Category: News and Views
Now that I've been on the Zone awhile, my first real venture into the so-called 'blind community', I have found something oxymoronic to gargantuan proportions:
A large percentage of the population here seems to be conservative, and much of that same large percentage of the population is also on public support of some sort. Now, this isn't unheard of elsewhere, I know a few people who aren't blind who also exemplify this. And what I'm gonna say here I've said to them as well.
So, since many people today never had mothers who said 'If the shoe fits, wear it!' I'll help the disadvantaged shoe-fits-wear-it-disabled among us by saying:
a. if you're not conservative this isn't about you.
b. If you are a conservative and you are not consuming public resources, aka, taking benefits, this isn't about you.
c. If you're one of the growing numbers of independents or otherwise not associated with the Modern Right, this isn't about you.
There now, been all inclusive now and done the thenthitive thing / accomodated the shoe-fits-wear-it-dsabled: Here is the real deal and I really do wanta know.
So, 'splain this one to me:
First: You call yourselves conservatives: A conservative, in the U.S. means you are generally opposed to government-sponsored social programs of any sort. Note I said government-sponsored. What charities do in the private sector any reasonable conservative leaves alone.
So, you oppose nationally regulated health care, the Obama bill which approximates the modern health care systems of Asia, not Canada or Western Europe. And unlike most of us, you get assistance from, drum roll please, government-sponsored health care known as MedicAid. You oppose socia programs, yet a social program probably bought you your reader, maybe even your computer, and another one pays your light bill, and yet another one pays for your food stamps. But yet you can breathe rabid against social programs like nobody's business.
Do you realize what an insignificant hen-shit-on-a-pumphouse-minority we are? When was the last time you even spoke with, in person, another blind person? I don't mean if you live together. I mean randomly running into one. We're not that numerous, now, are we? And yet, all these benefits are enough to make any conservative in Congress wanta slash and burn. Know why? Not because they supposedly hate you: no, that's just leftist rhetoric almost as silly as your own. They would gladly take all your benefits away, because it's likely they have never even seen more than one or two of us: granted we are not the most visible or identifiable population except for the cane, but still: a lot of money for a very very small segment of the population: one of the least populated segments there is.
You go on about gays? They're some of the highest income-generating people we have: from a purely market perspective they're great. They tend to have a ridiculously low crime rate, high job performance, etc.
If they ever home in on you, for real I mean, not just the attempts of every republican administration to limit NLS funding, your advocacy organizations will have no chance to defeat them. At the heart of quality conservatism is a resource-protectionist mentality: "What's mine is mine," best described in lurid detail by Anton LaVey in his most infamous works of the 1960s.
Again, not because they're evil, but because to lose resources is to lose everything important to a strictly capitalistic system.
The free market, to an ideological conservative, is not simply a system or a machine like it is to many of the rest of us: it's a god. And anyone, that includes you, taking public benefits, are not an inconvenience. You doing so is an offense to their god.
Why is the market a god to them? Quite simply: a deity can do no wrong, at least in a monotheistic sense. And, to conservatives, allowing free markets to manage everything completely unregulated is the ideal system: the market can, in fact, do no wrong. It is their answer for everything, and taxation, being a market inhibitor, especially taxation of the top 2% of the population, is a grave injustice.
Continuing, sorry thisis so long it's a conglomeration of my notes over the past who knows how long since I've been here.
Now, you might say, if we're such an insignificantly small minority, why would they bother with us?
Well: Why did they bother with NPR? NPR takes very little funcing from the government, tends to be represented by academic elite, and except for Sesame Street and similar programs, is largely unknown to the population.
Well, conservatives have twice taken the axe to it, even though it amounted to little more than $5 million in savings, because there is a lot of market benefit, when your market is voters wanting to protect their personal resources. Show that you can eliminate worthless spending on elitist programming, even in this most recent episode falsify a sting which I bet got plenty of you all up in arms, an exec at NPR supposedly saying he supported terrorists, and you add yet another notch in your belt.
And you think resource protectionism isn't natural? That everybody, every single person, doesn't do it? You'd be wrong. Who didn't watch the popular "Fleecing Of America" segments on NBC in the 90s? Trust me: the elitist leftists with their noses in the air watched it too, although they wouldn't deign to tell you they enjoyed it and got riled up, every bit as much as you did.
the people you rabidly support are the least discriminative people alive: Anyone and anything that gets in the way of their accumulation and maintenance of resources will be despatched. And, part of that anyone is you, if you take any public benefits no matter how much you rail on about entitlements. And you, if you take public assistance for your health care, no matter how much you rail on about Obama's plans which would provide some modicum of relief to middle to small-sized employers and working people. You aren't NPR: You're not, as NPR is, supported by huge corporate conglomerates, no matter how much they paint themselves as the modicum of anti-corporate mentality. Just who do you think ADM is?
And this has begun to affect us. The Blind Vendors program has come under some criticism for some rather compelling reasons. First, very few of the operations, they call them 'units', are economically self-sustaining. I was not economically self-sustaining, ever, no matter what agency words were used for success. As I told the woman in charge, I'm totally results-oriented, and like many other business people, can't see past the bottom line with a good pair of field glasses: Profits were scant. At least I profited, but I failed in doing what it was I set out to do: sustain my family with it. I had to take, you guessed it, public assistance, in order to make it. In order to get that public assistance, I had to use a loophole which declared all my efforts with some sort of elongated expression which means it isn't work. My ass! I busted my hump six days a week plus all the bookwork.
