I just think that many that subscribe to the “people just need to be more responsible” mindset to justify not wanting the government to help people at all don’t really think about the actual real world effects of this viewpoint if put into action.
I wasn’t trying to point at any specific person, even though I was responding to your post originally. My use of “you” was meant in a general sense.
I am perfectly ok with that, as most of mine were as well.
See, that’s the thing. Most people who require assistance SHOULD be more responsible. And conservatives hold that value
It’s a rather tough pill to swallow when the real world shows you that some people do not give a shit about helping, not only themselves, but family members/children. If someone cannot financially support a child, they should not bring them into this world assuming that someone else will.
Most of our support systems we have in place encourages dependence on it rather than being free of it.
…and I shall know you by your limping.
Deliberate cruelty to migrant families is a feature, not a bug!
And most people SHOULD use their turn signals, but as my commute each day shows me that isn’t the case. Also liberals want people to be responsible too, but we understand that some people can’t and also that just because some people won’t it doesn’t mean that we should just let their kids suffer. That hurts us all, and it isn’t the kids’ fault what circumstances they are born into. If some number of “unworthy” people get assistance in order for us to make sure we don’t have American kids starving, then that’s just part of being a society. We have to be careful about the consequences of cutting these programs on our most vulnerable citizens.
It’s also a tough pill to swallow when you realize that many people don’t give a damn about poor kids and justify it with “well they shouldn’t have been born”, as if that changes anything.
Is this true though? This is a common refrain from the right, but we did welfare reform already, I thought there already is a limit and the idea of a lifelong welfare leech is not really accurate anymore. Am I understanding incorrectly? Are there statistics that show this to be an increasing problem now? I’d like to see that data if this is such a huge problem in our society rather than just a cudgel being used on the right in order to slash social spending and lower their own taxes regardless of the actual reality of the situation.
Probably not, but that also cuts both ways.
One does need to worry about what incentives the system sets up. It is nice to say “the government should help out the needy.” It makes one feel good. It’s not your money, and you don’t have to worry about implantation.
I understand that under the current welfare system you have people that would like to get off and support themselves, but if they do at all they lose their benefits, so they are forced to stay on. Seems bad to me.
Also, though people are not bears, you can end up with a “don’t feed the bears” problem, where tourist handouts create bears that become dependent and can’t care for themselves any longer.
Some well meaning programs in the 60s caused great misery. Housing projects were built and people moved there because it was thought that living in close proximity would build a sense of community. This was based on experiments done with rats, believe it or not. The rats are each other. They still thought it was a good idea, because people are not rats, and went ahead and built housing projects, and moved people there. I read a whole book on this thing. I can find the title if you care to read it.
The point is that good intentions are not enough. The debate is always “let’s give more to the poor.” “Or let’s cut funding.” This is not a problem that you solve by throwing money at. Our study of economics and social sciences has progressed a lot in the last 100 years. Our programs to help the poor succeed have not. We are still using a system founded in “the dole” invented by the British to keep the Irish in misery. That is a poor basis.
I think we need to guy and redo the whole system from the ground up so that it’s not a handout, but a path to success.
Tell me again how I should engage in debate with you based on your sincerity and good faith.
I think you just made a funny or clever reference that went right over my head.
Apologies. Just some mild snark. I had thought that since you learned that Trump’s policy of separating children from families was both new and deliberate, you would now oppose the policy, even if you still supported Trump overall, so I was disappointed to see you list “border policy” as a reason you supported him.
Disappointment is character building.
Sadly, Scylla, sometimes it seems that the more effort I put into a post, the less likely you are to respond. When I went through, step-by-step, the history of the shutdown in the other thread, you ignored it. Sometimes I succumb to baser thoughts and put out a flippant snarky post, but that’s immature and I apologize. Even if such snark appears more likely to actually get engagement. I’d certainly prefer the substantive discussion, even when it gets contentious.
“Personal responsibility” sounds good in theory until or unless there are factors that make it counterproductive or impossible. How is one supposed to deal with personal responsibility when a hospital gives you a $55,000 bill for a broken leg, which can be impossible to pay? Or the phenomenon of “it’s expensive to be poor?” Many things in U.S. society are structured in such a way that “the good get it better, the bad get it worse.” Or if you are an ex-felon trying to reintegrate into society but everyone ostracizes you and nobody will hire you?
