Mutually Exclusive Concepts (Ranty Questions)

[miss_thenorth]

Our perceptions are very much colored by our environments.

This hits the nail right on the head. I have read so much lately on all the political threads. We will NEVER live in a utopia.! Everyone is different, we all have different experiences in life, we all have so many different expectations. We will never all agree on everything, some might never agree on anything. NEVER will everyone be made happy by choices other people make for them. So these debates will never end-they will always reach a stalemate.

I hate politicians as much as the next guy, but do you see why they are hated so much? They let you down, and you , and you etc, etc. They can't solve all the problems and make everyone happy.

For the greater good. But then that leads to a debate about what the greater good is---it is never ending.

Sorry, I'll go back to shutting up now

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

..... and I sure am glad that there wasn't anyone out there judging whether I deserved that help or not ......

I've not read all the replies, but this part of your sentence really just leaped out at me.

Do you really think no one was out there judging? Trust me, I don't care if you really do deserve that help, there are always people judging anyone who recieves any kind of public assistance.

I've met people who just don't ever stop to think that the people on the assitance might really need it. Then I've met people who've just learned how to milk the system for all it's worth.

I've stood in a check out line and begged the ground to open up and swallow me as a cashier ranted and raved that I was feeding my family better than she could feed hers and she, "worked for her money." I offered to let her come work my farm for me. She tried to back peddle real fast.

People on Public Assistance are all painted with the same brush. Everyone just automically assumes you're lazy and sucking up their tax dollars. People tend to think the worst of you before they think the best of you, especially if you are on public assistance. Don't be fooled.

 

[me&thegals]

According to what I have been reading, we are all in for it anyway, we're raising a whole lot of little narcisists now with our "praise our kids to roof and never let them down" parenting practises so prison should be overloaded in a few years, none of our kids have really learned to care about anyone but themselves, so donating anything in the future will be like pulling teeth

I do believe that every generation says that about the following generation.

There has never been a generation until now that were raised with the thought that there were no failures in life. Learning how to deal with failure doesn't happen now, because it might hurt their self esteem. MorelCabin is right, I don't know about prisons being full, but there are going to be a whole bunch of 'adults' who can't deal with real life as a result of the self esteem movement.

Maybe we could have less generalization. My kids deal with failure all the time. I let them know when they've done well and I let them know when they haven't. So does their school. So do their grandparents. So do their friends.

I know my kids don't represent America, but each generation has different parenting styles and so far America has not completely disintegrated. In fact, those ruling our part of the world these days came through the 70s (whether as parents or children) intact, so....

 

[me&thegals]

..... and I sure am glad that there wasn't anyone out there judging whether I deserved that help or not ......

People on Public Assistance are all painted with the same brush. Everyone just automically assumes you're lazy and sucking up their tax dollars. People tend to think the worst of you before they think the best of you, especially if you are on public assistance. Don't be fooled.

Not EVERYbody! At least a few of us on this forum would try not to judge, not knowing their whole life story.

QA--I'm sorry you've had to be in that position. I think I would feel ashamed and humbled to be there myself. I shouldn't, but I probably would. I'm sure, though, that at least a few people out there don't automatically think the worst of someone for needing public assistance.

MTN and Reinbeau--I agree. We are such a product of our environments, life stories, upbringing, education.... These arguments do start to feel pointless. I guess we all keep trying anyway to get our points across.

 

[2dream]

I was going to do like miss-thenorth and keep my mouth shut.

But.......... I am aware that there are differing opinons and that our perceptions are all different. I also know that our welfare system is totally messed up.
The following is an example using a single mom on welfare:
If a single mom goes to work she then has to find daycare and pay for it. Then she will lose her government paid for housing and food stamps because she has income. Even minimum wage will knock her out of the daycare assistance progam. If she has no family support what does she do? Live on the street with her child?

