so, without a welfare state there wouldnt be crime, criminals, poor people or low-income housing areas?

right....

if anything, its rampant individualism & self-interest that drives people in situations like these to act less than honourably.
nowhere in that article is there a link between the US "welfare" state and the post disaster activities. its just a rant

___________________

quote:

Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN so, without a welfare state there wouldnt be crime, criminals, poor people or low-income housing areas? right.... if anything, its rampant individualism & self-interest that drives people in situations like these to act less than honourably. nowhere in that article is there a link between the US "welfare" state and the post disaster activities. its just a rant

i agree, though an essay about America and welfare abuse would be fun to read there's nothing there. a basic rant and a hypothetical heap of bullshit.

___________________
My SpaceMySpaceMUSIC
Anti-Purple Alliance.

That's it!

I'm moving to America to become the world's greatest journalist!

How hard can it be over there?!

Haha, check out his website. He claims to be "pro-reason" and "pro-individualist" but he has this gem on the front page:

quote:

The Barbarian Invasions Israel retreats before terrorists in Gaza, while a culturally disarmed Europe is inundated by unassimilated Muslim fanatics. What is the solution? We suggest a Western counter-invasion of Muslim minds.

Is there anything reasonable or individualistic about calling Muslims "barbarians" and suggesting that a "counter-invasion" involving brain-washing and forced assimilation is the best available solution to this barbarism? Yep, he could only be an objectivist:

quote:

Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN if anything, its rampant individualism & self-interest that drives people in situations like these to act less than honourably.

Precisely. It's a bit hypocritical to drill into people the ethic that they have to fend for themseleves, that they are in direct competition with each other and that only those with drive and initiative are likely to prosper and then condemn people when they actually put this ethic into action. What could better represent the ethos of individualism and free-market capitalism than the thousands of desperate people fighting amongst each other for scarce resources right now in New Orleans?

God I hate economic extremists...

___________________
http://eschatonnow.blogspot.com/

Biggest Douche in the Universe?

___________________
Lost Souls

Why is this guy's theory so hard to grasp for some of you? Is it because it's not "Popular" or "Politically Correct"? Is it because it bucks the notion that we've all had drilled in to our heads that all people on welfare truly are people who want a better life, but have been repressed for one reason or another, most often "because they're black"? How many of you have ever had the courage to even get near one of these incredibly un-safe and scary "Housing Projects" in any given American city?

I happen to think he's pretty damn close to being on target! Politicians do buy votes via-hand-outs...and they do divide and seperate (Jesse Jackson is a PRIME example of this kind of politician/activist) for the purpose of keeping those votes safe.

The initial looting that took place WAS all about Nike shoes and big-screen TV's. The snipers who are shooting at rescuers likely were released criminals or gang members from these god-awful Housing Projects (I think this will be proven more later, after some investigation when the mess is cleaned up). OUR tax dollars fund the housing and feeding of this scum in "The Projects"...how ironic is that? We're actually PAYING criminals to live in our cities, organize and victimize us...it's NUTS!!

But no, you can't call them "criminals", because they're "poor black folk"...repressed and victims of this absurd lie that there is rampant racism afoot in America...so everyone knows what's going on, from the Reporters to the Politicians, but no one has the courage to call it like it is, precisely because of the indoctrination you all are exhibiting right here regarding what can't be said about certain races in America, no matter how badly they behave, because they deserve a free pass time and again simply because they are black. Even Martin Luther King would have condemned this absurdity!!

Your average American doesn't hate black people...they hate anyone who's a dead-beat and a drag on the system...white or black! The black leaders and politicians have twisted this around to imply that anyone who calls a black person a thief (even if they are) is in fact, a racist! And so on it goes...no one will stop to really help the black community by telling it like it is, because you can't! So the great lie in effect is responsible for the free passes this criminal element always seems to get, and this never ending cycle of "repressed black people" goes on and on, ironically, as he so accurately stated, a creation of the very people who profess to want to stop it!

