Like it or not, our Federal Constitution gives Congress the power to raise and support armies.
So what?
Are you arguing that the income tax, or the uses to which it is put, are unconstitutional?
Also, maybe you’d do the courtesy of answering the question i asked on the previous page. Why, when you voiced a moral objection to being forced “at gunpoint” to hand over money to the poor, did you then retreat to an argument about mere constitutionality, when money raised by the states is just as much a matter of coercion as money raised by the nation?
If all you have to contribute to the debate is a narrow Constitutional literalism, you’ll understand if people pay you little heed. Is the US Constitution the sum total of your moral universe?
only when he thinks it supports his arguement.
[slight not-trying-to-kiss-ass-even-if-it-sounds-like-I-am hijack]
There are several people on these boards (and in this thread) whose posts I look forward to reading, and derive great enjoyment/knowledge/etc. therefrom (and that includes Ensign Edison), but, DianaG: Whenever I see your name in a thread, I’m always interested in what you’re going to say, because more often than not, it’s like, “Damn, she totally read my mind!”
And props to **mhendo ** for his illuminating analyses. Always interesting.
[/snttkaeiislia hijack]
I agree, but you know what else I’d also like to see? Real, FREE, long-term, no-bullshit mental health counseling, especially in situations like the one described in the OP. Like SnakesCatLady, I’d be hard-pressed to believe that most people in this country above a certain age don’t understand (of course, there are those Bible-addled communities) how birth control works. When we see people like Ms. Gonzalez who make the same mistake over, and over, and over, something besides ignorance about birth control is at work, and I think it would be helpful for those people and society at large if people in situations similar to hers were given therapy so that they could finally figure out exactly why they compound mistake upon mistake upon mistake. People don’t make life choices–whether they be good or bad choices–clear out of the blue, right?
Mind you, I’ve believed for quite some time now that **many ** people–period–could benefit from on-going therapy. I believe that such therapy should be provided free of charge or, at the least, on a sliding scale basis (for those who can pay a little bit of something). Of course, knowing how American society regards both psychotherapy and the people who are brave enough to seek it (I mean, really, ISTM that the only acceptable forms of therapy in the U.S. are the therapies of Jesus, Allah, Elohim, [insert your god here], or Denial–and look where that’s gotten us), I won’t be holding my breath. I just hope that I’ll be dead before the shit implodes.
Did I say it didn’t?
:dubious:
The Constitution, however, is not written in stone. Times change. A branch that does not bend with the wind breaks.
:rolleyes:
An orphanage can be an excellent solution, when decently run. In truth, it is easier for the state to police an orphanage housing 100 kids than it is to police the 100 foster families necessary to provide the same coverage.
Orphanages also make it easier for parents to visit.
This film was at the Newport Film Festival a few years ago (warning - Flash site):
How many of us have actually lived under welfare?
I remember bits and pieces of living on government assistance back from when I was a little girl. We lived on food stamps because an Army recruiter’s salary isn’t enough to feed a wife and child. My parents, though poor, got me the best schooling they could and both worked. We were poor as hell when I was a child, but we scraped by and survived.
My father comes from a dirt-poor family. I think he was seventh in his family and the only boy out of all seven kids. His sisters haven’t done well for themselves, for the most part; apart from the one married to the mobster, they’re generally poor rednecks living as best as they can. I don’t know if any of them are or have been on welfare, but I know my father went from strangling chickens for dinner to his lower-upper-class (upper-middle-class?) lifestyle now – no Lexuses or yachts but a beautiful house on a lot of land and the money to do mostly what he wants.
It’s certainly possible to pull yourself up out of your family’s quagmire, but it is no easy thing. It took thirty years of the military to do it for Dad.
Myself, I wouldn’t make birth control mandatory – as much as I sometimes think everyone ought to have a license to breed, it is one of our most basic rights, a right so basic nobody’s ever bothered to write it down. And certain forms of birth control are free: clinics give away condoms and I believe Planned Parenthood has plans.
But for welfare families I would require at least the main wage-earner and probably all responsible adults to take government-subsidized employment courses. It didn’t take senior-level high school skills for me to be able to run an office effectively; it just took intelligence, sense, and responsibility. Being a receptionist and answering phones is easy enough. Working as a security guard is something people can be trained to do.
