Maybe, but we also shouldn’t adopt policy that doesn’t work. If you were to know with 100% certainty that, if a policy was adopted, it would cause massive economic destruction, for example, I’d hope you’d say to yourself, “Even though applying this policy would be consistant with my principles, I won’t do it.”.
I think the two ideas should be in tension with each other. On the one hand, Fiat Justitia Ruat Coelum. On the other hand, the constitution is not a suicide pact. We can hold both viewpoints as equally important. Our enlightenment principles and rights are things that create societies that are pleasant to live in. Are the rights good because they create good societies, or are the societies good because they have good rights? If a fundamental principle causes a bad result, was it really a good principle?
I happen to believe that in the vast majority of cases idealistic solutions are also practical solutions and vice versa. I believe that free speech is a public good as well as a individual right. Same with prohibitions against taking private property for public use without due compensation, peacetime quartering of soldiers in private homes, unreasonable searches and seizures, etc.
If I thought one of my principles would cause misery if enacted, I’d have to question that principle. Figure out WHY the principle was important. Question whether the theoretical misery it might cause was really going to happen. The point is that human beings always have to act on limited information, so we must act with humility.
Exactly. You go back and say: “My principles should not cause misery, what’s wrong? Maybe there is something wrong with that principle”. But I’d also distinguish between causing misery and allowing misery. Some liberals seem to think it is the purpose of gov’t to eliminate all misery, without regard to self responsibility.
See my post above, and the distinction between “causing” and “allowing”.
You’ve set up a strawman. The majority of “homeless people” are “homeless” because of drug and/or alcohol addiction and wouldn’t know what to do with health insurance if you you forced it on them. I prefer to call these people bums, or at best someone suffering from a mental disorder.
JM: The majority of “homeless people” are “homeless” because of drug and/or alcohol addiction and wouldn’t know what to do with health insurance if you you forced it on them.
It may be a majority, but it’s not the vast majority: even high-end estimates of addiction rates among the homeless suggest that “65-85% of all homeless adults suffer from chronic alcoholism, drug addiction, mental illness, or some combination of the three, often complicated by serious medical problems.”
So up to one-third of the US’s 0.5–3 million homeless adults are not in fact addicted to drugs or alcohol, which makes them a pretty substantial minority. Even if all homeless addicts are truly, by their own choices, beyond help (which doesn’t seem likely), what should we do about those other half-million or more homeless non-addicts, not to mention approximately the same number of homeless children?
I prefer to call these people bums, or at best someone suffering from a mental disorder.
So are you trying to say that homelessness doesn’t cause suffering for the addicted? Or that the suffering of the addicted doesn’t matter because they brought their predicament on themselves? Or that the suffering of the addicted is not something that the government can realistically do anything about?
I think all of those statements are flawed. You seem to be confusing homeless addicts with the so-called “homeless by choice”, the people whom earlier eras described as “bums” or “hobos” or “tramps”—that is, people who genuinely prefer the hardships of a precarious, transient life to steady work and a stable existence.
I agree that the real “hobos” or “tramps” are not likely to be changed by a government program (or anything else, for that matter), but I don’t think it’s accurate to say that all homeless substance abusers fall into that category. Even if they did, we’d still be left with the problem of the suffering of the million or so homeless who aren’t substance abusers.
Some liberals seem to think it is the purpose of gov’t to eliminate all misery, without regard to self responsibility.
I’d like to see a cite for that, please. I don’t know anybody in my large circle of fellow liberals who wouldn’t laugh themselves sick at the very notion that the government could somehow “eliminate all misery”, not to mention the notion that it could somehow take the place of “self responsibility”.
Where are these utopian liberals who really believe so naively that the government can solve all problems and remove all burdens of individual effort? I suspect they live in the same partisan fantasy-land as those greedy, selfish conservatives who believe that all poor people have only themselves to blame for not being rich and would rather see children starving to death on all sides than toss them a few table scraps.
Just a reminder: Nearly half of all homeless men are veterans of the United States Armed Forces. Careful who you call a bum guys.
by John Mace:
Sentiments such as this hurt the image of conservatives and get you all painted as smug, cold-hearted sumbitches who raise your noses at the struggling underclass.
