[Thread Split] On Welfare and Poverty

[Sergeant Thorne]

What do you think will happen to society as all the social safety nets and health care support disappears under the Republican guise ...

TC, this seems dead obvious to me, but I'll go ahead and point out that Democrats are at the helm right now. Why are you railing against the Republicans? I can only guess that you think there are Republicans in this crowd, but as far as I know that isn't the case. So... start talking about something real. I don't need some monkey perched on top of the current administration's shoulder throwing stones at me because she hates the Republicans and insists that all conservatives are somehow on the same team or something.

You know, maybe personal responsibility will have to mean indentured servitude for a generation for some of these fools who live on welfare and think life is a ride. I don't know. I haven't given it the thought it deserves yet. What I do know is that your liberal social safety net is making people dependent, and it's being used as political leverage to keep a single group in control of the rest of the country. That needs to change. Creating a situation where people are essentially voting themselves a piece of my money is a bad idea from the get-go.

[vision]

You know, maybe personal responsibility will have to mean indentured servitude for a generation for some of these fools who live on welfare and think life is a ride.

I've never met a single person receiving welfare that thinks life is a ride. They think life in unbelievably hard and they bust their asses to get by, given limited opportunities.

What I do know is that your liberal social safety net is making people dependent, and it's being used as political leverage to keep a single group in control of the rest of the country.

Unregulated greed contributing to income inequality is the problem, not the welfare. People on welfare want to be successful just like the rest of us, but every day that goes by makes getting out of poverty harder and harder. Welfare is humane.

Creating a situation where people are essentially voting themselves a piece of my money is a bad idea from the get-go.

How very Christian of you. * shakes head in disgust *

[Spidey]

Why do so many “progressive” people deny the existence of unintended consequences?

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-law ... uences.htm

[Sergeant Thorne]

Vision, you are one of the most foolish people I have ever had the displeasure of engaging. People that live on welfare are not hard workers, despite the story you might get from them when their mouth is running. Everyone's got an excuse, but excuses don't make the world go 'round. That's one of the greatest human faults--the propensity to blame anything or anyone else for your problems. I've never known a hard worker who failed in spite of their efforts, except that they caused it (blow all of your money every weekend, and then break out the sob story when the drought comes). I believe that there is a place in this world for charity, in spite of people's contributions to their own situation, but I don't believe that we should governmentally subsidize failure.

I think you're flexing the definition of "successful".

And I don't give half a ★■◆● if you think I'm more or less "Christian" for my attention to governmental cause and effect. Go ahead and be disgusted and give your $5 to the professional beggar on the street corner so you can feel good about yourself.

EDIT: It rhymes with "stupidity", Spidey.

[vision]

The lack of compassion is astounding. Cold, cold people here.

[Top Gun]

Vision, you are one of the most foolish people I have ever had the displeasure of engaging.

And you are so ignorant of the actual problems people face, it's staggering.

[flip]

LOL! I like how the ones who are always talking about compassion and understanding are the exact ones who are always attacking others!

[Top Gun]

I'm attacking him by stating a simple truth? His own statements show loud and clear that he really doesn't have any concept of why people wind up on services like welfare, or how hard it is to recover from most of the situations that put people there. Anyone still repeating the mantra, "Hard work solves everything!" in the year 2013 is just fooling themselves.

[flip]

Na, I realize Thorne is a little hardcore and I wasn't really talking about you, but Vision is always a little assinine and then criticizes people for doing the same thing. Thorne's statement was one of his perspective, Vision and yours were personal assessments. Yours was benign enough, this time , but Vision's is always personal.

[Will Robinson]

Maybe vision is a bot. He is rigidly following the party mantra but doesn't seem to respond to nuance or new information that makes his position untenable.

[CUDA]

The lack of compassion is astounding. Cold, cold people here.

“A man thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things. ”
― Herman Melville

and this coming from the member that likes to personally attack people regularly you talk compassion but are the last one to display it in their interaction with other members, and have been since you first started posting here

there are different types of compassion. your just not wise enough to have figured that out yet.

