You disagree that paying taxes to support meth smoking shit heads who spit out kids is wrong? I guess we are on opposite ends, haha. I'm not saying shoot the f*ckers, I'm just saying they shouldn't recieve any goverment aid simply because they're too fat, stupid, lazy, hooked on drugs, etc to work like everybody else does. I have no problem with helping out the people who really need it like welfare was originally intended, but the whole system has been totally perverted.
Just an illustration of how f*cking sick I am of these leech shitf*cks, on a WEEKLY basis this happens- I go to the store to buy some food, the f*cker in front of me (90% of the time they're mexican of course) pulls out their oregon trail card (basically a free money card since you can get cash back now) to pay for all their food, then 5 minutes later I see them pulling out of the parking lot in their f*cking gigantic SUV or totally souped up Accord or something. It's f*cking sickening to me that someone could have enough money to pay for a really, really nice car yet not have ANY dignity or self respect at all and cheat the government for free food at MY expense.
OK, I'll try to clarify. Your characterization of the folks who use social services is grossly misinformed and downright deceitful. Sure, there will always be a few folks who scam, or take advantage of social services. But this is an extreme minority. An overwhelming majority of the folks who use social services truly need help and assistance. In fact, they deserve even more. The image you've conjured up (of the "welfare cheat") is commonly used to attack social programs, demonize the folks who need social services, etc. To add insult to injury, Guts racialized things by conjuring up another popular image, the welfare cheat of "Mexican" or foreign origin. Needless to say, one of the most effective methods for attacking social welfare programs in the U.S. has been to exploit voters' racist and xenophobic beliefs.
In reality, an overwhelming majority of folks on welfare in the U.S. are white, because, quite simply, whites comprise the majority of the population. If and when ethnic minorities are over-represented in the social welfare system, it is simply an inidication that these communities suffer the highest rates of poverty, unemployment, etc. and are the least likely to have access to good education and health care, etc. etc.
Oppression, racism, sexism -- these are all very real obstacles. I'm not talking about individuals spouting racist or sexist beliefs (although that certainly exists), I'm talking about social policy and access to resources systematically favoring certain groups (white / middle class+) and systematically disfavoring other groups (working class / ethnic minorities).
I can tell you from first-hand experience (working and volunteering in labor unions) that social services have been stripped and/or reduced to the point of absurdity. Folks are struggling to survive -- literally. I won't even discuss medical services, I'll start with something simple: food. The levels of malnourishment in this country is a CRIME -- considering we live in the most prosperous nation in history, and we produce enough surplus food to export it overseas and dump it at super-cheap prices.
Don't get me started on medical services, education, etc.
Here's the bottom line, I guess: You and Black_Tiger are attacking social services as if these services are wasteful or inherently flawed (easilly exploited, too generous, etc.). Simultaneously, you attack the folks who need these programs as welfare cheats, lazy bums, scammers, etc. This is an inaccurate, unfair, and grossly misinformed characterization of social welfare programs in the U.S and the folks who benefit from them.
Social services are greatly needed, and should receive an increase in funding, if anything.
Housing, education, health care, living wage -- I believe it is the utmost duty of GOVERNMENT to ensure that EVERYONE has a minimal level of access to these resources. For our purposes here, consider it a BASIC RIGHT.
I accept the fact that there will be some folks who try to scam the welfare system. Let's assume this can never be eliminated (a realistic position we can agree on). WE STILL NEED welfare, and the overall public good still benefits.
If you are SO CONCERNED about the government wasting our money, why aren't you attacking the programs THAT AREN'T HELPING ANYONE and are only creating MISERY: the military budget is friggin' goddam huge. Ronald Reagan is well known for pushing military / Pentagon spending through the roof, but even by those inflated levels, our current spending (PRIOR TO THE WARS IN AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ) is insanely high.
Not to get into another debate, but our tax dollars are being used to ILLEGALLY and IMMORALLY slaughter and subjugate folks around the world. Don't forget that we subsidize and supply weapons and training to countless brutal regimes around the world.
