Reply to: Labour in 'lowest ever' poll rating

[OwlHoot]

My argument is that the welfare state has gone so far beyond its brief that it is now creating and perpetuating a culture of individual that is everything as bad as the people that it was supposed to help in the first place. And why? because in so doing it is creating a huge power base for socialists.

Get someone on welfare, ensure that they have no education of any worth, ensure that they do not become independent, strip away their aspirations and ensure that they are kept living with like minded people.. and there's your power base.

Exactly Dodgy - Been saying it for years. It's a modern, secular equivalent of the mediaevil church, and needs someone like a present-day Henry VIII to sweep away the whole ramshackle corrupt edifice (preferably without the tyrannical aspect).

The snag is for decades after the reformation in the 1540s there were hordes of beggars and vagabonds wandering the land. A big upheaval like that would be bound to have a corresponding effect on the unemployment figures, and one has to ask how many jobs there would be for an extra million or more ex-public service "workers" turfed out of their sinecures, many with few practical skills or qualifications, especially with all this outsourcing going on and much more machine automation undoubtedly imminent.

[Lucy]

Because he is boxed into a corner, wherby he connot defend the welfare system as it is. Instead of backing down he lashes out to try and move the argument onto a new territory that he can feel more comfortable on.

It's obviously time for him to go out and drink some kwality ale and pull a kwality bird.

[DodgyAgent]

How many times do I have to say it, it isn't just about right and left, why can't you understand this?

www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html

Because he is boxed into a corner, wherby he connot defend the welfare system as it is. Instead of backing down he lashes out to try and move the argument onto a new territory that he can feel more comfortable on.

[Lucy]

Not at all, I thought you were in agreement with Heir Lucy who wished to turn us into a pay as you go government, where the poor are helped with charity or sent to a workhouse. This is at a time when the rest of the developed world realises a healthy and educated population benefits everyone. You are the worst kind of snobs, who delight in pulling away the ladder of self betterment. I would like to see waste cut and more choice, but I don't want to delight in blowing it all up.

Doesn't take you long to use the tired old english stereotype. If I am not in favour of welfare then I must be a Nazi, it's boring and it's dumb. Just like you Bogpuss.

How many times do I have to say it, it isn't just about right and left, why can't you understand this?

www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html

[DodgyAgent]

Not at all, I thought you were in agreement with Heir Lucy who wished to turn us into a pay as you go government, where the poor are helped with charity or sent to a workhouse.

I havent actually read her point of view. My own point of view is that socialist welfare policies in practice imprison people within a low aspirational life, and that poverty in our society and other "western societies" is the direct outcome of the social policies adopted by governments.

[Lucy]

I believe that is what you and Lucy would want, a society with no opportunity. You argue against state stifflement of opportunity yet would like a society at the other extreme where luck of birth dictates your fortune i.e. little social mobility.

Would you like full equality of opportunity? The last time that was attempted was by (your friend) Pol Pot.

There will always be people with vast variations in opportunity largely dependent on who their parents are, it remains so today. There isn't a great deal of hope for a kid from a poor family, with violent, alcoholic parents who host parties, show no interest in reading, and who are generally negligent. The state will never fix this, at the moment what the state does is pay these people more everytime they produce a child.

What I am arguing is that all adult human interraction should be voluntary, and part of that is caring for others is a voluntary conscious act. You would be surprised to learn that in countries which have more private health and education, providers of these do a lot for people on low or no incomes. For example a GP in the USA may spend as much as one day a week helping those who don't pay a thing, and many private schools have scholarships. The vast majority of people at the bottom levels of income move from there within 10 years. Socially mobile and free.

[Bagpuss]

Just because someone argues against one end of a spectrum does not mean that they automatically support the other end of the same spectrum. Or is that a bit too difficult for you to understand?

Not at all, I thought you were in agreement with Heir Lucy who wished to turn us into a pay as you go government, where the poor are helped with charity or sent to a workhouse. This is at a time when the rest of the developed world realises a healthy and educated population benefits everyone. You are the worst kind of snobs, who delight in pulling away the ladder of self betterment. I would like to see waste cut and more choice, but I don't want to delight in blowing it all up.

[DodgyAgent]

I believe that is what you and Lucy would want, a society with no opportunity. You argue against state stifflement of opportunity yet would like a society at the other extreme where luck of birth dictates your fortune i.e. little social mobility.

