[CuckooTuli]

Originally Posted by x-deviant-x

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.

Yes, exactly. Where there are few options and virtually all of the non-welfare related ones involve scraping by on a wage that doesn’t even pretend to be a living wage, I am indeed saying that people are better off on welfare.

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.

Originally Posted by x-deviant-x

Hard work and self reliance is the only thing that has ever kept people free.

1) Questioning authority & the status quo have historically been just as vital, if not more so.

2) Embracing ANY ideal unquestioningly and unconditionally, without engaging your critical faculties, is the POLAR OPPOSITE of freedom.

Originally Posted by x-deviant-x

Nothing worth having comes easy.

Again, not true. I was born with these good looks, son. My cheekbones alone are proof that sometime, life arbitrarily hands privilege to people.

Originally Posted by x-deviant-x

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.

This is just naïve beyond belief. Businesses are closing daily because people don’t have any money to spend, and you expect people to stay of welfare by washing cars?

Originally Posted by x-deviant-x

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.

1) Source for the 85% statistic, please.

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'.