"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer."
Benjamin Franklin - Relating to prices and the poor, 1766

[woodchip]

You know, maybe personal responsibility will have to mean indentured servitude for a generation for some of these fools who live on welfare and think life is a ride.

I've never met a single person receiving welfare that thinks life is a ride. They think life in unbelievably hard and they bust their asses to get by, given limited opportunities.

Yeah that's why single women on welfare keep popping out children even though we have all this free contraceptive stuff. They're just working so hard to make a better life for themselves

[Sergeant Thorne]

All right! Hardcore!!

I hold myself to that standard. If I don't bust my ass when it comes time to do it, or I don't handle my affairs wisely, I might find myself on hard times. I don't want any excuses. If and when it ever comes to that, if I console myself by thinking it's not my fault, and society needs to lend a hand to make up for my lack of effort or stupidity, then where is my motivation to change what I'm doing wrong? Do you have any idea how some people are willing to live? Some people just have unbelievably low standards--they're willing to live in absolute squalor. The kind of situation that would motivate you or I to get out and bust our asses doing anything in a heartbeat, they will just live with. Ask anyone who rents low-grade housing (my work owns a couple of houses next-door). And I guarantee that if the Democratic party was able to get to them with their "get out to vote" campaigning, that they helped put Obama in office. These people are guaranteed Democratic voters, and the reason is they of course want an increase (and certainly not a decrease) in government handouts. I worked with someone who was the same way. This guy was a nicer guy, but he was in a pathetic situation and he was deluding himself instead of facing the reality of it. He was also a very easy-going worker (slow and lazy). A big Obama fan. He was with us part-time for a short while.

Absolutely the kind of people Benjamin Franklin was talking about. Good quote.

[CUDA]

“When we want to help the poor, we usually offer them charity. Most often we use charity to avoid recognizing the problem and finding the solution for it. Charity becomes a way to shrug off our responsibility. But charity is no solution to poverty. Charity only perpetuates poverty by taking the initiative away from the poor. Charity allows us to go ahead with our own lives without worrying about the lives of the poor. Charity appeases our consciences.”
― Muhammad Yunus,

Yunus is a noble peace prize winner and author of Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty

Political charity (welfare)is vote pandering and does nothing to address the problems.
"Taxing the Rich" is vote pandering and does nothing to address the problems.
"The rich need to pay their fair share" is Hyperbole and vote pandering and does nothing to address the problem.

As Yunus states "Charity appeases our consciences."it makes us feel better but does nothing to address the problem.

[CUDA]

Vision, you are one of the most foolish people I have ever had the displeasure of engaging.

And you are so ignorant of the actual problems people face, it's staggering.

and you know that how???

ig·no·rant
/ˈignərənt/
Adjective

Lacking knowledge or awareness in general; uneducated or unsophisticated.
Lacking knowledge, information, or awareness about something in particular:

so it seems that your comments fit that definition. you are also ignorant of the problems people face.

his posts are his opinion. to say that he is ignorant to the plight of what people face is ignorant in and of it self. you have no idea what he has faced in his life.

[woodchip]

I always said, if you're on welfare you shouldn't have the right to vote. Hows that for hardcore.

[Top Gun]

Vision, you are one of the most foolish people I have ever had the displeasure of engaging.

And you are so ignorant of the actual problems people face, it's staggering.

and you know that how???

Because I know several people personally who are facing extremely difficult financial situations, and what they're dealing with is so far removed from Thorne's stereotypical mantra, it might as well be describing another planet. The fact that he's so willing to toss around blanket statements, and ham-handedly reduce complex realities to "don't make excuses," shows clearly that he has no real grasp on what he's talking about.

And that quote from Yunus has very little to do with the purpose of social welfare, or the means by which it's carried out.

I always said, if you're on welfare you shouldn't have the right to vote. Hows that for hardcore.

Hardcore disgusting.

