"I don't like my hard earned tax dollars shoring up lazy people! Down with Welfare!"
I hear this a lot from conservatives.
Many of them are saying that if someone gets government aid because of being poor, it should be strictly and rigidly enforced to ensure they're not wasting that money. Basically, telling these people how to live while ALSO being poor. That's a gross sentiment in and of itself. Many would also say they're sick of all the welfare fraud and welfare abuse. What this boils down to is an inherent hatred of laziness. But the end game is thus and WHY their sentiments aren't worthy of consideration: We perfect the welfare system. Those that deserve the aid, receive it and the fraudulent and lazy are barred from this aid and "rightfully so". The lazy and the fraudulent are now cast out onto the streets with NO OTHER OPTION but to get a job. There is a problem here. The system is now perfect. It has very perfectly identified the fraudulent and the lazy. Now... You give me a manager who would be willing to hire a fraudulent and lazy person (since this can be absolutely proven now with a background check) and I'll show you a manager quicksharply on their way to this perfect welfare... where the way he spends that aid is DICTATED in every single way, a gross violation of human liberty at its very core. The magnitude of this sentiment is simply thus: The totalitarian enslavement of the poor and the sentencing of DEATH by social ostracizing on a state level for the crime of being nothing more than LAZY. If you seriously have a problem with welfare because you hate laziness so much, then mother fuck you. |
I wouldn't even classify it as being lazy.
Here in Europe if you want to change careers, the government will pay for training. You can leave your job and go back to college. During this period you can legally get social welfare. It's the same all over Europe, Scandinavia, and Australia. Some people aren't lazy, they just hate their boring, meningeal job. With proper education and training that person can become a productive, tax paying member of society. Too bad in America they don't offer such safety net for everyone there. |
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Plus, this usually applies to jobs the government is on a recruitment drive for, rather than springing from some "help us help you find your dream career" value in European society (in the UK, at least). A few years ago it was teaching; now that Labour's "let's send every single school-leaver to university to pass the cost of education to the individual in question, and mask unemployment figures in one fell swoop" policy has created a surplus of graduates with degrees they can't really use, teaching is acually pretty competitive, especially in the arts. Those notices on public transport that were proclaiming "Those who can, teach" a few years ago, are now extolling the virtues of mental health nursing instead. Europe definitely isn't some utopia where no one need eveer be trapped in a job they hate. MILLIONS of people are, with no realistic way out. |
Can I just interject here and say that I know several people personally who are both fully qualified (one guy's a trained chef) and fully capable of getting a job, who are on benefits and who make more money on those benefits than people who aren't on them. And I find it sickening. If you have a legit reason for not working fair enough, but the fact that you had ME 15 years ago doesn't cut it...especially when you somehow have the energy to attend countless dance and drama classes and fuck off to London whenever you want on my tax money.
/rant over |
If someone can live better off through welfare than with a full time job, that's not an indictment against welfare, it should be an indictment against capitalism.
Why the hell would someone want to work to earn LESS in the market than what they are provided for by the government? They would effectively be paying to work. If the government can provide better than the market, why do people condemn the government instead of the market? |
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And I find it hilarious when people are like "ON MY TAX DOLLARS." There's a lot more worse things to be outraged by. The exuberant lifestyle of politicians? Retired politicians collecting millions in pension? Billions poured into the military and war? Millions wasted on abstinence only sex education? 37 billions dollars owed in child support, with those children going without having to rely on social assistance? |
What the original complainer (not the OP) is forgetting is that if he doesn't like the way his tax dollars are spent, and votes for representatives and propositions to support his desires, but loses to the majority, he must accept the rule of law that won. That is how our republic works. He can of course continue to whine about it.
