do you have loved ones on the government dole?

[Tod]

Once, when a discussion of taxes came up, I had a relative state emphatically that he got more back in his refund than he paid in taxes.

A little digging finally uncovered the fact that he and his wife had received an "Earned Income Tax Credit" because their income was so low. (Which is generally what happens when you don't work!! - but I digress.)

I cracked off something like, "Well, I'm glad the cash I had to fork over went to some one I know, at least..."

He said, "It wasn't your cash. It came from the government!"

And he meant it. God help me, he meant it!

I worked doing income tax returns for a few years and was amazed at how many people get back more than they pay in. I had no idea that so many people were in that situation.

[Tod]

I really don't know how to answer this poll. What does the fact that a relative may be collecting food stamps have to do with me holding a libertarian philosophy? What is to reconcile?

[presence]

I'm kind of pragmatic. If you live in a prison camp you eat prison food and smile. You can write letters to amnesty international, you can protest and get beat, you can go on hunger strike... but in the end, honestly, when in Rome be a Roman. This is the USSA, take a handout.... at the very least take a subsidized solar panel. If you don't your neighbor will; besides, when you get down to it, you're doing it already:

The sun is shining on Miami Beach, and I wake up in subsidized housing. I throw on a T-shirt made of subsidized cotton, brush my teeth with subsidized water and eat cereal made of subsidized grain. Soon the chaos begins, two hours of pillow forts, dance parties and other craziness with two hyper kids and two hyper Boston terriers, until our subsidized nanny arrives to watch our 2-year-old. My wife Cristina then drives to her subsidized job while listening to the subsidized news on public radio. I bike our 4-year-old to school on public roads, play tennis on a public court...

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...#ixzz2E3k1Q9co

I'll say this, the vast majority of the people I know on welfare do not have my sympathies.

My kid's on the dole. It takes +/-100k in subsidized meds to keep him alive annually. It might be 10k in meds, that I might be able to afford in a freemarket... but its not a free market... the government pumps money into medical care which artificially jacks the costs of everything. Not to mention the regulations. Am I supposed to be a libertarian martyr/hero and watch my kid bleed out to say I proudly denied a government benefit? My retarded aunt's on the dole. She in her 60's sleeps 5 hours a day and has to be baby sat the rest of the time to keep her from playing with her own shit and busting everything in sight. She's in a government program. Am I supposed to be the hero in my family and take her in to save the tax payer? My grandmother is on the dole. She's batshit crazy, dementia... been that way for years. She sleeps about 3 hours a night; needs to be baby sat... prone to nuisance 911 call and flushing anything that fits down the toilet; she put in over a 100 calls to johnny law and 2 dozen to the plumber the year we checked her in; government program. Should I check her out of her taxpayer funded home too? Hell, I could stop working... plumber/electrician/carpenter... give back all the checks and do nothing but wipe my aunt and grandmother's ass, watch my boy cry, and lose my home. Is any charity in their right mind going to step in and help me if I deny my "benefits"? Do I have any chance coping with two crazies and a free bleeder under my roof without assistance?

I'm not saying there isn't another way.. I'm not saying the libertarian principles and charity can't bring free market solutions... I am saying it is what it is; this is the system we live under: Socialism. An average blue collar able bodied man is barely able to keep a roof over the head of a small nuclear family the way things are. So you take what you need; leverage the regulatory environment to your own self interests. You think the banks are shy about taking subsidies? The energy industry? The pharmaceuticals?


Want a real brain twister... when I work 40 hour weeks... I can usually make it 2 weeks without dosing my kid to the tune of $10K on .gov's tab. When I work 10-20 hour weeks, sometimes I can get my kid to go 3 months between $10k doses through more intense double parenting (mom's stay at home). When I'm working full time I can make about $800 on a good week; or (over 2 weeks) about $1600 before my kid needs a 10k dose. If I stay at home more, 3 months part time lets me earn $3600 (twice as much) before my kid needs his next $10k dose; I've in a sense saved the government 50k (and my kid some pain) by sacrificing $6000 in personal pay. As much as I don't want to take a government benefit when I don't "need it".... I cost the government LESS (and my kid's healthier) by taking $400/mo in food stamps to stay home and care for my kid; keeping him off his meds. Trust me, that little paradox fux w/ me; before my boy had issues I never took anything from the government... well... lets be honest... like you, I've always worn subsidized cotton t-shirts.

let the flames ensue

[Steven Douglas]

presence, I didn't have a single problem with anything you wrote.