Social welfare spending in the U.S. is hardly the big waste of our tax $$$. Military spending is # 1. Coporate welfare is # 2. I'll stop there.
I love you guys 
, but we defintely don't share common ground when it comes to politics.
I wasn't attacking the folks who need any kind of services. I was just reminded of a couple of ways we're screwed here by our political system.
I also just mentioned a couple of things that popped into my mind at the time. First of all, the people who are abusing the system in the ways I meant, are at least well off and certainly not poor or in any kind of compromising position. I was talking about people who are not trapped by their lifestyles, but choose to do abuse their own bodies and live in reckless ways that affect others.
I'm talking about people who drink and drive(I don't know a single person here who drinks and who drives who doesn't drink & drive), people who smoke in certain public places and smoke into the faces of their stroller bound infants, people who run grow ops, regardless of whether or not the landlord or future buyer is aware of it, people who purposesly have sex with other people without letting them know how diseased they are or rampantly cheat on monogomous partners and another big problem around here right now is street racing.
In our relatively small(by U.S. standards) community, I'm talking Vancouver area, people die every single night from drunk drivers, street racers or miscelaneous hit & runs. And now a majority of the time, in the few times that these losers are caught, it turns out that they've had their license suspended several times over(so what happened the first they were caught driving dangerously on a suspended license?).
Now regardless of how bad our justice system has got very quickly as its fallen behind the times, the problem we're facing here is the haves abusing the 'system' in general, not the have-nots.
Anyways, what I was going to say I never got to mention before is how bad things have gotten for the mentally ill here now. Particularly now with our local provincial government who cut down what little their was for these people.
They made it so hard to apply for mental disability services, let alone welfare(for the disabled), that 9/10 mentally competant people could never do it if they had all the free time in the world.
And right now, 9/10 people living on the street have mental issues and wound up there when there was noone to take care of them. My brother would've wound up there too if my mother didn't just happen to have had enough free time when it counted most to work on getting him help. It was so hard, that she barely managed to get him any kind of help over the last 4 or 5 years that it's taken for him to even get welfare, which he has to go on for several months before he can get his disability pension.
In the meantime, aside from on the months spent in different asylums, he also wound up in prison for a few months without even committing a crime.
My whole point was that we've lost all our social services and the well off are abusing whats left here. Like I said, after those in government and the police, only prison inmates get the treatment that everyone deserves(plus, they now have tattoo parlors with free tattoos during their stay).
Again I'm talking about Canada and more directly B.C. You guys have your own unique set of problems. Our radically different political systems have thrown us in the same boat now though, where we only have two polarized options when it comes elections time. And although we're going the opposite route, avoiding the religous right, it sounds like either way we're getting worked over by politicians who've got a strangle hold on the system itself to keep things going the way they have.
At least its a lot safer to be born gay here.
stevek666, it sounds more like we are on the same page. We have
no military spending here. Our
total debt, which we're reducing anually with our (grossly)surplused national budgets, is still less than the United States' anual
deficit.And our governments, federal and provincial are still screwing over those in genuine need by cutting social services.
Thats what I was talking about when I said that people who don't deserve health care are using it the most and now too many who should are waiting too long.
And here its no longer a matter of $$$ when it comes to health care(I'm talking strictly
health care here), because our health care system is so out of control that we're not aloud to even figure out what it costs to provide service(they more money thrown on the fire, the waiting lists continue to rise) and well paid janitorial staff, let alone doctors and nurses are going on strike all the time(leaving the ill to sit in hospital hallways) to get 9 weeks holidays and even higher salaries, when people who know people working in the industry can tell you, too many people in these untouchable unions don't even really work in the first place.
Here its illegal to hire "scabs", but hospital employees, transit workers and teachers aren't considered
essential services. We had a 6 month transit strike. Guess who that affected? It wasn't the rich, they loved it since they could speed even faster without all those buses in the way.
Another thing that is the same here, as racist as most people are, its still mainaly so-called "white" people who abuse the 'system' in general the most.
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