[Sergeant Thorne]

"Complex realities" are overcome by people who "don't make excuses" every day. Have been since man crawled out of the mud somehow and evolved from monkeys but not the monkeys we see today (other monkeys). It's called life. We could talk about your friends, but it's very difficult to judge another person's situation (unless you believe you should take their word for it), because you need to know about their past (what has led up to where they are now), their present situation itself (you say it's complex), and most importantly their attitude. From a certain perspective it's really not fair to judge, because we usually don't have this complete picture, but nevertheless we must be able to grasp the short and long of it if we are to determine the value of our own choices, and I believe there are certainly indicators. My perspective does not lack complexity, and I think that's obvious. I would say that yours is a shallow treatment of the subject which uses "complex realities" to waive a grasp of certain universal truths touched on in some of these quotes.

[flip]

Well, I'm a little hardcore myself, but In my latter years I've tried to be softhanded about it The fact is, I can understand where Thorne is coming from and also where (vision/Topgun) are coming from. Thorne is saying that it is impossible for those in a bad situation to stay in that situation if they are determined to do something about it. That's absolutely true. Vision/Topgun are saying that sometimes people fall on hard times and have a hard time getting a grip and handling it. That is absolutely true. The truth is that you can hardly deal with people in absolutes. Poverty is a disease of the mind but sometimes people have been beat down so much they lose motivation.

[Heretic]

[youtube]lhr0SNveyyA[/youtube]

[Will Robinson]

I worked in a restaurant where a bunch of teenage girls worked part time and they used to go on and on about how much more they would get on their check from the government if they would have a second and third baby. Their general policy was to have three so they could quit the real job at the restaurant. They all had their grandmothers raising the children and keeping the money for themselves.

I realize this doesn't represent all people who use welfare but there is a sizable sub culture across america that lives free on whatever the government will pay them. They don't aspire to become educated or learn skill that can get them hired. We all know who they are voting for when they get old enough and when they become grandmothers they will be the ones watching the babies while their granddaughters go out and make more voters....

Rudy Giuliani reformed welfare in NYC when he was mayor reducing recipients and unemployment accordingly, it was great for everyone concerned. Obama has done the opposite and we have more than ever on welfare now.
How compassionate is it to entice people to live that way? The peer groups that exist in the ghetto tell these young people they have no chance to get ahead and gaming the system is the only way they can survive. They are told it is their way to get back at the rich white man who put them in the state they are in... etc.

It is a plantation in every way, they aren't picking cotton, they are churning out voters.

[Sergeant Thorne]

Well, I'm a little hardcore myself, but In my latter years I've tried to be softhanded about it The fact is, I can understand where Thorne is coming from and also where (vision/Topgun) are coming from. Thorne is saying that it is impossible for those in a bad situation to stay in that situation if they are determined to do something about it. That's absolutely true. Vision/Topgun are saying that sometimes people fall on hard times and have a hard time getting a grip and handling it. That is absolutely true. The truth is that you can hardly deal with people in absolutes. Poverty is a disease of the mind but sometimes people have been beat down so much they lose motivation.

I beg to differ in that I don't think that's what Top Gun and Vision are saying at all. I totally agree with what you're saying they're saying. I get that. But who's responsibility is it? It's a person's own responsibility. It's never the responsibility of anyone else. People are trying to make it the government's responsibility. The problem is it's not only wrong to take money from one person to give it to another (you want to talk about Christianity, vision, charity was never by compulsion in the Bible), it's also a conflict of interest, governmentally, to make people dependent on a government that is supposed to be cultivating an economically prosperous environment ("creating jobs"), AND there are all kinds of unintended consequences.

Open question, flip. Since you say poverty is a disease of the mind (I agree), do you think it's possible to fix or account for the problem governmentally?

I don't see any solution, other than focusing on making sure that the government is not creating or contributing to situations/cultures/environments that lend to people being beat down or losing motivation. Like maybe letting them keep as much of their hard-earned money as possible, keeping bureaucratic bull**** (red tape and hoops) to an absolute minimum , and not selling our economy out to the interests of money-changers or foreign nations.