But, as the conservatives in government rightly put it, it was in fact double dipping, a practice they wish to eliminate. You know what? They'll be successful at it, too. I couldn't help but agree with them, too: from a purely market perspective it is unsustainable. Sustainable means the person running the place isn't sucking at the public tit at the same time. While I'm no rabid conservative, I'm more an independent, I felt the fool for participating in such incompetence, but as we all know as blind people, options are limited when we lose work. We can't go down to the grocery store or the cab company and pick up a job. But if you're conservative, that doesn't matter: you see a very small population double dipping at times, consuming a lot of public resources, laws that prohibit free markets from trading in government buildings. Could McDonalds or 7/11 yield better prices to the consumer, and pay the building a better share? Probably: as huge corporte conglomerates their abilities to get materials at drastically cheaper prices is without question.
You're a conservative and love Walmart? You can't do that and with any modicum of sense support the Blind Vending operations, which have an inarguably failing system: people who failed to sustain units were often, for what was called rehabilitation purposes, granted better establishments, while more capable, or 'independent' as they called it, people like myself and several others I knew, were left with the most difficult yields because we could manage the situations there and keep them running. And we did, yes, in the black, several of us. It is everything the anti-communist mentality speaks of: they need not travel to a foreign country to find it. And with all this, many of you consume public resources, and yet call yourselves conservatives.
Your advocacy organizations won't stand a chance. Closer to the vest of every human alive than anything else, is the protection of their own personal resources. Boy oh boy, Mr. Glen Beck and Bill O'Reilly are gonna have themselves a field day when they discover how much money iss spent on blind-related benefits, the disproportionately high numbers of able-bodied blind who are unemployed, the amount of federal money going to agencies for the blind alone. They're not gonna listen to anything about discrimination and everything else that's talked about on here. As I said, they're some of the least discriminative people alive. Anything that tries to take what is theirs gets bitten, and hard. You are an affront to their god, a potential thief of their resources, in their minds. It isn't personal: it's less than human. Every being alive protects its resources, something that's fun to remind the loony left of at times, but the Right who are much more successful with markets than is any other political movement, has successfully harnessed this basic instinctive need to unprecedented levels. So if you are both a part of it, and you do everything you possibly can to defy their primary tenets and violate their god by consuming their resources, That really takes oxymoron to gargantuan new levels.
And when they do decide to cut off your funding, the churches and other institutions funded by them will most profoundly support it as an effort to free up resources for the maximum number of people, in other words, allow the most people to hold on to their own personal resources.
So, rabidly complain about the health care bill while visiting the doctor on the public dime, rabidly complain about people taking benefits while you get a check from the government once a month, keep at it: perhaps you'll feel better, who knows. However, without some semblance of an explanation for this huge discrepancy, it's really hard for anyone to take you seriously.
Out here, in the late 70s, we had Sierra Club members talking up the environment while leaving litter after their conferences. Today we have people driving gas guzzlers with Save the Environment on the bumper sticker. They've never given any semblance of explanation for this. Perhaps you being the exception can do so. After all, this is America, and in America, everybody thinks they are the exception.
Hi, Leo. I'm going to have to really digest all the things you said, so this is going to be a very short response, with one of more detail later on.
Yes, I realize the difficulties of being a blind conservative who takes public benefits at the same time. It is a hard place to be in. I am grateful for those benefits, and yet, I wish I did not need them. I wish I didn't have to be on them, that I could become gainfully employed and say bye bye to said benefits. I understand why the government needs to curb it's spending, given our debt, but it is scary to think of exactly what they're going to cut.
All I can say, with so short of time to digest this, is one thing. It's an ego smasher to live on these benefits, especially having the beliefs I do. But I have been seeking gainful employment , and I will continue to do so. I do desire to be a productive, tax-paying member of society. Yet, if that same society, government, and so on, will not hire me, will not see my capabilities, then they can support me. If they would get past their stereotypes and give me a fair shake in the job world, I would gladly be one who would terminate such benefits immediately.
That's all for now, but will come back with something more in-depth later.
Isn't it possible most people on benefit think exactly like you do? I for one think the notion people who are on benefits want to be there is silly: I've heard countless versions of what you said, and, frankly , find it totally believable.
If it's true of you, why not of everybody else on the benefit system? I used the SSDI for a year and it was difficult to get on to, no lazy person's attempt I can tell you, several hours work doing an online form and getting tax information together to verify income. I had to keep a spreadsheet to show how money doled out for my daughter's benefit was being spent. Somewhat a tiresome task, but one I thought phiscoly responsible, and totally understood.
I think you and your attitude towards being on benefits is probably the norm rather than the exception, and it is in fact an ego smasher. Nobody would voluntarily put themselves there, which is precisely one problem I have with the current Right.
Made up stories of long lines of eager mouths waiting for benefit: It is a troublesome, tedious proposition not to mention, as you said, gut-wrenching. Consequently, a path-of-least-resistance type would not take such a path.
There can be a discrepency between one's political beliefs and one's own personal situation.
In fact being conservative can mean both things, holding some sort of political idealism but also protecting one's own resources.
In other words, if I lost a finger due to some accident that I could blame Macdonnald's for, I would sue them for 800 million dollars due to lost work potential, even if I believe it worth may be $2000 a month for life (and even that is generous).