Solution: Allow people on welfare to start somewhere in the job market and subsidize their income with assisted payments so they still have help while learning a skill and work at a job plus still feed their children and keep a roof over their heads. Even a part time job. If we take what they are now recieving in welfare payments, subtract what they bring home in income and give them the difference plus allow them to continue with subsidized housing and food assistance if necessary. Can you imagine the amount of money this would save our welfare system?
Every able bodied welfare reciepent would be encouraged to go to work instead of being threatened by losing what little security they have to continue not to work.

This plan was actually presented to our government years ago and was even discussed. It never happened.

Do we need tax payer assisted welfare. Yes. There are those that truly need it and I don't begrude them that assistance. I don't begrude the ones who recieve it because they honestly have no other options. Its the ones living with the drug dealer or even the working man. He usually lives with her in her government paid for housing. Driving a new car and standing in the checkout line ahead of me buying steaks and paying with food stamps while I am digging in my purse looking for that last little bit of change to pay for my 1 pound of cheap ground beef. Oh and wearing designer clothes. The car is in his name because she can't have it and still get her monthly check. She has a child every year or two just to make sure she will be able to draw that check until she is old enough to draw that monthly SSI payment at retirement age.

Our worlds may truly be colored by our environment and our perceptions as well. But those are the things I see on a daily basis. They are not isolated or few and far between in my neck of the woods. Its the norm. Most of the people with that mentality were raised in welfare homes and look at it as a right. They know how to work the system and they do a fne job of it. Actually, I guess working the system is their job. And they get paid very well for it.

I totally understand what WZ is saying. Digging in my pocket is getting old. And yes - enough is enough. The original post even stated quite clearly that she recognized the difference between those in need and those that simply work the system.

Do a dogpile search engine search for Sufficientself.com. Look at the stats. The majority here are college educated women between the age of 35 and 50+. According to the stats 32% of us are in households that make between 30K-60K annually. And 36% of us are in households of 100K+. 20% are in households at 30K or less. Now I don't know how they got this info - however I think it clearly shows we will all have very different views simply based on our demographic diversity. Or it could just be that we are women and stating our opinons is what we do best.

 

[me&thegals]

Yikes! Where on earth would that info come from??

2dream--I think everyone here has agreed that welfare is not a perfect system. I think we have 2 groups: End the system and fix the system.

I have not had the misfortune of watching someone milk the system. I would be seriously ticked off. I think some of the rules (as you show above) are stupid. But, it is still a crutch for those who desperately need one.

 

[Big Daddy]

There is corruption in every facet of every society. It's the human condition. On the bottom end you have welfare recipients sucking funds when they have a man providing extra income that the state doesn't know about. At the top end you have wealthy people hiding their money in Swiss bank accounts to avoid taxes. Which is more costly to our system. In the middle you have contractors doing jobs for cash and not claiming them as income. It's not cost effective to try to stop it all.

I'm in the auto insurance industry. It's rampant with fraud. Policy holders filing false claims. Body shops trying to collect for uninstalled parts and labor they never did. Chiropractors falsifying back injuries for claimants and splitting the take.

The point is why should welfare be any different. Fraud takes money out of your pocket just as surely as those people cheating on their welfare. As stated elsewhere you can't throw the baby out with the bath water.

 

[VT-Chicklit]

The problem is those in Government have found that they can garner more votes by bribing parts of the population with things paid for with money from monies taken from someone else. here are reasons why the government has not placed incentives to get off welfare. They have placed road blocks and speed bumps to make it more difficult. These people are indebted to those who vote to fund the various entitlement programs. It is bribery and slavery at the same time.

This Health Care issue currently before Congress is a prime example. You have 85% of the country who is satisfied with their health care yet the government wants to "fix" their health care along with the 15 % who are dissatisfied or lack health care. You did not hear anything about a Health Care Crisis until this election cycle. What happened? One group felt the need to try and buy votes by promising an entitlement that they had no right to promise, to a group that they wanted to get votes from.