Do you think the majority of poor people are alcoholics and drug addicts? Let’s say they are, just for the sake of argument. In your eyes, I’m assuming, that would justify no government assistance. Right?
I’d almost be willing to at least meet you halfway with that idea, except for the fact that poor children really have no control over their predicament. I don’t think it is fair to let them starve or freeze to death just because their parents are unable to kick their crack habit.
It is really easy to extoll the virtues of personal accountability when you focus on adults, but when the majority of poor people in this country are children, the “you made your bed, you lie in it” model needs to be replaced with something more sensitive .
Absolutely. Opinions are shaped by experience.
Can I get a cite on that, please?
I have an idea the conservatives will just love. Since our religious institutions have decided to hoard wealth and build mansions and buy TV stations rather than take care of the starving and homeless people of America adequately, it is time to tax your religious ass.
Oh God, don’t let me get started on the homeless stats. It is a subject near and dear to my heart.
I’ll get you a cite.
It’s not that I doubt you, but that number just has to be seen to be really believed.
I wouldn’t say that Catholics are hoarding wealth right now. If anything, the Church is going broke from all the lawsuits.
PRAISE THE LORD BROTHER !!
Here is the homeless coaltion site. They number it at 40%. The largest group of homeless Vets are from The Vietnam War so the number is shrinking as they are less likely to survive the winters on the streets as they grow older.
http://www.nationalhomeless.org/veterans.html
Here is another homeless site that puts the number at 60%. I suppose the truth lies somewhere inbetween.
As you can see, by not supporting minimum wage increases and by considering homeless people to be a bunch of bums and alcoholics, the truth is, the conservatives with those convictions may actually be the arrogant, cold hearted SOBs some people say. I’m not sure myself but I am waiting for one of them to explain how else we are going to pay the rent.
No, I am saying exactly what I said. That many if not most of the “homeless” would not know what to do with health insurance if they had it. Why do you extrapolate that to conclude that I don’t recognize there is suffering? For the gov’t to do something about this would mean coercing these same people into treatment, would it not? Would you support that?
No, I don’t. Can you show me where I even remotely hinted at that? Do you think that by asking this question you can imply that I believe it?
SentientMeat asks:
There are several questions here that are almost always unasked by Liberals, because they assume that the alternative to government safety nets is to have no safety net at all.
The fact of the matter is, private charity makes up a significant proportion of the total charitable giving in the U.S. But more importantly, government charity displaces private charity. It’s that law of unintended consequences again.
For example: Even during the depression very few people actually starved to death in the United States, even before the New Deal came along. That’s because private charity was a much stronger factor in society at the time. But private charity is fundamentally different than government charity, because it was personal. It was neighbors getting together to help the guy down the block who lost his job. It was public barn raisings for farmers who’s barn burned down. It was private soup kitchens run by the Salvation Army. It was the Church, which was the core of charitable life in the community.
There was a lot to be said for this kind of charity. For one thing, it set a good example. People gave because they wanted to help, and the people who accepted the charity felt a compulsion to return the favor. “Pay it forward” was a common phrase. Communities were stronger.
Before we had social security, medicare, and other programs for the aged, how did old people survive? Simple. They were supported by their own children. There was a much stronger sense of family back in the day. I grew up in a poor farming household with my mother AND my grandparents. This was the norm before government social programs. I would argue that it was very good for children, good for the community, and good for the country. Whether it was enough is another matter, but it’s important to at least realize that the rise of government safety nets was one of the stronger forces leading to the destruction of the extended family.
Another unintended consequence of government safety nets is a culture that is perpetually overextended and living on credit. Many, many people do not save for their retirements, because they know that deep down, if they are destitute and old the government will come to the rescue. There was a loss of individual responsibility that came with a rise in government responsibility for welfare.
Many conservatives would argue that these effects have led to a rise in crime, polarization in society between those who receive government benefits and those who are taxed to pay for it, and a general coarsening of the civil society.
Let me give you an instructive example: Compare the plight of fishermen in Eastern Canada with those in Maine. A Canadian newsmagazine show called ‘W5’ did that a couple of years ago, and the unintended conequences of government charity fairly leapt off the screen at you.
