New study/experiment. Uber conservatives now get a diagnosis?

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Yes. The way if was handled it was almost mandatory for husband/dad to disappear, at least on paper, but too often in reality.... leaving welfare mom trapped in the system. Then welfare mom's daughters, feeling equally helpless, often getting pregnant in high school, then dropping out to work the only system they know. Rinse & repeat.

I'm not so sure. Reagan's "wellfare queen" was an early example of the right wing noise machine, and I suspect that the stories of women having babies to increase their checks have been similarly overblown.

[Undertoad]

Please Cicero, don't hold back your anger simply because I run the place.

And don't let my message #2 prevent you from going all-out, too. I was actually wondering how long it would take before we would go from that message, to some sort of assault on me. I figured first someone would use it as a springboard for their political side. Either one would be highly ironic and weak. Well of course, check and mate.

But there's a good side. It turns out that most people on the thread find my cubicle-farming to be deeply compassionate work. I make a good amount of money by doing that, rather than doing something in the outside world, and damn, I am now just full of compassion.

If you aren't paying as much tax as I am, perhaps you can be compassionate in some other way. Probably not AS compassionate, but not all of us are blessed with the intelligence and skills to reach this particular level of compassion.

Hey maybe you could try sucking dick? If you really suck a lot you can make more money, pay higher taxes, and then you can be compassionate too!

[DanaC]

We had the same thing here under Thatcher: the teenage single mum who gets pregnant 'to get a council flat'. I daresay if you rtrawled the country you could have found a few girls who'd done exactly that...but mostly teenage girls had kids because they a) got accidentally preggers, b) had some vague notion of baby as somewhere across between a doll and a pet and hadn't really understood how tying and how much hard work they are, or c) they were troubled kids with a deep need for something that would be completely theirs, someone who would love them unconditionally.

There are other possible reasons. To suggest that across the country vast armies of girls were getting knocked up to get a council flat was disingenuous to say the least.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Hey maybe you could try sucking dick? If you really suck a lot you can make more money, pay higher taxes, and then you can be compassionate too!

She'd have to move to Nevada for that to work.

[DanaC]

I figured first someone would use it as a springboard for their political side.

Yeah well, kind of hard to look at charity and compassion without looking at need, and I don't see how its possible to look at need without it being political. Man is a political animal, life is politics.

On an individual level I doubt there's anyone posting in this thread who is more, or less compassionate than the rest of us who are posting. We all express/act on that human instinct differently.


[eta]

Originally Posted by Undertoad
Hey maybe you could try sucking dick? If you really suck a lot you can make more money, pay higher taxes, and then you can be compassionate too!

Yeah, well the system pretty much has most of us sucking dick most of the time anyway.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Cicero

Yea- how presumptuous of me!!! Ha!!!! Haa!!! I am such a bitch. He smelled so bad- like death-but i just come along and assume that everyone that is leaning at a right angle in their chair with a painful expression on their face has something wrong with them. Might need help.
Presumptuous bitch.......I also presumed that he had just been helped by the hospital which is why he had the shoes on and might have needed some money.....and gotten some fucking bad and painful news on top of it.

Well he didn't turn it down when I gave him money, and hell, if someone approached me and gave me money....neither would I. I wasn't the Queen of Mercy either....I'm no saint....I just handed him money no questions asked.....pretty lazy of me really....Since when do I have to fucking ask to give people money?!? I didn't sit next to him either- I was the only one that would sit in his general vicinity. Because that is where I always sit. I just didn't go out of my way to avoid him or the situation either. By your tale you would have me plopping on his lap- so you could make some ridiculous point about helping people unasked.

Bitches.

You act like everyone that needs help asks for it! Who is presumptuous now? I don't care if my stomach fell out of my body with hunger.....I would never ask for anything and neither do a lot of people........People need to ask for help? No letting people keep any dignity- make them beg.

Dude here's some cash- see ya! I wish people would do that to me....

Whatever UT.

Go try that on someone that didn't just crawl from underneath a rock. Or someone that hides in a damned cubicle their whole life.

So if the dude ran off an bought a dime bag from somebody or a fifth of MD 20/20 wine how did you just help him? further his addiction of feed his belly? That is why such actions are quite fruitless. Now walk up to the counter and buy the dude a sandwhich, good on you. Throwing money at them is wrong and most people who have experience with dealing with homeless people would tell you so IMHO.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

When the government tried to help, they created several generations of welfare dependant groups, that gave up working and just squirted out babies to increase their monthly stipend. A tremendous disservice to those people.

And they are still doing it.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by BigV

From each according to his ability.
To each according to his need.

Are you taking notes?

Certainly you are not trying to lecture to me about how I should "give" to worthy causes?

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by DanaC

I don't think I've ever hidden the fact that I take a marxist analysis.

yea, if you haven't heard that system failed and continues to fail.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Think of it more as society's savings club. When we are in work and solvent, as most of us are, most of the time, we pay in. If we are having difficulties and require that extra assistance, we draw on the savings. Unless a system is very badly managed and underfunded, having a benefits system increases people's economic viability/activity. Having a larger disposable income means people are less inclined to throw that income into the grey economy, instead they are more likely to put it into the open economyby buying things from shops. They are less likely to raise children in a chaotic and damaging environment and less likely to succomb to crime and drugs.