[flip]

No Thorne, I think it is the responsibility of Christians, not the government. A government should never start directly providing for people because it always inevitably leads to enslavement. Although, that ship has set it's course in this country already . We as Christians are supposed to lead others to the same sense of empowerment as we have received. That is the only way this country will change course, when people realize their inheritance. Otherwise, they stay in this slave mentality and can never think outside of it.

[Sergeant Thorne]

I think that's right.

To clarify a difference, when I said that it was no one else's responsibility, I was saying that a person's life is no one else's responsibility (speaking of adults). It is their own. You could very well say that it is a society's responsibility (not government's) to HELP those people who are stumbling or going through hard times. A friend of mine talks about how it's such a bad thing that business in particular and society in general has become so distant/impersonal that people don't bother to get to know and help each other like they used. The Bible makes it a Christian's responsibility to HELP as well, but a person's life is always their own responsibility, and that's what we have to keep in mind when these politicians come to us with their wonderful ideas.

[Spidey]

You Guys…….that poor woman is just a poor helpless victimizer…..errr, victim of society.

[woodchip]

I always said, if you're on welfare you shouldn't have the right to vote. Hows that for hardcore.

Hardcore disgusting.

Whats disgusting is having a ever larger percentage of the population sucking money out of the govt who never put anything into it. Tell me, at what percent of the population being on the dole will disgust you more than them not having the right to vote?

[flip]

Heh, yeah, then there are those too Spidey. Yeah, probably a better word Thorne than Christian. Community should be helping each other and setting the standard and minimizing government involvement as much as possible. See, what these people don't understand is that they are the direct cause of socialism and government control. There are many quotes from founding fathers that a republic is only as strong as the morals of the people. When people become lawless and self-serving, losing their sense of community, is when more laws are made. In one way i could despise them, but that only serves to further the disease. That is why religion is so important in republics. It causes others to think more highly of themselves and if you are living your life with complete integrity, there is no cause against you. This problem must be worked at from the bottom up. Each christian taking authority and action right where they are.

[Sergeant Thorne]

Personally I think it would be more correct to say that people leave room for socialism, government control, etc. I wouldn't say they're causing it. There are specific people that are guilty of causing it.

[Tunnelcat]

It was quite a hot topic for them because they were at a major cross roads with how to limit the federal government. Many felt that letting the federal government keep a standing army during peacetime was a mistake, coming from a class system in England where tyrants hid behind "royalty" it was no stretch of the imagination to fear a president could quickly become the King of America. It was Madison's reassurances to his peers in those discussions that the free men of america would always outnumber the army and if those free men were allowed to keep and bear their own arms, ie; be 'well regulated' (as in 'well equipped' as the word was used in that era, not 'well controlled' by government as the word is used today) then the free people would be safe from a tyrannical government.

Granted, the fear that another tyrant King rising to absolute power drove the thinking of our newly minted nation of rebels to create the Second Amendment, and I can't fault them one damn bit. You also can't deny that they also feared their own slaves could rebel as well, because it WAS a constant fear. It's not a pretty reason to acknowledge, but it may be ONE of the reasons they came up with the 2nd Amendment, so live with it. The past is littered with some nasty history that shouldn't just be swept under the rug because it's inconvenient.

In fact, you do bring up a better reason to allow the populace to keep their guns in this day and age of laissez faire Capitalism. The fear of the powerful wealthy, the Plutocrats and Oligarchs, taking over our government and our country for the enrichment of themselves. The U.S. government is already infested with money-backed powers, so yeah, why should we NOT keep our guns to rebel against the new Plutocracy that's now becoming entrenched? Hell, if things got bad enough that required people to live in private walled cities just to keep safe, violent revolution against these Plutocrats would be a viable option. If we ever get into another Great Depression this time because of the excesses and greed of the wealthy Plutocrats, AGAIN, you can bet people wont' be sitting around waiting for their next meal in some damn soup line like they passively did like sheep during the Great Depression. Too many people have farther to fall and a lot to lose this time.

