Mutually Exclusive Concepts (Ranty Questions)

[MorelCabin]

In my experience it is the most needy people who can't get assistance anyway. Homeless people cannot get welfare...how many of you know that? You need a place of residence to be able to collect, and to have a place of residnce you obviously need money, so it is a catch twenty two for many many needy people out there

I have seen the same thing. I have a friend with serious mental problems. She can't get help because she comes off as "too normal" during interviews. She is high functioning autistic and a multi. Fortunately she found a job working from home on the computer. Face to face with strangers is incredibly difficult for her. Her ability to function varies from day to day. She is struggling her hardest to stay employed.

You have just explained my son, kind of. He can't stay in one place long enough to be able to get assistance. He too has alot of mental issues, and paranoia puts him on the rin alot. He lives on the streets, with many many others who for one reason or another don't qualify for assitance.
The thing is Welfare doesn't work, all it does is allow one generation after another to collect because they know how to play the system. It's bacome a family inheritance, so to speak...for the majority. Anyone who has never been on welfare before has a really hard time getting on and staying on until they can really manage on thier own.

 

[patandchickens]

You cross the line when you try to, through government surrogates, decided how MY time, MY money and My efforts are spent.

The government already does -- what do you think taxes do? Exactly that. Are you suggesting all taxes be abolished? If so, how does the country run, then?

I guess we could all stop arguing if people would just admit that they want the right to control the lives and fortunes of others since that is what it boils down to. Be honest about it at least and quit pretending it is something else.

Who's pretending? I thought I just said fairly clearly that EVERYBODY has some issues on which they feel it is necessary to set rules that others must follow. I do - but so do you. Though not this particular rule, clearly <g>.

People can't just all only do what they feel like. That way lies chaos and terrible terrible things, as those without much in the way of self-limits run roughshod over everyone else. The only way to stop that -- and I am sure nobody here is arguing that thuggishness or fascism or, like, the Third Reich should just be ignored and tolerated as "oh well, that's what those people want to do, let's not force anything on them" -- is to impose some rules on some unwilling people.

No society has ever existed that did NOT to some extent decide how your time, money and efforts are to be spent. This is a basic of human society. Without it we would be wolves. The only thing open to sensible argument is to *what* extent, and exactly *how* and on what issues, the gov't can/should set rules that even the unwilling must obey.

Pat

 

[me&thegals]

This concept seems to be making the rounds in about every other thread on SS these days. It's getting curiouser and curiouser.

Why would I want to be as self-sufficient as possible and still help others?:

1. First, define self sufficiency. As already noted, it's quite a spectrum. I'm not even close to being SS, although a lot closer than many in America.

2. You ARE using things paid for from MY (and your) pocketbook. Unless, of course, you do not drive. Gov't was even used in some form or other to build and regulate the internet. If you were educated in public schools, ditto. If you buy ANY food in America, I guarantee some of it is subsidized (although, WZ, I understand you may be an exception with regards to corn and soybeans.).

3. Some would choose to be as frugal as possible so that they CAN afford to help out others. There was a great show on public radio today about frugality. The author/guest pointed out that as a reason for many folks. The more they save, the more they have to give.

4. We can argue worthiness versus unworthiness until we're blue in the face. Some will argue that only "worthy" people get help. Some will want to help anyone. NOBODY wants to see their help wasted, but some would rather that happen occasionally than let people fall through the cracks.

5. "Wealth redistribution" is a political phrase aimed at making us all outraged. Wealth has always been taxed at certain levels. Again, we could argue until death what a fair level is. Most of us would probably never agree and it would probably be a fairly abitrary number anyway. So, until I see the tax code being dramatically rewritten again Bush style, increasing the wealth of the wealthiest, I won't get too overwrought.

6. Could the welfare system use improvement? I'm sure it could. I know next to nothing about it, but since it is a gov't program I'm sure it is huge and inefficient and sometimes ineffective. But you know the saying about throwing the baby out with the bathwater... I would rather push for better efficiency and effectiveness, less enabling.

