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rlg94086
Guest
Well, if that’s what I said, I stand by that assessment.
The idea that 10-15% don’t have the ability to take care of themselves is ridiculous and without merit.
Why wasn't abortion made illegal when the Republicans had all the power?
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The idea that 10-15% don’t have the ability to take care of themselves is ridiculous and without merit.
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rlg94086
Guest
Because a concern for life requires a nanny state? You are being really silly. Concern for my fellow man does not mean that I have to support taking care of them with a federal bureaucracy.
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vern_humphrey
Guest
Do you not believe that between abortion and restrictions on breeding, such people should be caused to perish out of the race?
You’ve already told us you HATE the Republicans, so what you think about “Republican ideology” is hardly based on objective facts, now is it?
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ribozyme
Guest
Do not ask me about that… that is incompatible with a liberal democracy. I do not support that.
I’ll put it this way: I am more like Arik Soong than Francis Galton.
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vern_humphrey
Guest
You don’t support abortion? You don’t support “trans-humanism?” You have abandoned your claim that the poor cannot be educated well enough to make them self-supporting?
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rlg94086
Guest
So, you are more like a non-existant, fictitional character?
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MelanieAnne
Guest
Aside from being utterly lacking in compassion in its delivery, social welfare programs administered by the state are the least efficient means (and most expensive) of delivering goods and services to the poor. That’s why private charities are so much more successful. If private charities had the funding that the state wastes… Well, that’s another story. And private charities might have such funding if the government wasn’t taking so much in taxation.
The way out of poverty is education, not welfare. Welfare is a hand up, not a way of life. The current system has produced an underclass. The system is utterly dysfunctional and inhumane. Those that refer to it as the “liberal plantation” are not far off the mark as it results in multi-generational poverty and “drive-by” politicians who come to court their vote every 4 years and often use scare tactics to get it.
Put another way, the “Great Society” was launched 2 generations ago. If it worked, there should be no poor people now. Obviously, since there are still poor people, it didn’t work, and another means of solving the problem of poverty needs to be found. (Side note ~ I don’t believe that all these people want to be on welfare, nor do I believe that they are not capable of taking care of themselves.) Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is irrational.
But back to the topic ~ to support abortion as a means to reduce welfare is preposterous.
The way out of poverty is education, not welfare. Welfare is a hand up, not a way of life. The current system has produced an underclass. The system is utterly dysfunctional and inhumane. Those that refer to it as the “liberal plantation” are not far off the mark as it results in multi-generational poverty and “drive-by” politicians who come to court their vote every 4 years and often use scare tactics to get it.
Put another way, the “Great Society” was launched 2 generations ago. If it worked, there should be no poor people now. Obviously, since there are still poor people, it didn’t work, and another means of solving the problem of poverty needs to be found. (Side note ~ I don’t believe that all these people want to be on welfare, nor do I believe that they are not capable of taking care of themselves.) Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is irrational.
But back to the topic ~ to support abortion as a means to reduce welfare is preposterous.
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vern_humphrey
Guest
Ah, you’re going to get the standard answer there – people on welfare aren’t educable. They are the dregs of the Bell Curve, so any attempt to educate them will be wasted.
And besides, educating people is, like, hard, man!
With this difference – the 13th Amendment doesn’t apply to people who are enslaved by the failure of the Public School system.
As even a former President and former Governor of Arkansas once acknowledged.
It’s compounding one evil with another.
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MelanieAnne
Guest
D
DanteAlighieri
Guest
In order to get back on topic…bump.
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TMC
Guest
This number seems about right to me. I don’t think it is elitist to say so. Many of these people can and will do very well once they have a chance. A “chance” for one person may not be the same as another. One person can and will succeed if only no one is holding him down. Another needs a lot of help to get going. The idea that only those with some kind of disability need aid is kind of silly. Even if someone is unsuccessful merely because he or she is lazy or ‘not culturally adapted to working through difficulties,’ as the EPI/CBPP/CAP crowd might put it, it makes sense to apply sufficient resources to get that person going and productive, if it can be done. (And I think it can.)
Ideally I would like to see all aid to individuals come from individuals. Microeconomic decision making is a wonderfully complex thing. Only individuals can tell what application of resources will result in the greatest gain in their personal utility. But (at the risk of being overly paternal) we know that some in need are having trouble making good long-term decisions. But those distant from that person, without real insight into his or her life, often do no better. So the person applying the aid should ideally be a better decisionmaker that is right on top of the needy person - family, clergy, whatever.
But many of the needy are needy because they don’t have that in the first place. So next best, IMO, is aid delivered by private organizations. It would good if these organizations were tied to the person for the same reasons discussed above, the closer the microeconomic decisionmaker is to the needy, the better tailored the decisions can be.
Here is the problem - numbers one and two aren’t getting it done. I would like to see the government act by merely bolstering these two efforts, but that isn’t working. Maybe we need more government encouragement of philanthropy. But I suspect that there are groups that, for whatever reason, will still fall behind. As Christians we have a moral imperitive to help them. If individuals and private organizations aren’t getting it done, we should encourage the government to do more. Even from a secularist viewpoint, it makes sense to get as much of the population productive as we can, and to keep the non-productive at a reasonable standard of living.
I heard one of the candidates speak on the role of government the other day. I know I am not to use his name, but he was the one most think of as the hero guy. He said that government should do those things that individuals can’t do for themselves, and do so in a way that interferes with individual freedom and resources as little as possible. I believe in this basic conservative principle. But I am coming to believe that this standard mandates government involvement in helping many of the less fortunate, because hard experience shows us that individuals aren’t able to get it done. (I am not saying he would agree, I don’t know his stand on this issue.)
