Put Me In Charge

[Battousai]

1) Well it shouldn't be enforced, but if you are unemployed you shouldn't be trying to have children that you can not support yourself. That's just common sense. Accidental pregnancy can and will happen, but forcing surgery (I believe the two mentioned by the OP require surgery and I think maybe permament, haven't looked that up) is wrong. Maybe instead offer free condoms/pills to help prevent accidental pregnancy (just because you are poor, it doesn't mean you can control your beastial urge to have sex. That's just unrealistic). I also like how the author goes straight towards the women here and not mention visectomy. This just enforces the fact that he is writing from a biased position, and that if he ever became poor he would be demanding the government give him more money.

2) Making welfare optional, with the other option being starvation is not like slavery. It is more intuned with post-slavery where newly freed blacks were allowed to leave their farms, but didn't due to not being able to get a job that could support their family (either through no one wanting to hire them or that they didn't have the skills to get a job other than farming).

3) I also find it weird that Republicans, generally speaking, pander to the Christian demographic but at the same time are so against Socialism. It's weird because Socialistic, classless idea (where the rich give their money to the poor so that they can all be equally well off) is probably one of the few governments that is more intuned to what God would have wanted. Maybe they'd be happier if the rich were forced to give the money to the church instead of the poor, and the church gives that money to the poor as they see fit (after taking out their cut of course).

[Cyberbob]

3) I also find it weird that Republicans, generally speaking, pander to the Christian demographic but at the same time are so against Socialism. It's weird because Socialistic, classless idea (where the rich give their money to the poor so that they can all be equally well off) is probably one of the few governments that is more intuned to what God would have wanted. Maybe they'd be happier if the rich were forced to give the money to the church instead of the poor, and the church gives that money to the poor as they see fit (after taking out their cut of course).

[Cyberbob]

Thanks for contributing, Yos, as opposed to being an idiot like Cyberbob.

actually yos is being an idiot for wasting waste time and energy on you

[mole]

Yeah I'm still not sure what the debate actually is since we so clumsily backpedaled away from the OP.

[TheLonging]

come on all I think the answer is more rimzzz

[ReaperCharlie]

Thanks for contributing, Yos, as opposed to being an idiot like Cyberbob.

actually yos is being an idiot for wasting waste time and energy on you

Said the guy who has more posts in this thread than anyone else. ^

Who also happens to be contributing the least. Wow, sounds familiar.

[Thestatusquo]

Theres nothing to contribute. I'm being an idiot for responding seriously. As I said in my second post, the only proper response to ideas like the one the OP proposed is "no you're an idiot" because anything else raises them to the level of acceptable discourse, which they aren't.

I'm just being baited by exactly how ignorant you are, as my natural desire to dispel ignorance is hard to ignore.

[TheLonging]

I agree, even if this whole OP was satirical or non serious, it still doesn't deserve a serious reply

[CooLDoG]

@RC, I wo7uld be slightly interested if you responded to my post... you don't have to though.

[ReaperCharlie]

Sorry, I plan to respond to everyone when I get the time.

Hiding the fact that I'm making long posts at work is significantly more difficult than cruising around making short posts, and minimizing every few minutes.

I'm sure you understand.

[BrutalAztecs]

Sorry, I plan to respond to everyone when I get the time.

Hiding the fact that I'm making long posts at work is significantly more difficult than cruising around making short posts, and minimizing every few minutes.

I'm sure you understand.

Just let it go. Nothing you say will ever detract from the fact the author is an ill-informed bigoted racist. The more you defend his points the more you end up sounding like an ill-informed bigoted racist.

[CooLDoG]

@RC, yes... I understand (hehehe, I do it too)

[Cyberbob]

The more you defend his points the more you end up sounding like an ill-informed bigoted racist.

we already knew this though

[Nero Cain]

We DO have a major overpopulation problem.

[Thestatusquo]

We DO have a major overpopulation problem.

No, we actually don't.

[Bub Bidderskins]

We DO have a major overpopulation problem.

No, we actually don't.

There's plenty of interior space in the US, and population growth is actually slowing down.

[Cyberbob]

We DO have a major overpopulation problem.

it's actually an overconsumption problem fyi

[Thestatusquo]

We DO have a major overpopulation problem.

it's actually an overconsumption problem fyi

This. If you look at environmental impact data, the countries that are the most "overpopulated" are making a much lower impact than say, the United States, or Japan, or most of Europe, which currently have very low or even negative growth rates. If we were to all consume less, the resources the planet has would be more than enough to support the current population.

TL:DR: Malthus was a moron.