 

[reinbeau]

Again, Pat, no one is saying we should abolish taxation. It's just reached it's limit. The well is dry. We don't want any more hands dipping into our pockets.

 

[me&thegals]

I guess a person could look at it another way--Would you rather have "hands in your pockets," as it is often being phrased lately, or pay for it down the road?

Good education now or prison time down the road?

Food donation now or police presence for theft down the road?

Healthcare now or emergency care down the road?

Subsidized housing now or homelessness down the road?

Foreign aid now or increased population issues, global warming, resource depletion and possible war down the road?


Of course many will disagree with my "if not this, then that" arguments, but it wouldn't hurt to take a close look at what happens if you do NOT do something.





Might I also add yet again that there are 100s of reasons to strive for self-sufficiency. Avoiding taxation is merely one.

 

[Wifezilla]

ood education now or prison time down the road?

Food donation now or police presence for theft down the road?

Healthcare now or emergency care down the road?

Subsidized housing now or homelessness down the road?

Foreign aid now or increased population issues, global warming, resource depletion and possible war down the road?

It sounds like a mob protection racket.


"Yuz all has to pay now or something bad might happen!"

 

[me&thegals]

Obviously consequences happen, mob threats or no.

 

[MorelCabin]

I guess a person could look at it another way--Would you rather have "hands in your pockets," as it is often being phrased lately, or pay for it down the road?

Good education now or prison time down the road?

Food donation now or police presence for theft down the road?

Healthcare now or emergency care down the road?

Subsidized housing now or homelessness down the road?

Foreign aid now or increased population issues, global warming, resource depletion and possible war down the road?


Of course many will disagree with my "if not this, then that" arguments, but it wouldn't hurt to take a close look at what happens if you do NOT do something.





Might I also add yet again that there are 100s of reasons to strive for self-sufficiency. Avoiding taxation is merely one.

According to what I have been reading, we are all in for it anyway, we're raising a whole lot of little narcisists now with our "praise our kids to roof and never let them down" parenting practises so prison should be overloaded in a few years, none of our kids have really learned to care about anyone but themselves, so donating anything in the future will be like pulling teeth, healthcare is a crisis because most of the western world lives on fast food, subsidized housing just puts all the poor in one corner of the city so they don't learn anything else, and we won't even touch the rest of it:>)


Quote from Brigitte Berger Massachusstes Welfare Reform http://www.pioneerinstitute.org/pdf/pdialg_8.pdf
"We always talk about the inner-city communities that are most in need. But the most devastating result of
the welfare system as it has existed over the past 40 years is that there is almost no community left in
these areas anymore. We have destroyed volunteerism and the strong wish that exists within individuals
to be responsible to each other. Can we create that again now?"

 

[patandchickens]

Again, Pat, no one is saying we should abolish taxation. It's just reached it's limit. The well is dry. We don't want any more hands dipping into our pockets.

Now if people were saying THAT all along (I mean, literally saying it - no way of reading peoples' minds if that's what they meant but did not say) then there would be no real argument. Obviously it is merely a matter of personal taste whether taxes should be increased any or not, and if so, in what way.

The thing that some of us have been arguing with is statements that 'redistributing wealth' would be a novel and horrible thing (it already exists, pervasively), or that he government has no right to tell people how much money they should part with (again, already exists, pervasively, and is unavoidable), or that the government should not be in the business of giving money to the poor (again, already exists).

Perhaps it's just a matter of very-inaccurately stated ideas, I dunno.

But if it were actually TRUE that y'all are simply saying "I do not wish to pay more tax than I do now", then while some might disagree, there would really be no debate, just people agreeing to disagree.

I have trouble reconciling that with lots of what's being posted here, though (by no means all, but, a lot), so, I dunno as that's really all it is.

Pat

 

[Wifezilla]

Government has a very specific and limit role in a successfully run country. What we have now bears very little resemblance to what that role was supposed to be.