Equality?

[Kendal]

I agree with most of what Canyon saysbut would comment:

1. why can't I be too proud to pay him to do nothing.
If the enemy tortures it's prisoners would you say "they do it so why shouldn't we" or would you say "if we do what our enemy does it makes us no better than him and we lose the moral high ground and justification". The reason you cannot be too proud is because pride is a sin and it would be wrong. Two wrongs do not make a right!

2, I believe we should have that hand out
My problem with the why should we help them camp is they see it in simple terms of a taxpayer paying the liviing expenses for the unemployed. There are many types of unemployed at the solutions are different for different categories. I like how Canyon does differentiate between the different cases and offers different approaches.

In Europe people receive(d) assistance for a certain timeframe to give them time to find suitable employment. The Employment (Welfare) discusses their situation and helps them accordingly. For some with obsolete job skills (eg miner in coal depleted England) they put them on job retraining schemes. In other cases they find and offer a suitable job and if the person refuses the job without good cause benefit payments are affected. Yes you will have the group of 'scroungers' who do not work and there needs to be schemes specific to that group. But bear in mind if you cut of the money such that a man is starving the taxpayer will not save - he will pay more when that person turns to crime and ends up in jail.

It's difficult but for me the "why should I pay for him" argument is weak on both the moral and economic level. What annoys me is how I can walk around England as see all manner of public work that needs to be done (eg little, graffiti etc) and the local government says it doesn't have the funds to pay to get it done. Then you walk round the corner and see an army of jobless getting paid for doing nothing. Pity nobody sees the obvious way to kill two birds with one stone.

[steelish]

What annoys me is how I can walk around England as see all manner of public work that needs to be done (eg little, graffiti etc) and the local government says it doesn't have the funds to pay to get it done. Then you walk round the corner and see an army of jobless getting paid for doing nothing. Pity nobody sees the obvious way to kill two birds with one stone.

BINGO!

And you think it's any different in America?

[Kendal]

BINGO! And you think it's any different in America?

No I dont but personally if I cant put them to public works I'd rather pay them than starve them so they rob my house to buy bread. What are you advocating steelish. Stopping welfare for those who wont work. What do you think they will do... quietly starve to death.

[steelish]

No I dont but personally if I cant put them to public works I'd rather pay them than starve them so they rob my house to buy bread. What are you advocating steelish. Stopping welfare for those who wont work. What do you think they will do... quietly starve to death.

What are you advocating Kendal? Blindly paying them to sit around and do nothing, while they create future generations who will live the same way? Encouraging that type of behavior?

How about if we turn the programs into something that enables the able-bodied to be independent productive citizens? A program that "weans" people off and into the workforce, rather than continues to blindly hand out money with no end in sight.

I've seen this hundreds of times, and it is so true; Give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime.