Shaming the bottom-feeders.

[ywhtptgtfo]

Whatever.

Formaldehyde 1
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[Borachio]

Even if I could do such a thing (I mean the porridge thing) without my health deteriorating my mother would never agree. At the rate I'm at now I'm spending a lot of time in bed just to save energy.

You have my sympathy, aimee. Life can be hard. I know it.

Formaldehyde 1
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As for this: whatever. I am not discontent with your assessment.

 

[MobBoss]

So if one person in a household gets welfare should everyone in the house pee in a cup?

No, just the person wanting to qualify for the aid.

Drug tests, eh? Targeted at a people who might not be able to afford a positive hit?

This isn't targeted, but conditional upon qualifying for a specific type of aid.

But if you cant afford a positive hit, maybe, just maybe, you shouldn't be doing illegal drugs?

 

[Borachio]

I think he means a fake positive. It's always possible. No test is immune.

A fake positive, to labour the point, is when a test gives a positive result when there is no drug present.

 

[Borachio]

Formaldehyde 1
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The point being, that if someone is clearly and deliberately misunderstanding what you've been saying and just trashing your whole position without any attempt to understand, what's the point in talking to them? I would say there's none.

 

[Atticus]

Think about what it would it do in the bigger scale: There are thousands of people who are addicted to drugs, and to whom the drugs is the first thing they think of when they get money on their hands. Suppose those people wouldn't receive any benefits. They would be pretty much forced to steal, rob, prostitute themselves and others...

At the end it could be more expensive not to hand our benefits.

 

[MobBoss]

I think he means a fake positive. It's always possible. No test is immune.

A fake positive, to labour the point, is when a test gives a positive result when there is no drug present.

Today's tech on this is pretty advanced, and generally the only fake positives will result from someone taking a legitimate prescription drug that will create a metabolite similar to a controlled substance. The easy answer is if the person in question is taking a prescription med to simply produce the medicine bottle with the label describing the medication on it. Just have a medical review of the prescription in question, and if it could indeed result in a false positive don't hold it against the person in question.

However, if you have a prescription for an opiate, and come up positive for meth, then that's obviously not a false positive.

Setting the metabolite level sufficiently high enough removes the chances of other 'second hand' positives as well. It is indeed possible to ascertain that the test finds those that have indeed felt some type of effect from ingesting the drug in question.

Think about what it would it do in the bigger scale: There are thousands of people who are addicted to drugs, and to whom the drugs is the first thing they think of when they get money on their hands. Suppose those people wouldn't receive any benefits. They would be pretty much forced to steal, rob, prostitute themselves and others...

At the end it could be more expensive not to hand our benefits.

If they exhibit that level of addiction odds are they already steal, rob, and prostitute themselves.

And I would suggest that such people (and their addiction) are better dealt with by other ways than by simply giving them the means to continue their addiction. Doing what you suggest merely makes the problem worse by excusing and paying for their addiction with taxpayer money. How on earth could that be a good thing?

 

[Atticus]

If they exhibit that level of addiction odds are they already steal, rob, and prostitute themselves.

And I would suggest that such people (and their addiction) are better dealt with by other ways than by simply giving them the means to continue their addiction. Doing what you suggest merely makes the problem worse by excusing and paying for their addiction with taxpayer money. How on earth could that be a good thing?

True that, but denying benefits would make the situation even worse for them. It wouldn't be paying for their addiction, since the money isn't ear marked for drugs.

How it is good thing: extreme poverty leads to extreme criminality and everybody loses. Plus, I think people have some duty to take care of the others, even if they're addicts.

 

[Borachio]

Plus, I think I'd like to point out, drug addiction costs are substantially higher than typical welfare payments. Paying more than £500 a week to fuel a serious habit is not that unusual, I understand.

Smoking a bit of weed twice a week, though, isn't likely to break the bank. And most people don't consider it to be addiction.

