One thing that bugged me about Idiocracy

Count Arioch the 28th · Thu Jun 02, 2011 2:44 am

Psychic Robot wrote:
Count Arioch the 28th wrote:I have heard many rich people accuse to me that poor people were breeding in order to get their money. I have never met any, but every tea party member I know can rattle off a list of names when pressed. I think it's because tea party members know scummy people.
while I'm not a tea party patriot, I know several people who are abusing the welfare system. obviously not all of them (my grandma used medicare after the nursing home devoured her savings) but some of them do abuse the system.

Realistically, I think if we looked hard we can find lots of people abusing the system. It's all a matter of whether you want to start top-down or bottom-up. Perhaps it is due to my lack of vision, but I can't see how people abusing welfare could have a larger negative effect than, say, a small group of stockholders suing the company they own to keep the executives from raising the salaries of the workers because it would reduce profits.

However, I have retired from giving a shit about politics; I have come to the conclusion that no one is really on my side, so I shouldn't be on anyone's side myself.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Thu Jun 02, 2011 12:14 pm

Prak_Anima wrote:
RobbyPants wrote:
Prak_Anima wrote:What about establishing maximum number of children based on income bracket, and turning the excess into food that we export to other countries?
The Jonathan Swift approach? I think Count mentioned that, earlier.
Wasn't the original modest proposal about eating the poor? Mine is more sending the poor's kids away to be eaten by others...

Psychic Robot wrote:no it was about eating babies you philistine

Well, both. It was about eating poor people's babies. Although, Prak, you're right in that his solution didn't involve exporting them, but it did involve eating them, nonetheless.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Thu Jun 02, 2011 3:47 pm

MfA wrote:
tzor wrote:One could agrue that was the real purpose of the WPA and so forth ... empowering people who could not find work with work they could be proud of. As a side note, I have never seen a WPA built structure that I wasn't impressed with.
The problem is that everything the WPA did we can do today with a fraction of the labour ... for major infrastructure projects direct material investment exceeds labour cost, unless you intentionally make them work with old inefficient methods (which are probably more dangerous too) infrastructure projects are not a very economically efficient way to get people a job.

Actually I wasn't thinking of infrastructure. There is a nice aquarium in Key West originally built by WPA labor. Also the rest stop at Point Lookout on what was (at the time) the Pallasades Parkway (the parkway moved slightly inland, but the old road is still used to get to the lookout. The rest stop is the center point for that area of the park where there are many hiking/sking trails and the view of the Hudson is fantastic.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Thu Jun 02, 2011 5:20 pm

Specifically, it was about eating Irish babies

K · Post by K » Fri Jun 03, 2011 3:54 am

I never understand why people think you can punish away poverty, or that somehow poor people are poor because they refuse to take living-wage jobs.

Count Arioch the 28th · Fri Jun 03, 2011 3:59 am

Reagan started that shit, he told everyone that being poor was great and we as a country needed to put a stop to it.

Reagan then made so much money for the people on top that they ran with it.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Jun 03, 2011 4:06 am

K wrote:I never understand why people think you can punish away poverty, or that somehow poor people are poor because they refuse to take living-wage jobs.

Um, once again, is anyone saying that poor people need to be punished? Is providing free mandatory birth control and money to people who would be starving if they had a bunch of kids and we didn't give them money a punishment?

Count Arioch the 28th · Fri Jun 03, 2011 4:35 am

I don't think he was responding to you, Kaelik.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Jun 03, 2011 4:45 am

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:I don't think he was responding to you, Kaelik.

I don't think anyone else in the thread was advocating punishing poor people either.

