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Oh don't get me started on restaurants....

Honor wrote:Libertarianism runs contrary to having a heart, a concience, a sense of community, or a sense of decency.

Thank you. ^_^

Ideally, in my opinion, we'd go back to "elective socialism" (but there's probably a better term for it). Unfortunately, people only realize the value of this old system when things are tough.

For example, back in the days of Little House on the Prairie everyone had to work their asses off just to get by, and if a neighbor had a problem beyond their control then it was up to everyone else to pitch in a little. After all, bad things can happen to anyone and you want more people around who can give you a boost when you need it. If someone was a lazy schmuck, he'd be shunned and either learn his lesson or die.

Basically, participating was more or less by choice, but self-interest usually* worked in favor of the downtrodden.

Now, in the modern age, things are a lot easier for most folks, at least those of us in North America and the "first world" countries. There are all sorts of programs to help us out when we're down, and even I still own a television (after giving away the other two last year). Also, when people behave in a way that's detrimental to the community we don't even blink at the thought of housing, feeding, and clothing them while having other people stop doing productive work to watch them. (Sure, prison's not great for most people... but that's another rant.)

It's too easy to say, "The government spends so much money on defense, roads, the space program, etc., so why can't they make sure everyone gets enough to eat and free health care..." Well, then we stop trying as hard. I did (though truly just don't give a fuck anymore, truth be told.) If we didn't believe there was a "safety net" then we'd probably be a lot nicer to our neighbors and more active in the community. That's all.

Taken to the extreme, look at what happened when kids in the closed community of old, LHOTP, found what they thought was a big stash of gold. Fearing the violence and ill tidings of a gold rush, they dug it up and brought it to the bank, offering to give it to everyone, so that there would be no fighting. They probably got their asses kicked, literally, for skipping school to do it, too.

Now, look at what I consider the ideal closed community of Gilligan's Island: They all had such an easy life that, deep down, they believed they could get along without one-another. Getting off the island was almost a hobby to them -- there was no instinctual driving need to get back to Hawaii other perhaps than to get a lay. So, when they found gold they all turned on each other and ended up thwarting yet another chance at getting off the island.

So, despite using cheesy TV shows as examples, is there any reason to think that having it too easy -- never facing truly dire circumstances -- is bad for people and communities? (I had hoped to have a fire burning under my ass by now.) Then again, maybe communities are an outdated concept.

I certainly don't know.

* Of course, a friend here has records of a Sudbury town meeting where a widow was sent back to where she came from. After her husband died, she moved here with her kids because it was a richer community and she expected to get more charity. She owed a doctor who treated one of her kids, IIRC, and the town fathers said he couldn't collect the debt but she couldn't continue to leech of a community that she'd never been a part of before. /mode #sudbury +b lazywidow*!*@aowayland.agr & /kick lazywidow As ye sow, so shall ye reap.

CORRECTIONS: The town council decided to pay off the cobbler and provisoner for her, as she'd gotten new shoes for her eight children and owed for a year's worth of groceries, but they decided that the doctor was wealthy enough to eat the bill. Also, she was sent back to Marlboro, not Wayland.

Actually the space program gets sweet fuck all in terms of budget. It sounds like it has a big budget until you compair it to other things like... oh say a 400 billion dollar a year war.

I actually got to talk with a NASA engineer once. He was pretty neat to talk to when it came to space stuff, absolutely looney though on politics.

He was telling me about a satellite he worked on designing back in the 70s. A great big orbital satellite that used the earth's electromagnetic field to generate electricity. Three of these satellites would be enough to provide electricity to the Untied States for centuries. All together they'd cost several hundred billion dollars each to build (too big to launch they'd have to be assembled in space). Scrapped as too expensive. There was another cheaper project that used massive solar cells in orbit to gather electricity and beam it to earth as microwaves. It was cheaper per satellite but you needed more of them.

