Question for the right wingers

Originally posted by Beestie
No one in America is dying in the street because they were denied help. God forbid that anyone should suggest that people who lack the ability to provide for themselves should be taught how to do so. Much easier to just make yourself look like a hero by giving them what they want with no strings attached and no end in sight. Especially when its not even your money.

Following welfare reform, how many former recipients died in the streets leaving widows and orphans to starve and freeze to death in the open tundra versus the number of people who actually found gainful employment and contribute to society twofold by not drawing down public charity but instead paying into the system?

Sorry but all able bodied folk must pay their share - those who are able to but don't (a group that most if not all socialists pretend do not exist) are freeloaders. And those who allow them to freeload are nothing but enablers who derive a warped sense of justification (or political expedience) from the dependency they create and/or perpetuate.

People are denied help all the time in this country and they die as a result. Just because they don't die in public view doesn't mean its not happening. They don't go to the tundra unless they happen to live in Alaska. Many homeless people do camp on public lands, however, because they have nowhere else to go.

I can't speak to the issue of welfare since I have no personal experience with it, but when it comes to the disabled of this country, the lack of help is appalling. The wait for SSI/SSDI can go on for years. In the meantime the disabled individual has little if any access to medical care and only what financial support the individual states may give. Some states give nothing. Colorado gives $130.00 a month plus $130 in food stamps. Try "living" on that. The waiting list for housing was 2 years. Now with the new HUD cuts, its approaching infinity.

I know of one woman with a son with Down's syndrome who finally got up the courage to leave her abusive husband. This woman had no education and suffered from severe post traumatic stress syndrome as a result of the abuse. She fled her home in Utah and went to Western Colorado. She applied to Social Services for help and was put on the two year wait list for housing. Meanwhile she and her son lived in an abandoned trailer with no heat on an old uranium claim that was no longer being mined. Due to beurocratic bungling, her food stamps were cut off. She had no transportation and no access to medical care. She killed herself, but she didn't do it on a city street, so I guess that doesn't count. I know of another woman, also on Colorado's West slope, who was extremely ill, also with no transportation. She ended up dying for lack of medical care. I know of a man who is schizophrenic, on the waiting list for housing. In the mean time he lives in the national forest like a wild animal, killing rabbits and deer to survive. I know of these cases first hand and can document them. Don't tell me people aren't dying for lack of help in this country!

[DanaC]

Radar.....al charity was once voluntary. There was a time when nobody was given help or assistance by the government. The trouble was that people starved. People went without homes and children went without education. Workers were treated with disdain by their employers because they were able to, after all who would rock the boat with their employer when the result could and would be unemployment and with it starvation?

America didnt always have public education but that meant lots of children never recieved basic schooling. All these social welfare and social provisions were introduced against the wishes of business and the moneyed classes as a response to appalling poverty and distress........remove those provisions and the poverty and distress willl return. People are often charitable but people are often not. If social provsions are a matter of choice what happens if people choose not to support them? Simple, a large number of American citizens will live lives akin to those of the third world.

I'm dead center on the political scale. I'll try to answer anyway.

Oh good God, if you are the centre I really dont want to know what the right looks like on your political scale. I had you down as a rightwing libertarian. In the UK thats what you'd be classed as with your belief system ( I think, just going off what you have said in the cellar) ....I keep forgetting that you guys have a slightly different political spectrum than ours

[Radar]

I keep forgetting that you guys have a slightly different political spectrum than ours

Take a moment to try the World's Smallest Political Quiz

It's only 10 questions (Yes, No, or Maybe). There are no right or wrong answers. This quiz is used in most political science books to determine where your personal beliefs lie on the political spectrum. It doesn't use a simple left/right scale. It's widely known for being accurate and unbiased.

[smoothmoniker]

woo-hoo! I'm a centrist, with a slight libertarian bent.

now that I know, I'll have to start acting accordingly.

-sm

[Happy Monkey]

Personal: 100%
Economic: 30%

[DanaC]

Well I took it and it was interesting but the questions dont allow enough subtlety. For instance. I dont agree that government should control TV but I do believe TV should be regulated and consider a publicly owned non profit making oganisation like the BBC, funded by licence fees which are paid by anyone who wishes to own a television ( by law) are a good thing. It's a little like paying a TV/radio tax and having a tip top service thats available to all because of it.

I dont think that politics can be reduced to science alone, i think there has to be room for political philosophy which is rather more difficult to address with a quiz which simplifies so much. Interesting though *smiles*

When I said you guys have a different political spectrum I think really what I mean is you have a different set of cultural assumptions when it comes to your political identity. When I hear an American express a view of one issue it's often no indicator as to where that person might sit on a different issue. With another Brit I can usually take an educated guess based on their responses to one or two issues, more or less where they are likely to stand on most others.

[Lady Sidhe]

*agrees with SM and Beestie*


Nothing wrong with public assistance for those who:

1. need help getting back on their feet while they're looking for a job, or work but don't make enough money to buy necessities after paying bills (that's more common than anyone realizes)

or

2. are disabled to the point that they have trouble finding and/or keeping adequate work with which to support themselves

To Marichiko: I don't know about where you live, but in La., one can get emergency welfare if they're shown to need it (no job, no income), within three days. The only time someone is put on a waiting list for housing is when they apply to HUD, which is specifically for housing and doesn't involve welfare money.