Count Arioch the 28th · Fri Jun 03, 2011 4:46 am

... I am having difficult following your train of thought here.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Fri Jun 03, 2011 5:03 am

as far as I understand it, k is being a pinko twat and kaelik is calling him on his bullshit because even though kaelik is a leftist and agrees with k's viewpoints, kaelik has some sense of honor and decency when it comes to argumentation (unlike k) and he (kaelik) has a tendency to sperg out when someone does something that is any way perceived as "wrong." as k is being a pinko twat and strawmanning, kaelik is duty-bound to correct him because his aspie tendencies lock him into a rigid mode of thinking where he must engage in every possible debate because he has an opinion and this is the goddamn internet DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND

basically it's just kaelik being kaelik

Count Arioch the 28th · Fri Jun 03, 2011 5:10 am

Psychic Robot wrote: basically it's just kaelik being kaelik

Probably the best theory that exists, so I will go with it for now.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 4:45 pm

Don't give parents who can't afford kids money. Instead keep an eye on them (the ones without any state/federal reported income). When it becomes readily apparent that they can't take care of their children hit them with the law. Child endangerment and all that jazz. Give them some jail time and take the child away to be raised on the state dollar. This way you are not giving any incentives for people to have more children than they can handle, you're punishing people that do, and you are still supporting the blameless children on the state dollar. This opens up jobs both for the regulatory people who have to keep an eye out on this stuff and for caregivers. You take the money that would have been wasted on supporting these irresponsible people and instead pump it into a regulatory system so that the jobs pay well enough to be worth having.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 5:28 pm

wow, you really don't understand child psychology at all.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 5:37 pm

sabs wrote:wow, you really don't understand child psychology at all.

Never said I did but I doubt that most of the parents having these children in the fashion, and for the reasons, being described know anything about child psychology either. If you do know how Child Psychology works it'd probably be better if you actually shared rather than laying down a short sentence about how I don't and leaving it at that.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 7:10 pm

lol @ anyone on the internet pretending to be an expert at anything

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 7:40 pm

MY FUCKING GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You guys don't know how the system works. None of you [claim to] have any experience with what it actually takes to get on TANF, stay on TANF, or even what TANF regulations are.

Very few of you [seem to] have any sort of experience with being a parent. Not taking care of someone else, but actually spawning life and taking care of it.

And all of your decisions about what should be done are based on some mythical notion about retarded people who actually believe that getting paid just more than the nothing that they already have is incentive to have a child.

If there are people who can have kids and live off of TANF, we should go take notes from them, because living off the government pittance you're allocated is fucking hard and requires knowledge of economics that our bankers don't even seem to have.

And if they're scamming the system somehow, then we need to figure out how they're doing it, why they're doing it, and keep them from participating in the system in the future.

Access to birth control is good. Forced birth control is bad. Why? Because TANF is a month-to-month thing. I've been disqualified from TANF because my husband's unemployment benefits kicked in. Then ran out. Then kicked in. Sorry. I'm not going to have invasive birth control procedures done every other month for shits and giggles. Fuck you.

Besides, anyone scamming the system, can just recycle through the program and get pregnant in one of the "off" months, only to hop right back on at the new improved money rate once they get pregnant.

On top of all that, there's this great idea of "can't afford kids." What the fuck does that even mean anyway? Do you know? What quantity of arbitrarium do you have to have in order to qualify? What guarantee do you have that poverty precludes raising useful/good/decent/intelligent/whatever children, while having "enough" arbitrarium guarantees it? Why the hell aren't you arguing for psych evaluations for every person in the US instead, so we can determine who has the right mindset to raise a child?

And MGuy, my husband and I don't have state/federally reported income. We're self-employed contractors. And you are not fucking taking my kid away from me.

This thread is full of sick, clueless comments. Fuck them all.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 7:41 pm

Psychic_Robot wrote:lol @ anyone on the internet pretending to be an expert at anything

In light of the fact that experts exist, and I hear the internet's pretty popular these days... Certainly, somewhere out there, experts exist on the internet. They aren't too busy being expertly to waste time like everyone else now and then. Of course, sabs is not an 'expert' on child psychology. No one here is. But I think the point he makes is valid.

It seems very clear that taking children away from their family is not a good idea just because the family can't afford them. MGuy, you're associating a 'bad home environment' with a 'poor home environment.' Not all poor people are bad parents.

Some are just dumb. Or hardcore catholic. Or whatever else is causing them to spit out babies like a machinegun. You can still be either of those things and raise a child relatively well. Tearing apart healthy families because you don't think they have enough money is a bad idea.

But yes, we do need to discourage them continuing to spit out babies like the aforementioned machinegun. Dismantling their family just seems like the wrong threat to do it with, unless they are also negligent or genuinely bad parents in some way.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 7:50 pm

Maj wrote:MY FUCKING GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You guys don't know how the system works. None of you [claim to] have any experience with what it actually takes to get on TANF, stay on TANF, or even what TANF regulations are. that's true, but my argument is always that less government is more better.