Just because someone argues against one end of a spectrum does not mean that they automatically support the other end of the same spectrum. Or is that a bit too difficult for you to understand?

[Bagpuss]

awesome, when do we start?

I believe that is what you and Lucy would want, a society with no opportunity. You argue against state stifflement of opportunity yet would like a society at the other extreme where luck of birth dictates your fortune i.e. little social mobility.

[Lucy]

It sounds like you are arguing for anarchy i.e. no or little Government. Every man for themselves, the old can die, the disabled can be put in an asylum funded by charitable donations. The rich will afford education and healthcare, everyone else will serve the rich and die young.

What a society that would be

I didn't say 'no state' you are just making it up.

If you think the poor can be left to die, what would YOU do about it? And you seem to despise the rich but at the same time imply that without these nasty selfish people there woulnd't be enough tax to pay for the wonderous health and education system.

My point is fundamental, why do we have to use force to show compassion? And why do we put up with bumbling inefficient/ineffective state monopolies to mishandle healthcare and have no way of opting out, and spending our tax money elsewhere?

[DodgyAgent]

It sounds like you are arguing for anarchy i.e. no or little Government. Every man for themselves, the old can die, the disabled can be put in an asylum funded by charitable donations. The rich will afford education and healthcare, everyone else will serve the rich and die young.

What a society that would be

awesome, when do we start?

[Bagpuss]

It sounds like you are arguing for anarchy i.e. no or little Government. Every man for themselves, the old can die, the disabled can be put in an asylum funded by charitable donations. The rich will afford education and healthcare, everyone else will serve the rich and die young.

What a society that would be

[Lucy]

Elections are an advanced auction of stolen goods, as Mencken once said.

The money poured into state welfare year after year has little to show for it, but my fundamental point is moral. It is unethical to force people to pay for others. It is ethical to be compassionate and to give money to those who are less fortunate through charities. In fact choosing to do so means you DO care and you can select charities (or give up your own time) to those that make a real difference, rather than the bureaucrats who are dishing out money pretty much unconditionally. Why should someone who is able to support themselves be forced to pay for someone who, in the ordinary course of events, they wouldn't ever pay for? Why should force be involved?

Yes there would be a big task to transition to voluntary welfare, the first steps would be to wean people off expecting it as a lifestyle and make it timebound, a thriving industry in employment insurance and sickness insurance would mean people could be covered in the event of unfortunate incidences in their lives. However today the case is that you can grow up, be useless get welfare, have kids be useless get more welfare and it is perpetual and it is a perpetual drain paying people to breed and do next to nothing. The welfare state has failed miserably to do anything other than keep an underclass of people dependent upon the state and bred an entitlement lifestyle that is rampant. This is the idea that you are owed a living, healthcare, education and a house by the mere fact you exist, and if others dont give it to you then THEY are bad. How about a cultural change that says that the state doesnt exist to take money off of others to pay for you, but that your primary responsibility is to look after yourself and your family. That means education, healthcare, retirement and to insure against misfortune. You can call it Dickensian as much as you like, but the current system doesn't work and whilst Dickensian Britain looks worse than today (in fact virtually anywhere in the world was poorer a century or so ago), it was far wealthier than a century before. The simple point is this, would you let poverty exist if you got half your taxes back? If you wouldn't, who would? If there is such a consensus about helping the poor why wouldn't it happen voluntarily, or is your consensus a fiction?

[Bagpuss]

OK then why is stopping work so good for people? I argue that the worse thing for anyone is not to work, so why let them?. If DLA people cannot work in a physically demanding job then they can work in a call centre or in one of the many low skill jobs that are being taken up by the Poles.

Some people do, but someone with down syndrome etc isn't going to be much economic use. However, many do some part time work, and don't forget it's a means tested benefit.

I agree there are far too many taking the preverbial, there are some genuine people though who unfortunately have little to contribute.

[DodgyAgent]

You are taking the argument off on a tangent now but I'll bite...
It obviously depends which benefit you are talking about, I'm guessing disability allowance?

Don't confuse the disabled and with the workshy. The majority on DLA can't work. I'd say 1-2 million could contribute, which is roughly the amount the claim count has gone up since the Conservatives left. The total amount of unemployed people has been fairly static for the last 20 years.

OK then why is stopping work so good for people? I argue that the worse thing for anyone is not to work, so why let them?. If DLA people cannot work in a physically demanding job then they can work in a call centre or in one of the many low skill jobs that are being taken up by the Poles.