I completely agree with welfare reform. Five-year lifetime limit. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone on welfare are down-and-outers...matter of fact, the down-and-outers usually don't stay on it longer than necessary. Their pride in themselves keeps them from doing that (at least that applies to the people I know who've been on it)

The ones that piss me off are the ones who live on it, and teach their kids to do the same. Welfare has the unfortunate side-effect of blunting the pride of people who live on it (imo), so that they see nothing wrong with being parasites, because they make more than they would make working. They have a sense of entitlement. They don't contribute, yet they act as if society owes them a living.

IMO, if you're an able-bodied individual, there's nothing keeping you from getting a job like the rest of us peons. If you need help while you're looking for work, hey, that's what it's there for. But when you start spitting out kids because you make more money per kid, you can just bite my ass. We don't owe you shit.

I hate the "poor, downtrodden, not-their-fault welfare recipiant" attitude. That's not true for the majority. I'd love to do an experiment to find out how many "lifetime" recipiants are able-bodied enough to get a job. They give those who truly need the assistance a bad name.

I feel that if you've spent the majority of your life working, then suddenly don't have a job, then you ARE entitled to assistance. You've contributed to the fund, so you're entitled to share in it if you need to. But when you just don't feel like working at a minimum-wage job, and apply for benefits....uh-uh. You should have to work for benefits in some way. There should be make-work projects for people who go on assistance. Not only would it possibly confer a skill, but it would give people a little pride in themselves.

I think that's kind of what's missing in society nowadays--pride in oneself. Considering the dumbing-down in schools, the blaming society for what is actually the fault of the individual...it just seems like pride in oneself and one's accomplishments is no longer important. After all, if letter grades are abolished so the dummies won't feel bad, what's the point of getting an A? If "putting one over on the government" by living on welfare is prized over doing a job well, or having a job at all, then what's the point of getting a job?

*shakes head*

People's priorities are just getting all fuckled up, it seems. People are no longer responsible for anything. Everything is someone else's fault. After all, if you don't receive rewards for your accomplishments, then why should you take responsibility for your failures? It just seems to me that that's how people think nowadays.

Oh well....


Sidhe

[lookout123]

Sidhe - you rock! usually i'm called a fascist or something equally ridiculous for saying the very thing that you very coherently put into print. thank you.

[elSicomoro]

Originally posted by Happy Monkey
Personal: 100%
Economic: 30%

You too?

Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
*agrees with SM and Beestie*


Nothing wrong with public assistance for those who:

1. need help getting back on their feet while they're looking for a job, or work but don't make enough money to buy necessities after paying bills (that's more common than anyone realizes)

or

2. are disabled to the point that they have trouble finding and/or keeping adequate work with which to support themselves

To Marichiko: I don't know about where you live, but in La., one can get emergency welfare if they're shown to need it (no job, no income), within three days. The only time someone is put on a waiting list for housing is when they apply to HUD, which is specifically for housing and doesn't involve welfare money.

Does La. stand for Louisiana or Los Angeles? Please reply quickly since I am packing my car and need to know whether to point it south or west. Thank you so much for this bit of information which no one in 5 years has bothered to tell me about. Its been awful being on SSDI which I paid for myself over 25 year's work and taxes and getting only a little over $600.00 a month with no housing. Now with the HUD cuts I'm facing being homeless yet again. I am so thankful to hear that there actually is help somewhere. Please, can you tell me the phone number and name of the agency which will give me welfare in either Louisiana or Los Angeles? I have been in total despair, all hope gone, sometimes considering suicide. Do you have the name of a contact person you can give me? I'm not joking and you are literally saving my life, but I need specifics. Please respond ASAP! I'm serious!

[Beestie]

La in this case means Louisiana. I'm sorry to hear that things are not going well and hope things turn around quickly for you.

Originally posted by Beestie
La in this case means Louisiana. I'm sorry to hear that things are not going well and hope things turn around quickly for you.

Thank you for your concern. Do you know how long one has to reside in Louisiana before getting this help in 3 days? Can I just go down there and declare myself a resident the moment I cross the state line? I assume its the state of Louisisana which is so generous, since there is no program like that available from the Feds. Will Louisiana give me a place to live right away?

[wolf]

It is illegal to deny a person necessary medical treatment solely because they do not have insurance coverage.

A hospital which is found to have refused necessary stabilization and care is subject to a $20,000 (might have gone up to $30K) per incident fine. And once a violation is identified, records get audited to determine if other instances exist. The fines may be levied against a facility and/or the physician responsible. (I know of at least one VERY pissed off doc that this happened to ... it's mandated that any hospital receiving a patient who was refused stabilization/treatment because of lack of coverage report that to the feds, because that hospital is subject to the SAME FINE if they don't report.)

It's called EMTALA, and it's a world of hurt for a hospital ... not just because of the fine ... because of the danger that the hospital will lose ALL ABILITY to accept any payments from Medicare. Forever.

It's taken pretty seriously.

Any uninsured/underinsured patient can apply for Medical Assistance (aka Medicaid) while hospitalized. The purpose is for the hospital to pursue a 'limited use' application to cover costs of that hospitalization. The patient can follow up with the welfare office after discharge with the possibility of receiving full benefits if the meet the requirements.

If the MA application does not get approved, the same document can be used to apply for other funding sources, including monies earmarked for this use by the county.

[wolf]

Originally posted by Lady Sidhe


I completely agree with welfare reform. Five-year lifetime limit.

My refinement on this one includes ... no extra bennies for extra offspring, folks should get "weaned off" ... the amount of benefits should reduce the longer one collects them.

[wolf]

marichko, if you are so freaking destitute that you are considering scamming other states' welfare systems, why do you have a computer and internet access?