Well, Ierrellus, to be quite honest, I have experienced many freeloaders and not where you might expect them. For example, El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico wrote a song about this guy that brags “Recibiendo la pension por loco, de loco yo no tengo 'na, oiste!” In English, “Getting a pension (a handout) for being mentally ill, but of mental illness I have nothing”. In the military many retirees beg me to go to the VA to get examined. I say: “There is nothing wrong with me” and they reply that I don’t have to tell them that and to go anyway to see if I can “score” a level of disability. That welfare recipients spend their stipends in other than what is necessary to survive is not necessarily common but it is also NOT a myth. In Puerto Rico where a great number of people use federal hand-outs not as a tie-me over but as a pretty much permanent thing. Worse, there is little incentive to get off the welfare pot. (economist.com/node/6980051). The problem of the welfare state is that it depends on a portion of the population agreeing to pay for the needs of another. Is there a problem when a person with no legs ask for a hand-out? Probably not, but people using the handouts may not need it and that is a problem. Eventually the program suffers because there is just so much that you can ask before the givers feel the pinch and start to protect themselves. In Puerto Rico this has led to a massive exodus since 2006 that culminated in the territory defaulting on their debt.
The most compelling argument, for me, against your argument here is that people risk their lives crossing the dessert in the southern border or the Mona strait near the west coast of Puerto Rico to often do the jobs that go unclaimed by people who qualify for welfare. It is usually them, who still believe in the old bootstraps theory, that advance in their second generation for example (pewsocialtrends.org/2013/02/ … americans/) while those that have transitioned to the belief that welfare is their human right will probably remain, as I consider them, a victim of a system that is prone to abuse.
Everything should be in the right measure. I don’t believe that either extreme is correct. I believe that there should be hand-outs, but I am against a free hand-out because I believe success follows work and self sacrifice. Sure, there are exceptions, but they could also serve as proof of the rule.
We think it matters but our thinking is wrong.
Omar,
While I agree that welfare fraud must be addressed, I’m also aware of the current myth of underserving recipients. Many men become absentee husbands so that, despite their inability to find work, their wives and children can get government assistance. Of the absent husbands–we get back to the lie that anyone in the US can make a decent living, i.e, a living that can feed and clothe the children.
No. Your thinking is wrong. Sorry.
What you think is that everything is equal. You are an egalitarianist who has forgotten that egalitarianism is also a phenomenon that is based on individualism, thus on Occidental developments like the Lutheran reformation (protestantism) as a revolution of the “I”. There has always been more “I” in the culture of the Occident than in all other cultures. Even the current “human rights” are based on this typical Occidental issue, and note: I am not judging here - I am talking about facts.
The Lutheran reformation was a revolution of how we think about “I” and not about the “I” itself.
The Lutheran reformation was a revolution of both (1) about the “I” itself and (2) how we think about the “I”.
For it to be a revolution of the “I” itself then there cannot be a biological basis for “I” or, if there is a biological basis of “I”, the Lutheran reformation changed human biology by power of collective thought.
Again: You are putting words into my mouth I never said.
I was talking about a revolution "about the »I«“, you misunderstood it as a revolution "of the »I«“.
Sources: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=190648&p=2622243#p2622232 .
So all your further conclusions must become false too. In other words: there was no "change“ of the "human biology by power of collective thought“, and nobody was talking about it - except you. Even if there had been one, then it would have been a more right one. But that is not what I was talking about. Try to read and understand the texts of other ILP members correctly.
Arminus, like I said “our thinking is wrong” as the “I” and “we” haven’t changed at all and they function in exactly the same way (independent of the Lutheran reformation).
I used the preposition “about”, you, One Liner, read it falsely or/and just made it the preposition "of“. That led to a completely different meaning of the whole original sentence and the whole original subject.
Sources: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=190648&p=2622243#p2622232 .
This changing of the preopositions and thus of the content and meaning of the sentence they belong to as well as the whole subject was only one of many other examples of the fact that you are almost always changing content and meaning of texts.
I wanted to talk about a certain subject and not to change the subject whenever you want to change the subject.
You are a faker (although not as much as the trolling super fakers Turd Ferguson and Fixed Cross).
Arminus, this is the OP and I have stuck to the topic of discussion without changing the topic of discussion.
One Liner.
I did NOT say that you changed the content of the opening post. Why are you always changing the subject of somebody’s post? Do you know how such a behavior is called?
Again:
You have changed the prepositions of my texts, and by doing this you have changed the content and meaning of my whole text (post).
Arminus, I stuck to the OP and didn’t change the OP and, as far as I am aware, the OP continues to be the current topic of discusion.
Who said that you did? NOBODY.
That does not allow you to change the content of other posts. They are not your posts. And this posts stuck to the opening post and did never change the opening post.
Arminus, as I said, I stuck to the OP.
Only perhaps. But one fact is that you faked the content and meaning of other posts.
Arminus, I stuck to the OP and had no intention of changing the OP (otherwise I would have started another thread).
Exactly
There are deserving recipients. To those we extend that “us” which unfortunately highlights others who abuse the system and remain “them”. It is a myth to think that everyone can make it in America, but I would say that it is a myth that has served us well. Let me put it in another way. You might be a complete atheist physician who nonetheless encourages the belief in what you otherwise consider a myth due to its salutary effects in the lives of patients whose will to live is fading. Present setbacks are no guarantee for future failures and thus calling the belief that you can make it in America a myth is itself a myth, a conclusion that exceeds the evidence available. (This reminds me a lot of A. Camus argument against suicide). The point is that maybe, for the sake of argument, some people cannot and will not make it in America, we don’t know until they are willing to try themselves. Even when they fail today it does not mean that they are helpless forever. each person’s situation has to be evaluated on it’s own rather than passing judgment on our species as a whole or jumping to the conclusion that self-improvement, in America, is a myth.
We don’t have 100% employment and so if a welfare cheat stays home and milks the system then this is great as it enables the genuine job seeker to get a job.
Where are all those jobs other than the ones that pay minimum wage? Can you raise a family on minimum wage? Nowadays it takes husband, wife and children all working to buy necessities.