SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+640|3916

Jay wrote:

From the people that spent their time throwing M&M's across the classroom in grade school,
Most people in jail are not there for "just one mistake". If you go over the course of their life you will see that they were fuck ups and collecting red flags since they were children. This is one of the reasons I am so against prison reform. A lot of the people in there deserve it immensely. This is one thing that privileged white girl was conservative about. When we talked about criminal justice reform she was dead set against letting people out of prison because "THEY HAVE BAD MORALS!"
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
Larssen
Member
+99|2084
Yes people have agency and personal responsibility. The point in building a welfare state is not to give people a free ride and you'll find that in socialist Europe it's perfectly possible to find a balance between providing for those in need and keeping people accountable for their actions.

It's simply a fact that circumstance and environment can for a large part dictate your path and succes in life. The simplest example is one of your family members being stricken with an illness or your parents going bankrupt. In a fair society this should not be cause for you to drop out of school in order to work a dead end job just so your family can stay afloat. Yet it happens in the US on the daily. Environment is also a good predictor for succes. Growing up in a poor, violent area where people shun intellectual pursuit and glorify violence... the odds are very much against you succeeding. Most end up living lives they otherwise might not have. We know this to be true, the correlation exists the world over across cultures and geographies.

So as a society being able to influence structural problems you can easily argue that you have a moral duty to yourself and your fellow man to mitigate factors outside of people's control that very negatively impact livelihoods and life in general. The community should take care of its members. In doing so it will also take care of itself - a more egalitarian, richer society is a safer, more stable society.

Last edited by Larssen (2020-04-09 16:25:15)

Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5554|London, England

SuperJail Warden wrote:

Jay wrote:

From the people that spent their time throwing M&M's across the classroom in grade school,
Most people in jail are not there for "just one mistake". If you go over the course of their life you will see that they were fuck ups and collecting red flags since they were children. This is one of the reasons I am so against prison reform. A lot of the people in there deserve it immensely. This is one thing that privileged white girl was conservative about. When we talked about criminal justice reform she was dead set against letting people out of prison because "THEY HAVE BAD MORALS!"
I spent a year overseeing the renovation of a juvenile detention center. The kids would regularly assault the staff. Sometimes it was because they didn't want to go home, and sometimes it was just because they felt like it. The ambulances used to be on site about once a week. One girl was in because when she was 13, her mom told her to stop dating her 27 year old boyfriend so she murdered her mom and her boyfriend on Christmas.

Most people aren't criminals though. Most simply don't put much effort into organizing their life or making goals or plans. They float along from avoidable crisis to avoidable crisis and maintain a perpetual "why me?".
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5554|London, England

Larssen wrote:

Yes people have agency and personal responsibility. The point in building a welfare state is not to give people a free ride and you'll find that in socialist Europe it's perfectly possible to find a balance between providing for those in need and keeping people accountable for their actions.

It's simply a fact that circumstance and environment can for a large part dictate your path and succes in life. The simplest example is one of your family members being stricken with an illness or your parents going bankrupt. In a fair society this should not be cause for you to drop out of school in order to work a dead end job just so your family can stay afloat. Yet it happens in the US on the daily. Environment is also a good predictor for succes. Growing up in a poor, violent area where people shun intellectual pursuit and glorify violence... the odds are very much against you succeeding. Most end up living lives they otherwise might not have. We know this to be true, the correlation exists the world over across cultures and geographies.

So as a society being able to influence structural problems you can easily argue that you have a moral duty to yourself and your fellow man to mitigate factors outside of people's control that very negatively impact livelihoods and life in general. The community should take care of its members. In doing so it will also take care of itself - a more egalitarian, richer society is a safer, more stable society.
Your welfare states only work as long as the peer pressure to not abuse benefits remains intact. We don't have that sort of culture in the US. We have far too many antisocial people that try to get away with as much as they can even when they know it has a negative impact on their neighbors and society as a whole. You should see the number of healthy people out on permanent disability.
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6968|PNW

SuperJail Warden wrote:

Any reason why my parent's taxes had to pay for your education? Not that I am not complaining but you do know the World War 1 and 2 GI bills were passed and signed by Democrat governments, right? FDR, a Democrat, is the reason you got to go to college. It wasn't the libertarians who passed that.
On that:

Bonus Army fiasco, General MacArthur acting under President Hoover, a Republican, who may not have commanded the (specific) act but later endorsed it. If Jay had been there demanding his promised bonuses, he'd have been marched on like the rest.