Not that I think marijuana is a good thing to smoke. But I grow increasingly puritanical, so my opinion is getting more and more marginalized.

 

[DinoDoc]

The fact is that we currently make welfare as degrading as possible already.

In what way do you see a sense of shame attached to the program? Is it the massive growth of the program in recent years? The use of EBT cards at strip clubs, liquor stores, and sex shops? The Obama Phone Lady?

But people like you refuse to allow these people to work. So they really have no optiosn.

People like me were against the Obama Admin weakening workfare requirements and applauded Clinton's welfare reform package.

 

[Cutlass]

In what way do you see a sense of shame attached to the program? Is it the massive growth of the program in recent years? The use of EBT cards at strip clubs, liquor stores, and sex shops?

Yeah, like that's how most welfare is used. The reality is that this very thread and the utter lack of morality and basic human decency behind is degrades the recipients. The very fact that people like you could say the things that you have been saying is a 1000 times more degradation then these people will ever deserve.

The Obama Phone Lady? People like me were against the Obama Admin weakening workfare requirements and applauded Clinton's welfare reform package.

Exactly. Instead of being in favor of work, you are in favor of driving people into as desperate a state of poverty as possible and blocking any chance they might have of ever being self sufficient.

 

[Old Hippy]

Even if I could do such a thing (I mean the porridge thing) without my health deteriorating my mother would never agree. At the rate I'm at now I'm spending a lot of time in bed just to save energy.

have you checked out the local catholic priest...
seriously, where I live(Australia) I volunteer at the local parish, and occasionally help out at the Baptist and Uniting church, they have support programs (food parcels, meals programs etc.) to support benefit recipients, a safety net for the safety net, even if they just run a community meal once a week, it is worth going, I've found the only concession to religion they ask is that you might have to say grace, and that was only by the 'Indian sisters' (a group of mother T's nuns that provide to the homeless)... I also have gone to the HareChristans and Buddhist's to check out what they were doing, and must admit I've gone back to the Buddhists for their weekly meal more than once and have got recipes off them Several years ago I helped run a meals program for a church/council, but that was mainly aimed at people living in boarding houses to provide a social environment at night, once a month I go out on the soup van and distribute sandwiches (donated fresh that day by Gourmet food shops, worth about $8 each and you can stock up on a few) at 6 locations at night(their are several vans that go out everynight)

I don't know whats available in your area,(I've counted 47, in my local council area) but their should/could be something available and if you don't like queuing, volunteer for them, they still feed you

 

[MobBoss]

True that, but denying benefits would make the situation even worse for them.

I don't think so. In fact, it could be a potential road to recovery for them...that is, stop feeding into their addictive behavior and give them a chance to face themselves and their responsibility.

It wouldn't be paying for their addiction, since the money isn't ear marked for drugs.

Don't be so naïve. If the money they are given allows them to continue their behavior you are indeed subsidizing their illegal drug use regardless.

How it is good thing: extreme poverty leads to extreme criminality and everybody loses.

Sometimes someone has to hit rock bottom before they can begin their path to rehabilitation. What you suggest is merely 'buying them off' in order to ignore the larger issue hand at. I don't think that does society any favors - especially over the long run.

Plus, I think people have some duty to take care of the others, even if they're addicts.

I think we have a duty to help others who are actually interested in rehabilitating themselves. But we simply don't have a duty to continue fiscally supporting those unwilling to change from illegal behavior.

Those that do desire to adhere to the social contract deserve support; those that just want to subsidize their illegal behavior don't.

Plus, I think I'd like to point out, drug addiction costs are substantially higher than typical welfare payments. Paying more than £500 a week to fuel a serious habit is not that unusual, I understand.

If you can afford a $500 dollar a week habit you have no reason to be on government assistance.

Smoking a bit of weed twice a week, though, isn't likely to break the bank. And most people don't consider it to be addiction.

Depends on if you could walk away from it or not. I'd say if you cant stop smoking weed twice a week in order to get the support you need, then that is indeed indicative of a level of addiction.

