Mirror uses stock image of American child for front page UK foodbanks story

[Bluebook]

In Sweden it's a choice to be poor. Education is free, and getting a decent education is a simple and convenient way to avoid being poor (even though it is unlikely to make you rich).

The choise is not always free or even councious. Which of cource makes it impossible to attach blame to the "choise", and  which invalidates your implication that poor people have themselves to blame..

[The Brain]

In Sweden it's a choice to be poor. Education is free, and getting a decent education is a simple and convenient way to avoid being poor (even though it is unlikely to make you rich).

The choise is not always free or even councious. Which of cource makes it impossible to attach blame to the "choise", and  which invalidates your implication that poor people have themselves to blame..

The number of people who live in Fritzl basements is vanishingly small. And as for conscious, I don't see why it would matter if the choice is conscious or not.

[Ideologue]

It does, but that doesn't really help getting them jobs again.  In fact, it's counter productive.  People who are humiliated daily become depressed and are less likely to find work.

It would provide motivation for me to find a job.  I'd dig ditches to avoid being on welfare.

I imagine if you had experience with machinery we actually use for ditch digging, and have for about forty years, you wouldn't have need for it.

But I take the point: you'd do any stupid, demeaning job to avoid being on welfare.  I suggest you go wash dishes for a year, and let me how you managed without welfare.

[Ideologue]

Where are you going to get this fancy ditch digging job?  They have machines that do that now.

FUCK.

[Admiral Yi]

I've even heard a few conservatards try to spin it as single moms trying deliberately to get knocked up multiple times for the welfare checks.

This is exactly what happened under the old AFDIC.

[Sheilbh]

But I take the point: you'd do any stupid, demeaning job to avoid being on welfare.  I suggest you go wash dishes for a year, and let me how you managed without welfare.

And you may still end up needing some welfare. But, not to worry, that's the system working.

[Razgovory]

But I take the point: you'd do any stupid, demeaning job to avoid being on welfare.  I suggest you go wash dishes for a year, and let me how you managed without welfare.

And you may still end up needing some welfare. But, not to worry, that's the system working.

Well hopefully you humiliated enough you won't show your face at a polling place.

[grumbler]

I've even heard a few conservatards try to spin it as single moms trying deliberately to get knocked up multiple times for the welfare checks.

This is exactly what happened under the old AFDIC.

I don't think the conservatards have stopped spinning with the establishment of TANF.

[derspiess]

I have had people tell me they were carrying out this plan but it seems like a dodgy one.

Yeah.  I cashed a lot of welfare checks when I was a bank teller.  The conversations I overheard when one welfare queen encountered another were mind-blowing.

[Eddie Teach]

It's impersonal.

And that's better because...?

Because it's less humiliating. 

Government agents don't have the same discretion as private charities to decide who is and who isn't worthy of their money. So there's less kow-towing and less condescension involved.

[grumbler]

Yeah.  I cashed a lot of welfare checks when I was a bank teller.  The conversations I overheard when one welfare queen encountered another were mind-blowing.

You outta hear the conversations in a gun shop some day.  Modern gun tards make those olden-times welfare queens sound quite rational.

[MadImmortalMan]

Welfare isn't charity. Part of the reason we established a welfare state was to remove the inefficiency and humiliation of charity.

I see a distinction without a difference.

TBH I really dislike this dichotomy. You see it in the opposite direction here a lot, like private charity is somehow morally superior to public, or vice versa. You have an organization formed by the citizenry to fulfill certain purposes including helping the poor. Why does it matter whether it is a government or not? If it is inefficient or humiliating that is a matter of administration.

When it's welfare there is no moral component. Charity is a good act because someone must make a moral choice to do it. You can't choose to not pay your taxes, so the morality of the act is removed.

[Razgovory]

I have had people tell me they were carrying out this plan but it seems like a dodgy one.

Yeah.  I cashed a lot of welfare checks when I was a bank teller.  The conversations I overheard when one welfare queen encountered another were mind-blowing.

I didn't know they actually existed.

[Admiral Yi]

When it's welfare there is no moral component. Charity is a good act because someone must make a moral choice to do it. You can't choose to not pay your taxes, so the morality of the act is removed.

There is arguably a moral component in the acceptance of welfare.

[Razgovory]

I'm not going to respond to that.  Yi would just become unhappy, so I leave his statement to just hang there like a corpse on giblet.