[BurlyShirley]

haha...well said n8

who else on here can say that they work specifically with epitome of complete government reliance for living and who has observed the generational dependence and victimization that said system causes.
the dependence on this type of system creates phrases like this that i've heard on more than one occasion from a 17 yr old female who grew up under government reliance: "I need to have my baby soon so I can get MY house when I turn 18."

So you think the problem is that we don't throw young mothers out on the street? I think what causes the problem you just described is lazy people/bad parents having kids and not teaching them how to live right. I didn't grow up in government housing, but there was a time when my family was on food stamps when I was young. Amazingly, I do not rely on the government to feed me today.

 

[manimal]

So you think the problem is that we don't throw young mothers out on the street? I think what causes the problem you just described is lazy people/bad parents having kids and not teaching them how to live right. I didn't grow up in government housing, but there was a time when my family was on food stamps when I was young. Amazingly, I do not rely on the government to feed me today.

no, i don't want to throw mothers out onto the street but the problem is more complex than just lazy people and bad parenting. When FDR first implemented the New Deal, it was because he beleieved that every american who wanted to work should have a job and that the government has the responsibility of providing jobs. (whether that theory is agreeable is a different topic, but i digress)
the problem is this. if you were given an adequate home, a food allowance, and paid utilities -including cable/internet-, for the equivalent of what most people pay for just their electric bill and the only stipulation to keep this deal is that you remain in your current financial bracket; would you work hard to move up? Then, imagine you grew up in this system and the only thing you learned about financial responsibility is how to work the system so you can maintain what has been given to you. This is the problem with an overabundance of government intervention. we have gone from helping those who are experiencing hard times to creating an entire class of people who have become dependent on handouts.
i too have been on the receiving end of government support. we were on WIC when lil manimal was born and uncle sam wasn't quite affording us the ability to live comfortably in SoCal. I believe that there is a place and a need for government assistance but currently, there are no checks and balances to ensure that the system isn't being abused.

here's a quick rundown of Manimal's New Deal:
Every Citizen has a maximum of 5 years government assistance. this includes food stamps, housing, tuition assistance...... Also, every minor has access to basic health care regardless of income and once an adult, the healthcare plans are price regulated. (yet another topic for later) So lets say that you graduate college and you can't find a job, you can use some of your 5 years to have rent subsidy and food stamps while you are on your job hunt. So say it took you a year to find a good job, now you have 4 years of assistance remaining. then you have an unexpected child (i can relate ) and you need further assistance to cover the basics so you use WIC or Food stamps for two years. now you're down to 2 years and so on....
you could, of course, extend your 5 years if you can show extenuating circumstances ie: disability, but otherwise, after your 5 years you're on your own thus eliminating the generational "right" to governmental assistance and promoting an environment where laziness isn't rewarded.

so no, BS, i'm not a heartless bastard who wants to kick a bunch of pregnant mom's out on the street because they should be pulling themselves up by their boot/sandal straps. government assistance should be available, just not used as an excuse to be useless to society.

 

[Defenestrated]

Leon Trosky actually wrote on the subject while in exile from the USSR. You guys should give it a read.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1934/08/ame.htm

I'll save some of you the work locating the most relevant bit to our discussion.

At present most Americans regard communism solely in the light of the experience of the Soviet Union. They fear lest Sovietism in America would produce the same material result as it has brought for the culturally backward peoples of the Soviet Union.

They fear lest communism should try to fit them to a bed of Procrustes, and they point to the bulwark of Anglo-Saxon conservatism as an insuperable obstacle even to possibly desirable reforms. They argue that Great Britain and Japan would undertake military intervention against the American soviets. They shudder lest Americans be regimented in their habits of dress and diet, be compelled to subsist on famine rations, be forced to read stereotyped official propaganda in the newspapers, be coerced to serve as rubber stamps for decisions arrived at without their active participation or be required to keep their thoughts to themselves and loudly praise their soviet leaders in public, through fear of imprisonment and exile.

They fear monetary inflation, bureaucratic tyranny and intolerable red tape in obtaining the necessities of life. They fear soulless standardization in the arts and sciences, as well as in the daily necessities of life. They fear that all political spontaneity and the presumed freedom of the press will be destroyed by the dictatorship of a monstrous bureaucracy. And they shudder at the thought of being forced into an uncomprehended glibness in Marxist dialectic and disciplined social philosophies. They fear, in a word, that Soviet America will become the counterpart of what they have been told Soviet Russia looks like.

Actually American soviets will be as different from the Russian soviets as the United States of President Roosevelt differs from the Russian Empire of Czar Nicholas II. Yet communism can come in America only through revolution, just as independence and democracy came in America. The American temperament is energetic and violent, and it will insist on breaking a good many dishes and upsetting a good many apple carts before communism is firmly established. Americans are enthusiasts and sportsmen before they are specialists and statesmen, and it would be contrary to the American tradition to make a major change without choosing sides and cracking heads.

For those that do not know, Leon Trotsky was Stalin's main adversary. While Stalin favored communism via a brutal and absolute dictatorship, Trotsky considered collective government or democracy the most effective and ethical path toward communism/socialism. He was also an internationalist.

 

[ohio]

here's a quick rundown of Manimal's New Deal:
Every Citizen has a maximum of 5 years government assistance.

I've got to say, at the surface this sounds pretty damn good AND different from anything I've been exposed to. I'm sure there are nuances aned exceptions, but it seems simple, easily understandable, and fair. Anything like this floating around mainstream political circles?