[TheLonging]

Huh, so I was mistaken for thinking all this time that we were all so overpopulated?

[Thestatusquo]

Well, let me be clear. Certainly it might be better if there were less people on the planet, but over all, we've not reached the point where the earth can no longer support us. People have been claiming that there are too many people living on the planet for at least 400 years, but we still seem to be doing just fine.

Its a general misconception because of the existence of neo-Malthusian ideas (read: racism) and the fact that we just consume way way way way too much. As CB says, the problem is on of consumption, not one of population. If everyone in the third world were to live like we do in America, we would need somewhere between 5-10 earths to sustain us. This is not because we're over populated, but because the first world uses an absurd amount of resources.

If there is a problem with overpopulation, it has to do with the growth rates of certain parts of the world I.E. India, etc. If their growth rates continue as they are, we could be in for serious problems in 50 years or so when their population more than doubles.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the concept of overpopulation is at least in part based on the idea that the earth has a finite amount of resources, but theres a significant branch of economic and environmental thought that theorizes that human ingenuity to develop new technologies and ways to use new resources and old resources more effectively and sustainably can always keep pace with human needs. I don't know if thats 100% correct, but it seems to me that its at least partially so (think of Dwarf wheat and the green revolution.) This is the main reason malthus was wrong. Will he continue to be? Who knows, but right now we're doing just fine in terms of population.

[Battousai]

The United States, actually, is underpopulated (in the younger generations). The impact of the baby boomer generation is catching up, in which our current rate of birth will not be sufficient to offset the amount of elderly deaths that is soon to come.

[Nightson]

In really shitty conditions people have a lot of kids because they lack access to birth control, it helps with labor and improves the odds of them surviving. When economic development happens in the region, the mortality rate tends to plummet while food access increases so there's a population boom, then people adjust and have fewer children.

[VP Baltar]

:-O

DoD is actually scheduled to cut spending and reduce troop levels. Guess I get to keep my rimzzz come 2015.

[ReaperCharlie]

RC: Before we get into any specifics, let me just say that the reason the article you posted got everyone so upset is that it sounds like the guy who wrote it really, really hates poor people. He thinks they are poor because they blow their welfare checks on rims and xboxes, he thinks they should have manditory government sterilization, be subject to random warentless searches, be forced into totalitarian work camps, and basically lose all of their fundamental rights as human beings. To be honest, I wouldn't have been surprised to see him end the article with a suggestion that all poor people be put into concentration camps as step one of a "final solution" to the problem. The guy you quoted is full of hatred in a really, really scary way, and the article was frankly pretty disturbing to read.

I agree. Why do you think I posted that instead of a well-reasoned argument? To get people's blood to boil. But after the initial GD+SCP trolling (which is sadly expected) we are also now discussing the problems. Which was the intent of my posting it. So no worries, we are agreed on that.

Most people on food stamps end up basically going without food for the last week of every month so they can continue to feed their children.

Source, please.

Ask anyone who works at a food bank. They always know to stock up towards the end of the month, because the food stamps just don't last the whole month for most people on them.

Sorry, I don't know anyone who works at a food bank. Do you have any numbers or articles? Also, please read the below quote.

Also yeah, sources.

I've applied for food stamps before. You get upwards of $500 a month for a family on food.

Most people on foodstamps sell the remainder of their money to others.

AKA: "I have $200 I don't use on my card each month. I'll sell it to you for $100 cash" which is the kind of brilliant gaming of the system I personally love but the fact remains that government spending in this area is superfluous and inefficient.

What do you have to say about the truth or falsehood of this, Yos?

Right now, the nationwide average a person gets from food stamps is about $90 a month, so about $3 a day. In most parts of the country, you can't really live on that; and, of course, food is actually a lot more expensive in the poor urban areas and in the poor rural areas, since people living in those places really don't have access to large supermarkets. (The call the areas "food deserts"; the economy is so bad in many poor urban areas, that there are no big grocery stores, the only places to buy food are small corner stores, and it's actually a lot more expensive because of that.)

Do you have a source for this too please?

What's your goal here? Is it to improve the lives of the poor/unemployed/homeless? Is it to reduce unemployment? Is it to improve efficiency and reduce government spending? Or is it to make you feel like people are spending their money in the "right" way?

All of the above.

In the UK a study into homelessness found that it was far cheaper for the government to care for people well--to put them into high-quality furnished accomodation--than it was to care for them poorly. The cost to society of providing these people's needs in other ways ended up being three times as expensive to the taxpayer than if the government had actually just paid for good accomodation up-front.

The U.S. has a lot to learn.

