Prompted by a comment on the previous post here are a couple of thoughts expressed in a speech given to the Freedom Summit in Rotorua in 2004;
I'd hazard a guess that some welfare dependants think money is merely something the government prints at will. There is no understanding that the money they receive is the product of somebody else's efforts. Because they don't understand this, they rationally resent their relatively small share.
Those who do understand the source of their income have an attitude that the productive person's money isn't rightfully theirs because they got it by exploiting others and they have too much of it anyway. There is no end of people who see themselves as victims of some sort of injustice or unfair treatment, be it of sexism, ageism, racism, capitalism or colonisation. These people, with their inevitable collectivist mentality, demand recompense from all of society.
Either thought process leads to the conclusion that the world owes them a living, and any avenue by which they subsequently obtain money is, to their mind, justifiable.
Sowell says
8 minutes ago
14 comments:
Great speech.
Poverty is never the fault of the person in its grips and should be solved through wealth redistribution
And those that aren't poor are so by luck (which needs to be shared by force) or greed (which needs to be punished by force).
I have a huge problem with people who want my money without sharing in any of the risks or hardships I and my family chose to take on in earning it.
..that should have been "my family and I". Ms O'Rourke would roll in her grave if she wasn't still teaching.
I got out of bed at 5:30 this morning, had a couple of coffees and drove to work in the rain. It was zero degrees.
For the next six hours I was covered in grease, fingers frozen.
Half an hour for lunch.
Another four hours of the same and time to go home. So tired I could barely raise enough energy for a shower and a meal.
Any bastard on welfare who thinks they're *entitled* to my money is welcome to turn up at my home (rented) and join me for the day to find out where their "wage" comes from.
Perhaps they'd also care to help out with the cost of fuel for getting to work......
This whole "debate" saddens me because I am on a benefit, not by choice. I have a strong desire to work, I apply for realistic jobs weekly. When I mention my dosability and that I can't drive I get treated with a disdain greater the that shown to the Kahui "whanau".
Rationally, I know that I am not, but perceptions are a hard beast to battle.
dosability? um... yes... well...
Linsay,
This is an interesting blog, I'll pay it more attention.
Anonymous, this debate isn't about you. It's about people who don't want to work. I can't understand why you are being treated with disdain when you are applying for jobs. I was speaking to somebody last week who had placed two people who were on invalid's benefits in jobs. Don't give up.
Anonymous, take heart. I've been in the same position and it's depressing as all hell, but something will turn up--it always does.
No sane person objects to a helping hand for someone in genuine need,the current anger (well, mine at least) is directed at those who regard welfare as some kind of valid alternative lifestyle. :o)
Of course the entitlement mentality is also closely linked to the Socialist mentality that "because I want to hold onto all my money and possessions it means everybody else must too. Therefore compassion and charity must be forced as it will not be done willingly..."
kg - well said.
More than anything else this is why I see a form of the work for the dole scheme as being mandatory for our future. People need to see the cause and effect of working and getting paid as the fruits of their labour.
But even if they can't make the connection it introduces the chance that their children will.
Maybe it would be more "acceptable" to stop calling it "work for the dole".
Maybe, the answer is to completely disband the unemployment benefit, and just have government-sponsored minimum-wage jobs in a variety of industries (from manual labour to data entry). Make them (say) four days a week, flexitime, so people still have time to send-out CVs and attend job interviews.
Spam, We already have state-sponsored jobs. Remember this from last week;
Businesses are receiving up to $17,000 from taxpayers for each beneficiary they employ, but Work and Income cannot say how many are kept on after the 12-month subsidy ends. The Job Plus scheme has subsidised the wages of 123,000 beneficiaries working as labourers, restaurant staff, builders, salespeople and machinery operators since it began in 1998. The scheme provides up to $214 a week for every participant.
I'm not going to give up in anyway, just tolerate me for a few moments and I’ll try to give a slightly different perspective.
There are aspects of my life I honestly feel privileged for; that I have my needs met, that I can "stop to smell the roses", all that.
But now and again things get under my skin, at the moment I'm going through one of those "under my skin" moments.
I have a permanent disability, I have had it for 20 years, it’s not going away, WINZ have had that on record since 1988 yet yearly I am forced to fill out a form (at risk of having my benefit stopped – which it has been repeatedly), to prove I have a disability. WINZ say that this is to ensure my needs are being met fully, but if this was the case, simply tying my benefit to the rate of inflation would save a whole level of, in my opinion, unneeded bureaucracy. My intuition is that it has more to do with a “one size fits all” mentality.
Another thing I resent is yearly having to sit with “dole bludgers”, single mothers (invariably snotty toe-rags in boot) and assorted bottom-feeders. I say give me a million dollars, then tell me you don’t want to see me again (but be bonded to NZ of course), I can promise you I’d be a multi-millionaire inside 2 years. Funding myself 100%, giving IRD their pound of flesh. But WINZ would prefer to be an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, rather than a fence at the top.
It's a nice day-dream...
" Funding myself 100%, giving IRD their pound of flesh. But WINZ would prefer to be an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, rather than a fence at the top. "
It's a great idea, anon but they'll never go for it because the present system provides so many "jobs" for for those who are on that giant work-for-the-dole scheme called government employment.
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