Hard News: Just marketing to the base
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No Grant, the burden of proof is on you.
Where are they, these more than 99% who don't really need their benefits? Are 99% of people on the unemployment benefit actually pretending they can't find a job? Are 99% of people on the sickness benefit pretending they are sick? Are 99% of people on the invalids benefit actually capable of working? Are 99% of people on the DPB not actually devoting their time to raising a child?
Are more than 99% of people able to hide savings and income from the IRD and WINZ, who demand proof of penury before handing over a cent?
Where's your fucking evidence?
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There are about 255,000 people in NZ on unemployment benefit, sickness benefit, invalid benefit or DPB. 1% of that number is 2,500, leaving another 252,500 people.
I think the onus is on you, Grant, to:
- say why you think those 252,500 people shouldn't be getting a benefit (or what qualifies the deserving 2500)
- say what you think should happen to those not in "genuine need"
- explain what you think the consequences of removing benefits is.Most people HAVE considered the consequences, and very quickly arrived at the conclusion that they would be bad. If you think differently, outline why - don't blame other people for not laying out your argument for you.
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If one was prepared to consider the consequences of ending welfare
Since centrally organised welfare is largely an innovation of the 20th century in the west, it's quite clear what the consequences of 'ending welfare' are. Just look at the 19th century in the UK, note the poorhouses, the beggars, the debt-ridden working classes existing in horrible conditions and in many cases starving to death, and rinse/repeat (with added technological innovations or whatever).
I mean, FFS, dude. You must know *something* about this stuff, right? Even cribbed from TV adaptations of Dickens or something? Oliver? Remember 'please sir, can I have some more?' All the little kiddies being sent out to pickpocket, drinking gin? Anything? Anyone? Bueller?
Sigh.
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Who said anything about leaving women and children to fend for themselves.
So where are these; people looking after children, sick, unemployed, invalid, and people otherwise unable to work, going to get their money from? Beg their families to support them, like people used to have to do? Become beggars on the street? Depend on the unpredictable generosity of kind strangers? Sell their bodies?
These are all things that happen quite regularly in countries that don't have welfare systems to protect those in need. I'm quite glad we have the option of not having that problem - we're not Bangladesh for goodness sake, and most of the population agrees.
And we're not Denmark either, for that matter. We're actually pretty parsimonious, pretty retributive, and pretty restrictive, compared the happiest nation on earth.
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Anything? Anyone? Bueller?
I love you, Danielle.
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then an opposing opinion is just as valid, if not believable.
Grant, that word 'valid'? I don't think it means what you think it means.
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But Emma, it's a faith-based universe for some..
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So where are these; people looking after children, sick, unemployed, invalid, and people otherwise unable to work, going to get their money from?
I guess from donations like the website asks for...if that's for real! :)
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. . . an opposing opinion is just as valid . . .
If you accept that there're few things more useless than an opinion, that'd be more or less right (yawn).
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Grant D:
If one was prepared to consider the consequences of ending welfare I'm sure one would quickly see its huge benefits
Benefits, indeed - to firearms dealers, bodyguard hire services, manufacturers of Kevlar jackets and riot helmets, gated community developers, barbed wire installers, and bulletproof glass installers.
And for good measure (unless South Africa has already banned it) ...
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I mean, FFS, dude. You must know *something* about this stuff, right? Even cribbed from TV adaptations of Dickens or something? Oliver? Remember 'please sir, can I have some more?' All the little kiddies being sent out to pickpocket, drinking gin? Anything? Anyone? Bueller?
Good Goddess, Danielle. Dickens was a great novelist (though one who, in my view, was highly uneven and somewhat over-rated), but you might as well hold up Gone With The Wind as a historically and sociologically reliable document of the American Civil War and Reconstruction, as opposed to a vastly entertaining piece of melodramatic fiction.
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Uh .. OK. That was intense.
What should happen to the couple of hundred thousand people receiving a benefit? They should get work instead.
More people in the workforce means more employment positions.
It's fairly simple, really.
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Oh, Grant, if you want to talk crap that will pass unchallenged in these parts stick to dog-whistling doing a left-wing Karl Rove impersonation.
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3410,
What should happen to the couple of hundred thousand people receiving a benefit? They should get work instead.
Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels
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Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels
Could you put the whistle down before the neighbour's dog goes through the roof or something...
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3410,
What are you on about this time?
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What are you on about this time?
