarded me $10.00/month. The administrative costs have to be more than that! (BTW, you are in fine form this morning, Bruce - love your one-liners!)

This is so true. Most of the people I know who are on disability would give anything to go back to work - it's a matter of self-respect as much as anything. It's a major defeat to have to go into the Social Security building and fill out that application. I used up all my savings and had nothing left before I could force myself to go down there.

Public assistance saved my family when I was growing up. I wonder how many other families it has saved in the last 40 years. You don't ever really hear about those numbers. Its much more attention grabbing to list the people who suck off the system and never move up.

Amen to that.

My daughter went on "welfare" after her dear hubby went on a confined vacation
for mistaking an undercover cop for a merchant.
She suddenly developed allergies that put an end to her career in the food industry.

She worked with the system to get training and got a job in the printing industry.
She's now an independent woman with 2 kids in college and 1 there next year.

Of course, while on welfare she was forced to drive a pink Cadillac. ;)

That sounds like a good deterrent.

That was the point of work done by the recent Nobel prize winner. Public assistance even results in a more productive economy and nation.

This is the problem I have with the small government, anti-welfare approach. It isn't that I have a candyfloos vision of fairness, and am not able to conscience The Things Which Need To Be Done.

I would prefer a greater level of equity in society: but if it made economic sense for the nation to offer little or no public assistance, I could at least be reconciled to some of the argument on the grounds of the greater good. It doesn't make economic sense to me. Therefore I find it very hard to see why i should reconcile myself to the social harm such a system allows, and indeed to a degree depends upon.

Sounds about par for Colorado. Also, to work for Labor Ready, you have to have had some kind of criminal activity or have been on some kind of govt assistance in the past (from what I can tell. My husband was denied back in May and that was all we could figure. They give you a big long personality test and they won't tell you why if you get denied.) Also, you have to wait a year to re-apply.