Which segment of society is causing Canadian crime though? The homeless, or those on welfare? Per your argument, most Canadian crime should be being commited by the homeless, and for that reason that we would need to keep people from getting to that state.
IIRC they have a form of unofficial welfare in the form of useless, makework jobs, like elevator operators; unneeded, but it serves as welfare while allowing them to pretend it doesn’t exist.
How about all the nations that suffer from uprisings or outright revolutions from the desperate and impovershed with nothing to lose ? Letting millions of people suffer without a safety net makes them work harder, all right; it makes them work to build an army and come and kill you. It’s perfectly fair; if you feel no compassion towards them, why should they feel any towards you ?
Well, I believe all life has inherent value, including the life of a (shudder) heartworm. By the same token, I think a flame has value, & beauty has value. But all these things have costs, as well, & must be balanced against each other. (This does not mean that I try to calculate every cost constantly, just that I try to respect that the values are there in an absolute sense.) I don’t believe that an individual human life has absolute, infinite, sacrosanct value, it’s just another part of the world.
Well, basically, I think that my particular human life has value.
You want me to be part of your society, you are going to have to at least theoretically agree with my assesment on that. If you don’t, I figure you are in this for what you get out of it, and I should approach it from the same point of view. If I think I can take what you have, if I want it, and think I can get away with it, then according to the zero tolerance model of human value, I should just take it, and kill you if necessary.
I think we could do better.
Tris
You’re talking about countries in which have no method for supporting yourself period, not one without a safety net. If I decree that 90% of the population can’t, say, farm their land because I (the dictator) want to use all that space for my personal amusement park–well the people have no choice but to fight or die. But that’s an entirely different case from people in modern nations where “if you’ve got the time and a way, we want you to make money for us” and the issue isn’t that the person is forbidden from supporting himself, but rather just that he got unlucky for a bit/messed up.
I’d be fine with introducing mandatory labor as an alternative to welfare. I doubt you would get very far with such a proposal though.
Starved to death is starved to death; I doubt anyone in such a position will care if it’s a dictatorship or a corporation responsible. Nor are there infinite jobs available; sometimes people simply can’t get a job. Not to mention, being forced economically into a degrading or dangerous job can create just as much rage.
Oh, and the other name for “mandatory labor” is slavery; that’s a proposal I’d be willing to have another Civil War to stop.
Well, if Der Trihs’ argument doesn’t convince Weirddave, nothing will. I mean, I read into it that welfare helps prevent communist revolutions.
Which might just be true.
That is exactly what I’m saying. That was an arguement used after WW 2 to justify helping the Germans IIRC; something like “If it’s a choice between being capitalist on 1000 calories a day, or a Communist on 1500, most people will become Communists”. Quoted from memory; I’m sure I butchered it.
Or, more pithily:
If you are free to assert that my life has value, then I am free to assert the same about you, and behave accordingly. Result: anarchy.
Crap: If you are free to assert that my life has no value, then I am free to assert the same about you, and behave accordingly.
My favorite version of that : “The problem with a dog-eat-dog society is sooner or later everybody gets eaten”
I always thought the value was around $1.99/lb unless there is a sale going on at the meat counter.