The Glade 4.0

Michael, you're basically taking one of the core tenets of capitalist economic theory - the efficiency gains from specialization and trade - and framing it as some kind of corporate/government conspiracy. Step away from the tinfoil, my friend.

Aye, but that's why I (and, I gather, Xeq) peg expectations to the average in society.

I think you are advocating a policy which institutionalizes failure.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

More interesting to me: If we're taking about a "dole" that is a government handout funded by taxpayer dollars, if it could be known what any one person had put into the dole pot via taxation, should that person feel shame at taking that amount back out in benefits? Are we demanding shame of anyone who takes anything at all, or just of people whose out-takes are greater than their inputs?

You miss one of the main points then Rynar, they have not been trained to understand it is shameful. They have been trained to think it is the normal way of things. Why should they feel shame? Demanding it of them is like ordering a river to run backwards, it can be done, but it will never happen without a lot of work.

You can lead a prole to knowledge, but you can't make him think.

First you need to teach them that it is shameful, and find a way to do it where they don't consider it part of the circus and laugh at you.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

I don't know... I think it's much easier than that. I think it begins with outwardly treating them with contempt.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Column B.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Yeah it's not even a matter of taking out more than you put in. It's a matter of do you deserve it. Do you need because you can't do for yourself or because you simply dont do it yourself.

I'm talking about the bullshit "I'd love to work but I tweaked my back stocking shelves when I was 16" from a 45 year old man. Yeah he needs ridicule. Or the woman on her 5th child with 5 different guys and no job. She needs ridicule and she also needs to have a clause that says she gets nothing if she doesnt agree to go on birth control.

On the other hand, the family that just hit a rough patch in tough economic times or had a tragic illness or whatever. Different category.

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

RangerDave:

Chew on this ...

My mother sent 4 boys to College with 0 Student Loan Debt between them, and she never made more than $25,000 a year as a single parent (adjusted to 2000 dollars for ease of comparison).

My mother never accepted Food Stamps or TANF Funds or the like. Not once.

Now she lives in a house and drives a car I bought her; and I fund her retirement. But, yeah, that's how I grew up.

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How is anyone here trying to combine the current welfare system with changed societal expectations? Most of us are in favor of massive reductions or elimination of welfare.

As for "literally less than nothing" and "paying to work" that's completely absurd. Just because you're making less doing a job than you could get doing something that takes less effort or no effort does not mean you're paying, it means you're making less. That's like saying I was paying money to be in Iraq because I could make the same amount with less work if I had a law degree.

Finally, your arguments about McDonalds have been repeatedly debunked as not representative of their pay scale. If there's no reason for anyone to be working at McDonalds, where do all these thousands of McDonald's and Burger Kings and Taco Bells and Wendy's etc. get all their workers from?

Oh wait, that's right. It's just like the farm workers. They actually do pay enough for people to work their because they have to have workers.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

That's pretty **** slick. My mom made between $40,000 and $60,000 or so in the years over which my sister and I were in college and we both needed student loans, even with my ROTC scholarship and her workplace's tuition assistance for children.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

The problem with this is that you have to get enough other people to regard it contemptuously as well. Otherwise, you just look like an *** and actually make people more sympathetic to those on the dole.

It begins with getting those working (and those not working, but not taking public assistance) to be less sympathetic.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Diamondeye:

Scholarships are your friends. Incidentally, being the poor guy who did work study to get through his first undergrad degree and worked a second job for money to live on ...

That's how I found out it was cheaper to go to an Ivy League quality private school than a really good state institution the first time around. CWRU paid 90% of my tuition, just as they did for the other 30% of their student base that qualified.

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I believe there are more people in agreement with us on this issue than you do, I think.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

I think there are plenty of people in agreement on the issue, but I also think that there are not a lot of people who will openly treat others with contempt, what with the bleeding-heart-its-not-their-fault mantra of the last 70 years or so that makes it socially unacceptable to call a deadbeat a deadbeat, especially when it's likely to be met with accusations of racism.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I think people are mad enough to not care. At least they are in my state. In fact, one thing I've started to notice with a good deal of frequency is that being labeled as a racist is only making them madder.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

I haven't noticed this on any scale or in any form that would lead to public scorn of those on the dole being a realistic likelyhood in the immediate future.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Didnt we see it in the 90s with Clinton actually running on welfare reform? Regardless of what you think of Clinton or the actual legislation, it's pretty clear the support for some type of reform was there. While that's not quite scorn, it is indicative of the general view of welfare.

And yes I know it was a republican initiative as part of the contract with America but the fact that a Democratic president got behind it is significant.