Very few of you [seem to] have any sort of experience with being a parent. Not taking care of someone else, but actually spawning life and taking care of it. duh we're nerds on the internet

And all of your decisions about what should be done are based on some mythical notion about retarded people who actually believe that getting paid just more than the nothing that they already have is incentive to have a child. I didn't comment on TANF but the main problem is generational poverty where people get on government assistance and don't bother to get off and then spread these poisonous ideas to their children rather than instilling them with the proper protestant work ethic (no offense intended to non-protestants here)

If there are people who can have kids and live off of TANF, we should go take notes from them, because living off the government pittance you're allocated is fucking hard and requires knowledge of economics that our bankers don't even seem to have. actually i'm pretty sure that bankers are very good at living off of government assistance (that's a joke about TARP)

And if they're scamming the system somehow, then we need to figure out how they're doing it, why they're doing it, and keep them from participating in the system in the future. well yes. why they're doing it is easy: they want more money.

Access to birth control is good. Forced birth control is bad. Why? Because TANF is a month-to-month thing. I've been disqualified from TANF because my husband's unemployment benefits kicked in. Then ran out. Then kicked in. Sorry. I'm not going to have invasive birth control procedures done every other month for shits and giggles. Fuck you. i'm pretty sure the idea is that they get the tubes tied when they're on welfare and when they are permanently off welfare, they can have it undone. obviously this is a terrible idea because the idea of the government forcing you to undergo an invasive procedure is gross. better idea is to cap benefits

Besides, anyone scamming the system, can just recycle through the program and get pregnant in one of the "off" months, only to hop right back on at the new improved money rate once they get pregnant.

On top of all that, there's this great idea of "can't afford kids." What the fuck does that even mean anyway? Do you know? What quantity of arbitrarium do you have to have in order to qualify? What guarantee do you have that poverty precludes raising useful/good/decent/intelligent/whatever children, while having "enough" arbitrarium guarantees it? Why the hell aren't you arguing for psych evaluations for every person in the US instead, so we can determine who has the right mindset to raise a child? uh chill out maj. i'm pretty sure that they're talking about being unable to feed/clothe their children. if you don't have the funds to pay for a baby, you shouldn't have one.

And MGuy, my husband and I don't have state/federally reported income. We're self-employed contractors. And you are not fucking taking my kid away from me. if you can't afford children, then don't have them. sorry not trying to be an asshole here but it's the truth. it is not the government's responsibility to subsidize your childrearing.

This thread is full of sick, clueless comments. Fuck them all.

i'm just going to address this in redtext b/c it's easier than chopping it up. first off, though, you need to chill out.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 8:02 pm

Yes Maj, I'm sure that when everyone was theorycrafting their ideal monetary support for poor people with kids, they were specifically only referring to TANF as it currently exists with no changes whatsoever except forced birth control.

Surely no one was thinking of changing any other aspect of federal support for poor people. No one who was advocating that people who have more kids not get to stay on federal funding have some sort of system to measure the number of kids you have, and keep that information for more than one month, and then compare the numbers.

For damn sure none of the socialist commy pinkos on this forum was advocating that we give more money, like, for example and actual living wage, to poor people who meet the qualifications.

That definitely wasn't what anyone was talking about, you can tell because anyone besides you at all ever used the letters TANF.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 8:04 pm

PR wrote:better idea is to cap benefits

They are already capped. 60 months.

PR wrote:spread these poisonous ideas to their children rather than instilling them with the proper protestant work ethic (no offense intended to non-protestants here)

Just World Fallacy. Blow me.

PR wrote:uh chill out maj.

No.

PR wrote: if you can't afford children, then don't have them.

Answer my question. How much does it take? Because it's entirely possible to raise kids and not pay money for their clothing (hand-me-downs from church/friends/family) and toys. If you're going to exclude people, draw the line. $20K? $30K? $40K? Some other line like can't afford health insurance? A house?

How broke is too broke to parent?

Kaelik wrote:Surely no one was thinking of changing any other aspect of federal support for poor people.