It was really interesting to talk to him about space tech... but then he started going off on a tangent about Hillary Clinton becoming president and being assasinated in a "car accident" like Princess Diana was which would be the signal to rise up and launch a mortor attack on the white house and it kind of went downhill from there. I looked at my watch and said "Oh lookie... I gotta be on a panel see you later" (we were both guests at a convention) he started following me and was really... intense. Then he gave me a big list of anti-government websites and told me I had to check them out. I ended up leaving it folded up and tucked into the hotel bible as a lark.

He seemed like one of those guys who demonstrated clearly the fine line between genius and insanity. I could just imagine what it must have been like for the other engineers working with him at NASA. They probably gave the new guys a list of keywords never to say around him.

Ghastly wrote:They probably gave the new guys a list of keywords never to say around him.

I've got one of those types in my unit, the list we give out has words such as "a" "if" "the" "and" "or" and anything containing a vowel, consonant, and especially not "jew" or "hitler."

Major Maxillary wrote:That's true with just about anywhere.

people learn that they don't have to work for their money, and they start leeeching off the welfare state.

Health care seems like it'd be a wonderful exception to this rule, though. No one's going to be able to get a free ride off the system through medical insurance; you can't just eat asprin for the rest of your life, no one's going to be going in for a luxury lung transplant, no medicare-queens will be mutilating themselves for all the free government cheese in the form of stitches, and you can't get change back from your heart-disease-stamps to go buy vodka. Hopefully you'd end up with a more healthy workforce with fewer serious diseases when people can get regular healthcare instead of waiting until their flu turns in to pneumonia.

Major Maxillary wrote:

Honor wrote:Libertarianism runs contrary to having a heart, a concience, a sense of community, or a sense of decency.

Thank you. ^_^

Hey... No problem whatsoever. Anytime there's a poorly architected, socially irresponsible, or just plain galactically bad idea that needs to be exposed, washed up, and hung out to dry, I'll be happy to be on the team.

Oh, and... Along those lines... No, having a social safety net absolutely does and will not cause human beings to stop working en masse. But then, that was already covered in some detail earlier in the thread.

Ghastly wrote: I actually got to talk with a NASA engineer once. He was pretty neat to talk to when it came to space stuff, absolutely looney though on politics.

You have any idea which center he was from? I have a feeling I know who you're talking about...George and I did slave labor for NASA Ames as students. Scarier yet, George had his very own exhibit at the X-Prize exhibition this year (Venturer Aerospace). Had the neighbors going "WTF?" with his arc welding in the garage late at night...

But yeah, there are lots of brilliant but loony folks in space science. Another one that's hillarious to talk to is Bob Zubrin, formerly from Martin Marietta, now from Pioneer Astronautics and founding president of the Mars Society. He's nuts. But's amusingly so. So's Buzz Aldrin (after seeing the "presentation notes" he gave to a friend who was supposed to give his talk at Case For Mars, I think "bipolar" might be an accurate guess). And well...there are loads of people who think that both George and I are insane as well, so maybe it's neccessary to work in the field.

Neither George and I were nuts enough to bother apply to work at NASA, though. Being completely broke and overworked if the department that wanted you could manage to justify hiring you at all didn't seem like a wonderful idea. And that was before half the workforce at Ames got laid off. NASA's biggest problem is that it's a government agency. Bureaucracies are by their very nature inefficient. Another reason to hope the X-Prize Cup kicks private industry into action. At least venture capitalists are starting to show interest again, which means there might actually be startup and R&D money.

And back to suckage. I just found a whole folder of bookmarks I'd made for Allan. They're all on clinical trials of drugs for CF, or of studies on antibiotic resistant lung infections found in patients with CF. I know he looked into a couple of the trials, but he didn't live in the right area to qualify. And despite being on 5 different antibiotics, the Burkholderia cepacia infection still killed him.

Damn damn damn.

An example of the weirdness of american healthcare: flu vaccines. The clinic says they're totally out of vaccine. Which means I'm screwed, as I was ill the week they were doing flu shot clinics and people were acting crazed about NEEDING their shots. My doctor, on the off chance that the clinic had actually held back some doses for high-risk patients like me, wrote out an order for the injection clinic and sent me over there. The injection nurse was calling out names and held my slip up, "We're absolutely out of this. None left. Where is she?" The desk clerk pointed me out. The nurse looked down and saw me sitting in my wheelchair. "Oh...uh, get out your photo ID and come in here."