President Coolidge, also a Republican, earlier vetoed a bill intended to see them paid over time (to be fair overridden by a Republican congress), with some argument that it should be enough to have fought with patriotism in mind.

Maybe Jay should have turned down post-service benefits, and been happy with the occasional "thank you for your service."

weepingeagleusflag.jpg
Larssen
Member
+99|2084
I'm not telling you to copy paste our systems to the US, they differ between one another as well. French, Germans, Poles, Italians - they will all hold strong opinions on what the state should and shouldn't do. It's about seeing the sense in devising a state that tries to help the individual succeed in the ways that it can. The cultural & economic context in the US is different so the execution must be as well. Yet I see no logic in stopping people from getting necessary healthcare or to freely pursue knowledge and education. As it stands, many are, hindered by circumstance and/or environment.

Last edited by Larssen (2020-04-09 16:36:43)

Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5554|London, England

Larssen wrote:

I'm not telling you to copy paste our systems to the US, they differ between one another as well. French, Germans, Poles, Italians - they will all hold strong opinions on what the state should and shouldn't do. It's about seeing the sense in devising a state that tries to help the individual succeed in the ways that it can. The cultural & economic context in the US is different so the execution must be as well. Yet I see no logic in stopping people from getting necessary healthcare or to freely pursue knowledge and education, depending on their individual circumstances.
Yes, and we have myriad systems that are designed to help the poor. The poor have housing benefits, and healthcare benefits, and receive transfer payments etc. The problem is, as I said, we have a lot of abuse. A certain political party here in the US set up those benefits, and then also worked to remove all stigma and shame associated with using them. Now we have serial abuse because there is no social pressure on anyone to minimize use to the truly needy.
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
DesertFox-
The very model of a modern major general
+796|6881|United States of America
Assuming for the sake of argument it's true that the US just has a higher than average incidence of moochers, I'd still rather have a system that at the very least supports the people who do everything "right" and still get fucked over with medical debt or some other nightmare of modern capitalism. You can always aggressively go after people taking advantage of the entitlement system, but it'd be nice if it at list did what the box says. It's like how people don't want socialized medicine, but still end up by proxy paying for the healthcare of the uninsured and their emergency room visits.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,813|6302|eXtreme to the maX

Jay wrote:

Who knows what's true? I didn't find the Kavanaugh accuser to be at all believable.
Sigh. Enjoy voting like a woman.
It must be tough being married to a woman who earns more than you.
Does she know you're parroting this misogynistic right wing claptrap?
I imagine she's cut your allowance if she did.

Still, you're one diagnosis away from being a socialist, good luck.
Fuck Israel
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,813|6302|eXtreme to the maX

Jay wrote:

worked to remove all stigma and shame associated with using them
You had no shame using them did you?
You still claim you 'earned' your years of workfare and socialised college.
Fuck Israel
Larssen
Member
+99|2084

Jay wrote:

Larssen wrote:

I'm not telling you to copy paste our systems to the US, they differ between one another as well. French, Germans, Poles, Italians - they will all hold strong opinions on what the state should and shouldn't do. It's about seeing the sense in devising a state that tries to help the individual succeed in the ways that it can. The cultural & economic context in the US is different so the execution must be as well. Yet I see no logic in stopping people from getting necessary healthcare or to freely pursue knowledge and education, depending on their individual circumstances.
Yes, and we have myriad systems that are designed to help the poor. The poor have housing benefits, and healthcare benefits, and receive transfer payments etc. The problem is, as I said, we have a lot of abuse. A certain political party here in the US set up those benefits, and then also worked to remove all stigma and shame associated with using them. Now we have serial abuse because there is no social pressure on anyone to minimize use to the truly needy.
Well, I'm not sure if the existing benefits comprehensively cover the situations that could leave people destitute, for that I've seen too many cases of absolute poverty which are hard to accept in a rich western society. It is also a fact that there are many toxically violent environments throughout the country that breed malfunctioning people.

