The Political Discussion Thread

[SoulReaver]

for roughly 2 years, after injury forced me to retrain because I could no longer do the job I had been supporting myself with.

yet the fact is true capitalism is incompatible with any measure of social welfare

[Womble]

tbh if I'd been born to poor people I'd have resented them for bringing me into this ****sack world

Did you just declare that your reason for living is money?

[mad_gater]

Did you just declare that your reason for living is money?

nah Reaver's just being...Reaver

and no matter what side of the political spectrum you're on...this is just plain funny:

[SoulReaver]

Did you just declare that your reason for living is money?

did you just declare that not wanting to live as a pauper is living for money?

anyway you can gimme your money if you don't value it

nah Reaver's just being...Reaver

alrite I 'll admit I was half-joking :|

[aretood2]

Again, where am I suggesting that any sort of control be placed upon people having kids that they can afford to take care of themselves?
No one is entitled to welfare or any other form of government assistance. Nowhere in the Constitution is there a "right" to welfare. All I am saying is that if you want such assistance, which is optional, one of the conditions of that assistance is that you cannot have more kids which you cannot afford to take care of. If you can afford to feed, house, and otherwise care for them, have as many kids as you want. It's none of my business. Until you ask me to pay for it, then it becomes my business.

But when it's given, it has to be given equally. In either case, it's complete hogwash that you need certain amount of money to be able to raise kids. Sure, 13 kids is a stretch and you have to draw the line. But making having any kids a reason to deny assistance is ridiculous and filled with the same farce that supports ideas of abortion and population control.

But making that choice for a family and telling them you can only have X kids is a stretch. You might as well pass out coupons for abortions and forget about banning 3rd trimester abortions too.

Cap spending based on the initial plan and if they fail to meet their goals they start loosing assistance. That's the point of that kind of welfare model. You fail to meet your goals, you start losing confidence in your ability to make it and thus lose your assistance. So if a family thinks they can do it with 5 kids, let them. What if they can? If they fail, they'll pay the consequences and risk loosing those kids.

Nobody's business but theirs, as they were not asking anyone else to pay for them.

They didn't need it as badly as families with two kids here in the US...middle class families. It's a tangent, but I am always baffled by people talking about not being able to afford kids.

for roughly 2 years, after injury forced me to retrain because I could no longer do the job I had been supporting myself with. And I've been working ever since.

And you're unique?

This is a vastly different situation from the millions of people who don't even attempt to support themselves, making gaming the welfare system their career, and passing the "skill" to their children so we have generation after generation of professional leeches. I have never opposed giving someone a hand up on a temporary basis. It is the vast misuse of the social service system that I object to.

Could I ask for specific numbers?

[Falcon Horus]

I always did have my doubts about you.What species are you, anyway?

Lemming

I was thinking in the extreme. Middle income and high income generally don't start thinking about children until they are much older, or not at all, which basically means the birth rate would steadily drop. Just look at the issues China is facing with their one-child-per-family policy - what a great idea was supposed to be, now shows them they have to deal with a low birth rate and a much larger older generation the younger can't provide for.

However, you're in luck -- apparently the birth rate in the US has been on the rise again the last 6 years.

[COLOR="#000080"]
Good luck convincing people that the government should keep people from "multiplying and filling the earth."

That would be the day.

All I'm saying is don't expect other people to pay for them.

He doesn't want to pay for the generation that will be paying for him when he's old and grey and has be given a spongebath twice a day.

I'm agnostic, so religion plays absolutely no part in any of my viewpoints.

Change agnostic with atheist, and that's me.

But why? If i have the financial wherewithall to pay the entire house price up front cause of how much i have in savings, why can't i instead be allowed to Morgage it?

Don't ask me, I've wondered about the same thing myself many times over.

I guess, it wouldn't bring money into the bank otherwise.

Now on #1, who pays for that temp agency?

They are companies, separate from the government.
At least, in Belgium they are. And we have several to choose from - more than enough actually.

tbh if I'd been born to poor people I'd have resented them for bringing me into this ****sack world

I mean who are they to make that decision without my consent? :|

Aw, you would have worked hard to make it worth your while. They only want what's best for you.

To your good list of requirements I would add drug testing and a celibacy/or mandatory contraception requirement; if you test positive for drugs (including tobacco!) or become pregnant or father a child while on benefits, you forfeit your eligibility.

See Aretood2's response...

Spoiler:

[COLOR="#000080"]
For a minute I thought I was reading 1984 when I read this paragraph. Didn't you just deny saying that you wanted government to tell people they couldn't have kids? How on God's good earth can you even consider calling yourself a libertarian? Forced celibacy/contraceptives are strictly unconstitutional and a violation of equal protection of the law. So a married couple can't have kids while a family of 4 could still receive assistance? Yeah, not ganna work.

My point is, you can escape poverty without having to worry about the number of kids you have. [...] I would rather place some sort of expense cap that takes into account maybe two kids? I would also hope that it wouldn't take more too long to leave the system.

It's one thing to say that a family shouldn't have 5 or 6 or 10 kids. But it's another to just role out having any kids. Then what about Catholics? You'll make them take contraceptives? Jews too? That's also a 1st amendment issue. You want to limit child birth, go to China. You'll be right at home.

Also, what to do about pregnant applicants? Force an abortion? [...] No limitations on families. Not now, not tomorrow, not even if we become Greece, not even if the country collapses and the states have no choice but to become independent countries, not ever. If this country can't handle having kids, then it might as well be done away with.

Did you just declare that your reason for living is money?

[Annoyed]

Could I ask for specific numbers?

Statistics on this are few; it is, after all, illegal to commit welfare fraud.
But http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=3844 does give a few interesting numbers.

