dangerous territory/devil's advocate

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Why not present an actual counterargument? Otherwise you're all "Nuh yer wrong".

Which is also a time-honored tradition, but not very effective in serious discussions.

[Juana]

He repeated a talking point, so I'm asking him to back it up. A demand for evidence is not a "no you're wrong."

It's not intended to be a counter point per se. It's intended to be a demand for evidence to support a trite old Conservatard bullshit talking point.

THAT'S

          The ridiculous part. he's supposed to hit you with a library's worth of human experience?

I'm asking for statistics, not the story of each and every welfare recipient.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

He repeated a talking point, so I'm asking him to back it up. A demand for evidence is not a "no you're wrong."

It's not intended to be a counter point per se. It's intended to be a demand for evidence to support a trite old Conservatard bullshit talking point.

THAT'S

          The ridiculous part. he's supposed to hit you with a library's worth of human experience?

I'm asking for statistics, not the story of each and every welfare recipient.

"Prove it" is substantially different from "Can you provide some supporting evidence or statistics?"

[Juana]

No it isn't. Granted, "prove it" is more challenging than "evidence please", but it's asking for the same thing.


I don't want to derail the thread any further with semantics, so lemme rephrase: Vex, please support your assertion.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

It's not intended to be a counter point per se. It's intended to be a demand for evidence to support a trite old Conservatard bullshit talking point.

Without giving people's actual names and social security numbers, I can say without resorting to "studies" and "statistics," that I have personally known people who milk the system. I recognize that these are a minority of cases and that most of the people who milk the system are already breaking a number of welfare rules and would be tossed off the rolls if they played by the book.

But that wasn't what I was talking about when I said "welfare trap." What I mean is this: in order to qualify for welfare in America, you have be pretty well fucked in the first place. Under normal circumstances, you must have children, there are prohibitive restrictions when you're married, you can't own many material assets, etc. And once you're on welfare, you will be kicked off of it as soon as you start showing signs of getting back on your feet. For example, if you get a job, you're off the program - even if that job pays LESS than welfare, or it's temporary. So, people have a legitimate reason to stay on welfare and not work.

The point where welfare would be most effective is in preventing poverty in the first place. As it is, it is only available for people who are already impoverished - and it's snatched away as soon as they start showing an inkling of ambition to get out of poverty, leaving them with a gap between "living of the government" and making it on their own - a gap that's impossible to bridge for many people.

As for Welfare Queens - yes. There are those who have kids specifically for increases in welfare payments. I have personally known one or two of these myself. But they wouldn't be there if welfare was a legitimate "poverty to self-sustainability" program that provided child care and REAL education (right now the best 'education' they offer are workshops and classes on how to land dead-end jobs).

The flip-side to this is that we would need to agree that at some point, if you have been handed a free education and all the honest chances in the world and you choose to blow it off, then yes I'm sorry but you deserve to be homeless and live out of dumpsters. But that's ONLY after the system has been changed to provide real value and real opportunity.

So the only Conservative part of my position is that there are people on welfare who shouldn't be, and they need to get off. Not to save the State's money, but to save THEM.

[Deepthroat Chopra]

I don't really understand how "welfare dependency" as a concept relates to the left/right divide. I've worked in welfare organisations all my working life, am too far to the left to be called liberal, and thoroughly believe that yes, people can become dependent on welfare. People further to the left than I actually call for the complete abolition of welfare, because according to Marxist ideology, poor people should all be out revolting and smashing up fast-food outlets out of desperation, rather than being made complacent by a subsistence level existence.

In couselling relationships, for example, there's a fairly universal policy that if someone hasn't shown any effort at reaching mutually agreed goals after four sessions, there's no point continuing, as then they are becoming dependent on the relationship with their counsellor rather than trying to get control over their own lives from whatever threatens that.

I've found it interesting that the folks who ignore this policy tend to come from a more conservative point of view, which accepts that people are born stuff-ups, will always be stuff-ups, and will stuff up continually without some sort of maternal/paternal figure to set them right again and again.

Sounds like Bell Curve stuff to me, which I always thought comes right of conservative ideology.

I know this thread didn't start out as a welfare dependency thread, but it illustrates the way I think that these things are misconstrued, and liberals and conservatives are two labels that have increasingly less to do with the actual ideologies as they have been defined.

If we went back to the actual ideological concepts, decent arguments could be had about whether social intervention in a certain area would be a good or a bad thing. The argument about how much I am responsible for the well-being of my neighbour, not to mention whether my neighbour's well-being is essential to my long-term well-being, are such arguments within this frame-work, and they should be had.

Instead, conservative and liberal have become these tribal labels that give people some sense of belonging to something bigger than they, and often they're bullshit. A collection of micro-positions and opinions that turn into tribal defenses.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Vex, you make several really good points, and I totally agree with most of your post. However, I have to take issue with your phrase about "resorting to "studies" and "statistics"". Anecdotes don't adequately support any shift in public policy which affects large numbers of people.

The other point I disagree about is people who are given every opportunity and still choose the dole; those dratted "studies" and "statistics" strongly indicate that the vast majority will choose productivity if they have a chance; it's a basic human drive. Most of the people who don't choose productivity, do not because of legitimate psychological or emotional problems.

[E.O.T.]

VEX

          You are making some absolutely excellent points, for reals

HOWEVER,

          the idea that people go through the epic process of birth to attain a pittance of financial support is just stupid.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

VEX

          You are making some absolutely excellent points, for reals

HOWEVER,

          the idea that people go through the epic process of birth to attain a pittance of financial support is just stupid.

