Disability Claims Alarmingly Up for Subset of Recipients of Taxpayer Dollars

[kochman]

Mobby, what JR is doing isn't about disabled vets. It's about the lack of social concern towards everyone else. If people were this upset about social spending cuts to the poor, the world might be a slightly better place.

No, he's being a dick to disabled vets at the same time.

 

[Formaldehyde]

You see, Form this is where your huge ignorance of the military shows. I'm much more than just a simple 'clerk'. Essentially, I am the lead office manager of a legal office (law firm) with dozens of employees that I manage and mentor, all the while serving a population of thousands and their families. I have large amounts of responsibility, being signed for and resonsible for the upkeep and care of equipment and buildings in excess of a million dollars. I build teams, and have coordinated and led such teams made up of soliders from all over the world, even foreign countries. I am considered a subject matter expert in my field and am often called to teach subordinates from my experience. I have been the lead paralegal working on cases with national recognition.

This is where your ignorance of the civilian world really shows. Being an office manager is very much a clerical job that is typically handled by a secretary.

Again, what actual experience do you have in the civilian world that allows you to think that similar jobs are any different?

And all this really has nothing to do with the actual topic. How exactly does this cause excessive physical and emotional strain on you?

As for what i've done that civilians dont? How many civilian jobs require you to crawl under concertina wire with live ammo being fired just over your head? To go into a gas chamber, take off your mask and voluntarily feel the effects of CS gas? To stay up in a field environment weeks on end with little or no sleep? To be subject to being ordered to overseas duty into a combat zone with little notice? To be called in randomly in the middle of the night and leave your family no notice just for a training exercise? To not be there routinely when your family needs you? What civilian job forces you to get up before the dawn to do a work out that might include a 10 mile forced ruck march (if not more) with 60lb backpacks?

That is what you signed up to do. Hundreds of thousands of other Americans do exactly the same thing as reserve and national guard troops. Do they whine about it? If you didn't want to have an active job where you might actually be called to defend your country at some stage as an extremely remote possibility, you should have thought of a different career that wasn't as physically demanding. Millions of people have physically demanding blue collar jobs which require them to do far more than carry a 60 lb backpack for 10 miles every single day of their lives. And if most of them become injured on the job they become unemployed, frequently without any disability benefits whatsoever.

You dont really have clue one what soldiers feel or dont feel as a result of their volunteering to serve.

Actually I know quite a bit about it given that my father was a career Army officer and I lived on military bases much of my childhood. You apparently don't have a "clue" what I know or don't know.

Unfortunately I find myself (almost) agreeing with Form here - I think a lot of us need to take a serious plateful of humble pie and recognise that actually, wearing green to work doesn't inherently make your job the most neccessary, the most difficult, or the most under-appreciated on the planet. Yes, operational deployments aren't easy, we all know that, but there's an alarming tendancy among servicemen to consider military service as the most sacred of all callings, which in my view borders on arrogance. If we deserve a benefit, such as disability care, we ought to be able to explain why we do without resorting to knee-jerk emotional responses.

Indeed.

 

[emzie]

No, he's being a dick to disabled vets at the same time.

Perhaps now you might understand why liberals get so passionate about poverty?

 

[Terxpahseyton]

The heart of the distinction between poor people and veterans is the assumption that a poor guy deserves to be poor while a vet does not deserve to be disabled. In case of a vet, the reasoning is very tangible. He or she serves its fellow citizens by joining the army, hence he or she deserves the support of the fellow citizens. The poor guy serves no one.
It becomes more interesting with people who were thrown into poverty by accidents/sickness. Those at least contributed to society in one way or another. Still, they were not asked by society to do something as a soldier.

So we have three basic cases.
- Vet support: Based on the notion of a mutual obligation
- Support of disabled civilians: Based on the notion of mutual solidarity, but swayed towards those with lesser means
- Support of the poor: Based on a notion of altruism

With American conservatives emphasizing the value of self-responsibility, it is not surprising that they would oppose state-mandated altruism.