Welfare promotes intergenerational dependence -- 29.3 percent of recipients had parents who received welfare as children and a remarkable 7.5 percent are third-generation recipients. - See more at: http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.ph....CIDZhda9.dpuf

[Annoyed]

I was thinking in the extreme. Middle income and high income generally don't start thinking about children until they are much older, or not at all, which basically means the birth rate would steadily drop. Just look at the issues China is facing with their one-child-per-family policy - what a great idea was supposed to be, now shows them they have to deal with a low birth rate and a much larger older generation the younger can't provide for.

However, you're in luck -- apparently the birth rate in the US has been on the rise again the last 6 years.

You're quite correct, since the mid 70's or so, the productive portion of our population has not been reproducing itself in numbers sufficient to allow the pyramid scheme called social security to function. I believe I understand the cause of this, but I do not intend to make a discussion of it because my theory would make the "animated discussion" that happened on this board regarding gay marriage look like a 1970's era love-in at UC Berkley or some such.

[Falcon Horus]

Statistics on this are few; it is, after all, illegal to commit welfare fraud.
But http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=3844 does give a few interesting numbers.

This reminds me I forgot to post something earlier... Now I remember what it was, welfare statistics in the US.

[aretood2]

Statistics on this are few; it is, after all, illegal to commit welfare fraud.
But http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=3844 does give a few interesting numbers.

On your sentence...wait...Are you saying that there is widespread fraud without proof? Do you realize that the burden of proof is on you to prove that such fraud exists? I could easily say that most cops are corrupt but since corruption is illegal but I have no proof. Well, to make such a claim I kinda need proof otherwise I am just talking out of my rear end.

As to the content...Have you heard of generational poverty? The current system isn't designed to raise people out of poverty as much as what I described. Thus you need some changes. Keep in mind, generational poverty has been around since...poverty has. It's a function of economics really, otherwise everyone would be as rich as Bill Gates by now. The solution does not exist nor is it possible. The best we could do is make sure that they are just making enough to stave off starvation and allow for social mobility.

Anyway, if you study the link FH provided. You'd see some very interesting numbers. Furthermore other sources do show that slightly more than half the people that voted for Romney in 2012 also took welfare in 2013. While that number is slightly higher for Democrats (people who voted for Obama) it does show that a lot of people who take part of welfare are republicans and don't vote for democrats, such as yourself.

I also want to know what data you use to state that people on welfare automatically vote democrat because of welfare. The data I mentioned seems to bring serious doubts to that assertion.

http://aattp.org/ts-official-white-f...n-the-country/

It's also interesting note that red states (republicans) are the highest users of food stamps when compared to blue or swing states.


http://www.statisticbrain.com/food-stamp-statistics/

Texas has a higher participation rate of food stamp usage than your own state, New York. Mississippi has the highest (being Republican). Then there's Tennessee in second place. My state, PA (a swing state) is closer to the bottom. California, the bastion of liberalism and Democrat Heaven is in the bottom 10. That means only 9 other states have a lower participation rate than CALIFORNIA. The arguably most liberal state in the union is one of the most conservative when it comes to food stamps.

Anyway, actual welfare numbers I haven't run into them to link them. But it's interesting to know that poorer workers that get food stamps vote for republicans. The promise of welfare alone isn't enough to get their votes. They gravitate more towards the religious/conservative ideals of republicans. They do get, by large, different forms of government assistance as this article states

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/us...end-on-it.html

Though not exactly welfare as in "here's your monthly check" it still is assistance in reduced school meals, extra income tax breaks (you get way more money back each year than you should no matter how little Uncle Sam took throughout the year), and other subside programs that are part of the welfare state.

I guess strict "here's your check" welfare is mostly democrat (I have absolutely no data to back up the claim that they are mostly democrat) but if you look at the amount of Americans getting that, it's a mere 11.4 million http://www.statisticbrain.com/welfare-statistics/

I don't know about you, but it seems to me that it hardly would be enough for democrats. Let's be generous to Annoyed's views and say 2/4rds are democrats, that other issues don't matter as much to them as their monthly check (and once again with absolutely no proof) then that means that around 7.6 million "here's your check" welfare users in the entire country of over 300 million are democrats. How many of them are democrats because of said welfare? Who knows, but even if it was as high as 50%, that'd be only 3.8 million in all 50 states including all the territories (That's Puerto Rico btw, where voting takes a different approach that doesn't impact whether or not Hillary becomes president at all).

As to the generation poverty issue that Annoyed's post pointed out...that's exactly why we need a system that has people set goals and tests them and monitors their progress instead of what exists now.

[Coco Pops]

Ah gay marriage it's such a huge issue that the sky will fall down if people allow it.

Get over yourselves.. Seriously it's not an issue.

[Coco Pops]

So according to John Kerry if more people carried guns in movie theatres and churches we would all be a lot safer... OK? scratches head

[SoulReaver]

So according to John Kerry if more people carried guns in movie theatres and churches we would all be a lot safer... OK? scratches head

he never said that

also even if he did, I reckon it would've been under the assumption that movie goers go to the theater to watch movies not shoot people

[Coco Pops]

he never said that

also even if he did, I reckon it would've been under the assumption that movie goers go to the theater to watch movies not shoot people

I apologize.... It wasn't John Kerry..

This is where this lame brain idea came from.


http://thinkprogress.org/justice/201...outh-carolina/

[Annoyed]

Regardless of who said it, they're right.

“Had somebody in that church had a gun, they probably would have been able to stop him,” host Steve Doocy remarked. “If somebody was there, they would have had the opportunity to pull out their weapon and take him out.”

One of if not my favorite science fiction authors is Robert Heinlein.
One of his quotes is:

“An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.”

- Robert A. Heinlein, Beyond This Horizon

Makes perfect sense to me.