I think bank executives should be ashamed of themselves to high heavens, but if someone offerred me a 5 million dollar bonus, even if I did badly, would I say no, would any of you say no, really no .. I know everyone likes to be idealistic and perfect and would claim they'd never accept such an abomination, but when faced with a sum of 5 million dollars .. I doubt many of you would refuse it nor, quite fraknly, should you. It is up to the offering party to review your performance and decide on the reawards, it should not be part of your job to decide whether ot nor to accept what's been given you.
There's always a double standard with conservatives I have listened to. They want lower taxes, yet when services that affect them are slashed the outrage is tangible, when car dealerships were closing in Texas the owners got all up in arms about it and said the government should do something . and this in one of the most converstive state in America.
No one, not even the blind person on medicare, seems to even listen to the argument that healthcare here is up to 4 times as expensive as in Europe and yet barely in the top 30 healthcare plans in the world. For some reason the converstives have convinced people (blind or not) that some committee of government employees deciding on the type of treatment you get for a disease is the most evil thing since blue cheese, but it is ok when your insurance company refuses to pay or sends your debt off to a collection agency and then refuses to discuss the matter, even if the reason they sent it to the agency in the first place was that the insurance company did not get your address written down correctly, despite you correcting it 5 times when you called them (this is from a personal experience and no exaggeration).
When you are referred to services they could be outside of an insurance company's network, so they happily collect $700 a month from you and your employer, and then refuse to pay a dime because the provider of said service was not on their approved list of providers.
The amount of money that one could save by taking an objective look at the healthcare system, and improving the system in the process, is no small pennies, but the drug companies have hired their politicians and people fall for the slogans, every time.
If you want to see real employment ane education data for blind people you can head over to www.disabilitystatistics.org ... we have up to 60% unemployment, our high school graduation is on par with the general population, but our university graduation rate is 12% vs over 30% for the general population. If you couple that with our inability to do physical jobs our employment outlook is bleak. The key would be better education support and better accessibility, but those are social programs that fall under social spending, better to hire a reader to try and help you and then blam eyou when you fail at it (not my experience,fortunately, I have always succeeded academically, but it hasn't always been easy).
I think social security is a good thing but I think the first thing to be slashed are exceissve bonuses and increased tax on banking, after all tax payers bailed out the banking system for tens of billions of dollars, and yet the top guys who brought those organizations down are getting 7 figure bonuses, even the Transocean executives, responsible for the oil gir explotions got bonuses.
Then tax the top 2% of people ruthlessly, no one needsmore than 2 million dollars a year (heck, no one needs more than 500000 dollars a year), and when people can afford to hire special taxis and order special steaks and hotel rooms for their pet dogs, they can afford to pay higher taxes. Tax break for the richest has been extended, and somehow people suppot this absolutely crazy notion.
Less money on the armed forces would not be out of the question, less involvement in world politics perhaps, it has not been overly successful in many places, and perhaps a rethink of strategy would not be out of place, the pen can really be mightier than the sword sometimes.
How much money is actually spent on social programs and services for the blind? While it may be high on a per person basis I would be surprised if it could even come with in two percent of the funding given to general medicare or the military.
That is true: but NPR's situation has certainly proven that the real numbers don't matter that much to ideological conservatives. The money allegedly saved amounted to $5 million in 1995, a scant drop in the budget. It was all in the perception.
Wildebrew, you're right of course about the discrepancy.
What is amazing to me, is, as you said, the way people talk about wanting to cut this or cut that, but their particular situation is always the exception. I think the health care bill is a great example of this. The people who argued against it most were either in the top 2% or the people at the bottom already being compensated and who never had the experiences with private insurance carriers that you or I have.
And when you do have to go and take public benefits, wouldn't that change your outlook? When you do have to enroll in a government job program that may or may not work, wouldn't that by definition change how you think about the issues surrounding it?
I held more conservative beliefs as a young 20 something, something akin to the Young Republicans of the 1980s, though more libertarian. However, you live a little, you see what happens to family and even yourself, I guess I'd have thought one's beliefs would morph to match the reality he or she now understands, if beliefs are at all meaningful. For me to hang on to supply-side economics, Reagan-style trickle-down, with the knowledge I have now, would be as meaningless as if I tried to Pretend the tooth fairy existed, and really try to convince myself of it. Because I actually know differently based on additional research and experience.
And, for what it's worth, I have read many supply-side economics texts, as well as Adam Smith and others.
So as it relates to this thread: I thought one thing regarding people on benefits, then I myself had to take benefits, not because I was lazy, but because I had no alternative without committing child neglect.
Now, being a reasonable guy of average intelligence, would I not be compelled to rethink my beliefs? If this taking of benefits is hard for me, why wouldn't it be hard for other people? Does this at all look like something a lazy person could accomplish very well? If I had the alternative, wouldn't it just be easier to go down to the local grocery store and get a job?
So, beliefs ran into reality, and being a reasonable guy, the beliefs had to bend to reality as it is, not as I thought it was.
Similarly, watching the growth of global markets since the mid 1990s, watching the flow of capital, watching what happened to small businesses trying to compete with Walmart, what could I say? That trickle-down works? Not unless I had an outcome-based education where 2+2 = whatever I believe it equals.
Struggling with insurance companies, having a brother who would be dead in weeks if it weren't for public funding, etc.: How can I claim our current system works? Again, beliefs have to bend to reality, or they're completely meaningless. It wouldn't do any good for me to believe something I knew intellectually to be total and complete bunk, no matter how much I thought it when I was younger.