This guy has the courage to step up with some real-world, street-level truths about what's really happening out there...by the time the truth gets filtered by corparate media though, what you get is what you all think is "news"...and thus your indoctrination begins. Your "commentary" is often nothing more than simple parroting of what you've seen and read via these traditional media outlets...which in all honesty, makes "debating" about this "information" almost totally pointless.

Last edited by donnybrasco on Sep-14-2005 at 05:09

ahhh, donny, flying the flag once again for the intellectually damaged far right

and FOR THE MOTHER OF FVCKING GOD, could you PLEASE stop stating that anyone who happens to disagree with you is nothing more than a media-educated bunch of sheep. its so fvcking old. leftist or centrist theory and thinking was around well before the global media, so just cut it the fuck out.

again, you have failed miserably to connect the US \'welfare\' state to the looting that has occurred. youve gone off on a tangent that is completely unrelated. yes, you might be \'feeding the scum\' with your payouts, but how does this relate to looting? are you saying that paying people money makes them more likely to steal? if you remove public housing, making ppl even less able to take care of themselves, they are then less likely to take the opportunity to steal what they can when they can?

that obviously makes no sense. come back with a compelling causal relationship between \'welfare\' and post-disaster criminal activity and then maybe we\'ll listen to you.

___________________

Why I can't grasp what this jackass is saying is because he is basing his theories on absolutely zero studies of the welfare system. While most Americans are contemptuous of those on welfare, believing beneficieries to be theives, milking the government while site on their lazy asses, this is simply not true.

"A prevalent welfare myth is that women who received AFDC became permanently dependent on public assistance. Analyses indicate that 56 percent of AFDC support ended within 12 months, 70 percent within 24 months, and almost 85 percent within 4 years (Staff of House Committee on Ways and Means, 1996). These exit rates clearly contradict the widespread myth that AFDC recipients wanted to remain on public assistance or that welfare dependency was permanent. Unfortunately, return rates were also high, with 45 percent of ex-recipients returning to AFDC within 1 year."

Author 0, Research 1

"Children, not women, are the largest group of people receiving public assistance. Less than 5 million of the 14 million public assistance recipients are adults, and 90 percent of those adults are women (U.S. Bureau of Census, 1995)."

Author 0, Research 2

Oh and did I mention women recieve far less income as a whole than men... weird how they are shown in welfare in such staggering numbers.

"The belief that single women are promiscuous and have large families to receive increased benefits has no basis in extant research, and single-parent families are not only a phenomenon of the poor (McFate, 1995). In fact, the average family size of welfare recipients has decreased from four in 1969 to 2.8 in 1994 (Staff of House Committee on Ways and Means, 1996). In 1994, 43 percent of welfare families consisted of one child, and 30 percent consisted of two children."

Ok the Waynes' family aside, these women arent exactly raising huge families with many mouths to feed.

Author 0, Research 3

"The belief that welfare provides a disincentive to work by providing a well-paying "free ride" that enables recipients, stereotyped as "Cadillac queens," to purchase extravagant items with their benefits is another myth. In reality, recipients live considerably below the poverty threshold. Despite increased program spending, the average monthly family benefit, measured in 1995 dollars, fell from $713 in 1970 to $377 in 1995, a 47 percent drop. In 26 states, AFDC benefits alone fell 64 percent short of the 1996 poverty guidelines, and the addition of food stamps only reduced this gap to 35 percent (Staff of House Committee on Ways and Means, 1996)."

Author 0, Research 4

I could beat this ignorant fuck's ass all night long, but I'm not the journalist. I'm not the one who is supposed to have a shread on integrity. So, you ask why can we not see his perspective? I ask you then, if I presented it in a nice arguemnt would you believe me if I told you the world was flat?

___________________
Lost Souls

Oh and byh the way, welfare is between 1 and 2 percent of the national budget, so before you go crying about how wasteful this program is, how about you put your efforts towards a rampant problem in washington. Its called, go figure, government waste. It builds shit like 50 million dollar bridges to islands inhabited by 50 people in congressmen's districts. No, but seriously you really have some enlightening opinions restrained by nothing more than your own imagination.