One of the major problems, though, is that few of these jobs pay anything like a living wage. We get back to the whole stuck-in-poverty problem: once you’re in it takes intelligence, talent, education, and luck – at least three of four – to get out.
There are some honestly lazy and unethical people on welfare, but there are lazy and unethical people everywhere. I knew a woman who accepted a welfare check and took in kids for daycare to supplement her government-sponsored income. She saw no problem with it.
The system is screwed up, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be entirely junked.
The Magdalene Sisters agree wholeheartedly!
This is a whoosh, right? We’re not talking about unfit parents, we’re talking about poor people. Last I checked, they don’t take your kids away just because you’re poor. Are you seriously suggesting they should? :dubious:
Aw… thanks, L’il Pluck!
Little Plastic Ninja, that is pretty much what some of us are saying. Not everyone on welfare is a “welfare queen” and we realize that. That is why the OP addressed the specific case of a 20-year-old with 7 kids by at least two different fathers, not welfare receipients in general.
What is frustrating to me is the women who, while they are already on welfare and thus have demonstrated a lack of ability to take care of their children, keep having more children. I don’t mind helping someone who needs help, and I certainly don’t want children to go hungry, but at some point a woman’s right to spawn needs be curtailed if she is expecting others to pay for it.
I’ve never wanted children, but I do know several couples who waited for years before they had them because they didn’t feel they were financially stable enough.
I know this country will never stop looking at unlimited reproduction as a “right”. That is a damned shame. You have to have a license to drive a car. In my city you have to license pets and unless your property is zoned agricultural you can not have more than 5 pets. But you can have all the babies you can squeeze out!
I wish I could figure out a way to penalize women who have additional children while on welfare without penalizing the children they already have. I just can’t think of one.
Me either. That’s why I kind of like the idea of the mandatory birth control. Cutting off benefits for additional children won’t stop some people from having them, and when they do, the benefits they are getting will get stretched pretty thin. Not to mention that every additional child will make it that much harder for the mother to do the things she needs to do to get education, job training, etc. It’s a tough policy to make, no doubt about it, but it seems as though there should be something we could do to try to help.
You do realize,do you not, that the answer to the question “Does government at all levels spend more on the military, or entitlements?” is “entitlements”. Cite, cite and cite.
Regards,
Shodan
I’m sorry, but this is ridiculous. Firstly, the assertion that 21st century America is not accepting of psychotherapy begs the question of “compared to whom?” If you say Europe, I’m going to ask for a cite.
Secondly, the myth that therapy always works. I spent several years working in mental health and social-services environments; the idea that therapy solves all ills is absurd. Someone has to want therapy and most dysfunctional people don’t. And no, it’s not because they’re “bible-addled;” most will refuse counsel or advice from a minister as quickly as they will from a MSW. Even if they do consent to therapy as a precondition for getting some kind of assistance, that doesn’t mean they have actually bought into the idea and want to make a change in their lives. Finally, even if they do sincerely want counseling to do something for them, it simply doesn’t always work. Hell, I’ve spent years in therapy myself and I can’t tell you “exactly why” I do some things.
Thirdly, low-cost therapy is already available to those who need it. Pretty much every community in the country has community mental-health centers that offer heavily-subsidized counseling. It’s usually only free to the truly indigent for theraputic reasons: people who are paying to come (even if it’s only $10) tend to take it much more seriously than those who don’t.
Sorry, but no cites forthcoming.
I should probably explain that my assertion that “21st century America is not accepting of psychotherapy” is based not on academic or even casual research on my part (which, by the way, is partly why I said, “ISTM [it seems to me] blah-blah-blah”), but, rather, on anectdotal experience. Y’know, conversations I’ve had with people, things that I’ve observed some people say WRT to therapy, etc. For instance, within the last year, a cousin of mine (really nice guy–college educated and everything) who suffers from, at the very least, alcoholism, was found wandering the streets naked in his neighborhood. When my mother told me this, I suggested that this cousin might benefit from therapy, and my mother’s reply was that my cousin “just needs God.” A million :rolleyes: 's on my end of the phone. When I suggested that therapy might be worth looking into for another cousin who we suspected might be addicted to drugs (the jury’s still out on that one), again, the response was that this cousin “just needs to go to church.” Yep, even more :rolleyes: 's from me (though Mama did concede that church, in addition to therapy, was just one way this cousin might find some hope–she’s making progress).