I have no problem with blind people taking benefits, and I have no problem with blind people being conservatives to the core, resenting people who take benefits. But to be both of them at once?
Supply-side economics views nonproductive members of society as parasitic: it doesn't care if some of us have what we call discrimination or access difficulties. In a truly conservative, free market sense, those issues only matter if the market cqan answer them.
By way of example: I remember Rush Limbaugh in the early 1990s having responded to a mother of a child with medical issues which required them to get government assistance. His response, though some thought it really radical, was mainstream conservative: health care isn't a right, and that's too bad. Everyone from your local Elks club to your local church lined up behind that one, not because it was some right fringe thing as some made it out, but it is basic to standard conservatism.
I remember accepting it: I was 22 years old, and although I didn't accept it with the rabid fervor of the zealous Christian Right people without intellect, I abjectly accepted it as a technicality - it's not a right, because it's a market commodity. Health care is nothing more than another exchange of a combination of goods and services on the free market.
To these same people, accessibility isn't a right either. To them, we don't have the right, if you will, to compete on the same playing field, unless we can without any additional modifications to do so. The exception to this is iff we arrive with all modifications in place, paid for by ourselves, and no inconvenience to the marketplace / no interruptions to the uninhibited transfer of goods and services.
So the real question is: if you are blind, and you are conservative, you would have to come up with a very compelling reason why you are the exception. If health care is just a commodity on the free market for a mother with a disabled son needing round-the-clock care, is it not a market commodity for you?
True supply-side economics bears no more exception than does gravity.
For me, as a blind guy, I didn't see myself as some exception: the premises that made up that particular ideology are simply not as sustainable as I had formerly thought. Either that or beliefs / ideology would simply cease to have any meaning whatsoever.
I imagine there are others like Sister Dawn who are embarrassed to be receiving benefits. But there are others who feel themselves entitled. The 23rd I'm going to be stuck in my nice since November corner with one of those entitled. This idiot brought herself a mail order husband from her native Dominican Republic and had a baby & shotgun wedding with him. Everyone on staff laughed at her saying "a 19 year old husband w/o an ability to speak English or GED? She'll be on welfare." Sure enough she's getting food assistance for the unaffordable baby, but she's able to afford a car when she lives near a bus line. Great, I'm going to work to pay for the family's food while they pay for a car, the state's excise tax, insurance, gas, maintenance. Oh, gee do you suppose if they took our employer up on the public transit pass they might be able to afford food? Now I don't get any benefits, but I understand blind conservatives being embarassed to take 'em for lack of work, yet having to support types like Maria.
As far as gays Ill deal with 'em as human beings but must their every desire be in my face? We even have gay bowling leagues & yoga studios here.
Sorry I got distracted by a phone call & had to log in after my response yesterday, which means it all got deleted. Any way gays want to be part of society, yet have their own separate stuff? Even fun stuff has to be separate? Can't have it both ways. Also some advocates of glbt are blind to reality. For example a public health clinic that serves 'em came right out and said in the paper that gay males make up 63% of new HIV % cases. That's 37% other description, but 63% is still a majority, and I got flamed by a bunch of women "offended" that I am uncomfortable with this group as blood donors. I guess the public health department offends 'em too.
The "health reform" most folks just don't want, and I thought that was what representative democracy was about, not a tyranny of the minority. Where I live conservative then governor Mitt Romney signed 'universal health' as the law here, and it's a disaster. Expansion of the Medicaid pool has left folks with insurance but no doctor as many physicians don't accept Medicaid, as it's a big chunk out of their pockets. Turns out 89% of MA residents were insured, now 98% are. Excuse me, legislation passed when the majority of people here are NOT uninsured, but to cover the needs of 11%, and they don't even want 'universal health', whether Euro, Canadian, or Asian style? Our 'override pool', for those who say they can't afford coverage, has billed services for dead folks; college students already on a parent's plan; wealthy folks who are a long way from not being able to pay; vasectomies for female patients, hysterectomies for males, it is just a scam. Better post this before I get thrown out again.
Supply side economics does not take into account the simple fact that the richer you are, the better accountants and lawyers you can afford, who will help you hide the additional benefits abroad, in a charitable organiation or by buying up an unsuccessful company, whose losses you can write off on your income statement. This is one of the reasons successful companies have branched out into too many industries (such as G.E. for instance).
Same with ccommunism, wouldn't it be nice if we were all honest, and all equal, and no one had to worry .. it runs straight into the stone wall that is human nature, those in power will become a little bit more equal than the rest and create a privelleged class that assumes near abslute control of the masses in the name of the ideal that they have, themselves, forsaken a long time ago.
All these theories conveniently forget about human nature or generously assume that human nature is not selfish and greedy, but it is.
How would someone on benefits acquire a vehicle? To get one, unless you have cash, you have to go through very profitable banks, who only take your loan if the credit to income ratio is sufficient to make you a good investment. It's stories like the car incident above, when I myself have gone out and purchased vehicles and am well aware of the credit approval process, that have made me skeptical of some of the rhetoric. If there is an explanation of how they did it, that would unskeptify me. Grammarians I know that wasn't a word.