___________________
Lost Souls

quote:

Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN ahhh, donny, flying the flag once again for the intellectually damaged far right and FOR THE MOTHER OF FVCKING GOD, could you PLEASE stop stating that anyone who happens to disagree with you is nothing more than a media-educated bunch of sheep. its so fvcking old. leftist or centrist theory and thinking was around well before the global media, so just cut it the fuck out. again, you have failed miserably to connect the US 'welfare' state to the looting that has occurred. youve gone off on a tangent that is completely unrelated. yes, you might be 'feeding the scum' with your payouts, but how does this relate to looting? are you saying that paying people money makes them more likely to steal? if you remove public housing, making ppl even less able to take care of themselves, they are then less likely to take the opportunity to steal what they can when they can? that obviously makes no sense. come back with a compelling causal relationship between 'welfare' and post-disaster criminal activity and then maybe we'll listen to you.

How would YOU know anything about this country's social fabric and what makes it tick??? Why don't YOU STFU until you've lived here awhile and can speak from actual experience, versus your "media education" you've recieved from your TV set? And yes, until you do otherwise, I WILL call you a minion of the media!

What the author is saying is that these welfare programs are in large part nothing more than a political pay-off to the constiuents who vote for representatives who would implement them...and they do this by shamelessly dividing the people of this country in to groups based on skin color and heritage, claiming under-lying "racism" as the need for this seperatism and closing of ranks. This leads to a sense of entitlement on the part of "African Americans" (a label blacks insist on that, ironically, smacks of this very sense of division of which I speak...once you seperate yourself out from everyone else based on color, you've in effect already lost the battle for assimilation). Blacks in this country are told over and over again that they are "repressed", that racism lurks under the skin of every white man. They are told that they deserve special treatment in school, in work and even in free hand-outs, because of this supposed racism.

When you indoctrinate a whole people to "hate the white man" and make them believe that they can do whatever they want because they are "repressed", you get looting and shooting. Where is the great melting pot? Where is the sense of a free-market economy that says you can be anything you want to be in this country if you work harder than the next guy? That you can be as wealthy as you want to be, based on that hard work. Basically; Where is the sense of true equality?! Is singling any race out to receive more favortism than another truly being "equal"? Hardly! You can't play favorites like that. It leads to entitlement on the black side, and resentment on the white...it's TOTAL BULLSHIT and it needs to stop, because it's doing NOTHING to make people feel like they are "one" in this country...and THAT is PRECISELY why you were seeing such rampant looting of non-essential goods; Entitlement! Plain and simple.

Those Housing Projects are like petri dishes for crime. That is a KNOWN FACT in this country. That's also exactly why cities like Chicago are tearing theirs down...they are tired of the self-created cancer sores in their communities. Nothing drives down the value of surrounding property like a Housing Project.

And further more, do you really think anyone is going to put out statistics that contridict these votes that the Democrats own? They get well over 90% of the black vote in this country! And the Conservatives aren't about to put out any studies that debunk this lie either...why should they? It won't change their voting block, because no matter what they say or do, they will NEVER get the black vote in this country. And debunking the great lie would only cause them to lose the few precious black votes that they have, as black leaders would be SCREAMING "RACISM!" before the first study hit the press!

In the end, it's really up to the black leaders to speak the truth. To call for true assimilation and accountability in the spirit of Martin Luther King...but that's not going to happen, because ironically enough, THEY are in fact the BIGGEST racists of all! They don't really want "assimilation". The greatest set-back that this country ever suffered from the 1960's was, imho, the loss of Dr. King. His vision, his plan for the future, was one that people were receptive too. Once he was killed, extremists like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan hijaked "the cause" and turned it from a lesson of love and acceptence to one of hate and division...and today, in situations like New Orleans, or in the 1992 riots in L.A., we are all as a community (black and white) suffering because of it.

That's what this author is talking about............but you know more about this than I do, living all the way in Australia, right?