 

[Defenestrated]

then prepare for a the resurgence of slum cities

not that some public housing isn't already a dismal hell on earth

 

[ohio]

then prepare for a the resurgence of slum cities

not that some public housing isn't already a dismal hell on earth

I'm not talking about letting people die in the streets, but a more "punitive" set of benefits/repercussions makes sense. Children automatically go into state care, for example. If you can't hold down a household income after 5 years (I'd call it 8, myself) I would argue that you're not a fit parent. Benefits reduced to exchangeable coupons (e.g. foodstamps) as much as possible (little or no cash).

 

[trailhacker]

"A democracy is always temporary in nature: it simple cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority will always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship.”
-Alexander Tyler, 1700's Scottis History Professor

This sounds exactly like the tennants that got Bush elected. TWICE!
If these multi-million dollar tax-breaks given to corporate america don't equal gifts from the public coffers I don't know what is. But hey, middle americans, we'll throw you a $300 bone too!

i too have been on the receiving end of government support. we were on WIC when lil manimal was born and uncle sam wasn't quite affording us the ability to live comfortably in SoCal.

I am sure you are not meaning this as it reads (or maybe you are), but from everything I've read from you, this seems like everything you're against? If you (meaning you and the wife as a single being for sake of argument) got pregnant than isn't it up to you to provide? Even if that means you don't live "comfortably" for a while? I mean, why am I paying for you to have kids?

But I do like your thinking here:

here's a quick rundown of Manimal's New Deal:
Every Citizen has a maximum of 5 years government assistance. this includes food stamps, housing, tuition assistance...... Also, every minor has access to basic health care regardless of income and once an adult, the healthcare plans are price regulated. (yet another topic for later) So lets say that you graduate college and you can't find a job, you can use some of your 5 years to have rent subsidy and food stamps while you are on your job hunt. So say it took you a year to find a good job, now you have 4 years of assistance remaining. then you have an unexpected child (i can relate ) and you need further assistance to cover the basics so you use WIC or Food stamps for two years. now you're down to 2 years and so on....
you could, of course, extend your 5 years if you can show extenuating circumstances ie: disability, but otherwise, after your 5 years you're on your own thus eliminating the generational "right" to governmental assistance and promoting an environment where laziness isn't rewarded.

First off, with the Gingrich's Republican Revolution in '94(?) didn't they institute a 2 year deal on welfare? Sorry that was a while ago and I don't remember the particulars.

To add to what you have suggested above, and I don't really have anything against that plan, I don't think welfare or public support should EVER come in the form of cash. Too easy to not do what you are supposed to do with it.
Housing should be some form of direct payment.
Food should be like a reloadable card like a debit card with the ability to track what is bought. No alcohol, cigarettes, ect. STAPLES only!
Set-up a child care system in conjunction with job training; if your kids are old enough to be in school that means you have 6-8 hours a day to be job searching/training. And it should be a daily thing; for every day you spend in training/searching you get credit. At the end of the week you only get assistance equal to the credit you have earned.

Anyone caught abusing it gets kicked off. Twice or more then permanantly kicked off.
Anyone ripping it off (like people paying $.25 on the dollar for food stamps) get prosecuted to the fullest extent.

 

[manimal]

I am sure you are not meaning this as it reads (or maybe you are), but from everything I've read from you, this seems like everything you're against? If you (meaning you and the wife as a single being for sake of argument) got pregnant than isn't it up to you to provide? Even if that means you don't live "comfortably" for a while? I mean, why am I paying for you to have kids?

sorry, i guess i didn't clarify that comment. When i was in the marines, stationed in San Diego, the Housing Allowance paid to those who lived off base (base housing was always full with a LOOOOONG waiting list) hadn't yet caught up to the booming housing industry. for instance, i was allotted $650 per month for housing and the cheapest apartment i could find, even in the ghetto of el cajon, was well over $750. also, being a lowly E3 at the time when Noah was born (he was an oops ) my income was low enough that we qualified for WIC. In case you've never been on it, WIC stands for Women, Infants, Children and is designed to ensure that new mothers are able to buy the basics for their child; milk, eggs, cheese, cereal. It was probably worth about $30 a month in the basic food staples we bought with it which gave us the boost we needed to make ends meet in our 800sqft apartment on the outskirts of SD county. as i've said before, i believe these programs are necessary and ethical for a government to provide to productive citizens; it is the programs that are grossly misused and abused that bother me.

 

[trailhacker]

...i believe these programs are necessary and ethical for a government to provide to productive citizens; it is the programs that are grossly misused and abused that bother me.

Cheers to that!

 

[Straya]

(mini-rant- why is it when I click the utube embed button and then paste in the link in the middle that I just get a big white box all the time?)

 

[N8 v2.0]

awesomeness!!

 

[rockwool]

Technichal KO.

http://latuff2.deviantart.com/art/Marx-and-the-Global-Crisis-101648066

 

[rockwool]

Leon Trosky actually wrote on the subject while in exile from the USSR. You guys should give it a read.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1934/08/ame.htm

I'll save some of you the work locating the most relevant bit to our discussion.



For those that do not know, Leon Trotsky was Stalin's main adversary. While Stalin favored communism via a brutal and absolute dictatorship, Trotsky considered collective government or democracy the most effective and ethical path toward communism/socialism. He was also an internationalist.

It's strange that people generally reason when discussing socialism that "look how it was in Soviet Russia" and not realizing the differances that economic system would have in another country, just like capitalism is different in every country.

 

[N8 v2.0]

Technichal KO.

http://latuff2.deviantart.com/art/Marx-and-the-Global-Crisis-101648066

http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=214233