Then talk about it.

Kaelik wrote:you can tell because anyone besides you at all ever used the words TANF.

Just because you call it welfare instead doesn't make it different.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 8:13 pm

Maj wrote:
Kaelik wrote:you can tell because anyone besides you at all ever used the words TANF.
Just because you call it welfare instead doesn't make it different.

Yes, actually, it does. Because TANF is a specific program with specific regulations, specific systems, and specific goals, and welfare is a general concept which could be implemented in many different ways, with many different goals.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 8:15 pm

Maj, PR is trolling his ass off.

If you're that mad about it, PM me and we can track him down and pound his hands flat with a baseball bat so he can see what living with a disability or being flat-out unable to provide for himself is like.

But don't respond to him. It just lets him get a woody on.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 9:11 pm

They are already capped. 60 months.

good.

Just World Fallacy. Blow me.

yeah not everything is the just world fallacy. if you work hard, you're more likely to succeed than some welfare twit shitting out children every year. yes, there are minority groups in america that teach their children to be on welfare through generational poverty. sorry but that's how it is. you might have these dumbfuck liberal egalitarian ideas about how everyone is working two jobs and they can't just get ahead, but that's not the case.

Answer my question. How much does it take? Because it's entirely possible to raise kids and not pay money for their clothing (hand-me-downs from church/friends/family) and toys. If you're going to exclude people, draw the line. $20K? $30K? $40K? Some other line like can't afford health insurance? A house?

How broke is too broke to parent?

uh if you need to be on welfare, you probably can't afford kids.

Maj, PR is trolling his ass off.

fuck off retard, just because I'm not chanting some libtard line about how evil amerikkka needs more welfare doesn't mean I'm trolling. I wasn't even really participating in the thread until maj started screaming like an idiot. fact is my views are quite consistent: stop giving government handouts to people and corporations. let people take care of themselves and get the government out of their lives. just because maj throws a tantrum and gets pissed because she's a mother and WE JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND MOTHERHOOD I WAS ON WELFARE AND YOU'RE ALL BAD PEOPLE doesn't mean that I'm trolling for telling her to eat ten dicks.

here's me trolling:

All these single mothers and welfare queens are ruining America. "Oh, no, I shat out a kid before I was married!" "Oops, it turns out we can't afford to feed another mouth!" TOO BAD, HONEY, KEEP YOUR LEGS SHUT OR STARVE. You want more money? Then get a fucking job and drop the kids off at daycare. Leeches like you are eating up more and more of my tax dollars--thanks, Obama!--and they're the reason that the military is underfunded. We can't afford body armor for the troops because we're too busy making sure that you can squirt out a few more mouths to feed? Fuck off, you societal detriment. It's not the government's job to put food on your table. If your kind were to up and move to Canada, America could have nice things again. It's about time for another Reagan revolution to put these shitheads in place.

see, that would be trolling. you haven't ever seen me troll, so go suck on a big black cock for awhile before posting again.

Almaz · Post by **Almaz** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 10:33 pm

Psychic Robot wrote: fuck off retard, just because I'm not chanting some libtard line about how evil amerikkka needs more welfare doesn't mean I'm trolling. I wasn't even really participating in the thread until maj started screaming like an idiot. fact is my views are quite consistent: stop giving government handouts to people and corporations. let people take care of themselves and get the government out of their lives. just because maj throws a tantrum and gets pissed because she's a mother and WE JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND MOTHERHOOD I WAS ON WELFARE AND YOU'RE ALL BAD PEOPLE doesn't mean that I'm trolling for telling her to eat ten dicks.

Stop being a retarded Tea Party goon. That, or pay back the amount of money you owe for your subsidized food, return the investment in all the roads you've walked on, and in general get the fuck out of the USA rather than enjoying the higher, government-subsidized quality of life.

Unless you make enough money to have a paycheck bigger than that of everyone else on the Gaming Den, combined, then even with ridiculous amounts of government waste more money has been put into you through the government than you have paid out through taxes. This is just a fact of life. You are a welfare citizen sucking off a welfare teat simply by being in this country. Get over it.

The real argument isn't "should we have welfare spending?" It is "how can we make that spending more efficient so we have to spend less to get more?"