I think that characterization is incorrect. I have tended to engage you at length, and I don’t dodge good debating points. I do move on when in my judgement I find it frustrating, pointless or not interesting, which is what I did in the previous thread. I try not to make a point of not getting pulled back into a conversation that I’ve decided isn’t worth having.
I try not to hold grudges or carry debate from one thread into another, as that is unfair to the participants in the new thread.
The exception is when people troll after me, or I perceive they are carrying grudges.
My sincere suggestion would be to move on and if you have something interesting to say on the current subject, do so.
Fair enough, and best wishes!
There is no 47% who don’t pay taxes.
The 47% who don’t pay income taxes pay sales taxes, social security and medicare tax (yes those are taxes) and directly or indirectly property taxes. None of these are progressive, so as a percentage of income they all fall far more heavily on low-income than on high-income people.
Problem is: we have an economy that is so structured that it won’t work unless there are an awful lot of people working at jobs that don’t pay enough to live on.
And the society then wants to punish the people who are working long hours raising the food, cooking the food, cleaning up the mess, taking care of children, taking care of those who are ill, and doing other jobs which are essential for the functioning of society, by not only paying them poorly (or sometimes not paying them at all), but sneering at them for having trouble paying their bills.
What do you consider him, then?
Yes, that is what Romney said, but Romney was either misinformed or lying. He was trying to make a disparaging remark about those he considered himself to be better than, but the facts bear out that he was also talking about his own peers.
As far as roads and schools, those are paid for, not by income tax, but by property tax and excise tax, both of which are regressive, and both of which are not only paid by the poor, but paid at a higher percentage of income than that of the wealthy, very bad examples for you to choose to try to make Romney’s comment about those he looks down on to be any more accurate, or any less hateful.
By a pretty small margin, but that’s not the point. The conservative gets to choose who is helped by his donation, and can decide that some things are not worthy of support. Don’t like black people, don’t donate to causes that help black people.
Then there is the fact that they include the donations that they make that help themselves, building churches and paying clergy for their own use, and taking a tax exemption for it.
And finally, you also have the people making donations to get their kids into colleges that they are not qualified to go to, those are also tracked in your charitable cause donations.
No, that is not what I meant, and it would be either stupid or disingenuous to think that I did. That’s not even a strawman, that’s just completely fabricated from whole cloth.
You certainly seem to think so, as I have yet to see you do anything but. If you are referring to my comments as a strawman, then you should pay attention to what I was responding to, where Puddlegum made this claim:
Do you deny that this means that everyone needs to change their behavior? Do you deny that that claim is that “nearly every political problem” would be solved?
So, you are in favor of massive deficits, sending our people into unnecessary wars, seperating children from their parents and locking them in cages, and hate half of your fellow citizens?
Yeah, that actually does sound like conservative values to me.
Absolutely true.
I’m not sure I understand. I am thinking about those supply/demand charts from Econ 101. People own their own labor and can sell it as they see fit. If it was not a living wage, wouldn’t they go elsewhere, thus limiting supply and driving up price?
You are characterizing society as a punishing sneering entity. It’s not really.
Orange douchebag.
Federal funds which are derived from income tax do get used for roads and schools.
In this very post that I snipped from you were complaining about being strawmanned.
Pot. Kettle. Black.
Good question to ask the coal miners and factory workers and failing farmers why they voted for Trump to bring their jobs back, rather than go to where the job were at.
Where are you suggesting a non-college educated factory worker move to in order to limit the supply and drive up the price? Where should they get the money for that move?
The problem with anyone bringing up “Econ 101”, is that it always seems as though that is as far as they got, and just like insisting that Math 101 says you can’t take the root of a negative number, and therefore, wrongly insisting that it cannot be done, there is a reason why the people who actually worry about and work on these things go beyond the basic survey class and actually learn the nuance of how the subject works.
Generally attributed as an Irish Blessing:
May those that love us love us and those that don’t love us, may God turn their hearts; If he can’t turn their hearts, may he turn their ankles, so we’ll know them by their limping.