I've heard tales of people on benefits fleecing us by buying cars and houses. I have no doubt some are fleecing, there are fleecers everywhere. But cars and houses? How? That's all I ask. Financial institutions can only loan to borrowers who have the ability to pay it back.
I have read Leo's very lengthy, rambling post and there's nothing in it that I and other conservatives haven't heard before. At the core of it is yet another person who is not a conservative trying to define what conservatism is. In doing so, Leo employs the same standard rhetoric so common to liberal arguments. Conservatives are against benefits. Conservatives are hypocrites if they take benefits. Conservatives are against the poor. Bla bla bla.
First, it should be obvious by this time that I am a conservative. Yes, I take government benefits. I'm on social security disability, so I worked for the benefits I now earn. I have paid and hopefully will pay taxes again, so I have put my own money into the system. There are some blind people out there who have not held down a job. Some of them enjoy being on benefits with no incentive to work. Many do not and want to find jobs. Many are frustrated at the quality of jobs they do come across. Whatever their situation, it doesn't ultimately have a bearing on their political outlook. Everyone faces contradictions in their own lives and personal philosophies. It's just the way of the world.
If I were defined solely by my blindness, perhaps I would be a liberal, or at least a left-leaning moderate. But there is much more to being a conservative than one plank in a platform. For the sake of this discussion, I'll keep the rest of my response limited to spending, since that was the main thrust of Leo's initial post.
I have never heard any conservative (celebrity or those I know personally) say that the disabled should be cut from government benefits. I don't think that and don't know anyone who does. What I and other conservatives do advocate is responsible spending and allocation of those benefits. Should social security be reformed? Absolutely! Does that mean blind people shouldn't get SS benefits? Nope. Does that mean drug addicts, illegal immigrants, ex fellons and other able-bodied members of society should not receive benefits in order that our government save money? Yep. See, I'm making a judgement there that will offend some people, but it's the kind of judgement that needs to be made for the sake of our country's financial well-being.
Should NPR continue to exist? Yep. Should they continue to receive government funding? I don't think so. The federal funding they receive is a mere drop in the bucket to them and I do think they could hustle their asses out on the street a little harder if they want that extra money, but it doesn't have to come from the taxpayer's pocket. And those bucket drops add up after time.
As for the healthcare debate, I'm not going to rehash it here and get into the question of whether or not healthcare is or is not a right. I'll just say that 85 percent of Americans currently have some form of health insurance. According to every major poll, the vast majority of Americans are mostly to completely satisfied with the insurance they have. Compare this to places like Canada, Britain and France, where universal healthcare exists but the poll numbers run against the quality of healthcare they receive.
Finally, Leo, your premise that conservatives regard the free market as, "God," is ludicrous. You're confusing conservatives with libertarians. Every conservative I know acknowledges that the American market is a mixed market economy and that some regulation is necessary to perpetuate it. The ideological clash comes when we try to decide how much regulation is too much. The exact same argument applies to government. How much is too much? This is the irreconcilable difference that will forever fuel the debate between the parties and philosophical factions.
President Obama went on the attack against Paul Ryan's budget because it calls for some deep, drastic cuts that everyone, rich and poor alike, will feel. The reality is that no one wants to get cut. We all want our piece of the pie. We're entitled, right? Hell, i don't want to go without my free talking books from Bard. But folks, do you think the majority of the American public is gonna give a merry damn about talking books for the blind when and if China recalls their debt and our economy collapses? These are questions all of us, blind and sighted alike, need to address now before we hit critical mass. No, I don't want to see benefits for the disabled cut and I don't know anyone who does. But runaway spending in perpituity cannot stand. Think about it.
In my opinion it seems like most blind people are extremely liberal and want to see hhow much they can take from their country without giving back.
To post 12, thank you you rather ansered my question.
I had to laugh sitting here you calling me a liberal, as I know more liberals who hate me than any conservatives. That's just it: I never said conservatives hate the poor. In fact, they don't hate the poor any more than the liberals supposedly love the poor with their supposed war on poverty. They hire the poor, sell to the poor, rent to the poor, buy from the poor; so one could never say they hate the poor.
I tend to agree with your stance on NPR, but as I said earlier, that corporation is already self-sustaining in part by its viewers, in part by corporate donors. My only point on that one was the financial saving was very scant, albeit one can see the justification.
You call me a liberal, while I've been called facist by several liberals I know, because I'm realistic about how markets work. I'm neither facist nor liberal, but the back and forth is at least amusing.
I was actually encouraged to see a democrat willing to cut with the budget. The problem is the proverbial they, or me, being the exception. It was a problem I had when part of the blind vendors' program, which again, was not economically sustainable.
Frankly, when it comes to regulation vs. nonregulation of markets, I look at it like you owning a car. Many on the left would keep that car up on blocks and render it completely useless, while many on the right would never change the oil, never retool the engine, never replace parts that are wearing out. It's as though to admit parts are wearing out is to admit the parts weren't good to begin with. But, even the best parts do wear out.
No matter what people on the left or the right say, in particular what you are referring to, I don't think any of this is personal. When it becomes personal is when we all become the exception, every one of us with our own set of compelling reasons.
Incredibly, when I did have to take benefits, when I did have to take benefits, it was all the same issues I raised here that I struggled with. Were I a liberal, I would not have struggled with said issues. I don't know what I would have done if I had no dependents. But, with dependents comes duty and there is where it ended.
Admittedly not the best writer on here but not inconsistent, even if thought a liberal by you and a cold impersonal facist by some leftists I've known.