In Canada, the fishermen are supported by the government. They are allowed to collect unemployment insurance in the off-season, get all kinds of subsidies for their fishing, and the number of people on the welfare rolls is HUGE. Maine, on the other hand, which started off with a very similar society and industry, has very little in the way of government assistance. Fishermen are not supported in the off season. There is no permanent welfare.
Which society do you think is better off? In which one do you think the people are happier? Well, let me tell you:
In Atlantic Canada, the fishing industry is not sustainable. Subsidies have caused overfishing. Reliance on social assistance in the off season has reduced the need to diversify the economy. Children born in the society who aren’t already on the dole can’t find work, and often are forced to leave home at a young age to find work in other provinces. And the people are mad. Steaming mad. Because they rely on the government to keep them alive, every time there is a threatened cutback, they scream. If you suggest that they should be allowed to collect unemployment insurance in the off-season, they’ll say, “What else are we supposed to do? There are no jobs! We’d starve.”
So what about Maine? Well, Maine had to learn to adapt. Industries have sprung up to take advantage of the glut of labor available in the winter months. So many people fish in the summer, then do other work in the winter. And they’re satisfied. What jumped out at me during the show was just how bitter and angry the Canadians were, and how happy the Americans were, despite the fact that the Canadians received a ton of free money, and the Americans, none.
This is the effect of many social programs. Entitlements make people feel well, entitled. They become angry and bitter when they are cut. Public money crowds out private investment. High unemployment leads to high crime. Look at the heavily subsidized inner cities and see if you can’t spot some of the same patterns. Chronic unemployment, embittered, cynical populations, and decrepit infrastructures. Of course, if you give someone a free house to live in, they’re going to have a lot less incentive to keep it up than if it represents most of their own life savings. The law of unintended consequences again.
Plus, liberal programs are ineffective. Someone please tell me what the hundreds of billions of dollars spent by the Department of Education have done for ANYONE. With all our programs and billions we spend, sometimes we lose sight of the fact that the best education comes when you have a student in between a great teacher and involved, supportive parents. My Grandmother went to a school with one 19 year old teacher and about twenty kids in a single room. The teacher was paid for by the people living in the rural area. She came out with three languages (her own, her family’s, and latin), a solid math and science background, and a good appreciation for philosophy and literature. On the other hand, we have a school district in Alberta here with no schools. It used to have schools and a large administration by the department of education. As the population left the area (especially kids), the schools closed one by one, but the administration never shrank. Eventually, there were no schools. But the administration remained. In the United States, the Rural Electrification Administration was created for the ‘temporary’ job of electrifying the farms of America. Back then, only 1-2% of farms had electricity. Today, about 99% of farms have electricity, but the budget for the REA is still growing. It is now an end to itself.
Because these things cost money - money that people would rather spend on other things, and because there is very little to no benefit from many of these programs, then yes government makes people more miserable.
OK. Assuming that we’re talking about physical suffering (and not something like being hearbroken because your boyfriend dumped you), can you list a few examples of suffering that you want the gov’t to do nothing about?
The number of times I have been accused of setting up a strawman by people who themselves misrepresent opposing views is beginning to grate. This time, I was even asking a question! Now, you can accuse me of setting up a false dichotomy (and Sam even seems to think that I am doing better than most liberals at avoiding this), but a strawman??? How can I misrepresent an opinion by asking what it is?
John, would rates of homelessness therefore be similar in the two example nations I gave? How might a much lower rate of homelessness in one be explained?
Sam, you give an interesting example - many thanks for the time you spent on your reply. However, I have trouble believing that private charity is quite so universal as state charity, as Wang-Ka’s earlier testimony illustrated. (Incidentally, what did you make of his story? Shodan dismissed it as strawmanship. Yes, he really did.) An example more relevant to my own experience was simple, common homelessness in large cities: In Santa Monica they were everywhere! I had my bins rummaged through on a twice-weekly basis, even though I was by no means well-off myself, struggling to pay the rent even with a job.
Suffice to say, nowhere else outside the Third World have I seen people literally eating from rubbish bins, and I found it doubly surprising that I saw it in the richest country on Earth. Are they happier and less numerous than in a welfare state, would you say?