You first, 90210 -- or can we look forward to gratuitous quotage from the Koran, Talmud and Book of Mormon? But I guess if you're trying to dog-whistle Grant as some kind of nasty right-wing Christianist hater (are there any other kind), that's not the way to go.
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3410,
I guess if you're trying to dog-whistle Grant as some kind of nasty right-wing Christianist hater
Grant's been quite forward about his Christianity. I'm merely suggesting that his opinions don't quite gel with the teachings of Jesus.
As for your pitiful attempt at mockery, you're only further lowering your already diminished PAS reputation.
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As for your pitiful attempt at mockery, you're only further lowering your already diminished PAS reputation.
Well, that's your opinion and you're entitled to it. However, you might want to avoid adopting the pluralis majestatis while voicing it.
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@suze. no offence was taken at any point.
just wanted to indicate that if youreally try, you can make it out of beneficiary-hell.
@emma
Actually, if you're on a benefit and working part time, that part-time income is taxed at a secondary rate.
which is why all beneficiaries should file an IR3. you can claim all the over-taxation back.
in fact... almost everyone should file one. most people are overtaxed since the end of mandatory filing.
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Dickens was a great novelist (though one who, in my view, was highly uneven and somewhat over-rated), but you might as well hold up Gone With The Wind as a historically and sociologically reliable document of the American Civil War and Reconstruction, as opposed to a vastly entertaining piece of melodramatic fiction.
Craig, that's a little disingenuous. Sure, Dickens was a fiction author, but it wasn't as if he was writing about Surrey being invaded by Martains who stroll around in tripods, a bloke who sails around in a submarine taking revenge on the world for reasons unknown, or a lost world somewhere in South America where dinosaurs still exist*.
The conditions he wrote about actually existed and were pretty widespread. They weren't total fantasy.
*and for those who want to know what I'm on about:
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_worlds
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20,000_Leagues_Under_The_Sea
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_World_%28Arthur_Conan_Doyle%29 -
Thanks, Rich, and I'd like to order a round of fuckupachinos for the folks who just trot out another guilt-trip on sole parents who do work and aren't miserable abusive monsters.
OK, Craig, fair point. Make mine a double.
However, my assumption is/was that the majority of solo parents in that position need as much help as they can get, not an extra layer of everyday grief and hassle. I think it is reasonably fair to assume (ass-u-me) that the vast majority are going to be single mothers who, if they work, are going to have to take whatever shithouse job is offered at minimum wage and deal with a lot of the sort of shit that Suze has described - they're not going to be doctors/lawyers/accountants/people with the guts, chutzpah, pigheadedness and social network neccesary to maek it an easy ride.
Adding an extra straw to that camels back seems more than a little unfair to me.
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the teachings of Jesus.
good point. the early church was founded on community and support provided to all the people socially and finanically excluded by the roman empire. widows, the poor, slaves.
"the church" didn't mean the building, it meant the community network.
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Craig, that's a little disingenuous. [...] The conditions he wrote about actually existed and were pretty widespread. They weren't total fantasy.
Actually, Rich, while I can't squee enough about the recent BBC adaptation of Bleak House, I'd treat it with some caution as a primary source for any study of the judicial system of Victorian England, let alone recommend it as some kind of insight into contemporary jurisprudence.
Dickens himself -- like H.G. Welles and Verne, to some extent, since you brought them up -- was unapologetically and blatantly a polemicist against what he saw as the evils and abuses of the day. And he was right, as often as not, but it's rather disingenuous in turn not to acknowledge that.
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Good Goddess, Danielle. Dickens was a great novelist (though one who, in my view, was highly uneven and somewhat over-rated), but you might as well hold up Gone With The Wind as a historically and sociologically reliable document of the American Civil War and Reconstruction, as opposed to a vastly entertaining piece of melodramatic fiction.
Way to miss my point, Craig, which was that Grant is clearly so ignorant of basic historical facts that I was attempting to mention something in popular culture (TV adaptations of Dickens, etc) that he might conceivably have heard of or understood. You know, giving him a little help with the 'why'. I have an MA in history with a big old 'first class honours' attached to it: I don't need anyone to tell me what reliable sources consist of. (I have few enough useful talents without people undermining this one, dammit. :))
In. Any. Case. Governments created centralised social welfare as a reaction to well-recognised social problems. It's not like everyone suddenly got soft and started 'living off the nanny state'. Depending on your interpretation of these events, either governments became afraid of working-class violence and gave the people a sop to stop them revolting, or they were beneficent leaders who redistributed wealth out of the kindness of their hearts. Whichever way you look at it, the problems *clearly existed*.
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