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So what happens when everyone is on welfare cause they just don't want to work, or because they get more money and benefits being on welfare than they do actually working? Who pays the welfare check then? |
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The fact that US minimum wage does not necessarily mean a living wage has been discussed elsewhere on these boards; you can try stigmatizing people who take the more financially viable option of going on welfare, but aside from the fact that this demonstrably DOES NOT WORK, I suspect it also won't get you far with people who have always worked where possible, paid ther taxes, and now feel entitled to some reciprocal help from the system they've been paying into all their lives. And finally, bitching about people not wanting to work is moot in an economy without enough jobs for people who DO want work. |
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I don't have a problem with someone taking temporary government assistance when they actually need it, due to physical disability or a way to help them get back on their feet in a financial crisis. And I don't think most people would have a problem with that either. The key word there being temporary. The problem comes when people use welfare for a free ticket to not work, to do whatever they want and expect the rest of the tax payers to pay their bills. That's the problem we have in the US, and obviously other parts of the world. Of course not everyone does but a good portion of them do. Nothin wrong with being lazy. If you don't want to work, no one really has the right to force you to. But that also means no one should be obligated to pay for your existence either. When you're using someone else's money to live on, you don't have the right to decide how you spend that money. You spend it on what it is provided for you to spend it on. That's why food stamps are supposed to be for food and not cable tv or cell phones. You don't need cable tv or a cell phone to survive. Those are luxuries. If you want luxuries, earn your own money, the way those tax payers that are paying for your food stamps do. |
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Even when you reframe the whole thing as a massive government conspiracy, you're still blaming the scam victim instead of the con-man. |
I'm pretty sure victim blaming is the free space in Defensive Deviant Bingo.
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You can call them victims if you like, I call them opportunists, because that's exactly what they are, and are just as guilty as the government that created the system.
If a man walks down the street and sees a store front with a basket of merchandise out front and nobody around watching it, should he be allowed to take what he wants? It's easier than him having to pay for it, after all. Let the store pay for it, they make more money than he does. But, should somebody catch him stealing, using your logic, he would be a "victim". While welfare isn't quite the same as stealing, if someone is receiving welfare when they know full well they are capable of working, they are stealing. At that point it doesn't matter that your welfare check pays your rent AND your cable, while mcdonalds only pays your rent, it makes you no different than the guy who steals from the store who offered him the opportunity. Not only does it create a mindset that it's okay, it diminishes the pot that could be used to provide for those who truly do have a legitimate need for it. The current economy creates a climate that generates more welfare, but if the government actually wanted to do something to elevate that burden, they would be doing things to make the country more attractive for businesses to hire, instead of closing up shop and moving to other countries to avoid all the regulations and bullshit fines they face here. |
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Working in retail now, its the same thing. They say they're going to hire you "part time", but in good months you get like 37.5 hours a week, just enough so you're working almost full time but not enough to get benefits. But now that its January, everyone is cut back. I'm in school right now so its not hurting me too too badly since I can rely on student grants from the government, but there are people who work there where its their only job, and they get cut back from almost full time to 10 hours a week. A lot of retail people ask to be just laid off until April so they can get EI and live rather than work a job that won't pay the rent. And the stores offer to do it. My roommate just got laid off completely because an ex worker returned to town and they decided to bring her back on and cut back hours for everyone else, rooommate being the newest they just told her they were letting her go. Hunting for retail jobs suck ass until summer, and hit peak in the winter. She could work, but who's hiring? It sucks worse for tipped employees in places where they don't even make minimum wage because their tips are assumed. Tips are awesome when you already have a liveable wage and its a nice treat, but when you make four bucks and hour and work in a touristy place and Europeans aren't used to tipping, its futile work. Quote:
Its like when they deported immigrants and couldn't find one American willing to break their backs to do the farm jobs they do, so now farmers are screwed. |
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No... I still see people who are better off on welfare than they are working as victims of a system that doesn't work. You are basically positing hard work and self-reliance as important values, by saying that people who would be better off on welfare should think of the example they're setting to their children. However, that good old American dream doesn't simply value these Calvinistic virtues in and of themselves, it explicitly promises a pay-off: that is, "IF you work hard and make your way on merit, THEN you will achieve material security as your reward." That's what the American dream - the cornerstone of those values you're advocating - is. If the pay-off isn't there, you would have to be either stupid or brainwashed into believing an ideal which does not serve you is your best option. Again, the only benefits are to the system your actions are propping up - and whoever THAT'S serving, it clearly, demonstrably is not you. |
Hard work and self reliance is the only thing that has ever kept people free.