So I go into the injection area and she takes me into one of the cubicles. She gets out a syringe, swabs my arm down and says, "You know what you're getting. We're not even allowed to say the word. We don't have any."
"Right," I said. "We figured you might have saved some for high-risk people. I have three different conditions that put me on that list."
"Yup. You're done, get out of here."

It made sense for them to do it that way, because otherwise they would get people who aren't considered "high-risk" cases whining, "But why can't I get a flu shot? She just did!" The fact that they can't ration the remaining doses and triage who really needs them is ridiculous. So they're stuck doing this little sleight-of-hand thing to make sure the folks who are really sick get treated instead of the folks who complain the loudest or the ones who are willing to whip out the cash and pay for vaccinations.

I'm just glad the local clinics seem to have someone in charge who has sense and is too ethical to let the high-paying customers jump to the front of the line (it's happened in previous years).

Hoo boy... the flu vaccine stuff is insane. I definitely know what you're saying... there needs to be a better way to get the shots to high risk people before a craze among everybody who doesn't quite NEED it arises. Seriously.

~Sara

Ghastly wrote:He was telling me about a satellite he worked on designing back in the 70s. A great big orbital satellite that used the earth's electromagnetic field to generate electricity. Three of these satellites would be enough to provide electricity to the Untied States for centuries.

Actually, I kinda have my doubts about this one. Maybe they figured out a different way to do it, but the only principle I know of for pulling evergy out of the Earth's magnetic field will, in the process, eat the satellite's kinetic energy, eventually slowing it and causing it to fall out of orbit. And given the level of energy production you mentioned, that would probably happen in very short order. Solar satellites, OTOH, get their energy from the sun, and not from their own orbital kinetic energy, and so will stay up as long as other satellites.

On the flu vaccine: My understanding is that the shortage is a result of price controls on the vaccine and liability insurance, and as a result, no one is able to produce it at a profit.

On Libertarianism: I have, in the past, declared myself Libertarian.

::readies his asbestos cowled robe::

I stand by that ideal, but that's what it is. An ideal. To me, the Democrats' and Republicans' and Neo-Cons Masqurading as Republicans' ideals are flawed, as the way you consider Libertarianism flawed. All of them, including mine, rely on aspects of the human nature that can't be counted upon, because they don't exist in every single person. This is not a system to be built overnight; or over decades. To fully and properly implement it would take millenia of social development, not to mention technological development, and to attempt to implement it before its time would surely be the disaster you make it out to be. Moreover, even beginning the social engineering required to change the culture into one in which it would work, would bring up ethical issues.

So we all have ideals to live off of; the hope that someday things will be more to our liking. The trick is to know what is possible, and what is responsible, and what is not yet possible or responsible.

In my ideal world, there would be no welfare, or social safety net, or massive, centralized government, because we wouldn't need one. Why have something you don't need? Are we there yet? Hell no. We aren't even close. Come back when we have fusion, and nano-assemblers, and neural interfaces, and FTL travel, and then we'll see. Come back when everyone understands that one must use moderation, and the Golden Rule, and to avoid closed-minded stereotypes, and then we'll see. Is it a dream, with as much substance as other dreams? Yes, and I freely admit it. It certainly is for now, and may be forever.

(Yes, I'm an unashamed apologist for the Libertarian ideal. The Libertarian sense of freedom and independance embodied in the New World, and the Old West, and other frontiers. If we could do that without the associated destruction of the enviroment, the killing and forced moving of the Indians, the land wars, the plagues, the starvation, etc. If we could have the Romance of the Old West, without the pain of the real old west, we'd be golden.)

But enough of dreams for now; we have a system that's hurting people now and it needs to be fixed. One should not get caught in daydreams of a better life a thousand years from now, and ignore the problems today.

