On demand of the pregnant woman, or by the State? Yes and no.
Insert joke about whether zombies on welfare should be forced to use birth control here.
Whether private property is “natural” is an interesting question. There are a bunch of dogs who play in the field across from me. Dogs steal others’ balls all the time, and the dogs don’t seem to act as if their private property was violated.
On the other hand there is the endowment effect, which makes that which we possess more valuable to us than the same thing that we do not possess. There have been experiments showing the endowment effect in chimps. I think I see it operating in my dog, though I have not done an experiment on her. So the concept of private property could be natural.
However so is the biggest guy taking it. Stopping that (which is natural) is what government does.
I certainly don’t dispute the idea that some species–including us hairless apes–get awful territorial. What I dispute is the idea that getting to keep stuff merely because we mixed our labor with it is some sort of natural state of affairs, and that taxation represents a move from that natural state.
Territorial species–including us hairless apes–spend a tremendous amount of time taking the stuff that other members of the species are being territorial about, often through murderous violence. The state provides a significant service in monopolizing violence and saying that only the state gets to remove stuff from one ape without the ape’s permission. But that service is a real service, and it ain’t natural, and if the state decides to redistribute, well, that’s part and parcel of what the state does.
This line of thinking corresponds to the current idea of restricting public school funding in inner cities for poorly performing schools. Somehow everyone is incentivized when the starving begins. Which is fantastic when the starving are fully capable of what’s expected making a conscious choice not to better their situation.
Many must believe poverty is a choice made by lazy people or the rest of their assumptions about our society come crashing down.
Agreement and agreement. It also can be pointed out that “government” goes as far back as tribal chieftains and councils of elders. At some point, someone else has to step in and mediate the dispute, and has to be able to back it up.
It has been traditional for millennia beyond count that the arbitrator, himself, gets a consideration for making necessary judgements. This isn’t an intrinsic part of the rule of law in defining property: you could just as easily have an unpaid and disinterested volunteer do it. In some societies, it was traditional to bring in an outsider from another family entirely.
But it is definitional to have someone in a position of power who can make the judgements, and without that, “property” has no meaning.
Money is simply a store of value. It doesn’t require government issued currency.
Could be gold and silver, pigs and cattle, salt, beads, or seashells.
I’m actually a fan of mandatory, fully 100% reversible, non-invasive sterilization at birth for everyone, done at government expense of course. Once a person proves through a licensing process that they are eligible to have children, they will be made fertile again. I realize that’s a very, very controversial point of view but I think it could solve more problems than it would create.
Of course, there’s nothing that’s fully 100% reversible and non-invasive so this is only a theoretical.
As far as welfare recipients only are concerned, they shouldn’t have any more or less right to have as many kids as they want as the wealthy. Everyone should be held to the same standards.
^ This
This has nothing to do with being territorial. The experiment went something like this. A chimp in general preferred a banana to a frozen ice pop. But, if you gave it an ice pop, and then offered it a banana in exchange, it kept the ice pop. Its possession of the ice pop increased the value to the chimp to the point where it was better than the generally preferred banana.
For people (well, business school students) the experiment was to give half a class a mug, and then have those with the mug write down the minimum price which they would take to sell it and those without the mug write down the maximum price they would buy it for. Traditional economics says that these should be about the same, given that the mug could hardly have acquired heirloom value at this point. In reality the selling price was higher than the purchase price.
So I’m saying there is some biological justification for possessions acquiring additional value. That doesn’t mean private property is a natural thing.
Hell, the carbon footprint of rich kids will be much bigger than that of poor kids. We should sterilize them.
Two can play at this game.
I wouldn’t say it has nothing to do with territoriality–I think the concept of possessiveness is closely related to territoriality–but I certainly agree that “territoriality” is too specific a term, and I welcome the correction.
Not, however, as much as I welcome D’Anconia’s experiment in replacing his bank account with pigs and cowries, equally useful forms of currency in a modern economy.
This is the only stance I would support and expand it to included subsidised abortions and contraceptives for students and women of all ages.
I sometimes wonder what people who are in favour of this sort of thing (I’ve seen it come up many times over the years) would do with someone like me. I’m on welfare right now, due to disability. My disabilty also includes taking medication (methotrexate) that would make carrying a pregnancy impossible. I’m also a lesbian.
