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

[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.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by mercy

Great, define that.

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

Are you taking notes?

[skysidhe]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

I'd say the second one, because it happens for just about anybody who needs it, and lots of people can go ahead and do the first one as well, whereas people who advocate the primacy of the first one are more likely to be advocating the removal of the second.

And that's where the rubber hits the road so to speak.

[9th Engineer]

Gosh. In this deeply fractured society, it is now an option to believe that the other side is not just incorrect, not just wrong, not even just stupid, but actually broken.

Believe what you want. And then get ready for the twister.

We can't survive like this. We can't function like this. We can't live our lives believing that everybody else is a broken, sick fuck. It's not gonna work. We can't educate our children, we can't defend ourselves from enemies, we can't help the unfortunate.

Yesterday we had a study showing that almost all adult men avoid lost, crying children in malls. Why: they expect they will be charged with being a pedophile.

We simply can't go on like this. It won't end well.

The people who believe differently than you are perfectly normal people. Someday, you may need to ask them for help. What will be the result? Will they help you? Someday, they may ask you for help. Will you help them?

How are we going to come together? Especially if there comes a time when we really need to?

Welcome to the world of my generation. This doesn't even come close to scratching the surface of the conclusion most of us who've taken a good look around have come to. You're right, as a 21yo there's no way I'd ever get close to a crying kid in a mall. The new golden rule is 'no good dead goes unpunished' we've known that from middle school. You also should never try to give someone CPR because you can become implicated in their lawsuit if things don't go well. Everything is now somebody else's fault, and so your #1 priority is to avoid involvement with other people in trouble.
In my honors classes in highschool we used to laugh half-heartedly about all sorts of morbid jokes about how we were working until 2am each night so that we would be good cows for the party kids and weed smokers to milk and abuse once we grew up. You've created a generation where the intelligent are turned into cynical society haters, because that's what we've learned from school, the news, domestic policy, and everyone else sitting on the rung above us.
You know what we learned in health class in middle school? You should have seen the scared faces in the class when we covered the risks of sex. I'm not just talking about STD's here, we guys got to learn how we were legally screwed if a girl ever decided to file charges for anything. And then the next day our teacher carefully explained to the girls about how they should contact the authorities if they ever felt like they were being harassed or pressured in any way (not just sexually, just in any form). In HIGHSCHOOL!! You think I was going to risk an automatic criminal record if a girl and I had a falling out and she decided to be vindictive?
Guess what? My generation is out there with full knowledge that anyone they don't intimately know has the power to fuck up the rest of their life. I could list dozens of people I know who I've traded stories with about this shit. Assume other people are just good, normal people? Not on your fucking life!! Go and watch Brady Bunch reruns for that period in history. I'd like to send out a big fucking thanks-a-million for the society we're inheriting here.

I didn't see that post before, but you want to know what your kids think? A bunch of my friends and I from the honors organization on campus once actually toasted to faith in those we don't know, then we all grinned and almost spilled our drinks laughing. It's broken? You better fucking believe it.

[Undertoad]

We knew that "a manageable portion of their wealth/income" was code for full-blown fucking Marxism, but we were surprised that the code fell away so quickly.

[Happy Monkey]

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.

Did they really?

[DanaC]

We knew that "a manageable portion of their wealth/income" was code for full-blown fucking Marxism, but we were surprised that the code fell away so quickly.

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

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Did they really?

Yes. By giving them just enough to get by, but not enough to get out, they perpetuated the ghettos.

[DanaC]

Yes. By giving them just enough to get by, but not enough to get out, they perpetuated the ghettos.

Perhaps then if the benefits hadn't been tied so strongly to parenthood and the amounts given not been mere subsistence levels, t would have had a different effect. If I understand your argument correctly, the help that was offered was inadequate and therefore created a different set of problems rather than resolving the ones it was set up to resolve.

[Cicero]

Originally Posted by Flint

Ouch!

Yea......hmmm.....that was ungrateful of me....it's the same people that make sure I can come to places like these to be ungrateful. Better watch it.......

Temper check.........

But hey- someone else out there is using a drastic amount of emoticons...'spose I'm not the only one.
I've also been in my fair share of cubicles. Having an office with a door to shut..like right now...just probably makes me worse.

Attitude checked.

[Cicero]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Perhaps then if the benefits hadn't been tied so strongly to parenthood and the amounts given not been mere subsistence levels, t would have had a different effect. If I understand your argument correctly, the help that was offered was inadequate and therefore created a different set of problems rather than resolving the ones it was set up to resolve.

Yep.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Perhaps then if the benefits hadn't been tied so strongly to parenthood and the amounts given not been mere subsistence levels, t would have had a different effect. If I understand your argument correctly, the help that was offered was inadequate and therefore created a different set of problems rather than resolving the ones it was set up to resolve.

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.

[9th Engineer]

I oppose benefits by right because I don't believe in that right. I don't believe that we have an inalienable right to any sort of assistance. It is charity given by the rest of us. If you collect benefits then I hope there is a feeling connected to it of thankfulness that other people were kind enough to lend a hand at their own expense. If the government gives you $100 is it any different from my friends and I putting together $100 for you from among us?
If you have honestly fallen on hard times through no fault of your own, then say thank you and use it well. If you were stupid and are now paying the consequences, then you should definitely be humble when taking my money.

[Cicero]

Who's he talking to?

[DanaC]

I oppose benefits by right because I don't believe in that right. I don't believe that we have an inalienable right to any sort of assistance. It is charity given by the rest of us. If you collect benefits then I hope there is a feeling connected to it of thankfulness that other people were kind enough to lend a hand at their own expense. If the government gives you $100 is it any different from my friends and I putting together $100 for you from among us?

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.