Honor wrote:Hey... No problem whatsoever. Anytime there's a poorly architected, socially irresponsible, or just plain galactically bad idea that needs to be exposed, washed up, and hung out to dry, I'll be happy to be on the team.

actually, i was thanking you for your compliment. you see, I'm evil. Not just your typical "kick the puppy for five dollars" evil, but full blown "raise an army and conquor the world" evil. so it's great when i catch flak from communists. ^_^

Might makes right, baby.

Oh, and... Along those lines... No, having a social safety net absolutely does and will not cause human beings to stop working en masse. But then, that was already covered in some detail earlier in the thread.

would you care to point out exactly where i specifically said that?

No, it wasn't implied, and you've obviousley never lived in a "low income" area.

Major Maxillary wrote:No, it wasn't implied, and you've obviousley never lived in a "low income" area.

Actually, what you (I assume) may have witnessed could be a sort of community-wide "discouraged worker" phenomenon. Since they see no oppertunity, they do not attempt to work, since why try to work if, in doing so, not only will you get nowhere (that you can forsee) but welfare will cut out entirely because you are "working." In some areas, this may have been going on so long that it has become ingrained into the culture, along with an underlying "they're keeping us down" meme, which (given the way welfare is structured) is probably not unjustified.

Major Maxillary wrote:you see, I'm evil.

Don't worry, everyone goes though that stage at some point in life. With a little luck, you'll grow out of it and be a better person for it.

squidflakes wrote:Don't worry, everyone goes though that stage at some point in life. With a little luck, you'll grow out of it and be a better person for it.

Well, as Sir Winston Churchill once said, "If you aren't a liberal by the time you're nineteen, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by thirty, you have no brain."

also, i was being facetious.

Actually, what you (I assume) may have witnessed could be a sort of community-wide "discouraged worker" phenomenon.

What I observe is a bunch of able people living off the taxpayers, giving nothing back.

Let's start with the dead easy ones...

Major Maxillary wrote:

Oh, and... Along those lines... No, having a social safety net absolutely does and will not cause human beings to stop working en masse. But then, that was already covered in some detail earlier in the thread.

would you care to point out exactly where i specifically said that?

No, it wasn't implied, and you've obviousley never lived in a "low income" area.

Sure, kitten. How about here:

Major Maxillary wrote:That's true with just about anywhere.

people learn that they don't have to work for their money, and they start leeeching off the welfare state.

A statement which is, as I have shown earlier in this thread and elsewhere, demonstrably untrue. Please see Toawa's answer above.

And yes... I've lived in areas that were so "low income" that we were reduced to stealing food. And every single person I was there with would havepreferred a nice car and a nice house to a nice welfare check, and they knew the way to get there was to work. People dream of success, comfort, and a future... Not basic survival.

Major Maxillary wrote:actually, i was thanking you for your compliment. you see, I'm evil. Not just your typical "kick the puppy for five dollars" evil, but full blown "raise an army and conquor the world" evil. so it's great when i catch flak from communists. ^_^

Might makes right, baby.

Wow... When someone tosses out something that wrong minded and obviously trollish, one just hardly knows how to reply, where to begin such a reply, or even where to bother... Since they've just about got to assume that the only thing the person was hoping for was to stir up some fuss by positing an obviously retarded position.

But, what the hell. I'll play along.

From last to first... Might makes right, baby.

Interesting position. So, presumably, you'd have no complaint if I were to knock you down and take all your toys, just because - given that I've been a badass more years than you've even had an ass - I almost undoubtedly could. Easily.

Second... so it's great when i catch flak from communists.

Please. Ronald Regan was more a Communist than I am. Hell, I'm not even a Socialist. "But you're in favor of socialized medicine!" you counter cleverly. True. Almost. I'm in favor of partially socialized medicine, with a capitalist sector working in addition. Same as I'm in favor of socialized mail, socialized highways, police, fire protection, and military. All these "industries" are partially socialized in our democratic republic.