Not that I think marijuana is a good thing to smoke. But I grow increasingly puritanical, so my opinion is getting more and more marginalized.

Odd, I think i'm actually growing less so where weed is concerned. Not enough to go smoke it yet, but the legalization process in Washington State is certainly an educational one.

 

[DinoDoc]

The reality is that this very thread and the utter lack of morality and basic human decency behind is degrades the recipients. The very fact that people like you could say the things that you have been saying is a 1000 times more degradation then these people will ever deserve.

Shame is deserved and a righteous feeling when you are living off the largesse of others. However, your histrionics only serve as a mask for the fact you still haven't answered the question. How does the welfare system degrade and humiliate the people it freely gives money to?

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

How does the welfare system degrade and humiliate the people it freely gives money to?

Well in my case you get dirty looks just by going into the building where the welfare is. And the caseworkers there themselves well I'm not gonna comment too much on that but they asked me lots of questions I could not even understand so I had this sort of confusement and they kept bothering me to answer the questions I couldn't figure out what they meant and made me feel stupid for asking what they meant more clearer.

 

[Cutlass]

Shame is deserved and a righteous feeling when you are living off the largesse of others. However, your histrionics only serve as a mask for the fact you still haven't answered the question. How does the welfare system degrade and humiliate the people it freely gives money to?

By saying the evil lies that you just said. People with no sense of morals, ethics, or personal responsibility say things like what you have been saying in this thread. And this degrades and humiliates the people who have no choice but to be on welfare if they are to live at all.

People with no sense of morals, ethics, or personal responsibility like to pretend to be morally superior to people on welfare, and so they should be shamed. But the reality is that the number of people on welfare that are not forced to make that choice is so trivially small as to be not worth the time and effort to concern ourselves with them at all.

But the reality is that people like you will not permit these people to eat if they are not on welfare. You choose to maximize the number of people who cannot fend for themselves. You choose to hurt these people. And then you have the unmitigated gall to pretend that you are some way the "good guy" and they are some way bad people.

And that doesn't even count the fact that for many of these people they could not work no matter what they chose to do.

Conservatives want a high unemployment and low wage economy. Well good, you got it. But the price of your economic policies is an ever larger number of people who cannot live without welfare.

Grow the hell up and take responsibility for your own actions before trying to pretend to being morally superior to others.

 

[DinoDoc]

By saying the evil lies that you just said.

Citation needed.

 

[History_Buff]

Today's tech on this is pretty advanced, and generally the only fake positives will result from someone taking a legitimate prescription drug that will create a metabolite similar to a controlled substance.

[citation needed]

Did you even read El Mac's link?

 

[Borachio]

Think about what it would it do in the bigger scale: There are thousands of people who are addicted to drugs, and to whom the drugs is the first thing they think of when they get money on their hands. Suppose those people wouldn't receive any benefits. They would be pretty much forced to steal, rob, prostitute themselves and others...

At the end it could be more expensive not to hand our benefits.

Hmm. There's two main ways people fund drug habits: 1) selling drugs to other people who have less of a habit than they do; 2) petty theft, mugging, prostitution.

Welfare payments - and I'm sure many drug addicts do claim welfare - isn't really the main source of money for them.

I don't think the majority of welfare recipients are drug addicts.

 

[Muhammed]

But the reality is that the number of people on welfare that are not forced to make that choice is so trivially small as to be not worth the time and effort to concern ourselves with them at all.

This! How 'bout some damn perspective?!


@aimee: Consider suggesting an e-ciggarette to your mom. Im a smoker myself and I bought one specifically to save money. It works! Its not the same kick as a real smoke, but its a great replacement. I havent stopped smoking, and dont want to atm, but smoking a real ciggarette is more of a choice now than before. I really recommend it! Its an investment though, mine cost over 100$, but it paid back in a month or so. PM me if you want me to direct you to a good online shop, I dont want to spam commericals.