The government does this over and over with BAD results! Example: the Congress did their best to ensure that the poor were able to own the home that they felt they had a "right" to. Congress pushed the banks and Fanny & Freddie to make riskier and riskier loans to people who did not qualify (sub-prime). At first everyone who got the loans were happy and the banks were happy because they were able to pass these loans off on to Fanny & Freddie. Others got into the mortgage business and helped more and more poor own a home. Sounds like utopia! We all know how that ended. It was not utopia! It was heartache for the poor who had mortgages that they could no longer afford. It was bad for the financial system which crashed due to the derivitives made from all these bad loans. It was bad for each of us who lost monies in our retirements, lost buying power in our dollar and who are in debt up to our eyeballs to China who has been buying our debt as we bail out everyone!

The Only One Who Seems To Have Come Out Of This Unscathed Is Congress, And They Were The Root Cause Of It All! It is known as the law of unintended consequences, Congress passes laws and takes over things that should a personal responsibility and we pay the consequences.

 

[me&thegals]

First of all, I would be very surprised if welfare recipients are a significant portion of the voting public, but I didn't look for stats.

Secondly, I would be downright shocked if 85% of Americans were satisified with their healthcare. I can't imagine 85% of Americans being satisifed with ANYthing, much less the state of healthcare. Perhaps you have a reputable survey?

Thirdly, healthcare has been thought to be in a state of crisis for a LONG time. Remember the Clintons back in the early 90s? I have been hearing my business-owning parents concerns about it for many, many years. I have been worried to watch my own premiums steadily climb up while my benefits drop for over 10 years now. It wasn't a priority for George Bush for the last 8 years, but that doesn't mean many other people were not very, very concerned about it.

Lastly, as for Congress, the bills are in the talking stages. THIS very moment is the time for us to be calling our Senators and Congressman to give our input.

 

[VT-Chicklit]

me & thegals said First of all, I would be very surprised if welfare recipients are a significant portion of the voting public, but I didn't look for stats.

For the record, I was not specifically speaking about welfare recipients. I was how ever speaking about the poor, who do not always receive welfare, though their financial status was less important than the fact that those who run for election try to by votes with promises that they have no right to promise to any constituancy. I used the poor as an example, but the example could have just as easily have been the rich and the Bush era tax cuts! Either way it illustrates a point.

me & thegals said Secondly I would be downright shocked if 85% of Americans were satisified with their healthcare. I can't imagine 85% of Americans being satisifed with ANYthing, much less the state of healthcare. Perhaps you have a reputable survey?

I refer you to the following web site. They have compiled the results from various reliable pollsters like CNN, Fox News/Opinion Dynamics, Quinnipiac, The University of Texas/Zogby and so on. The report is available in various formats, not just PDF

www.americanhealthsolution.org/.../High-Satisfaction-with-Quality-and-Current-Coverage2.pdf

me & thegals said Thirdly, healthcare has been thought to be in a state of crisis for a LONG time. Remember the Clintons back in the early 90s?

If it was such a crisis back then, why was it not passed? How have we survived since then?. Pres Obama has said that part of our economic problem is Health Care. It is NOT! Our economy tanked because of the issues with housing and mortgages and the related derivitives issues. It also tanked because we spend too much on things that we do not need, like Big TV's, latest IPODS, Bluetooths, Cell phones, huge houses, more than one or two cars, pools, expensive clothes etc. We did this all on credit instead of saving for the proverbial rainy day. We now pay the price. Until we accept our responsibility and also place responsibility on the Congress, who set the table for this debacle, we will be doomed to repeat it. Yes there was some Bush involvement but he was only one small part of the bigger problem. I acknowledge that there are some people who have problems with paying for their medical care, and as a benevolent society we should try to help them. The Society should do this not the Government. The Government only knows how to redistribute my wealth to you and your wealth to someone down the street. That is not fair. Our society use to be alot more generous before the government decided to take our money and be generous for us!


And as for the bills in Congress, I have my Congressman and Senators on speed dial and in my favorites list for emails. I have written, called, protested, networked others and so on. I have to work much harder because I start at a deficit . . . I have no lobbiests working for me and I can not be bought! I do what I do because I believe in the Constitution, as it was intended. I want to be the generous one, giving to those that I see are in need. I could do that better if the Government would just stop being generous for me! I know who in my community needs help better than someone in Washington.