You know why we're the biggest, baddest economic powerhouse on the planet right now (for a few more hours, anyway)? Because of all the aspects of our economy that we've socialized in order to increase and equalize access to goods, markets, and necessities. Know why we're not going to be the biggest, baddest economic powerhouse on the planet for very much longer? Because other countries are doing a better job of socializing those aspects of society that it makes sense to socialize than we are... Because people like you don't know the difference between socialized medicine and the eeeeevils of communism.

Saying a culture is "Socialist" because it has socialized medicine is approximately as accurate as saying a factory is "automated" because they bought a few power tools. Maybe you should learn what "Communist" and "Socilaist" mean before you try to use the words in conversation.

And last, but most cute... you see, I'm evil. Not just your typical "kick the puppy for five dollars" evil, but full blown "raise an army and conquor the world" evil.
Aww... Honey. Who did this to you? Was it the Republicans?

Doll, I have panties that are more evil than you are. I have more evil in the middle finger on my left hand than you have in your whole body... And that's after several years of making a concious effort to be good.

You're not evil, you're just young, under-educated, self-absorbed, ineffectual, and understandably (but not justifiably) pissed off about it.

To parse your statement a bit, in case it helps... "Kick the puppy for $5" isn't evil or Libertarian... It's greedy and Republican. "Raise an army and conquer the world" isn't evil or Libertarian, it's imperialistic and Fascist... "Fascist", incidentally, being just a hair more "right wing" than "Republican" on the socio-political scale.... In case, you know, anyone's keeping score.

Evil, on the other hand, is kicking the puppy for free, with nobody watching, then raising an army to rape, torture, and eventually kill everyone else in thw world. And another thing Evil is most certainly not... talking about doing those things in an internet forum. That's what we call "attention seeking."

Major Maxillary wrote:

Actually, what you (I assume) may have witnessed could be a sort of community-wide "discouraged worker" phenomenon.

What I observe is a bunch of able people living off the taxpayers, giving nothing back.

Ah... Ok. I assumed you were speaking about the poor. Now it's obvious you were speaking about the Republican caucus and their supporters.

So when you say "What I observe..." how many of these people do you know personally? How many have you interviewed? You can, of course, relate their personal and financial histories in order to lend your "observations" some weight, right...? I mean... You've studied this. You understand it... Right?

Or perhaps you should have said "What I observe is the propaganda put in front of me by right wing propagandists, which clearly states that the poor have no desire to work, so long as they can live in humiliation, filth, and abject poverty with no chance of escape, at microscopic expense to the richest nation on the planet...

Toawa wrote:On Libertarianism: I have, in the past, declared myself Libertarian.

::readies his asbestos cowled robe::

I stand by that ideal, but that's what it is. An ideal. To me, the Democrats' and Republicans' and Neo-Cons Masqurading as Republicans' ideals are flawed, as the way you consider Libertarianism flawed. All of them, including mine, rely on aspects of the human nature that can't be counted upon, because they don't exist in every single person. This is not a system to be built overnight; or over decades. To fully and properly implement it would take millenia of social development, not to mention technological development, and to attempt to implement it before its time would surely be the disaster you make it out to be. Moreover, even beginning the social engineering required to change the culture into one in which it would work, would bring up ethical issues.

So we all have ideals to live off of; the hope that someday things will be more to our liking. The trick is to know what is possible, and what is responsible, and what is not yet possible or responsible.

In my ideal world, there would be no welfare, or social safety net, or massive, centralized government, because we wouldn't need one. Why have something you don't need? Are we there yet? Hell no. We aren't even close. Come back when we have fusion, and nano-assemblers, and neural interfaces, and FTL travel, and then we'll see. Come back when everyone understands that one must use moderation, and the Golden Rule, and to avoid closed-minded stereotypes, and then we'll see. Is it a dream, with as much substance as other dreams? Yes, and I freely admit it. It certainly is for now, and may be forever.

(Yes, I'm an unashamed apologist for the Libertarian ideal. The Libertarian sense of freedom and independance embodied in the New World, and the Old West, and other frontiers. If we could do that without the associated destruction of the enviroment, the killing and forced moving of the Indians, the land wars, the plagues, the starvation, etc. If we could have the Romance of the Old West, without the pain of the real old west, we'd be golden.)

