Originally posted by uzlessMaybe that should tell you that the Canadian government needs to change their present approach if they can't handle the amount of people needed to be treated.
Yes we can go to the US to have some procedure if we don't want to or can't wait. The government still pays the tab.
You can still buy private health care insurance if you want and go to a private clinic. The government cutting some of the waiting times down on the public clinics but it's not that big a deal.
The US government currently spends more ...[text shortened]... an government, yet ours is free when we go to the doctor whereas you guys have to pay for it.
And here is a radical idea. Instead of having the government control welfare, why not have a public charity for it. Have it run the same as the government would without the use of tax money. It would run on donations from the public. Then people have a choice on whether or not they want their disposable income going to someone else.
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Originally posted by slappy115I have a radical idea too. Why not offer people on welfare the opportunity (not mandatory) to travel the world working for charitable organisations. Pay the initial travel fair for them to get started. I think this would be especially usefull for all the homeless smackheads who have been hassling me for money in the streets of Brighton every day for the last ten years. I'm serious...it could give meaning to their lives and probably help them off the gear. It would certainly save some taxpayer's money.
And here is a radical idea. Instead of having the government control welfare, why not have a public charity for it. Have it run the same as the government would without the use of tax money. It would run on donations from the public. Then people have a choice on whether or not they want their disposable income going to someone else.
Trouble is I have a feeling they believe they've got better things to do.
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If all this talk about sponging and voluntarism versus compulsion was premised on a society in which equality of opportunity really existed, it would make sense. As it is, I think we have to take the view that those who fiercely denounce redistribution by the state but are entirely happy for the state to enforce and legitimize inequality through inheritance are maybe just a little inconsistent...they certainly aren't being meritocratic, unless their definition of merit is the possession of blind luck.
Originally posted by AmauroteWhat the hell are you talking about? So people should be punished because their parents worked hard to give them a better life than they had while the deadbeats that don't have anything to give their children should be held on a pedistal because "they didn't have the opportunity". That's complete and utter BS and you know it. You have a choice every morning to get up and do something or do nothing. I know people who have had everything stripped from them and, through very hard work, got back on their feet by their own merit and live very comfortably now.
If all this talk about sponging and voluntarism versus compulsion was premised on a society in which equality of opportunity really existed, it would make sense. As it is, I think we have to take the view that those who fiercely denounce redistribution by the state but are entirely happy for the state to enforce and legitimize inequality through inheritance ...[text shortened]... ly aren't being meritocratic, unless their definition of merit is the possession of blind luck.
You can sit there and talk all day about the evils of inheritance while praising the fierce control of the governement in redistributing wealth but it all comes down to a work ethic and YOUR FAMILY NOT THE GOVERNMENT can give you one and that's the honest to God's truth.
Originally posted by twiceaknightThat's a great idea. Give them an opportunity and see what they do with it. If they can't do it, then you know that they will never do it.
I have a radical idea too. Why not offer people on welfare the opportunity (not mandatory) to travel the world working for charitable organisations. Pay the initial travel fair for them to get started. I think this would be especially usefull for all the homeless smackheads who have been hassling me for money in the streets of Brighton every day for the ...[text shortened]... axpayer's money.
Trouble is I have a feeling they believe they've got better things to do.
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Nah, right back at you, slappy - for someone who thinks his way promotes hard work and the work ethic, you're awfully quick to leap to the defend of inequality that does the exact opposite. Why should one person of equal talent with another have a diminished access to decent education just because his father earned less than his neighbour? Not only is that intellectually lazy, it's economically destructive.
You can sit there and talk all day about the evils of inheritance while praising the fierce control of the governement in redistributing wealth but it all comes down to a work ethic and YOUR FAMILY NOT THE GOVERNMENT can give you one and that's the honest to God's truth.
That's an interesting bit of historical revisionism - didn't exactly work wonders during the Great Depression, did it, now?
Originally posted by AmauroteI get the feeling that people will disagree with you because they are thinking along different lines.
If all this talk about sponging and voluntarism versus compulsion was premised on a society in which equality of opportunity really existed, it would make sense. As it is, I think we have to take the view that those who fiercely denounce redistribution by the state but are entirely happy for the state to enforce and legitimize inequality through inheritance ...[text shortened]... ly aren't being meritocratic, unless their definition of merit is the possession of blind luck.
Of course some Lord Aristocrat with 200+ years of wealth behind him has more opportunity than the rest of us will ever dream of.
But most average 9-5 people will baulk when you suggest that the hard slog which they have put in all their lives to better themselves and their families, to help fund their kids through education, through purchasing a first house, through life - when you then tell them they can't pass the fruits of their labour (what is essentially peanuts really) on to their grandchildren and great-grandchildren to make their life a little bit easier.
Originally posted by slappy115Okay, I'd need Deep Blue to keep track of all the nonsequiturs in your argument, but in brief: who mentioned anything about punishment? If you really believe in a meritocracy, you believe in rewards for hard work and talent - fine, but if you really believed in that, if you really believed in free and fair competition to elicit the very best and most productive elements in society, why are you so keen to give some people a better start than others? What is efficient about that state of affairs? Do you really believe that kind of inequality unrelated to work, merit or talent acts as anything other than a serious disincentive? How many clever working-class kids are penalized because a few deadbeat, bone-idle middle-class kids grow up with better access to education? Your argument makes no sense at all - if you believe in meritocracy, you would believe in equality of opportunity. You don't; your views simply don't cohere. If anything, you're the one who's advocating punishment people - your views are the brake on natural productivty and hard work, because you support the right of the idle to usurp the opportunities of the talented and the hard-working. Poor show.
What the hell are you talking about? So people should be punished because their parents worked hard to give them a better life than they had while the deadbeats that don't have anything to give their children should be held on a pedistal because "they didn't have the opportunity". That's complete and utter BS and you know it. You have a choice every mor ...[text shortened]... and YOUR FAMILY NOT THE GOVERNMENT can give you one and that's the honest to God's truth.
As far as hard work goes, I don't care about your anecdotes - I work hard, too, but in prison I come in contact with a lot of people who have had it a damned sight harder than you or me and who never received a decent break. I know some people who have had the breaks, I know others who have the merit but not the luck. In the end, it comes down to whether you believe in a civil society with the courage of its conviction that meritocracy works, or whether you revert to the eternally petulant, inconsistent petit bourgeois whine that all we have to do is make the poor just a little bit like us minus our educational and vocational opportunities and then all will be well. It simply won't do in the twenty-first society.
Originally posted by AmauroteWhat were you sent to prison for?
Okay, I'd need Deep Blue to keep track of all the nonsequiturs in your argument, but in brief: who mentioned anything about punishment? If you really believe in a meritocracy, you believe in rewards for hard work and talent - fine, but if you really believed in that, if you really believed in free and fair competition to elicit the very best and most ...[text shortened]... opportunities and then all will be well. It simply won't do in the twenty-first society.
Originally posted by slappy115so if they never do it, then what do we as a society do with them? Because they'll have no money, no job, no home. Their kids will starve, maybe even die.
That's a great idea. Give them an opportunity and see what they do with it. If they can't do it, then you know that they will never do it.
If you cut welfare off, thousands of people in each city would be on the streets 24/7. Crime would shoot way up. The city would be filthy.
Maybe we should just round 'em all up and put them in jail? Or ship them to some island?
Maybe you actually believe that most people on welfare CHOOSE to be on welfare and live a horrible life? You think that by cutting them off of welfare they'd just go get jobs?? If you owned a company and a welfare person came in for an interview, would you give them the job? Ya right.