Nothing worth having comes easy. You can claim that people are better off on welfare than they are working for a "system that doesn't work", but all you're really doing is saying that people are better off allowing the government to take care of them instead of taking care of themselves. If you're only getting 17 hours a week at your minimum wage job, that allows plenty of time left to work a 2nd job if need be, or learn a skill that you can market. Where is it written that you have to work for a corporation or a factory to make a living without depending on the government? You don't have to have a college degree to learn a skill. Libraries are still free. There is plenty people can do to earn a living wage that doesn't require working for any corporation or relying on welfare. Wash cars on the weekends. cut grass, paint houses, learn how to do small repairs, run an ad on craigslist advertising whatever it is you know how to do, cause it's just about guaranteed someone will need it done and be willing to pay you. You may not get a 6 figure income, and yeah you probably will have to live on ramen for a while. You probably won't be able to afford that house or that fancy new car for a few years, and weekends out with your buddies socializing will likely be few and far between, but you're still freer than you would be depending on the government to provide for you, and you can keep what you earn. 85% of the US work force is employed by small businesses, not giant corporations. Small businesses that were built from the ground up by hard work, determination and self sacrifice. Something very few people seem to understand anymore. Everyone has an entitlement mentality where they think they deserve to have what their neighbor worked for without working for it themselves. That's not how life works. If you're too lazy to work for what you have, and there's nothing physically preventing you from doing so, then you don't deserve to have it, and you damned sure don't deserve to have it given to you by the people who did earn it. And the bit about the farmers and immigrants is bullshit leftist speech. There are plenty of legal citizens that would work those farms if given the chance. Its the farmers that choose to hire the immigrants because they can get away with not paying them as much. Another wonderful benefit the minimum wage laws have given us. It's been proven repeatedly that government regulated minimum wage does nothing but create more poverty. Businesses are forced to downsize in order to cut costs, resulting in more lay-offs, more workers on the unemployment lines, more welfare checks. It doesn't matter what system you live in, whether it's communism, capitalism, or any other -ism, life requires working to earn your fare share. I would rather live in a free society where I get to choose where I work and what I own than to have the government dictating it to me. The more people depend on their government for their well-being, the less freedoms they have. You can choose to be blind to that all you want to, you're only screwing yourself in the end. And no one has answered my original question: When everyone is on welfare, who pays the check? |
You do not deal with the world, you only deal with hypotheticals. This is why your political views are meaningless.
"that allows plenty of time left to work a 2nd job if need be" yeah because the market is just booming with available jobs. "or learn a skill that you can market" yeah because education is so cheap and accessible for someone with a part-time job. "85% of the US work force is employed by small businesses, not giant corporations" patently false "but you're still freer than you would be depending on the government to provide for you" you're not freer by taking it up the ass by companies who decide what your time and labor is worth "When everyone is on welfare, who pays the check?" That's not how welfare works; it's not a fucking slippery slope. "I would rather live in a free society where I get to choose where I work and what I own than to have the government dictating it to me." Government isn't dictating work to you, dipshit. We're just talking about welfare to those who find no jobs. YOU are the ones taking way THEIR choice of work by bitching about how THEY should work to EARN LESS than what they'd earn if they would refuse that job. You're not caring about freedom and labor; you're advocating sacrifice and wage slavery in the name of businesses, not people. Do you even have a job? Why do I get the feeling you come from a privileged background and you have no way how the world really works? |
How the hell did I not call it? I should have seen Deviant coming a mile away.