But enough of dreams for now; we have a system that's hurting people now and it needs to be fixed. One should not get caught in daydreams of a better life a thousand years from now, and ignore the problems today.

A couple question points... Which I expect you're well able to do justice to. First... What is it about the Democratic or Republican "Ideal" that's flawed? Do you mean the kind of Democratic dreamland where government will always do right by it's citizens and the Republican dreamland where the rich, whom god has obviously chosen as our masters, will always have our best interests at heart?

If so, why would you ever choose to vote Libertarian over either of those? I mean... While I'll agree that the Libertarian dreamland (where everyone always threats everyone with respect, care, and courtesy, and whatever the community (or it's weakest members) need, everyone is all too happy to pitch in as needed) is the prettiest of the three, it's also the least realistic, and the most disasterous should the human flesh fail to live up to the lofty ideas set by the philosophers.

If the democratic ideal fails, we can right the ship with oversight and policy... If the republican ideal fails, we can right the ship with regulation and compliance. If the libertarian ideal fails (which it's essentially guaranteed to do in any society over about 500 people) we can't do shit. We get armed anarchy for about fifteen minutes, and oppressive fascism shortly thereafter.

Sure... I agree. When our technology gets to the point where libertarianism is more realistic... Maybe We can go that way. When our society is grown-up enough that we don't hate and try to kill one another because of skin color or life partners or the imaginary friends we choose to keep company with, let's look into it. But for now, it's just a way for the haves and the majority to feel better about writing off the have nots and the minorities.

It's smarter if we remove the safety lines as we no longer need them... Not try to climb all the way to the summit without them because we'd like to not need them once we get there.

*pokes head back in, losing several hairs to the latent acid in the process*

Just want to point out -- Don't forget, Honor, that there ARE people on this earth who, political sniping aside, would not work if they could get by without doing so. These people are what we need to watch out for, not the ones who just got the short end of the stick but would take a better life (and would be willing to work for it) if they had/saw a way.

Second: Of the lower-income families/people you know, how many, if the government offered to take over paying for everything they are currently paying for, would accept the offer?*

There's a difference between a social safety net (that we will say "catches" you when/as you fall and "bounces" you back up, onto your feet) and a social cushy sofa that you neither need nor have to get off of.

I oppose the sofa. I oppose and resent the people who would live on it. Those people, the people who share their views (but may not be in their same situation), and all who would create that sofa are what makes the social services/healthcare dilemma so damnably difficult, in my view.

And third:

Honor wrote: But, what the hell. I'll play along.

From last to first... Might makes right, baby.

Major Maxillary wrote: also, i was being facetious.

Did you see that? I got the feeling you were playing along with the "troll," not the "facetiousness." (I'm just curious; no opinion on this one)

But then!

Honor wrote: And another thing Evil is most certainly not... talking about doing those things in an internet forum. That's what we call "attention seeking."

Which, of course, will aggravate some people. If done for the pleasure that this anger/aggravation will bring to the poster, it could indeed be evil. One could argue that the puppy-kicking army-wielding rapist-murderer jus t sees the earth as $diety's forum, and that's his way of trolling it.

Major Maxillary wrote: full blown "raise an army and conquor the world" evil.

Silly, that's not evil! That's the easiest solution to the world's problems! Well, provided I'm the one conquering it and becoming dictator. As Mr. Stalin said -- "Death solves all problems. No man, no problem."

And I'm just kidding about the Stalin. Seriously though, I'd be a a good dictator, would fix the world's problems as much as is possible, then step down, leaving a popular (= of the people) government behind equipped to prevent said problems from reemerging.

And I promise I'll kill as FEW innocents as possible in my rise to power, and they'll mostly be aftrican and middle-eastern poor.

Again, just kidding about killing the innocent poor.

So, when you get the choice -- Vote for me! Except there won't be an election, cause, you know, I'll be dictator. Vote by not taking up arms.