Also this.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

There is welfare fraud that will never show up in statistics. But that is an extreme minority of cases and not my focus. My point is that the entire system is designed wrong. The rules are set up against success, so we trap people on welfare. I would love to see MORE flagrant welfare fraud, as it is defined now, because if people on welfare are able to make real money they would be more likely to get off the system. As it is, people might make money but they dare not report it, because they will be dumped and possibly prosecuted for "fraud."

[Juana]

Your position doesn't sound very much at all like the typical conservatard bullshit I was expecting. Good. I agree with you and with Nigel/EOT's point.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

There is welfare fraud that will never show up in statistics. But that is an extreme minority of cases and not my focus. My point is that the entire system is designed wrong. The rules are set up against success, so we trap people on welfare. I would love to see MORE flagrant welfare fraud, as it is defined now, because if people on welfare are able to make real money they would be more likely to get off the system. As it is, people might make money but they dare not report it, because they will be dumped and possibly prosecuted for "fraud."

Vex, the fact that some data is uncollectible doesn't invalidate the process of measuring collectible data for the purposes of policy change. I mean, obviously I'm biased because right now I work on an NIH-funded program at a DHS-overseen institute that collects data on human services programs for the purposes of changing human services policies. 

[Triple Zero]

Inspired by events in the Discordian Feminism thread. I don't want to threadjack that one too much so I'm starting this thread. The following are questions that are maybe rhetorical, but I think deserve to be asked and considered (even if not answered).

- Do you hold any beliefs or adhere to any political positions which could be construed as "Conservative" by current and popular use of that word?

No I don't and if you do you are bad and you should feel bad.

Also what you think is "current and popular use" is just what the media told you to think.

Is it possible that "Liberalism" assumes itself to be correct in the same self-congratulatory, evidence-deficient way that "Conservatism" does? If so, what issues may be examples of that?

Instead of answering this question I'm going to suggest you pull your little American head out of that giant gaping two-party-ass.

Could it be that PDCOM engages in openly, by-the-book Liberal philosophy (moral and political), and eschews all Conservative approaches almost as predictably as the Huffington Post, while claiming a title of "beyond the left/right paradigm" anyway?

Honestly I recently looked up what farts are made of and oxygen wasn't one of the ingredients so I seriously think you could be getting permanent brain damage if you don't get your fucking head out of there.

I ask these only because I think that there may be some truth to some claims by Conservatives in some areas, which are dismissed out of hand by Liberals because of all the nutjobbery that goes on at the extremities of the Right.

How about you leave the Liberals and the Conservatives alone for a bit and let them fight their fight.

Or you go there and tell them.

It's a bit like the guy that lost his watch at his driveway but is looking for it under the street lights, isn't it?

"No I'm going to ask dumb questions about Liberals and Conservatives here on PD, because if I were to go to the actual Liberals and Conservatives that need to hear this, they wouldn't listen!"

And I'd hate to think that PD is guilty of flushing good ideas, or even bad ideas that are worth exploring, just because of a predisposition toward certain mainstream political positions.

Passive-aggressive digs at the whole forum in general like these are one of the few things I'm quite predisposed against.

Fortunately they're not even "bad ideas worth exploring", they're just made by "people worth dumping heaps of shit upon".


Think about it for a bit. In what way are the questions you started in this thread exactly like asking someone "When do you plan to stop kicking puppies?"

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

Inspired by events in the Discordian Feminism thread. I don't want to threadjack that one too much so I'm starting this thread. The following are questions that are maybe rhetorical, but I think deserve to be asked and considered (even if not answered).

- Do you hold any beliefs or adhere to any political positions which could be construed as "Conservative" by current and popular use of that word?

No I don't and if you do you are bad and you should feel bad.

Also what you think is "current and popular use" is just what the media told you to think.

Is it possible that "Liberalism" assumes itself to be correct in the same self-congratulatory, evidence-deficient way that "Conservatism" does? If so, what issues may be examples of that?

Instead of answering this question I'm going to suggest you pull your little American head out of that giant gaping two-party-ass. 

000! you are on FIRE!

Seriously, Vex, the premise of this thread is incredibly American-centric. I mean the Republicans are a lot further to the right than most mainstream conservative parties in Europe.

Most left wing parties in Europe are a lot further to the left than the Dems. in fact the Dems are pretty much more similar to European conservatives.

We have real, live to gods SOCIALISTS here. I suspect me and Trip count in that number.

As for the whole "living in dumpsters comment" well, that IMHO is kind of callous. You are assuming that everywhere provides the same standard of education, completely discounting other environmental and social factors that go with adhering and gaining education and other opportunities.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

- Do you hold any beliefs or adhere to any political positions which could be construed as "Conservative" by current and popular use of that word?

Yes.  I am a gun rights advocate.

- Is it possible that "Liberalism" assumes itself to be correct in the same self-congratulatory, evidence-deficient way that "Conservatism" does? If so, what issues may be examples of that?

Yes.  They believe that safety trumps rights, and they're proud of it.

- Could it be that PDCOM engages in openly, by-the-book Liberal philosophy (moral and political), and eschews all Conservative approaches almost as predictably as the Huffington Post, while claiming a title of "beyond the left/right paradigm" anyway?

I think most people here reject the current dichotomy.  I also think people here are to some degree "Franklin liberals", which is a very different thing than passes for "liberalism" today.

I ask these only because I think that there may be some truth to some claims by Conservatives in some areas, which are dismissed out of hand by Liberals because of all the nutjobbery that goes on at the extremities of the Right. And I'd hate to think that PD is guilty of flushing good ideas, or even bad ideas that are worth exploring, just because of a predisposition toward certain mainstream political positions.

Examples?