 

[kochman]

Perhaps now you might understand why liberals get so passionate about poverty?

I am passionate about helping the underpriviledged as well, and have many times stated this and talked about it. I may not agree with some on HOW to do that, but I am a big supporter, sponsor children, etc.
I don't begrudge it at all!

I do think targeting disabled veteran's on Memorial Day is in very poor taste and obvious trolling. I do hope he gets to see, first hand, some good old military training on himself from a disabled vet... I'm quite sure a soldier would whip him with the use of a single digit on his body, for the record.

 

[Farm Boy]

No one should get a pass. It is pretty rare to hear Repubs doing it though...
Then you have MSNBC hosts (not democrats according to Cutlass), saying things like "I'm not comfortable with calling fallen soldiers "heroes""...

I'm uncomfortable with calling people "heroes" the vast majority of the time. We overuse the term here. We do not honor our fallen brothers and sisters by deifying them. They are and were like us, they happened to give more. A lot more. Thus should we all strive to do.

 

[kochman]

I'm uncomfortable with calling people "heroes" the vast majority of the time. We overuse the term here. We do not honor our fallen brothers and sisters by deifying them. They are and were like us, they happened to give more. A lot more. Thus should we all strive to do.

Calling someone a hero, because they gave their life for their country, is hardly diefying them.

 

[Farm Boy]

It does dehumanize their sacrifice. At least that language does for some people. That's pretty much my point though. Merely because I would quibble with you on language does not mean my support for those in service is "traitorous" or what have you.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

If those soldiers really are heroes, why is it necessary to threat them with severe legal consequences should they suddenly not feel like being heroes anymore? Why is it necessary to force people into the service once they agreed upon joining it? And why do people with a poor economic background tend to be the most heroic?

 

[Formaldehyde]

Perhaps now you might understand why liberals get so passionate about poverty?

You shouldn't have to be a "liberal" to understand that many civilians have just as physically and emotionally demanding jobs, if not more so. That the majority of blue collar workers in particular have no safety net at all. That the fortunate few who do have disability benefits have very limited policies that only provide benefits for an extremely short period of time. And many of them don't even have insurance policies either, so any long-term work-related injury typically means they have to find other work that isn't as physically demanding and frequently even pays less.

If there is so much empathy for veterans benefits, there should obviously be far more empathy for those who have none at all instead of scorn and ridicule. If people in the military deserve to be treated like human beings, so do everybody else.

I do think targeting disabled veteran's on Memorial Day is in very poor taste and obvious trolling. I do hope he gets to see, first hand, some good old military training on himself from a disabled vet... I'm quite sure a soldier would whip him with the use of a single digit on his body, for the record.

This story appeared in many newspapers yesterday. Were they also "trolling".

During the F1 race, one of the announcers mentioned that an Iraq war vet was in their office and was quite disturbed that so many veterans in particular think that Memorial Day is a day to celebrate themselves. He said nothing could be further from the truth. It was a day to remember those who gave their lives for this country.

 

[kochman]

It does dehumanize their sacrifice. At least that language does for some people. That's pretty much my point though. Merely because I would quibble with you on language does not mean my support for those in service is "traitorous" or what have you.

You're quite big on exaggeration today I see.... diefy... traitorous...
All I pointed out was that no one should just bash soldiers... they should be bashing the leaders that tell the soldiers what to do. In the case where soldiers refuse to disobey illegal orders, then they have failed and can be bashed.
I also pointed out that this type of thing comes more often from the left...
If a Repub did it, he'd face scorn/wrath from the military types as well. I don't think they get a pass, it is just a way less frequent thing.

 

[Farm Boy]

Well, I'm not bashing soldiers. I have tremendous respect for my friends and family who have served. I mourn for those my family has lost. I still don't know that I would use the term "hero" for most of them. Some of them would get mad at me if I did. The implication that I am unsupportive if I refuse to thus label every solider, policeman, and fireman is what gets to me. Does that make more sense?