As an unabashed liberal, it would be easy for me to rant and rave against blind conservatives who receive benefits as two-faced hippocrits, but that would be as unfair as the bashing I see some blind people get on Twitter from some individuals. The fact is, there are no black-and-white areas here. Sure, there's some cognitive dissonance out there, but I don't think it's as rampant as I maybe used to think. I don't know of anyone who would rather starve than receive benefits. I used to work for SSA, and I used to tell people all the time there's no shame in asking for benefits. That's what they're there for. Everybody is painfully aware that jobs aren't exactly falling out of the sky in general, and for the disabled it's even worse. So, no matter how positive your attitude, no matter how hard you try, sometimes there's just plain no choice. On the flip side, again, there are indeed blind folks out there who have zero interest in finding a job or doing much of anything else productive, but even that is nuanced a bit, in my view. After trying and trying, in some cases for years and years, to get gainful employment only to get the door slammed in your face time after time after time...well, everyone has their limit. What I'm trying to do is be less judgmental in my criticisms. Everyone is having a tough time, after all.
Leo I'm sure some of this stuff varies from state to state, but the welfare housing complexes here all have spaces, some even spaces with numbers for a car. I'm sure some of these folks have used cars, others have been sold perhaps a very used car from friends and relatives, but one in nearby Malden there were some pretty nice rides in some of the assigned spaces. As for your wondering how someone receiving benefits can buy a house I lost interest in buying any property, but at one time I gave it some thought. My mom used to sell real estate so knew of a homebuyer's guide that is federally issued, not a state only one, and I read a little of this guide before losing interest in ownership, and I swear it states applicants can't be discriminated against in applying for a homebuyer's loan if they're on some kind of public assistance. Now I'm sure they can't purchase mansions in Wellesley or Brookline, but there are loans & properties they can apply for and benefits received can't be considered in approving or denying the loan.
I think welfare recipients are the same as any other group, as I told a poster on another thread. It's the most vocal, most visible minority that makes the whole group look bad. I agree with post 15 that no one should starve rather than receive assistance, but once they've qualified, say, for food assistance, if they haven't done better financially in a few years, should the rest of us really be stuck paying for an additional child? Shouldn't they at least have to prove they're looking for work to get benefits, at least part time if there's a child involved? Maybe no more than 20 hours a week? I'm aware the economy hasn't been at its best, but IMO folks receiving benefits...except the disabled who really can't be trained to do much in the way of work...should at least have to show they're applying in person, talking on the phone, making some kind of a work search. One example who comes to mind is one of the local middle aged guys. He has been a paraplegic since 12, the result of being hit by a car while on his bike. Now there are those who would wonder if he could be trained to do something like call center work. Such a fall most likely involved a head injury as this man's speech is severely impaired. Tommy would be very difficult to train to do a # of jobs, and my heart goes out to such people needing assistance to survive and provide for their basics. And as I've said some of this stuff probably varies by region but it seems like where I live it ISN'T the people unemployed or underemployed and not by choice who are struggled but that entitlement minded minority that keeps behaving in a way to make their situation worse & sticks us with the bill, and those that seem to use loopholes to qualify for stuff and you'd be amazed at what they CAN afford that tends to make me cynical about the whole system of government benefits and seriously makes me wonder if private charities would be a better solution to the truly needy.
Well in part you answered my question, and certainly you have more experience, working and living where you do. Like most people I guess I can't imagine how they pull it off so it can seem fanciful.
And, as I said earlier, I'm not judgmental of people between jobs taking benefits, or I would first have to start with myself a few years ago. Just being in that situation caused me to re-evaluate things. I even look at stores and food service operations differently now that I have operated several.
On bratfree, an online child free community, someone posted potential legislation in Arizona that seemed reasonable. Apparently folks pull off stuff like car loans & luxury purchases while receiving benefits there, so it sounded pretty reasonable, but I've run a google on it and can't find anything to see if the proposal was shot down or what.
The legislator proposed an audit including 1800 # to dial to report certain abuses. For example, if a recipient had a cell phone only, fine, but in addition to a land line? They lose certain benefits. Food benefits could be stopped if recipients used cash to buy tobacco and/or alcohol after using their EBT cards to pay for groceries. Basic cable, fine, certain channels that cost more to add like HBO? No way. A car over a certain financial value? You've lost certain benefits. My guess is Arizona is limited on options for public transportation maybe bus only so a used car OK but over a certain financial value, no, you've disqualified yourself for certain benefits.
You'd die laughing or maybe bang your head against the wall if you lived here over some of these folks' antics. The losing candidate for Governor here, conservative Charlie Baker, actually held a cabinet post when the Electronic Benefit Card or EBT was created to put food stamp & WIC bennies on a credit card. It was recently exposed that these cards were being used to pay for trips to Chucky Cheese; underwear at Victoria Secret; trips to tanning salons, any number of things. A letter to the editor put it much better than I could: "Now I'm all for the welfare program to buy food. If you're in need the state will help you to eat, but it shouldn't be paying for luxuries. Why are non grocery stores even allowed to accept EBT as payment?" Very well put. I certainly don't want anyone to go without a roof over their head or basics, but there really needs to be more auditing of who gets government benefits and more restrictions on 'em, like hey if your application is approved you and however many kids you have at that time will be covered, but should you choose to expand the size of your family the size of your benefits will not be expanded to cover the new member. I wonder how many more times I'd come accross the diagnosis code for contraceptive management if such legislation were enacted.
