Conversation I overheard in Tesco carpark "more children = more dole"

[Mr Khan]

-CraZed- said:

Mr Khan said:

You're *lucky* your family won't have access to those services. If welfare was such a paradise, more people would go on it. Your payment for welfare programs, in moral terms, is acknowledgement because those who are dependent on these programs could just as easily be you, but for a twist of fate.

The poor are not really getting poorer, btw, just comparatively due to upward wealth hoarding. It's the middle class that's getting crushed as the 20th century social contract is torn to threads.

The argument isn't whether welfare is a paradise because it isn't which is one reason I find it so insidious. It catches those who fall victim to its promise of a better life in its clutches. It perpetuates a cycle that recreates poverty in more ways than just monetary. As I said I grew up in pverty saw it first hand and I am "lucky" or I would say blessed in that I was able to see through it all and get away from the thought process that the world owes me a living and that I had a welfare check coming to me just because it came to my mother twice a month.

I also find it rather laughable that I am "lucky" that I have to pay for services that my family won't need. In moral terms, welfare is a program that plunders those who work and earn their money/resources to those who don't. If I want to be "moral" with my money (which I believe I am BTW because I do give as it is part of my faith) I will give to charity or DIRECTLY help those in need. Not send my resources into the black hole of a government bureaucracy for the already rich and powerful to take a cut before sending the scraps to the truely needy.

Welfare is a shell game played by con-artist politicians and doe slittle to actually help the poor. If you want to help the poor go out and help the por. Volunteer at a soup kitchen, donate clothing or food, help them get into mental health and rehab programs. Don't send your resources to a faceless unaccountable bureaucracy and call it good.

As for your last statement on the poor getting poorer that would take a whole other thread to be quite honest but I can say as a so-called middle class person ( I detest the labels as the allow for envy between those of certain income levels) I sure am being squeezed which I assume you point out as if it is a bad thing so apparently we are in total agreement then that welfare is crappy. Whether its welfare for the poor or the rich, both of which very much exsist.

 

Nowhere does the dole promise a "better" life, in the sense of something desirable. What it does is prevent abject destitution, the kind of indignity that no human should have to endure. Society as a whole does owe that much to every citizen.

Realistically, the 21st century social contract should include a negative income tax to provide a guaranteed minimum income.