I feel your view is inordinately focused on punishment as a solution to the above problems. You should also consider the other possibility: the state overreaching and punishing people who do not deserve it. Additionally, populations are hard to motivate through repression. The state apparatus can instead be mobilised to foster positive change. Long-term programs focused on community investment and violence reduction never really involve debt collectors and armed police.

Last edited by Larssen (2020-04-09 16:53:20)

Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,813|6302|eXtreme to the maX
The US prison industry pushes many people into lifetime poverty and destitution, I'm sure for-profit prisons are a creation of the Left.
Fuck Israel
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5554|London, England

DesertFox- wrote:

Assuming for the sake of argument it's true that the US just has a higher than average incidence of moochers, I'd still rather have a system that at the very least supports the people who do everything "right" and still get fucked over with medical debt or some other nightmare of modern capitalism. You can always aggressively go after people taking advantage of the entitlement system, but it'd be nice if it at list did what the box says. It's like how people don't want socialized medicine, but still end up by proxy paying for the healthcare of the uninsured and their emergency room visits.
People who do everything "right" tend to have health insurance and will avoid catastrophic medical bills. Did you ever notice that most of the people that were trotted out to sell Obamacare were middle aged and morbidly obese? By the time you're middle aged, if you don't have a job that provides health insurance you've severely fucked up somewhere along the way.  Do I trust that someone that is morbidly obese is going to prioritize their health and maintaining health insurance? No.

Even when I was waiting tables in a restaurant making $3.50 an hour I was offered medical insurance that cost around $150 per two week pay period.
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5554|London, England

Dilbert_X wrote:

Jay wrote:

Who knows what's true? I didn't find the Kavanaugh accuser to be at all believable.
Sigh. Enjoy voting like a woman.
It must be tough being married to a woman who earns more than you.
Does she know you're parroting this misogynistic right wing claptrap?
I imagine she's cut your allowance if she did.

Still, you're one diagnosis away from being a socialist, good luck.
I make 1/3 more than my wife.
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,813|6302|eXtreme to the maX
This must be a new thing, since it wasn't the case a year or so ago.
Fuck Israel
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,813|6302|eXtreme to the maX

Jay wrote:

By the time you're middle aged, if you don't have a job that provides health insurance you've severely fucked up somewhere along the way.
"The Labour Department reported on Thursday that 6.6 million Americans filed for unemployment insurance in the week that ended April 4.
That brings the three-week total to roughly 16.8 million unemployment filings, a record for a period of that length.
A record 10 million Americans filed for unemployment insurance in the last two weeks of March during a sudden rash of layoffs because of the coronavirus outbreak."
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/us-w … S&IR=T
Fuck Israel
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5554|London, England

Larssen wrote:

Jay wrote:

Larssen wrote:

I'm not telling you to copy paste our systems to the US, they differ between one another as well. French, Germans, Poles, Italians - they will all hold strong opinions on what the state should and shouldn't do. It's about seeing the sense in devising a state that tries to help the individual succeed in the ways that it can. The cultural & economic context in the US is different so the execution must be as well. Yet I see no logic in stopping people from getting necessary healthcare or to freely pursue knowledge and education, depending on their individual circumstances.
Yes, and we have myriad systems that are designed to help the poor. The poor have housing benefits, and healthcare benefits, and receive transfer payments etc. The problem is, as I said, we have a lot of abuse. A certain political party here in the US set up those benefits, and then also worked to remove all stigma and shame associated with using them. Now we have serial abuse because there is no social pressure on anyone to minimize use to the truly needy.
Well, I'm not sure if the existing benefits comprehensively cover the situations that could leave people destitute, for that I've seen too many cases of absolute poverty which are hard to accept in a rich western society. It is also a fact that there are many toxically violent environments throughout the country that breed malfunctioning people.

