If you makee minimum wage ($5.15 in the US) and work 40 hours a week 52 weeks a year all you get is 10,712, which happens to be below the poverty line. I wouldn't call someone who works 40 hours a week lazy. Not all poor people are lazy, infact, most aren't. If somehow you managed to work 2 minimum wage jobs full time you'd still only make 21,000. Now if you have kids imagine how much money they take up. This is why I can't stand stuff in that speech occrider put up.

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Originally posted by davedresden oh my fucking god i die, dave

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Originally posted by Dj_Irish Hold on there my friend. That statement just implies you know very little about socialism (at least the european version of it). People don't earn the same no matter how hard they might have been working (or not working). A "homeless crack head" will definetly not have the same benefits as a working, tax-paying citizen. If you sit on your ass and do nothing you will be a poor S-O-B in a socialist country as well. Sure you can choose to use & abuse the well-fare state but that won't be giving you top notch standard of living. The well-fare state is there to help citizens that's down on their luck or who made some bad/stupid misstakes during their life. It's there to give them a second chance and try to prevent them from being homeless, out on the street where they usually start doing criminal stuff. Sure the system is definetly being used by some lazy ass people that just don't wanna work but I'd rather have a proper well fare state with a few leechers than a society where you can be severly screwed and shut out of the community if you are down on your luck. (Kind of like a good FTP, come to think of it ) And besides, all people don't have the same opportunities from start. And it's not always just a matter of working hard. As you might have noticed, in life, things aint fair and if you're not at the right time at the right place or know the right people you might never get yourself out of whatever situation your in. No matter how hard you work. The very point of the european socialism is to not be so bloody selfish. To actually consider the community and not only ones self interests. The main points usally being to provide a free education system, even up to university levels, free health care (or at least cheap health care) and some sort of safety net for when things goes belly-up in once life, etc. Sure you might sit there and say "If I'm down on my luck I'll work hard as hell to get me out of that pickle". And that's the correct spirit IMO, but don't come and tell me you wouldn't appreciate some help in getting started. Sure, this means we have to pay taxes through our noses, but as I see it, it's worth it in order to get a better society as a whole. It also means it's damn near impossible to get ultra rich (and I mean filthy stinking rich) but at the same time the amount of homeless & poverty striking people will be less in the society as a whole because there are more systems to take care of them. I'd prefer a socialist country any time

OK, maybe my statement was a bit over the edge in some regards, but my point was that in an ideal socialist state everyone is supposed to share equally. In the real world that doesn't always happen, but in theory, that's how it's supposed to work. My point is that I don't want my individual efforts, thoughts, and successes to be diluted, dictated, or divied up among the masses while I have little say so in the whole mess. I've worked too hard in my life to be just another sheep in the crowd, and I'm rather proud of my individual achievements so far which I doubt would be the case in a socialist society.

EDIT: Equality of Opportunity does not equal Equality of Outcome. I'd much rather live in a society where, given roughly equal circumstances, I can excel and profit more by my own individual efforts if I so choose. What's the real motivation to improve myself and my position if the tables are turned and it suddenly doesn't matter if I give only 10% or 110% because the outcome will be the same?

Last edited by Shakka on Jul-23-2003 at 22:27

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Originally posted by surferfb If you makee minimum wage ($5.15 in the US) and work 40 hours a week 52 weeks a year all you get is 10,712, which happens to be below the poverty line. I wouldn't call someone who works 40 hours a week lazy. Not all poor people are lazy, infact, most aren't. If somehow you managed to work 2 minimum wage jobs full time you'd still only make 21,000. Now if you have kids imagine how much money they take up. This is why I can't stand stuff in that speech occrider put up.

The point I think that the guy was trying to make was that we should make the smart choices early enough in life to avoid situations where you would be making minimum wage. Not all that difficult if you at least have mediocre performance in school. Anyway I'm not subscribing to every viewpoint the guy makes and treating every word as scripture, I think there should be welfare, minimum wage, medicare, etc. However, do subscribe to the believe that people should bear the responsiblities and repurcussions of the choices they make in life. For example, in the example you stated, if you're living in a state of poverty off of welfare, DON'T HAVE KIDS YOU CAN'T SUPPORT! Too many people adopt the attitude that if they fuck up because they're stupid, somebody else needs to continually bail them out. I mean really, we have unemployment insurance to bail people out down on their luck. I'm perfectly fine with that. But if you want to escape a low wage job, YOU not the government, has the responsiblity of bettering yourself such that you find a good job.

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Last edited by occrider on Jul-23-2003 at 18:19

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