Hmm all of that sounds very reasonable, as one who was in fact on benefit. Now, at the time we owned a eight-year-old vehicle and I wouldn't have wanted to sell it: at the time we lived in a particular neighborhood which afforded me to walk to some of my suppliers and bus to the stores I ran, but I would not have wanted to been forced to move. In large part because our daughter was in a good school and we did everything to keep her there.
We did all get cell phones so we could see she was off at school: both my wife and I were usually at work when she got up, etc. I would not have wanted any of that removed.
But the benefit certainly wasn't used, and shouldn't have been used, for non-necessities, especially in light of the long lines waiting to even get any, and foremost, the responsibility to the sponsors: the taxpayers.
So I bought my beer and cigars from profits from my own stores, when I got any profits, and similar luxuries were dealt with that way.
I think if Arizona or any state has a management law such as you describe, that is totally rsponsible.
And, as a store, I was expressly forbidden from accepting any sort of food stamp for anything that wasn't food, medication like aspirin, or I think toiletries. We were not eligible for that particular program, so I have no idea what it is like on that end, only on the supplier end. No cigarettes, tobacco or anything else, or the food stamp people would not send a check for the cost of the purchaser's item.
Another of my targets in an audit would be 1) passport, and 2) satellite dishes. Yearly passport audits would be seeking a stamp of an overseas trip. Even if recipient could show someone else paid for the trip or the dish, the benefits are U S issue and spending weeks or months in the old country as well as watching satellite programs from there aren't going to help you integrate here, kind of along the lines of taking advantage of American benefits while declaring allegiance elsewhere...anyone having a satellite dish or passport that's been stamped that year can't receive benefits.
Interesting since this topic came up I remembered one of those 'conservatives' taking benefits down in Florida. Ruth was Christian conservative, too, yet felt no shame taking AFDC while one husband was in prison. She claimed she worked & used day care, but the kids cried about it so she asked to be put back on cash assistance. One sperm donor she didn't marry for 'personal reasons'. Um, doesn't Christianity teach no sex outside of marriage? She also felt no shame in moving up north to Minnesota for a higher cash payout and liked her northern friends better than southern, but evidently wasn't employable in those parts & she could always get day care jobs down south, so there she was. Also felt no shame in her daughter getting handouts, including Medicaid taxi service, so said daughter could keep second out of wedlock child. I've known my share of men in the taxi business, and they HATE getting vouchers for rides, whether welfare or corporate as the owner of the cab pockets the money and they don't make a plug dime out of giving the voucher holders a ride. I guess hypocrites abound everywhere and under every title.
actually, I think the blind comunity has more liberals then conservatives, so that's false that there are more conservatives.
also, stop asuming ideas and then tell us to connect the dots, because a lot of it is not true.
I also disagree with feeling bad, I am an extreme right winger, I believe in reagan, perry, and all those far right wingers, yet I take social security, and don't feel guilty. there's no need, I certainly don't want to be on it if I don't have to, but there's no shame. Better me, who's going to take your money and is in a training program for a job, aka college, and then come out and be a top tear contributor to the free market, so it's worth it, it's called paying it forward. I agree with the conservatives who say, you can obtain benefits as long as you're doing something about your life, trying to train for a job or is working but can't make ends meet if that's the need and if government has the resources. lets face it, we don't live the laizez-faire life, because in a true system of capitalism, you won't need these programs. why? everyone is working, things will be quite affordable, people will want to help because they are keeping all of what they earn, and spending money on whatever they want, and not dictated by the government and have less to give up to the government, because most likely there will be very little that you'll need to give to the government. As long as the government is giving out benefits to those who are training for a job, or is working and still can't make ends meet it is okay to take as long as you're giving back. but, we should also try to abolish it, cut government, and make things affordable, and when it's cut, it's not okay to take, or reinstate the programs. also, the code has to change, and if the government takes up the fairtax and stuff, you literally won't have to have these programs and also never be taxed for necessary supplies.
We only need these things really because life is so expensive, the government takes up too much money, and space in the country that it makes people unable to lower their own prices. So with social security cuts we will have to cut the whole department, and other stuff too and leave more of that to the private sector. But, cutting the social security administrations, medicade offices, and all the welfare programs is already cutting a lot of things and will amount up to a lot of dollars yet not be enough. It will help though, that means people will be paying less tax dollars for things that isn’t the governments business. This way they get to keep more, and more money for the people means more jobs, more willingness to help, happier people, and many other things. Essentially, you’re giving the spending power back to the people. Also, the department of education should be another thing to go and everything else except for defense, and keeping law and order in this country, which means cutting massive amounts, which means lots of taxes people don’t have to pay, which means more money for people.
It's a complex idea, but it works. and not everyone is the same conservative wise, so don't lump conservatives in to one group. not everyone believes in the pay it forward or the fairtax idea. And, some of us are capitalists, and you'll find that some aren't really. So, no, we don't all love on capitalism but, I do. and some of us are more moderate then others.
But that’s basically, how it would all work,but, yes, if you’re not working, actively and very actively looking for a job, studying, or in a training program, then you shouldn’t get these benefits when they still exist and are needed,
What you seem to be saying is, SSI or SDI is okay for me, but not anyone else.