So the chances of me getting pregnant by accident are virtually zero.
And I’m like a gajillion medications so adding another is not a great idea. This is actually the reason I’m not on the pill now despite horrible periods.
Whenever you introduce a new law you have to include outs for people who don’t quite comply for good reasons, and being on methotrexate, for example, is not all that unusual (for people on disability benefits - it is for the populace at large). If there are too many “outs” then the law is going to cost more than it would ever save.
You would be put in a camp.
Why should I have to pay for someone else’s irresponsibility? Especially if they continue to reproduce while relying on the government to support them. The current welfare system is just another form of slavery designed to keep the poor and ignorant dependant on there masters aka the government. If millions of illegal aliens can find jobs in America then why cant those on welfare? Because work is hard and they have gotten used to not having to work. This mentality has to change and it starts by teaching young people at an early age the value of education and hard work. Stop thinking that to be successful you have to go to college. We should have more vocational, hands on training for the trades like plumbers, electricians, mechanics and bricklaying. These are well paying jobs that are all too often seen as blue collar or for lower class people. I feel sorry for anyone that thinks this way because your world wouldnt exist without us!
Again - most people on “welfare” have NOT always been poor. They may have been solidly middle class when they had their kids. Just because someone is temporarily poor does not mean they are irresponsible. Bad luck really does occur.
But hey, keep believing poverty only happens to bad/irresponsible people if you think it will magically protect you from disaster.
Because millions of those illegal aliens are employed illegally, paid illegally low wages under appalling conditions, and sometimes still don’t get paid yet are too afraid of deportation to complain. Because illegal aliens can be much more easily exploited in that manner, with less fear of the authorities becoming involved, unscrupluous employers are eager to employ them. Actual citizens, on the other hand, have recourse to the courts to recover pay withheld by said unscrupulous employers, and are much more likely to complain about unsafe or illegal work conditions.
Apparently, you are unaware that most of the former trade schools in this country have been closed. If you want vocational education you now have to go to community college.
They’ve also taken all the trade/vocational courses out of the middle and high schools. How stupid. Between cost-cutting, liability concerns, and worship of academics they’ve gutted the courses for those who, are you point out, not suited to white-collar work.
Oh but that isn’t faaaiiiir. People on welfare have the RIGHT to as many kids as they want, for the rest of us to pay for.
How is is eugenics to tell people they can’t expect someone else to pay to raise their kids? No one is forcing them to take welfare.
It would have to cost much less than paying to raise children does.
For many ( and in my decades of experience with it, most), poverty is a choice. They choose not to work, or to not work much; they choose to invest in things they cannot afford; they choose to get into a job/career that will go nowhere or is unstable, they don’t bother to get insurance. Etc. Then when it all comes crashing down, they and far too many others say that it wasn’t their fault.
The idea is that people on welfare don’t make more people that will need welfare. Since you are already taking something that is acting as a birth control, you wouldn’t have to have anything else. Would be the same for those who have already been surgically sterilized.
Why?
Cite?
There is nothing magical about planning ahead and being responsible for oneself.
This has zero to do with the fact that these folks can and do work while having children and not getting classic welfare. If these un- and under-educated people with little or no grasp of English can get jobs and support families, then why can’t those who have a high school education and English as a first language work?
Trade school advertise on TV here all the time.
People on public assistance should not be allowed to own dogs. Why should the taxpayer be saddled with their poor judgment in herrings dogs they can’t afford. Off the the pound with them.
Only fair, right CurlCoat?
If the government was sending them money because they have dogs, sure. But they don’t. Do you really want to get into specifying exactly what each cent of welfare can be spent on?
(Not that I think that people on welfare should have dogs, since they don’t tend to get very good care.)
There’s nothing mysterious in noting that bad luck can and does happen to people. How many people do you know plan to be disabled in early adulthood? What about the people who went into a career 30 years ago that looked very stable but has now been rendered obsolete by technical advances no one could foresee?
No one can plan for everything, and only the 1% have enough money to truly cover all contingencies. YOU accept money from the government, what makes you better than those you despise?
Why do you assume people with “little or no grasp of English” are un- or under-educated?
Are you unaware of illegal aliens who either marry or co-habitate with legal citizens?
As usual, you make a host of assumptions that do nothing but reveal your own bias.
And, of course, eveywhere is just like where you live… :rolleyes: