In the last 20 years, I have only obtained one certificate from a public institution and the all other schooling has been purposefully from private schools. I can't stand public schools.
In the last 20 years, I have reimbursed the government through private contributions back to hospitals etc. for all medical visits and expenses incurred.
I will be giving the senior pensions cheque I will receive in the future to the government bank account that is meant to pay off our government debt.
Well, I give you credit for living by your principles.
I wish corporations and banks would do the same instead of sucking up so much public money that it can't be used for the people who provide it.
I consider public highways and transit to be part of infrastructure and not necessarily having to do with moral issues. Schooling and medical issues are moral issues in almost every sense of the word. I pay faithfully for a transit pass and if it is stolen, I buy another one.
Nice how you cherry-pick what is and is not moral according to what you can provide for yourself and what you can't.
btw--your transit pass is probably subsidized. Transit fares don't pay the full cost of public transit.
And why are you using public transit at all?
With your principles you should be using a taxi or a bicycle.
Of course, even then, you are using roads built with public funds.
As I see it, everything in a budget is a moral issue. Whether it is a personal, a corporate or a government budget.
We need the church, but we also need our families and many of these people have families who can help them.
Problem is, most welfare systems are set up so that families are discouraged from helping. Remember the case I told you about where Grandma's Sunday dinners were deducted from the welfare cheque that her daughter and grandchildren were depending on?
My father was in a similar situation when my sister and her three children needed help. Of course he wanted to help them, but he certainly did not have the means to provide all the support they needed. All he could contribute was a temporary rent-free place to stay (his own home). But he couldn't come up with what was needed for food, clothing, transportation, etc.
Most families are in a similar bind. They want to help as much as they are able, but they are not able to provide all that is necessary.
So what do the laws require? That any contribution the family makes is deducted from the recipient's cheque.
How do you think that makes a family feel? Their help is not allowed to help!!! The person they want to help is left in the same situation as if the family were providing nothing.
It is only good sense in that case not to waste the family's money, since it does not contribute to bettering a person's situation.
Such stupid regulations also encourage dishonesty since any help one does supply has to be hidden from the case worker and could result in a fraud charge.
We also need jobs.
We need jobs that pay a living wage. Most adults on welfare assistance already have jobs. People with jobs should not need public assistance, but as long as employers underpay them, as long as minimum wages are pegged too low, and as long as people like you act to depress wages, hard-working people putting in over 80 hours a week (assuming two adults on minimum wage) still can't make ends meet.
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Then why are you a social worker?
I'm not and never have been. You may be confusing me with rambot. Looks like he works with Children's Aid.
Try to think of a relative who is living at a low-income level. Think of a relative that you wouldn't dare to ask money from because you know that they need the money for themselves. Ask yourself if you have any pride in your heart for not asking them for money. If you have no pride, ask yourself if you have love in your heart for them and would never do anything to hurt them. I'm sure you have the latter. If you don't relationships based on love, then at least in the area of stealing from your fellowman, you must have love for your fellowman, right? If you don't steal from your fellowman because you have pride that you don't need their money, isn't that a bit tenuous? I identify my emotions with love not with pride.
There is nothing wrong with having some pride in yourself.
It is when you start dissing other people and not allowing them dignity, that is when the arrogance starts showing up. You present yourself as better than them. The constant disgust you display toward people simply because they are poor is quite unChristian. When Jesus saw people like this he had compassion on them.
I would, just once, like to see a supporter of right-wing policies display a little compassion for people. It would be a breath of fresh air.
Why is it that the right constantly sees the wealthy as in more need of sympathy and compassion than the poor?
Perhaps they should read the Epistle of James
"But you have dishonoured the poor.
Is it not the rich who oppress you?
Is it not they who drag you into court?
Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?"
I understand addiction but I have read many stories and met people who were addicts and still say they are who don't give these people any excuses.
You certainly don't cure addictions by giving people excuses to continue with their addiction. But you don't cure addictions by abandoning people to back alleys to be preyed on by drug dealers either.
No, they wouldn't.
If they were following Christ's teachings, they would. Jesus would not turn from a person in distress simply because he brought it on himself. Have you never read the parable of the Prodigal Son?
And by the way, why don't those on welfare do this? I know they don't.
No, you don't know that. You may have personal knowledge of some people on assistance who don't, but there are also people on assistance who do.
This is the point. You are stereotyping thousands of individuals because of a few you may know personally. That is not right or fair. It is just as wrong to stereotype people based on their income or source of income as it is to do so on the basis of their race or nationality.
Consider some of the other stereotypes you are constantly coming back to:
1. Poor people are those who live on social assistance.
Not true. The majority of poor people do not receive any social assistance and often strive to avoid having to.
2. People on assistance don't work.
Not true. Many people on assistance do have paying jobs. The problem is not that they don't work (still less that they don't want to), but that the pay they receive is not enough to meet their needs
3. People on assistance should get it from their families.
Actually, it is a legal requirement that they seek help from their families so they have to try, even if their family will have nothing to do with them. But then there is the problem outlined above about how families who want to help feel they can do nothing significant because what they give is taken away by the system.
And in many cases, no, people don't have families they can turn to.
They get welfare and demand more and more
Did you try the Do the Math exercise I posted earlier?
When you do, you may understand why welfare rates and minimum wage rates need to be raised.
I don't think this system is transforming anyone.
Now that I agree with. Social assistance is a horrible system no person should have to undergo. Far from being transformative, it is degrading, discouraging, depressing, punitive and oppressive.
We are stuck with it until we have a different social system entirely that meets people's basic needs without a social assistance system.
Low-income housing areas of a city, where people are receiving far more from the government than the rest of us, are still the most run-down and dangerous places to be in.
Do some fact-checking. Those places are run-down and dangerous because they are not receiving more from the government than the rest of us. They are receiving much less.
I've honestly had to often work 10-12 hours a day just to break even and/or study so my efforts have been limited.
You see, you should be angry about this. I am angry about you having to work 10-12 hours a day just to break even. A century ago, laws were passed to make the 8-hour day the normal working day. Unions fought hard to get those laws passed. And an 8-hour day should not be so underpaid that you only just break even. It should pay enough that you can set aside something for retirement (pensions are another benefit unions fought for) and put a down payment on a home of your own.
My parents and grand-parents were proud of the achievements of their generation in getting a fair deal for working people. They were proud that they had made this country a better place for their children and grandchildren. If they knew that in a few decades everything they had built up was being destroyed again---that an 8-hour work day was not enough to live on any more--that even a 10-12 hour work day only allowed a person to just break even----that would break their hearts.
It is one thing for a wealthy CEO to be a workaholic and spend 60-70 hours on the job, as I have heard some do. That's stupid but it's voluntary and if he has no family life, at least he is able to provide well for his family.
But when you have no choice but to work that much just to pay rent and put food on the table---that is exploitation, that is oppression, you are being screwed by the system and you should be demanding justice.
You will never convince me of incorruption in the welfare system
No matter, for I certainly wasn't trying to do that. I am quite familiar with the corruption. I would never defend the welfare system as it is.
My concern is not about the welfare system, but about people living in poverty. I want to counter the negative stereotypes of people living in poverty; I want the poor-bashing to stop.
Only when we start thinking of the poor as people, instead of mindlessly treating them as criminals, will we start thinking of them with Christlike compassion and seeing how we can help instead of building the vicious trap of the current welfare system which helps nobody--except the very rich.
There has to be another way.
There is another way. Democratic (and I insist on the "democratic") socialism grounded in gospel values.
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