...Shit. I am so out of touch. Gothic.net, I don't even know you anymore. |
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You know, if the government is so put-upon, I would suggest they stop sinking billions into a war most of the tax-payers of your country DO NOT WANT, and put some of that dollar into creating jobs for the people they took it from going “Oh yeah, we need this to run your country for you”. Yet none of this shit, nor other flagrant abuses of taxpayers’ money Saya pointed out, seem to bother you (or even register in your mind as injustices). All you bitch about is welfare, which takes up a solid 1% of the annual American budget. That’s some stellar reasoning there bro. Quote:
2) Embracing ANY ideal unquestioningly and unconditionally, without engaging your critical faculties, is the POLAR OPPOSITE of freedom. Quote:
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2) Claims to being a millionaire by merit mask the fact that half your country’s poster-kids for The Meritocracy of the Self-Made Man inherited much of their wealth. That’s how privilege works, even before you get to the fact that the current global recession doesn’t exactly provide the same kind of open market that those guys were dealing with. And these are the damn figureheads for pure meritocracy, so I’d love to see how the stats on wealthy peeps who make no such claims shape up. You assume that everybody with wealth and security has worked for it. This is demonstrably false. Therefore, the argument that these red herring conclusions have led you to are worthless. Just sayin'. |
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Maybe you need to wipe the Marxist bullshit out of your eyes and read that again. OVER 99% OF ALL EMPLOYING ORGANIZATIONS IN THE US ARE SMALL BUSINESSES. Small businesses are the largest employer in the country representing 53% of US workers The 30 million small businesses in the USA account for 64% of net new jobs (jobs created minus jobs lost). 70% of jobs created in the last decade were by small business. The proportion of Americans employed by small business versus large business has remained relatively the same year by year as some small businesses become large businesses and just over half of small businesses survive more than 5 years. The median household income in the US as of 2008 is $52,029. SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_economy#Employment http://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/sbfaq.pdf Quote:
What I have is mine. It’s not much but I’ve earned it, I share it with whom I choose to share it with and no one else. I don’t live on credit. I own my own vehicle outright. When I can’t afford gas in my truck, I just don’t go anywhere until I can afford it. I don’t come from any sort of privilege. My family has always been military. They own their own houses and land, which they purchased themselves, with money they earned. I don’t own a house yet. I rent, because I haven’t decided where I want to live and don’t want to be strapped into a mortgage in an area I don’t want to stay in. Quote:
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SOURCE: http://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/piechart_2012_US_fed Welfare is paid for by tax dollars. Welfare recipients do not pay taxes. So your bullshit side-stepping does not answer the question. When everyone is on welfare who pays the check? You all want some ideological, utopian society where everyone helps everyone and shares everything with everyone, while they come and go as they please and do whatever they want to do, and somehow all the work that is required for a society to sustain itself just "magically" happens, because people "love each other", and you're telling me I should wake up? Those Occupy r.ape tents are great examples of just how much socialists love each other. It’s never going to happen in the US. You can keep on fantasizing about your Marxist wet dream all you like,IT WILL NOT HAPPEN HERE. Unless you can dream up some kind of way to take the property from the estimated 53 million Americans who own guns in this country. And those are just the ones who are documented. So if you’re brave enough to accomplish that, then maybe you have a shot. The UN isn’t going to do it. Obama isn’t going to do it. Not without a civil war. You think a bunch of hippies in times square can? Lol. Right. |
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But I have mentioned this before. You just don't care because you're not really making an argument; you're just bitching out loud because you don't care about truth, you care about pretending to be right. Quote:
Quote: Employer firms have the lion’s share of receipts and payroll, while nonemployer firms are far more numerous. (http://archive.sba.gov/advo/research/data.html) Quote:
And the fact that you mention NET jobs is just an indicator of the rising unemployment. The labor market has decreased and the disparage between the percentage of jobs created by small businesses compared to the percentage of Americans working in small businesses is exactly correlated with the shrinking availability of jobs. And this statistic is from the past 17 years; meaning right in the middle of the neoliberal Bush years and latter Clinton years. Quote:
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"...and a quarter stay in business 15 years or more." A quarter is still respectable, but far from the image you're trying to propagandize by selecting which parts of the study to highlight. Quote:
But this is giving you too much credit, seeing how measuring household incomes, both mean and median, only applies to people who already have jobs So, seeing how this is a discussion about employment and unemployment, the fact that you try to make an 'argument' by showing how well people who HAVE jobs are in a time when unemployment went up to encompass 1 out of every 6 Americans just five months ago, is entirely stupid, if not transparently low from your part. But then again, I'm talking to a guy who for no apparent reason called the OWS tents 'r.ape tents' and that 'homosexuals are broken', so fuck off because you aren't even close to being grounded on reality. Why don't you go to an objectivist forum or Alex Jones' website and bitch about how the story of the upperclass white man is the saddest story in the history of mankind. |
I just got my W-2's I made 3,250 for my yearly income. Yay me... wait this is far below the proposed $52,000 i should be making... where's the rest of my money?!
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You're always the smartest guy in the room Alan.
Like I said, try arguing your Marxist bullshit with the business end of a gun and see how far that gets you in this country. Right where you belong. |
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I mean, let's be real here. In the event of something so catastrophic as Civil War 2, what exactly would you be defending, Deviant? Barring freedom (that's a nebulous word that's pretty much lost all meaning as well as the word for peace), what exactly is it that you actually think you'd be defending? |
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