Publication of list of welfare recipients?
For the record, I am not in favor of this because of privacy issues, but I do think that the shame associated with being on welfare is gone. Without a reinstitution of shame for being on welfare, however, there is no hope of removing welfare, as has been discussed ad nauseum as a precondition for solving the immigration issue.
Is there a way to shame moochers that is acceptable to Objectivism? I think there is, but I would like to hear what others say about it.
Is there a way to shame moochers that is acceptable to Objectivism? I think there is, but I would like to hear what others say about it.
Realize what we're doing here with this kind of thing. The government system provides an environment for an R-gene population to flourish - with welfare, food stamps, government schools, etc. Then, we attack the livestock. No. I'd rather just go Galt at this point.
I have known families on assistance. Many of us have. Anymore, I just chalk this all up on an environment that we've fostered for 70 years or so. Many of these families - the father (if he's stuck around) is a rock head. The wife is too busy trying to raise the kids to acquire the skills for the job market. Etc... I'll admit, I almost sound liberal - LOL.
I can't help but believe that we, as a society, really had a responsibility to push our population towards intelligence, education, clarity of thought. But, we did the opposite. This is the result, this welfare state - and one reason why I love the movie Idiocracy. And frankly, it breaks my heart to see kids born into it.
I would also advocate welfare recipients having their voting privilege suspended while on welfare.
Families on assistance use WIC vouchers for formula, EBT card for groceries, and cash for beer and magazines. So they get rung up 3 times.
Also, and this may be why they 'need' help, some who are really bad at math get a cart full of groceries and either go over the limit and have to take stuff off, or they hand stuff over one item at a time until they hit the amount on the EBT card, and the rest of the stuff has to be cleared away.
I have always wondered why they don't have a special line for people who need to use assistance, not so much as for shaming people but just to speed up the lines.
I suppose Grocery Stores think that would be bad for business or they would get sued or something.
I think a separate line would be good for business as they could devote clerks to the extra processing it takes, and for better or worse, every one would know who is paying with food stamps. That might be an incentive for people to be more independent.
I remember when I walked into my bank with a big check from the sale of a house. They, literally, didn't know how to process it.
Same amount of money spent by the idiots running the welfare system but this time the neighbor who often has a real job and struggling to stay off welfare get's that little boost that makes going to work worth while.
It's purely a case of Robin Hooding the system. Taking from those who stole and returning it to those who earned.
A few came up with a story about needing to buy some special kind of organic soap the stamps didn't cover....Most didn't bother except for some dickering. The closer to concert time the lower the percentage.
The rest is a pipe dream or a badly stated diversion of spiderless cobwebs. These tenth generation welfare kids are raised and cut their teeth on outwitting the system while the system turned around and bent over for them. In fact I'll go so far as to say the system wil do their best to protect the moochers.
I know many people think we can put a halt to this kind of abuse of the producers. I don't. I think it's too late.
My point is that publishing the people's info isn't a solution and could lead to real problems for innocent kids. The real solution is to make people less dependent on the gubment. Good luck with that...huh?
That's why I think the nation is doomed. We will never choose to fix things. We don't have the will, we don't have the spine.
Those of you advocating for a shades of grey "monitor what they spend your tax dollars on" are missing the point. The point is that they're spending your tax dollars.
I don't think this would actually cause people not to apply for grants, gov't contracts, and Welfare benefits though. Most people getting them either think they're a good thing or believe in taking any gov't benefit their legally entitled to. I'm a proponent of drastically reducing gov't spending, but if there's a program I'm eligible for that's worthwhile to pursue, I do it without compunction.
Along the same line; Whatever happened to having to stand in the unemployment office line to pick up your check? The statists want serfs to be reliant on the state and in order to maintain numbers they must remove all stigma and inconvenience.
I am for removing the welfare benefits altogether, but it seems unlikely. As far as voting goes, if it is too risky to publish names publicly, then the least that could be done is to forward the list to the polling district so voting more money from the public coffers could be inhibited. This too will be unlikely as it has been previously argued to be unjust. But, what is just about voting yourself other peoples' money?
Benjamin Franklin — 'When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic.'
Regards,
O.A.
I suggest that if people want no national IDs (and rightly so) and open border crossings then why can't we use some of that new technology for facial recognition at the crossings to weed out the criminals? If nations would keep and only share their "criminal database' then we could let all others pass and only pull out of line those that the system recognized as criminal. This would seem to me to reduce the concern of the innocent wishing free travel who then would not be put through any undue questioning or excessive ID requirements. Innocent until proven guilty would prevail. I would still wish to limit citizenship to children born to at least one natural born citizen until legal application and citizenship tests were followed and approved. Voting must be restricted to citizens. Also any vestiges of welfare or taxpayer subsidies should be, if not eliminated for all, at least be restricted to citizens.
My two cents after reading a lot of discussion on the matter around here of late...
Regards,
O.A.