That is, if we can dig ourselves out of the hole we've dug ourselves into.

[ReaperCharlie]

In our country, a study done in 2010 showed that 15% of all families in the country suffers from hunger. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 02930.htmlThat's 17 million households. "Food stamps are too generous" is really not in the list of problems our country has right now.

http://www.cdc.gov/HealthyYouth/obesity/

For one thing, people who are struggling just to get the 2000 or so calories that you need a day to live aren't going to be able to eat healthy food. A frozen pizza is about 1 dollar. It's not healthy, but if you're trying to put some kind of food on your table, that's not really your priority.

A lot of the poor kids in the school district I work in live in the motels. A lot of working poor people do; for one thing, if you don't have the down payment for an apartment, a motel might be your only option; for another, people with kids want to live in a middle class school district, because school districts in poor areas are terrible (partly because of the incredibly stupid way we fund schools in this country.) But if you're living in a motel for 6 months or 9 months, you don't have a kitchen at all. Every hot meal you make has to come out of the microwave. So, yeah, if you're in that situation, you're probably buying a lot of frozen pizza.

In general, when poor people with very limited budget are trying to get enough food to survive and not feel painfully hungry, they're going to eat things that are cheap and high in calories and fat. And, of course, convenience is also a factor; a working single parent just doesn't have enough time in the day to spend a few hours cooking dinner every night. Something always has to give in tough situations like that, and I hate it when people act like it's a moral failing that someone in that situation just can't do everything.

Let me point you again to that article I posted above.

You are right about Medicare having problems, especially if anyone has to make a choice like that. There is something fundamentally wrong with America's welfare and healthcare systems if it's better to NOT get a job than it is to GET a job. But free handouts without any kind of return develop dependency and laziness in very many people, and those are the people that need to be getting audited.

Well, we do need to create a way out of poverty for a lot of rural poor and urban poor. It's not going to be as easy as slashing welfare, though; a good anti-poverty program will probably mean helping people more then we do now and will probably, in the short run, cost more money then what we're doing now.

I agree with you. My complaint is not that my taxes help people eat food and live. I send money overseas to third-world countries for that, on top of my taxes. For any of you who are interested, I suggest World Vision or Compassion International.

The government was not built to sustain the nation. That's what families and friends are for. There is a fundamental problem with the way things in this country work, which stems from a root of entitlement. More on this, if you're interested.

Well, a social support network of family and friends is very important, that's true. But there are always going to be people without that support network, and when there's a big recession, like there is now, there are whole groups of families and friends that are all suffering and have very limited ability to help each other at all.

One of the basic rules of capilitilsm is that there are always winners and losers. It's probably unavoidable in a capatilist system, and it's not necessarally a matter of personal failure or fault; there are too many random factors to make it that simple. So we have a choice; we can either have a safety net, some way to cushon the fall and help people get back on their feet, or we can let people starve in the street. The truth is, having a safety net is actually cheaper in the long run then not having one.

Whether you know it or not, you hit on one of the major points of this entire discussion. Welfare

is

meant to be a safety net, some way to cushion the fall and help people get back on their feet. And I think 99.9999% of Americans are fine with that. What we’re not fine with is those who stay on the system as long as possible because they’re too lazy to work, those who

make

that choice to

not

get a job so they can stay on unemployment, or like Fate said earlier, those who work the system, basically getting free money from the fed because they don’t use it all and use the extra $200 they’re not spending on food to barter and create a whole new economy based around government-provided resources. And that is something the government cannot control.

If, instead of giving people a welfare check, you think the government should hire poor people and pay them for their work, at least for people who can work, that's quite reasonable. Probably more expensive then welfare, to be honest, but possibly better for the society as a whole. But "Here's your check, now go do this busy work we made for you" is a terrible idea.

One could effectively argue that it’s the exact same thing. Which makes the whole argument moot unless we can agree about whether or not

working for what you get

is a good incentive to do something like that. Also, it maintains a good work ethic in somebody who has been without another job for a while. I’m not sure how many of you have been affected by the economy as much as I have, but I was unemployed for a number of months. After a while, even

without

getting any unemployment benefits from the government, I was feelin’ pretty good about not having to go back to work and working every day. The attitude of laziness becomes ever more pervasive, and some people can just

turn off

their conscience and ignore the voice in their mind telling them that it’s wrong to be lazy and take other people’s money to pay for laziness. Which is why I don’t do unemployment, because I don’t feel alright with doing it. Also, because it lessens my resolve to find a new job

right away

, which is another problem entirely. Malingering in unemployment is a huge drain on everyone else, yes?