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

Aye, there was and is widespread scorn towards those receiving various forms of welfare (even temporarily, unfortunately). And habitually living on the dole is already seen by most Americans - both liberals and conservatives - as a shameful thing, which is why the vast majority of recipients don't stay on it long term. Those who do are pretty much the ones who don't give a **** what people outside their own social circles think.

So, from a practical perspective, heaping scorn upon scorn isn't going to do much to change things. And from a moral perspective, I think it's kind of despicable, at least when applied to people making temporary use of the system when life whacks them upside the head. There, but for the grace of God, go I; and so forth. Middle-class Americans - you know, pretty much the luckiest, most privileged people in the history of the freakin' world - kinda need to get over themselves a little. We ain't all that, and we each have/had a lot of help getting where we are, so I think a little inward humility and outward charity (of spirit) is warranted.

The problem is that there isn't widespread scorn towards habitual doleists - or rather, if there is, it's kept politely hidden from them. It therefore doesn't exhibit social pressure to get off it.

As for temporary need, there should definitely be some embarassment associated with it - not embarassment at falling on hard times, but rather the same sort of embarassment one feels at not passing a pysical fitness test. The determination to find a way off, any way, and soonest.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

That's definitely impressive, Khross, and kudos to your mom for her efforts. I'm not sure it's contrary to anything I'm saying though. I don't deny that it's possible for people to work their way up when they start with very little - hell, my own family has a similar trajectory, though it took us a generation longer than that. My point is simply that there are so many factors feeding into such successes, that a little humility is in order with respect to our own accomplishments, as is a little understanding/charity with respect to others failures. I don't think welfare should be structured in such a way as to permit and encourage lifelong handouts, but I don't think scorn and shame are appropriate emotional responses to those who stumble now and then.

I think you're under the impression that shame is an inherently bad thing. It's not. Shame is only bad when it's inflicted over truely unchangeable circumstances (i.e. having red hair, being a parapeligic) or when it's put on a person for something they didn't actually do, or for not adhereing to some social norm that serves no purpose outside of itself.

Part of the point of shame is to motivate people to either do better at or not do whatever is causing the shame. Shame is a good and healthy thing when properly applied. It is not the same as hate. I also do not think scorn is the same thing as shame, nor does it serve the same useful purpose.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

One of us has a inaccurate impression of what percentage of "users" of the welfare systems are long term or permanent.

If we're limiting ourselves to the subset of people who accept a handout lesser than or equal to the amount they've paid in, I don't see that I'm qualified to judge whether or not they're deserving of getting that portion of their own income back. I don't care if someone's being a complete slack ***, right up until they cross that point at which they stop consuming their own money and start consuming someone else's. Of course that's all a bunch of theoretical BS, because who knows definitively how much anyone pays into any one item or other on the budget.
This I agree with 100%. It's clear cases of abuse like this that give other recipients of benefits a bad rap.
Again agreed - these are the cases I'm more okay with. The ideal for me would be the absence of such an expansive safety net in the first place, regardless of who's deserving or undeserving. On the other hand though, currently, we do have one. What I was getting at is that if someone's money has been taken for a social program in the first place, I fail to see the issue in them reclaiming what they put in (and no more than that) regardless of need or sloth or whatever. It's their money.

For instance, I'm paying who only knows how much into social security, and the most recent statement I got in the mail about it says that they expect it to be depleted in 2037, and that current estimates are (I think it said that) I'll see about $0.76 on each dollar I put in. Now, I've never taken a dime in aid myself, but given that the aid does exist, and it's coming from somewhere, I'm perhaps a little more lenient than many in gracing someone with my approval for their getting something back out. Realistically, I don't think any real aid money is actually coming from any of our own incomes any more - we pony up to service debt, and then we create more debt to perpetuate the fraud of the state of our social institutions. We're what, $13 trillion in the hole? It's laughable to say there's anything in any coffers at this point - anything we spend is pretend money that won't even be earned for decades if not centuries.

In Internet-land, it's easy to say that we'd love to just abolish social programs altogether, but political reality is that we're unlikely to see any officeholder with a sense of self-preservation say they think we should pull the plug on it. Given that reality, pragmatically speaking, who's to say that a position of "take it for all it's worth" isn't just as valid? Okay for some reason I'm thinking of Khross now, and having a perverse desire to facilitate whatever puts it all in flames the fastest

If by depleted in 2037 they mean in the red in 2010 and projected to remain that way at least through 2011, and they count all the IOUs that actually make up the trust fund, yeah, that's an accurate statement.