*I acknowledge that some people will take the assistance, go "Thank $diety," and use their current income to improve their lot. But some people will just take the money and go "thanks, sucker." Eventually they might get bored and go to work, or might get inspired/motivated to improve their lot, but I belive that most of those people will NOT come around in time to prevent the program from seeming unfeasible in the long run and being cancelled.

And even after most do come around (if they do), there will ALWAYS be moochers, because people like that DO exist.

[tangent]
I really do love the phrase "one could argue that " -- Cause it's always true! You try to tell me I *couldn't* argue that, and I have but to say "yes, I can" and lo! I'm arguing it! You lose!

Also, I just realized that in firefox, you can use ctrl+mousewheel to scroll the text up INFINITELY LARGE! HAHAHA AWESOME! And fun... hypnotic...

Also, this is an interesting game:
http://www.funzap.com/game1.html
[/tangent]

Gengar003 wrote:And third:

Honor wrote: But, what the hell. I'll play along.

From last to first... Might makes right, baby.

Major Maxillary wrote: also, i was being facetious.

Did you see that? I got the feeling you were playing along with the "troll," not the "facetiousness."

No... He posted that response to Squiddy the same time I was posting my response to him... So I decided to let it (my response) ride.

As to your earlier (and wholly correct) statement... Yes. There will always be such people. The correct answer is "So what?" It's not apporpriate that we should refuse to help those who need it, those who want to accept that assistance in the spirit it's offered, those who wish nothing so much as to "get back on their feet" and "make a contribution to society" because we're afraid of the people who will take advantage of that kindness.

First, of course, I've never said "nobody will take advantage of the system". In fact, I've said the opposite... I've said people absolutely will take advantage of it. But you do it anyway. It's a bit of an inelegant illustration, but you don't refuse to feed your children because you're afraid a mouse might get some of the spilled crumbs.

Second... Medical and educational services aren't welfare. You don't eat a bandaid. Making health care and education available to everyone doesn't prevent anyone from going to work... It only makes it more possible for them to go to work.

Third... If we want to extend the conversation to actual welfare and social safety nets... Then yes, again, there will always be some people who will be happy to hover a few inches above the gutter... There will always be a few who are happy enough to just survive... To hang out on the "couch", as uncomfortable as it might be.

You don't beat that by turning your back on them. You don't beat that by letting them starve. You sure as hell don't beat it by letting yourself get so worried over someone stealing a few dollars that you abandon children who aren't yet thus committed to the same kind of dead-end future. You beat it with education, hope, and opportunity.

Now, when those people sit on the "couch" and watch TV, and their kids see someone in a nice house, in nice clothes, in a nice car... They say "You can't get there from here." and they're all too correct... Much more so than they would be in many other countries. But if you just give them a reasonable chance to get there... A doctor they can go to, an education... If they know that if they go to school and work hard, they can get there... A lot of them will try.

I saw a study a little while ago... (I can't find it now) Where they asked people what the "American Dream" is. Most of us here, I assume, have either learned or can directly remember it... For sake of ease, I'll copy from OED: "...the ideal by which equality of opportunity is available to any American, allowing the highest aspirations and goals to be achieved." The house, the car, the pickett fence... The idea that each generation does better than the one before...

Well, most people asked recently in this study, say "Winning the lottery" or some similar answer. Winning a major lawsuit. Winning a huge pile of money on a gameshow or a similar "windfall" type situation, like the World Series of Poker. People who hold the "Oooh... Eeevil Welfare State!!" point of view might see this as evidence in their corner. People would rather not have to work.

But in actuality, it's just another symptom of the perceived lack of opportunity. If you know full well you can't get there from here... That only the children of the rich are ever going to have those opportunities (whether you're technically correct in that "knowledge" or not), then you're more and more likely to think welfare is the best you can do... Short of a big lottery win, joining the major leagues of whatever sport you're good at, or making a fortune in drugs or other organized crime.

This is what our underfunded, weak, ineffectual social safety net is buying us.