By the way, we don't really have any "militias" in this country, just a bunch of loose cannons, gang bangers and rednecks with the organizational structure of jello. The ones that are somewhat organized are not to far from being terror groups with not-so-pleasant agendas. Not exactly what the Founding Fathers envisioned when they stated that passage. They also never envisioned the kind of lethal weaponry the average person can get access too either.

flip, as nice of a person as you are, I disagree with your idea that religion is required for morality. People are moral if they're taught by their parents and peers to respect others, be polite to others and don't steal, or bully, or trespass, or torture, or kill others. Most of our morality is learned in childhood, not in adulthood, and our parents are our first line teachers. If the parent fails, so does the child. I've known or met a lot of "religious" people who could be very vicious to others when it suited them or when something went against their "religion". Morality comes from a pure heart and conscience, not from some particular religion. More wars are started because of religion than I can count.

[CUDA]

but it may be ONE of the reasons they came up with the 2nd Amendment, so live with it.

and it may not be.
you're making crap up based on speculation and not fact. I'll stick with the facts as told by the man that wrote the amendment, not by a perspective by a member of this board that continually screams racism with unfounded accusations

[flip]

I don't disagree with you TC, in fact that is why Mason's are required to be of faith, but not a particular faith. It goes towards a higher calling and the nature of people. Put it this way, let's say your not a particularly foul-mouthed person, but you befriend one at work. I would bet my bottom dollar eventually you would begin to take on some of their nature. Every founding father knew and wrote about the importance of a higher calling in a free republic. They were the engineers after all and men of great insight. I'm a christian so I cannot be a mason, but, I do recognize the logic behind it.

[Will Robinson]

...

Granted, the fear that another tyrant King rising to absolute power drove the thinking of our newly minted nation of rebels to create the Second Amendment, and I can't fault them one damn bit. You also can't deny that they also feared their own slaves could rebel as well, because it WAS a constant fear. It's not a pretty reason to acknowledge, but it may be ONE of the reasons they came up with the 2nd Amendment, so live with it. ....

You first said 'you found the "real" reason they created the 2nd amendment', 'To keep slaves from uprising.'
Then you said it was 'the probable reason'.
Now you have walked it backwards again, now you are saying it is 'one of the reasons'.

If you bothered to test this ' theory' before adopting it you would find that there were many, many, people in support of the creation of the 2nd amendment that were, at the same time, opposed to slavery!

So you are still playing he race card to aid a political party much more than you are honestly examining and re-telling history.
Your dem/liberal hacks are already trying to create and build the same 'That's racist' narrative into public debate because they know that negative ads work in suppressing public support for just about anything. Obama has activated his campaign network to help advance his anti-gun agenda, this '2nd amendment was for slave owners' tactic is just the beginning.

So considering how twisted and weak your assertion is, and considering how despicable it is to use lies and bullying tactics to disparage people's character and infringe on their rights I have to say you absolutely suck for trying to give support to such a position! I can't think of any excuse for that behavior which you are trying to justify. I suppose you think the first amendment was put in place so people would be free to promote slavery too....

[Top Gun]

I always said, if you're on welfare you shouldn't have the right to vote. Hows that for hardcore.

Hardcore disgusting.

Whats disgusting is having a ever larger percentage of the population sucking money out of the govt who never put anything into it. Tell me, at what percent of the population being on the dole will disgust you more than them not having the right to vote?

Yes clearly the current welfare/food stamp numbers have nothing at all to do with the most severe global economic downturn since the Great Depression. It's all just a vast left-wing conspiracy to manufacture votes.

I see quite a few platitudes and anecdotes and 18th-century quotes flying around in here, but what I don't see is much in the way of actual data to back up a position. Data like, say, the fact that income disparity in this country is currently at a record high, or that the ability to climb to a higher social class has all but disappeared, regardless of individual circumstances. You can post a video of a single welfare queen (and man that is one racially- and gender-loaded term, but that's a topic for another thread), but unless you have broader statistics to demonstrate a widespread problem of welfare fraud, it remains a single video. We may all have our opinions, but at the end of the day, the sociology wins out in determining if these policies actually work.

