Posts by Che Tibby
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it's not as if I can't see how other people might see it differently.
indeed. the product of the discussion with colleague was an agreement that homosapiens only got to the current level of sentience because of social cooperation. without it, we'd still be on the same level as chimpanzees.
the actual issue for us thinking types is how much is too much to share without hamstringing oneself.
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you're funding the children of the poor, not the poor themselves;
it dawned on me that the dpb is in excess of the dole, therefore the children are the issue. i concede and withdraw on this point. :)
you could make a reasonable argument that in order to raise children you need both time and money
sure, and i agree. the question starts to slip into questions of values. the unemployed have more time to raise children (the working poor do not), but do i really want a society brought up thinking that the answer to resource scarcity is redistribution?
(i had this exact discussion - not argument - with a colleague this morning).
surely we want a society of individuals who "expand the pie", not just expect to be handed some of someone else's share when they find themselves in an economic bind?
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I don't think that it's necessary to assume that employers are trying to fuck people over to consider that a situation where people can be fired at will
my cousin got a job waiting tables at a restaurant in melbourne. he worked the christmas period and was then told, "things aren't working out".
there's a simple example right there. no evil involved. fairness? now there's an issue that will have to be policy-wonked.
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But honestly, with the vast buffet of humanity laid out before me
that buffet is obviously laid out on many small tables over a large space, otherwise you'd:
a. not be able to reach the centrepiece
b. take forever to get all the way round past the salads and the cold meats to the pavlova. -
Did anybody here suggest that rich people shouldn't be allowed to have children?
well, not really, but you did state
Ah, yes, children only to those who can afford to raise them
as an argument that assistance should be given to the poor.
my line slipped a little, but i'm struggling to find value in funding the poor to have more children than they can afford, when the wealthy are busy breeding like flies. like flies i tell you!
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what happens when the contraception fails, as it is bound to do as no contraception is fool-proof? and what happens in cases of sexual violence that result in pregnancy?
do these things happen often enough to base a country's social policies on them?
and i thought i lived in a country where women had the right to decide choice whether to be pregnant?
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The Children of Men wouldn't be science fiction
i actually got misty when they carried the only baby in the whole world out of a war into the awed looks of a mob of bloodthirsty killers.
that said, why should i pay for you to have more kids? what i hate about these arguments is the statement "why should only the rich have children?"
well... if they can afford them, then more power to them. being rich doesn't mean the kids will be better people than the children of the poor. or vice versa.
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heh. enjoying the devils advocate role here.
Not you: the child.
i'm not sure that separating the child and the adult conceptually helps. the family is a unit, and despite any rhetoric to the contrary the dpb isn't funding the child itself. it's provided for the support of the family.
and families decide whether to have children, or not. your choice to have children shouldn't entitle you to increased state assistance in and of itself.
Ah, yes, children only to those who can afford to raise them.
i think that's an extreme of the argument. a better line is "increasing numbers of children will force you to make your dollar stretch further, think about that before you procreate".
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it lowers your taxes if you're on Working for Families
sure, but all these types of assistance are premised on the idea that having children entitles you to increasing state assistance. remove the premise and you have a different line of reasoning, i.e. having children is something you need to be economically rational about.
which is reasonable.
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So that parent had to magically feed, clothe, educate, and raise that child with nothing?
well.. they're on nothing to begin with anyhow.
and to be honest, it's the same as a one-income family having to make the $$ go further when they have an additional child.
having a third child doesn't magically make my salary larger, so it's not entirely unreasonable to assume that the dpb should be assessed in the same way. the only real difference is that a salary is like, "a million" times bigger than the bene.