 

[El_Machinae]

I think the OP makes a good point that if: (1) disability benefits are made clear and (2) access to the benefits is streamlined, then people will use them in greater amounts.

IIRC, disability benefits are up throughout the economy. The incentive to take them is just too high

 

[kochman]

Well, I'm not bashing soldiers. I have tremendous respect for my friends and family who have served. I mourn for those my family has lost. I still don't know that I would use the term "hero" for most of them. Some of them would get mad at me if I did. The implication that I am unsupportive if I refuse to thus label every solider, policeman, and fireman is what gets to me. Does that make more sense?

For the fallen... key word here.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Come on kochman, worshiping the fallen has little to do with actually caring for people who died in service. It is about those that still live and are expected to take the same risk. It is about creating a social environment that irrationally convinces the individual that it is a worthy risk. In short: It is about planting an ideology of self-sacrifice into the heads and minds of Americans. The basic ingredient of modern national armies. Meaning: It is about getting more people you can later worship for being killed.
But it is not, and never was, about actually caring for those that are dead. That is only what you need to believe to buy into it.
And that becomes clear, when people who actually lost relatives and hence for whom it actually is about a person which died in service, reject this worship. Because they lost humans, not heroes.

 

[Flying Pig]

I'm uncomfortable with calling people "heroes" the vast majority of the time. We overuse the term here. We do not honor our fallen brothers and sisters by deifying them. They are and were like us, they happened to give more. A lot more. Thus should we all strive to do.

I can't help but feel our culture comes dangerously close to 'dulce et decorum est pro patria mori' at times - I know that my own thoughts when they read the Roll of Honour at Rememberance Day normally include 'poor unlucky bastards'. Certainly the media's obsession with labelling all serving soldiers 'heroes' is ridiculous - they signed up to do a difficult job, but they're still ordinary people, just in a uniform: we often lose sight of that.

 

[Farm Boy]

The act of dying does not make one noble. The method of living beforehand does. If we put all soldiers on a pedestal the instant they die it cheapens what they gave. "Heroes" die, it's part of the assumption. Most of these men and women did not want to die. They did what they thought right and wound up giving all so that we need not. I think were we to leave their loss as more human, more real, we might be more inclined to spend the lives of our service members more wisely.

At the end of the day, it's just my take on one word and I haven't served. Take it for what it's worth.

 

[kochman]

Come on kochman, worshiping the fallen has little to do with actually caring for people who died in service. It is about those that still live and are expected to take the same risk. It is about creating a social environment that irrationally convinces the individual that it is a worthy risk. In short: It is about planting an ideology of self-sacrifice into the heads and minds of Americans. The basic ingredient of modern national armies.
But it is not, and never was, about actually caring for those that are dead. That is only what you need to believe to buy into it.
And that becomes clear, when people who actually lost relatives and hence for whom it actually is about a person which died in service, reject this worship. Because they lost humans, not heroes.

I basically disagree with your post.
You should be glad there are people who have "irrationally" accepted taking the risk, otherwise the world would be a much worse place.

 

[kochman]

The act of dying does not make one noble. The method of living beforehand does. If we put all soldiers on a pedestal the instant they die it cheapens what they gave. "Heroes" die, it's part of the assumption. Most of these men and women did not want to die. They did what they thought right and wound up giving all so that we need not. I think were we to leave their loss as more human, more real, we might be more inclined to spend the lives of our service members more wisely.

At the end of the day, it's just my take on one word and I haven't served. Take it for what it's worth.

They didn't want to die... but they knew it was a possibility, yet accepted that possibility.
That, to me, is heroic, in that they could have potentially fled in the moment of danger, or refused to deploy, etc. They gave all for strangers... just as fallen police, firemen, etc do...
It is heroic.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Oh, I am not arguing its usefulness. I am only arguing its honesty.