As long as the benefits are accompanied by better access to training and education and efforts are made to stop the 'race to the bottom' on wages which leads to factories closing in Detroit and reopening in Mexico, then people who are helped in this way are far more likely to rejoin the working population rather than become further and further isolated from it. Having returned to work someone is then putting back into the savings fund. If it's managed correctly, many of the people using that savings fund are also the people who pay into that fund.

In terms of the minority who will always disconnect themselves from the mainstream and take from the system without attemtping to pay back in: I consider that an acceptable loss leader on getting the majority out of poverty and social exclusion, back into economic activity and able to contribute to increasing the country's wealth/health.

That is a pipe dream. People who get nothing for nothing will not suddenly recontribute to society. I see it all the time. People get an insurance settlement they owe to a health care provider (and who the hell knows why insurance companies send them the check in the first place?) and the individual runs out and buys a brand new truck. They just don't pay the bill. They expect something for nothing. People have learned through many generations that he way to get ahead in life is to take advantage of a generous society that gives them something for nothing. And they like it that way.

[skysidhe]

Originally Posted by Cicero

Yea- how presumptuous of me!!! Ha!!!! Haa!!! I am such a bitch. He smelled so bad- like death-but i just come along and assume that everyone that is leaning at a right angle in their chair with a painful expression on their face has something wrong with them. Might need help.
Presumptuous bitch.......I also presumed that he had just been helped by the hospital which is why he had the shoes on and might have needed some money.....and gotten some fucking bad and painful news on top of it.

Well he didn't turn it down when I gave him money, and hell, if someone approached me and gave me money....neither would I. I wasn't the Queen of Mercy either....I'm no saint....I just handed him money no questions asked.....pretty lazy of me really....Since when do I have to fucking ask to give people money?!? I didn't sit next to him either- I was the only one that would sit in his general vicinity. Because that is where I always sit. I just didn't go out of my way to avoid him or the situation either. By your tale you would have me plopping on his lap- so you could make some ridiculous point about helping people unasked.

Bitches.

You act like everyone that needs help asks for it! Who is presumptuous now? I don't care if my stomach fell out of my body with hunger.....I would never ask for anything and neither do a lot of people........People need to ask for help? No letting people keep any dignity- make them beg.

Dude here's some cash- see ya! I wish people would do that to me....

Whatever UT.

Go try that on someone that didn't just crawl from underneath a rock. Or someone that hides in a damned cubicle their whole life.

No stand-up guy to come along in your defense UT.

I would but I am too dumbfounded at the moment. Maybe you should have called her a name instead of making up a sensible alternative scenario.

[lookout123]

Originally Posted by DanaC

This is why I favour a system of benefits by right. You are not 'asking for help' in a good benefits system imo, you are accessing something to which you have a right. Much less humiliating.

that is bullshit. i have a right to go look for a job to get money, i don't have a right to be given money just because i don't have a job. the major disconnect here is that my view of life is that we were all created equal. meaning we all come in screaming and naked. the commonality ends there. what we do with our gifts and abilities should determine what we achieve/receive in life. yes, some people are born into money. too damn bad. quit worrying about what they have and focus on what you have. you have a level of intelligence and a work ethic. use them. get as far as you can in life, but don't bitch and moan because someone gets farther.

there are plenty of examples of people stepping out of poverty and achieving success - whatever that means to them. they achieved something because they thought something was a worthy goal and they did what it takes to achieve it.

if you want something bad enough to work for it, you can achieve it. if you can't it is because you didn't want it bad enough. end of story.

[DanaC]

yea, if you haven't heard that system failed and continues to fail.

I said I took a marxist analysis (which I do) I did not say I favour a Russian soviet system (which as you say failed). I take marxist analysis and live in a nation which combaines capitalism with socialist values. That system hasn't failed. It works very well in most of Europe.

that is bullshit. i have a right to go look for a job to get money, i don't have a right to be given money just because i don't have a job.

Agreed. I, however, live in a country where I have a right as a citizen to access benefits should I find myself unemployed or working for low pay. I consider that a better system than one which insists on gratitude for society's 'charity'. I personally think my own system could be improved and people should be given more help, not less. Hence my suggestion that in my view a properly run benefits system should be seen and accessed as a right by any citizen who needs it.

[DanaC]

Actually, I'm probably using the wrong word when I say 'right', the word that's more appropriate is 'entitlement'.

If you are accessing something to which you are entitled as a citizen, that is less humiliating and damaging than if you are asking for help/charity which is not an entitlement.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

I'm not so sure. Reagan's "wellfare queen" was an early example of the right wing noise machine, and I suspect that the stories of women having babies to increase their checks have been similarly overblown.

I am, I've witnessed it first hand.
Spade makes some conclusions that are evidence he doesn't understand how it works at street level.