These are only a couple of examples of what I’ve had to deal with in some of the circles through which I travel or with which I intersect, however tangentially. Now, granted, I’m acquainted with a wide range of people (not especially well-educated to highly-educated Ph.D’s, atheist to very religious, etc.), and I’m aware that not **everyone ** is dismissive of the benefits–sorry, *potential * benefits–of psychotherapy. IME, however, there seems to be a great many people–and usually those of an extremely religious bent (hence, my agreement with SnakesCatLady WRT to “Bible-addled communities,” even though she, herself, wasn’t making reference to therapy in her post)–for whom therapy is nothing more than “the Devil’s art”. Now, it may be true that, since this country is, IMHO, overrun with religious nutjobs, I not very wisely extrapolated myself into a generalization–for which I am ashamed, 'cause I try to avoid that kind of pitfall–but let’s not act as if I’m totally pulling shit from out of my ass.
(Oh, and for the record, I, myself, have been in treatment for depression for several months now. Can you guess why I’ve told only one person in my family of origin (my brother) about it, and why I don’t intend to tell any others anytime soon? And no, it’s not that I’m ashamed of being in therapy–on the contrary, I’m proud and happy that I sought the help I needed before I could do untold damage to myself.)
I don’t believe that I claimed that therapy always works, unless you want to take my saying “I think it would be helpful” for a full-on claim. Which you most certainly should not. At any rate, yes, I do think that therapy might be helpful to a great many people. How do I know this? Well, I don’t. However, through the years, many people, believing that I’m easy to talk to, have shared with me…well, some of the most interesting shit about their lives (y’know, stuff that they feel that can’t speak with anyone else about), and when I probe, as best as a layman can, one of the constants that I notice is that they don’t know who they really are or want to be or why they make the choices that they make, and it seems to me that if you can’t figure that kind of stuff out on your own, perhaps you’ll be able to do so with the help of a therapist. That’s all.
And yes, I’m aware that many dysfunctional people don’t want to seek therapy (dysfunctional is my family’s middle name, so I’ve seen this firsthand), and I’m also aware that some (many?) people who agree to therapy as a condition to receiving fiduciary/social service benefits don’t necessarily buy into the idea or believe in the efficacy of therapy or even truly want to change, but these realities don’t mean that there’s **no ** benefit to therapy. And my saying this doesn’t mean that I believe that therapy always works.
I was not aware of what you seem to be saying is the pervasive availability of low-cost therapy. Of course, I’d have to ask you just what you mean by “low-cost.” My insurance (which I pay for myself–and dearly so) covers a substantial portion of my therapy (I have a $15.00 co-pay), but before the center where I receive my treatment was able to confirm whether or not my insurance would cover any part of my therapy, they told me that, based on my income (which is not much by New York City metro-area middle-class standards), my sliding scale fee would be $80.00 per session. That’s not what you mean by low-cost, is it? As you (I’m guessing) and I surely know, the formulas that are used to determine financial eligibility for a host of free social services is calculated in such a way that, in order for someone to qualify as “needy,” they need to be scraping under the barrel. Or, rather (in hopes of obviating your temptation to ask me for a cite), let me say that, IME, this has been the case.
Does any of this explain where I’m coming from better than my original post did?
P.S.–DianaG, you’re quite welcome. 
If my state passes a huge tax hike to fund something I don’t like, I can simply move to another state. See, that’s the beauty with our system… if I don’t like what my state is doing, I am free to move to another state. States can (and should) compete with each other in this regard. The only recourse I have against the federal government is to move to anther country, which is anything but simple.
Agree. And that’s why there’s a provision for changing it. It’s called an amendment.
I guess you must have missed the 16th Amendment.
I can only conclude that this is what happens after six years of abstinence-only sex education.