Last edited by donnybrasco on Sep-14-2005 at 06:06

quote:

Originally posted by donnybrasco How would YOU know anything about this country's social fabric and what makes it tick??? Why don't YOU STFU until you've lived here awhile and can speak from actual experience, versus your "media education" you've recieved from your TV set? And yes, until you do otherwise, I WILL call you a minion of the media! That's what this author is talking about............but you know more about this than I do, living all the way in Australia, right?

right, heres a basic list of shit that ive read to get my opinion of welfare systems in advanced liberal democracies. i could prob pull out more but i really cant be fvcked. im just showing you that just coz i disagree with your analysis does not mean i got my fvcking degree from CCN you arrogant fuck. if it doesnt mean i can talk somewhat on the functions of modern welfare states, id like you to point me in the right direction.

Wintrop N (1983) ‘Liberal-Democratic Theory: The New Liberalism’ and Brugger B (nd) ‘Classical British and European Liberalism and Democracy’ in N Wintrop (ed) Liberal Democratic Theory and its Critics, Croom Helm, London.

Gutmann A (1980) Liberal Equality, Cambridge, London.
Koppelman A (1996) Antidiscrimination Law and Social Equality, New Haven pp177-220.

Kluegel J and Smith E (1986) Beliefs About Inequality, Hawthorne, New York. pp-39.

Glassman R (1989) Democracy and Equality, New York.

Tawney R (1931) Equality, London. pp133-52, 236-54.

Walzer M (1983) ‘Welfare, Membership and Need’ in M Sandel Liberalism and its Critics, New York.

Shannahan D, ‘Murdoch blasts huge mistake’ in The Weekend Australian no.10422 March 28-9 1998 p4.

Fraser N and Gordon L, ‘Reclaiming Social Citizenship: Beyond the Ideology of Contract Versus Charity’ in P James (ed) Critical Politics: From The Personal to the Global, pp59-74.

McGuire J and Pichler J (1969) , Inequality: the Poor and Rich In America, Belmont California.

Djao, A (1983) Inequality and Social Policy, John Wiley & Sons Canada Limited, Toronto.

Ross P, The Canadian Fact Book on Income Distribution 1980, cited in Djao, A (1983) Inequality and Social Policy.

Hochschild J (1981) What’s Fair?, Harvard University Press.
Rothman R (1993) Inequality And Stratification: Class, Color and Gender, New Jersey. chapters 1,2,4,7,9.

Drover G and Moscovitch A (eds)(1981) Inequality essays on the political economy of social welfare, University of Toronto Press, Toronto.

Statistics Canada cat. nos. 13-529 and 13-207 cited in Drover G and Moscovitch A (eds) Inequality essays on the political economy of social welfare.

Kekes J (1997) Against Liberalism, Cornell University Press New York. chapters 1,4,5,10.

Rees J (1971) Equality, Pall Mall Pressw Ltd, London. pp11-123.

Field F (1981) Inequality In Britain: Freedom, Welfare and the State, Fontana Paperbacks London.

Stone, D (1997) Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making, W.W Norton & Company, New York, pp.137-162. Chapter 6 ‘Symbols’.

E.Tuffley Distribution of Income and Wealth Second Edition, 1996, Port Melbourne.

Peterson, R The Dynamics of Industrial Society, (1973) The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis.

Stinchcombe, A Stratification and Organization, (1986) Press Syndicate of Cambridge University, Cambridge.

Wilensky, H & Lebeaux, C Industrial Society and Social Welfare, The Free Press, New York.

Weber, M The Protestant ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, London, Routledge

also, for the record, living in any country does not, in and of itself, make you an expert on that country, ok? so you living in the states means a big dose of fuck all in relation to you being an expert in everything US.

try and grasp the concept that those that disagree with you might well be wrong but have come to those conclusions via a path other than what the little box says

and again, you have not even come remotely close to providing a relationship between the welfare state and the looting. i do agree with you that housing projects are a bad idea, but that is hardly the be all and end all of welfare state theory and policy. and i really do think youve turned this into a question of race, rather than a question of welfare recipients.

i think you will find that in any area of social unrest, many people of all races and different sources of income will resort to criminal behaviour if they think they can get away with it. there are examples throughout history of this occuring.

paraphrased, the article says "the welfare state caused the crime after katrina" and this is simply not believable.

maybe next time i disagree with you, you could refrain from telling me its coz CNN told me to? coz you dont have any evidence to support that accusation, k?

___________________