I feel your view is inordinately focused on punishment as a solution to the above problems. You should also consider the other possibility: the state overreaching and punishing people who do not deserve it. Additionally, populations are hard to motivate through repression. The state apparatus can instead be mobilised to foster positive change. Long-term programs focused on community investment and violence reduction never really involve debt collectors and armed police.
No, what I see is a political party that has set up a system whereby a section of the population is completely dependent on, and beholden to it. They've created a system where everything is paid for, cradle-to-grave, as long as you remain in poverty. When living in cities, they are segregated into massive tower blocks of apartments where the poverty is concentrated and the surrounding neighborhood becomes a crime-ridden economic wasteland. When living in rural areas, they tend to live in dilapidated homes or in trailer parks. When seeking a job, they generally must leave their neighborhood and commute elsewhere for work. If they have kids, they have to pay for day care. With these additional costs, most find it difficult to justify giving up their benefits and going to work instead. This is called the welfare trap. They're forced to raise their kids as single mothers because if they are married they will lose their benefits, and they spend their days doing drugs, or getting drunk, or having sex, or watching tv, or all of the above at the same time, because they are bored and have no dignity because they lack a job. Born into poverty they will more than likely die in poverty because the incentives are keeping them trapped in place.

This is why I say jobs are more important than government benefits for society as a whole. Do I want to eradicate the safety net? No, I want to prune it back so that only the truly needy use the benefits for a small bit of time before they get back on their feet. With a job, you may start off making minimum wage, but everyone eventually advances. Humans trapped in the benefit cycle have no hope, and a life without hope is a life not worth living.
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5554|London, England

Dilbert_X wrote:

Jay wrote:

By the time you're middle aged, if you don't have a job that provides health insurance you've severely fucked up somewhere along the way.
"The Labour Department reported on Thursday that 6.6 million Americans filed for unemployment insurance in the week that ended April 4.
That brings the three-week total to roughly 16.8 million unemployment filings, a record for a period of that length.
A record 10 million Americans filed for unemployment insurance in the last two weeks of March during a sudden rash of layoffs because of the coronavirus outbreak."
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/us-w … S&IR=T
Yep, and they all have COBRA.
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+640|3916
Jay is the only man to have ever relied on the social safety net and make it out. Do you know why they call it a net? Because it traps you.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5554|London, England

SuperJail Warden wrote:

Jay is the only man to have ever relied on the social safety net and make it out. Do you know why they call it a net? Because it traps you.
Dude, just stop. The GI Bill isn't welfare. Did you, or would you, offer up 4 1/2 years of your adult life to your country? Don't pretend you would. I worked for that money, it wasn't handed to me because I had a pulse.
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6968|PNW

You should be happy having given patriotic service to your country, Jay. Pay Uncle Sam back.
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5554|London, England

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

You should be happy having given patriotic service to your country, Jay. Pay Uncle Sam back.
Sure, and you should stop paying your employees and see if they'll come into work out of love for you.
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+640|3916

Jay wrote:

SuperJail Warden wrote:

Jay is the only man to have ever relied on the social safety net and make it out. Do you know why they call it a net? Because it traps you.
Dude, just stop. The GI Bill isn't welfare. Did you, or would you, offer up 4 1/2 years of your adult life to your country? Don't pretend you would. I worked for that money, it wasn't handed to me because I had a pulse.
You know many other countries, including America's biggest military rivals, don't pay for the college education of their soldiers? You know that soldiers benefits like the ones you received are a luxury fought for and passed by the democrats? Will you at least acknowledge that you owe Presidents Wilson and Roosevelt a debt for starting the thing that turned your entire life around?
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5554|London, England

SuperJail Warden wrote:

Jay wrote:

SuperJail Warden wrote:

Jay is the only man to have ever relied on the social safety net and make it out. Do you know why they call it a net? Because it traps you.
Dude, just stop. The GI Bill isn't welfare. Did you, or would you, offer up 4 1/2 years of your adult life to your country? Don't pretend you would. I worked for that money, it wasn't handed to me because I had a pulse.
You know many other countries, including America's biggest military rivals, don't pay for the college education of their soldiers? You know that soldiers benefits like the ones you received are a luxury fought for and passed by the democrats? Will you at least acknowledge that you owe Presidents Wilson and Roosevelt a debt for starting the thing that turned your entire life around?
I'll thank the American Legion for lobbying for it and the bipartisan effort that led to its passing. I'm not going to give FDR credit for shit.
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+640|3916

Jay wrote:

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

You should be happy having given patriotic service to your country, Jay. Pay Uncle Sam back.
Sure, and you should stop paying your employees and see if they'll come into work out of love for you.
Newbie's workers would. He is the Joe Exotic of transitioning male adults to female puppies.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg

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