I agree that the government has not always done this well. The welfare reforms of the 90s helped a lot. More reform is needed, but what is really needed is more thought on how to spend money in a tailored and targeted way, and less politics involved in the decisionmaking. Using the government is not a good way of getting either of those, but large national charities are really not much better. And unless charity suddenly starts getting a lot more done, we need more government involvement.
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rlg94086
Guest
TMC,
Ribozyme was saying that 10-15% fit the following description:
You say you agree, but then two sentences later say that many of them will do well if they have “a chance.” Which is it? You may agree with me. I don’t think that 10-15% are always going to be dependent on the government. I believe they have the capability to do well. The difference is who gives them the boost - government or private.
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ribozyme
Guest
Define “well.” I do not think some people have the ability to live well on their own thus they must be cared for. I based that remark on the info on this paper (although that number is too high, most of them have some help though):
udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1997whygmatters.pdf
I wanted to point that it because it upsets me when people call them “lazy” when they clearly not.
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vern_humphrey
Guest
As opposed to inferring that they are uneducable, to the point where they can never be self-supporting?
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rlg94086
Guest
We are way off topic Ribozyme. If you wish, feel free to start a thread on the 10-15% of the population that you believe don’t have the ability to live on their own and must be cared for by the state.
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DanteAlighieri
Guest
T
TMC
Guest
I guess I did not understand that the issue was that some individuals were permanently in the 10-15%. I would agree that there will always be a healthy percentage that needs help. Some are in there chronically, but mostly they can move out, and others will fall in. I gave my reasons for thinking the government should help, not because they are the best choice, but because other choices are not working.
I have done no more than glance at this document. But that will, of course, not stop me from commenting.
I would define “well” as on their own, and earning enough to have a reasonable standard of living – healthy with the opportunity to be happy. I don’t know how to put much more meat on that right now.
Again, I have not read the g paper. But I will say that I think that intelligence is a little over rated, generally. Intelligence makes some things easier. A certain amount of intelligence is required for certain jobs, and therefore most of the financially very successfully are of above average intelligence. But there are many failing people that are quite intelligent. Successful people all think they are geniuses, but I have not seen any evidence that is true.
How much and what to work on is obviously important, and a big part of the solution for a lot of people. I used the word “lazy” in what was supposed to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but it obviously didn’t come through that way at all.
I don’t know that I believe that there is such a thing as laziness. The vast majority of people work hard enough to get what they want out of their work and life, and no harder. Those that want to be insanely succesfull call those of us happy with a house, a car, and cable TV lazy for not working 80 hours a week to do better. Many of the poor work very hard, but they often make bad decisions in that regard. They may not work through the right problems, or have not learned where their efforts should be applied. (Or they may been told by well meaning wonks that they are stupid and that no matter how hard they work they will fail anyway) For whatever reason, there are some that work at the wrong things and, yes, some that don’t work enough. I don’t judge any of them for any of that, they just need some help doing better. Many of them have not had the kinds of help that some in our society take for granted.
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rlg94086
Guest
Well said! BTW…I know some wealthy, “lazy” people. Cleverness can substitute for hard work sometimes. I agree with you that a lot of us do the bare minimum.I have done no more than glance at this document. But that will, of course, not stop me from commenting.
I would define “well” as on their own, and earning enough to have a reasonable standard of living – healthy with the opportunity to be happy. I don’t know how to put much more meat on that right now.
Again, I have not read the g paper. But I will say that I think that intelligence is a little over rated, generally. Intelligence makes some things easier. A certain amount of intelligence is required for certain jobs, and therefore most of the financially very successfully are of above average intelligence. But there are many failing people that are quite intelligent. Successful people all think they are geniuses, but I have not seen any evidence that is true.
How much and what to work on is obviously important, and a big part of the solution for a lot of people. I used the word “lazy” in what was supposed to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but it obviously didn’t come through that way at all.
I don’t know that I believe that there is such a thing as laziness. The vast majority of people work hard enough to get what they want out of their work and life, and no harder. Those that want to be insanely succesfull call those of us happy with a house, a car, and cable TV lazy for not working 80 hours a week to do better. Many of the poor work very hard, but they often make bad decisions in that regard. They may not work through the right problems, or have not learned where their efforts should be applied. (Or they may been told by well meaning wonks that they are stupid and that no matter how hard they work they will fail anyway) For whatever reason, there are some that work at the wrong things and, yes, some that don’t work enough. I don’t judge any of them for any of that, they just need some help doing better. Many of them have not had the kinds of help that some in our society take for granted.
When it comes to “laziness,” I’ve read some rags-to-riches stories that, quite frankly, describe doing things that 99% of us would not do. One in particular that really sticks in my mind was a vietnamese immigrant who arrived here penniless; went to work in a donut shop owned by a distant cousin; lived in the back of the donut shop - taking “cat baths” using the sink and eating baked goods; worked out a deal to purchase the shop over time from the owner, but continued to live the same way in the donut shop until he paid the previous owner off in three years. The guy is now a millionaire. How many people do you think would do that? Answer: not many…certainly not I. BTW…I don’t think the guy is intellectually superior.
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LCMS_No_More
Guest
I got the reference.
Too bad we have the unfortunate knowledge of Khan Noonien Singh as well as Soong’s augments to make genetic engineering a bad idea…in spite of the exception of Julian Bashir.
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LCMS_No_More
Guest
The answer is very simple. The Republican Party has no inherent interest in eliminating abortion as flogging the abortion issue gains them the unquestioning votes of millions of Christians without having to make any expenditures whatsoever.
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