Have you ever been out of work with a family to feed? Believe me, I have. I took everything the government offered, and still went to bed every night afraid and ashamed. But I took it and was glad to get it.
We have tried laisé fair capitalism for thirty years, and what do we have to show for it? No middle class. In the past employers paid employees a decent wage so they could turn around and buy, thus bolstering the economy.
Now no one is buying except the fat cats who broke the system to begin with. Oh yes, and the politicians the fat cats bought to do their bidding.
Sure the government is inefficient and burocratic, but it's the only thing standing between us and the jungle. And you say you want the jungle.
No Thanks! I think we're much better than that.
Bob
Okay this is the way I see it. It is the way I have always seen it:
Conservative blind people? Can we say oxymoron? Look at the conservatives and see what they have to say. Now think of us, the blind. We are a minority, like it or not. Generally, conservatives don't pay much attention to minorities. So why oh why are so many blind people conservative? I'm going to put this on the list of things I do not understand.
I see a lot of people here trying to pass opinions as facts.
I also agree with Margorp. the idea that someone is taking benefits yet at the same time votes for a party that wants to remove those benefits is an oxymoron.
i will never understand why so many people choose to vote against their best interests.
Maybe that is the cool thing to do today.
@Margorp just don't blame your not understanding on lack of experience ... plenty of the rest of us don't get it either.
I tend to agree with Bob these days. With a strange twist on the 'why me' approach:
I had to take benefits for a year. Not because I was lazy but because I needed to feed my family while out of work.
Question is, was, and shall remain: Why me? Why would I be different from many other Americans?
If I needed to take these, against my own personal pride, would this not also be the case for many other hardworking people? Granted, I had paid into the system for years before then and since. However, wouldn't this be obviously true for many other hardworking people who fall on hard times?
It's precisely because I know myself to be just an average American to have the sense to have changed my thinking on this issue over the years. If I did not, I would count myself some member of a special elite, the very thing conservatives usually complain about minorities doing.
@Margorp you're right, what they're doing has become wildly popular. It is, in fact, the latest 'in' thing.
Maybe they get told all the cool kids are dittoheads, or they tried liberalism and they got rejected or let down or the cool guys/chicks didn't want them, who knows.
Well Godzilla, you're right, liberalism is not cool here in Texas. I'm nearly the only one I know. <lol>
Bob
At godzilla:
Yes, many conservatives did try it, hense the neocons. :)
at leo:
I guess the bottom line is that you've gotta do what you've gotta do.
I do happen to be one of those people against taking public benefits while lounging in your parents' home doing nothing all your life. however, it seems that some people are very quick to lump far too many people into that group when really they're not as common as you would think.
You all are right about the cool kids factor. Unabashedly so in fact.
You're right Margorp, I did do what I had to do, but as an average American, I just don't think I'm any different from hundreds of thousands of others, hence my whole perspective on the benefits issue has radically changed.
Except on some TV Sit-coms, I don't think you see very many people taking benefits and living at home with mom and dad. As funny, revolting, and ridiculous as it looks on TV, it's just not that common. Do any of you actually know one? For real? In real life? Not know someone who knows some who knows someone ...
I admit, I'm reasonably well traveled, I'd like to think myself to have seen as much as the next guy, and I have not known anyone like that. The older I get, the more I find the whole idea a foolish fantasy made to make an already-bad situation look like the fault of the middle-class or lower-class person who fell on hard times.
If Americans were so lazy as the Right would have you believe, why do we have such efficient infrastructure and systems? This is all crock made up by people in the social sciences who have probably never measured or built anything to standard in their whole lives. So the logical ddissonance there wouldn't mean a thing to them, any more than algebra means anything to a dog.
But to the rest of us, once you've had to use the system, it would follow any number of other hardworking person just like yourself may have to use the system at one point or another. It would also follow that either you are the exception, something I personally can't see myself, or that there are times when it is prudent for people to need this type of assistance.
If they don't have it, local economies who wish to sell them food, rent them housing, etc., will be affected by this, not just the person in question. It's not difficult to think through, if you can think in the first place.
i am currently receiving public benefits and I don't feel guilty about it; I'm going to college full time and studying really hard so that I can get a good job and earn my own money someday. It is a temporary situation, i certainly don't want to be on them forever. I hope to someday have a successful career and start my own business so that I can earn money as well as contribute to society and help others.
Leo:
Yes, I have come across such propaganda but I must admit it seems to be only that. I think people use it as a motivator. I.E, "do you want to be sitting home all your life collecting benifits?" It is laughable.
I am interested in a stat that one of the earlier poster had stated. the stat of how 85% of all americans have some sort of bennifits. I would like to know where they got this stat from since I know way to many individuals, families who are lacking in any form of bennifits.
In regards to getting social security, I feel those who receive them, and call themselves conservatives is quite oxymoronish to say the least but this is just my opinion. I agree with brew, spending on armed forces is unjustified and needs to be altered.
I too, would like to know where that statistic comes from.
I think the statistic you are talking about was post 12 by "the equalizer" which is a funny name for a conservative.
What he said was: "As for the healthcare debate, I'm not going to rehash it here and get into the question of whether or not healthcare is or is not a right. I'll just say
that 85 percent of Americans currently have some form of health insurance."
This was the only quoteI saw that might be the quote that margorp and dark emperor were talking about.
Just my opinion.
Bob
So it was pulled out of thin air. Well far be it from me to question the authority of the thin air. After all I need it to survive.