There's a difference between normal survival reactions to an abnormal situation, and presuming that such behavior is some kind of consent, or even causal element, to that situation. Like idiots that go into grocery stores, see rising prices, and knee-jerk blame it on the greed of the grocer.

You were spot on with, "If you live in a prison camp you eat prison food and smile." We were all born into slavery conditions in a glorified prison camp.

I finally saw a couple of the "Saw" movies with some of my nieces and nephews, and was astounded by all the inane crap coming out of their mouths. They couldn't even step outside that OBVIOUSLY CONTRIVED BOX to see that the only true villain in that film was Jigsaw -- the maker of all the artificial torture tests. But there they sat, all their comments and judgments centering around the personality foibles of Jigsaw's victims. This person had it coming because he was a bastard. That one should watched out better, while the other one was stupid for trying something stupid. The box itself: fully accepted. All disbelief suspended, that was "the universe".

And that's the nature of our economic and political system. People inside an artificial box that never should have been created, but once inside the box, all the focus goes onto all the mostly normal (even predictable if you think about it) actions and reactions to completely abnormal situations. And nobody bothers to question the questions, or the framework of the box itself. It might as well be a womb to most. And few realize that even if all behavior suddenly changed, the box and all the abnormal shit it inflicts onto everyone, would remain, and it would flair up all over again.

The fact is, humans are adapted to a degree of hardship and survival--and calling it normal. And there are other humans that realize this, consciously or subconsciously, and are there to capitalize on that fact.

[frodus24]

My mother is on social security and was "benefitting" from food stamps. Her food stamp benefit was $17.00 per month. I insisted that she refuse the food stamps and I would send her cash in the range of $50.00 to $100.00 a month. She agreed!

Folks on welfare live better than I do from my observation. I worked at a pharmacy part-time and observed people on Medicaid who thinks that everything is free. I kindly inform them that nothing is free and of course their nose quickly turns the other way. People's thought process is so disfunctional that it makes me want to vomit!

[Elwar]

I work for the evil military industrial complex. All of my income comes from the bloated defense budget.

If I could take more I would.

I enjoy the irony of the government paying me money and then I turn around and try to put people into power that would stop paying me (and everyone else).

Unfortunately most people who receive money from the government wish to keep the money flowing and will vote in such a way as to put more money into their pockets.

I would have been rolling in money if Romney were elected. I will have to settle for the decent Obama money and his new wars he starts.

The idiots keep voting money into my pocket.

You cannot blame those that take when the opportunity is presented. It is the system that allows it to happen. The system needs to change. And it will, because it has to.

[ShaneEnochs]

One thing I've learned from this forum: collectivism is okay as long as we're talking about welfare recipients.

[Todd]

Not a very good poll....IMO

[tod evans]

None of my family receives squat from the government, save SSI for my mother..

We all owe at the end of the year too, Ma's SSI check doesn't cover her tax burden..

[fisharmor]

*There is no reason why the government cannot have departments and full-fledged programs that are run EXACTLY as charities, right down to the reliance on volunteer contributions, and headlong competition with other charities -- and automatic dissolution when they fail to get the funding they entreat others for. I absolutely love the notion of charities and charitable concerns. But there is NOTHING charitable about taking by force and giving to others. It is theft, no more no less, and insulates people from concern for the rights and concerns of others.

Wow, I disagree with you on something....
There is a very simple reason why government can't run this style of charity. Not that I'm a Molyneux fan, but he's absolutely right when he says that "government IS force".
If you remove force from the equation, it ceases to be a state entity. All the state can do absent force is make declarations which are completely unbackable.

If congress passed a bill that said "We think competing groups ought to form charitable organizations voluntarily that will attempt to address problem X, but we're not going to allocate money to them, we're not going to hire anyone, we're not going to hold anyone accountable for progress, and we're not going to do anything when the public decides not to support one of those organizations any longer", well, can it be said to be a state entity at all?

I don't think so. Additionally, historically the state doesn't even figure out that X is a problem people want to address until the market has already figured that out and started implementing solutions. People work out their own futures, and then the state swoops in and grabs power. This is always the pattern.

I think even allowing the state to make ex cathedra pronouncements on charity is letting the encyclopedia salesman wedge his foot in the door. Our rulers might be largely stupid but they're also cunning. If we allowed them to call for charities to be formed, it would take them three decades maximum to figure out they're holding a big freakin' gun, and that the lamest of excuses about a charity's performance would allow a populist takeover.