[Spidey]

But yet you dismiss actual stories of abuse as merely anecdotal, and then ask for statistics…well if someone could compile statistics, then there wouldn’t be a problem…would there, because we would know every person who is abusing the system, in order to compile those statistics…get real.

[woodchip]

If you look around and google "welfare abuse fraud" you might be surprised at how much is going on.

[Top Gun]

But yet you dismiss actual stories of abuse as merely anecdotal, and then ask for statistics…well if someone could compile statistics, then there wouldn’t be a problem…would there, because we would know every person who is abusing the system, in order to compile those statistics…get real.

Why do you think the statistics would be difficult to compile? Individuals do get busted for welfare fraud, so you simply observe the frequency of those cases, and compare them to the total number of welfare recipients to get an indication of fraud percentage. And if your assertion is that substantially more fraud occurs than is caught, then the way to gather those data would presumably be the same way that other fraud cases are caught: look at payouts to individuals versus demonstrated need, and run checks on recipients' names against public records. It isn't exactly rocket science.

Honestly I think it's pretty funny that you'd tell me to "get real" when the only way to do so would be to present these exact statistics. Anecdotal evidence is literally meaningless in a rigorous context.

[Spidey]

So show me the stats.

Besides…abuse is not my main concern…it’s the trap affect.

[CUDA]

statistics estimate that about 3% are provable fraud and equal about $13 billion a year. and they estimate that it may be as much as 15% fraud.. but those stats do not include the new cards that are food stamp cards and that people are not using for actual food. they have effectively given them a renewable debit card every month. and that also doesn't take into account those that ride their unemployment (government funded vacations) out to the end before really looking for a Job. estimate put the waste in the hundreds of billions

[Spidey]

And now that we have numbers, what do they mean? Is 3% acceptable, is 15% too much?

I don’t really give a damn about numbers, I’ve lived in two areas that were/are rife with abuse and fraud, and the only “numbers” that matter to me are…there is a whole bunch goin on!

Hell when I lived in North Philly, it was a damn sub culture that didn’t even bother to conceal itself. One example was every month, when it was food stamp time, you would literally see lines forming outside the houses that paid cash for them, so people could buy drugs, booze and cigarettes.

And then there are the intangible examples of abuse, like letting your children grow up without an education…etc.

I could go on and on with the stories…but TG doesn’t put any credibility in actual accounts, because he’s obsessed with his little numbers.

[Tunnelcat]

but it may be ONE of the reasons they came up with the 2nd Amendment, so live with it.

and it may not be.
you're making crap up based on speculation and not fact. I'll stick with the facts as told by the man that wrote the amendment, not by a perspective by a member of this board that continually screams racism with unfounded accusations

Don't look at me. Danny Glover came up with the theory and the lefties picked up on it. I'm just saying it could be one of several "plausible reasons" for forming militias, back then. It could even be "a" real reason, I don't know. I can't ask those who came up with the Amendment. They're a little dead. If the slave patrol militias reason sounds like an inconvenient truth, so be it. Slavery existed back then as a landowners right and they had to deal with it on a day to day basis, specifically by being better armed than their possessions.

Will, you can yell and gripe at the "theories" I find on the net all you want. Yes, I said it may be one of the real reasons, but yes, it may not the main reason. History always changes as time passes, so I have no proof and time has erased the evidence. I'll walk back my original statement if you like, because I really don't know the answer. Whatever the reasoning the Founding Fathers used to come up with the Second Amendment, be it based in a fear of tyranny, racist slave control, or other forgotten reasons in history, it's all a moot point. I'm NOT against the Second Amendment. You can quit your "right wing" arguing and raging about us "liberals" taking away your "rights". It's hogwash. Not all of us can be so easily led around by our noses by the reactionary Dems. Some of us do have brains that aren't looped up on feel good ideals and hemp. I too believe that having our own arms should remain our Constitutional right and that the real problem that needs to be solved is a sick society that craves violence towards their fellow human beings. I don't fully trust those in power either.