| Author | Message | ||
     Robert Noel Reddington Prolific User Username: bob_uk Post Number: 178 Registered: 5-2015 |
Welfare Benefits is always a political hot potato in I guess all 1st world contries. Pensions in the UK are not welfare benefits. There will always be people who defraud the benefits. In the UK despite what the tabloids say the percentage is small. Before there was welfare benefits people really did die from malnutrition and being poor. Dead babies in the gutter. Welfare state started in 1948 in the UK. Before it was bitty and fragmentated. I can well remember stories of absolute poverty. We had nothing and were proud of it is a load of hogwash. Nothing noble about kids with no shoes. Some think that benefits should stop and when they are starving they will get off their arses and get a job. Girls wouldn't get pregnant if they got no benefits. No society in history has been in control of births. My view is that we cant just abandon people and let them starve. It's un acceptable and dangerous. The starving will revolt and it will destroy society. Early last century the Russian Revolution deeply worried the British establishment. The French revolution did the same. At the moment in the UK more and more people are comming off benefits and getting jobs. The real reason for this is not a cut in benefits. Its because there are more jobs around. Most people like to work and do stuff. Life of benefits means staying in all day and being carefull with money. Boring. We have a silly situation where people pay income tax and then they claim tax credits. This leads to low wages because the knows his workers get benefits. In other words the government is subsidising the low paid jobs. This is wrong. Foreign aid is an important contribution to thd health of the worlds society in general. We give a 3rd world country a million quid to build a power station but we don't we build the station for them instead so British companies get the dosh. If we do give them actual money is in sterling which means we get it back eventually. The press seem to want to make the news themselves by writting pure hogwash. The daily mail in particular chase celebrities and intrude and then publish stories to upset them. George Michael had a car accident and the Daily Mail tried to get the public demanding he be banned from driving for life. He wasnt driving he was a passeger in a private hire car and chauffeur. Fortunately the police and the general public are not stupid. Its that that annoys most a newspaper treating readers like idiots. I don't buy newspapers I read old ones. Any thing bad is sorted out by the time I read it. And the rest is rubbish. The Gaurdian newspaper are kidding themselves if they think publishing countries secrets had done no damage. And of course embassy staff are agents or spys. I would think thats your duty if you are aboard and learn something going down not to report it to your own country. The bleeding heart left think they are so superior and clever. But they arent. The arch liberal was labours Tony Benn. He sounded good but when analysed its doesnt make sense.A thick Syrup of political ideas and assumptions. My political leanings are what works best and no one size fits all. | ||
| Randy Roberson Grand Master Username: wascator Post Number: 463 Registered: 5-2009 |
You have some good points. How to help people without enabling destructive behavior is the problem; I don't know if there is an answer. The welfare state started in Germany in the 19th century. It has grown so popular that it is threatening the societies' economies which support it. Too many ticks on the puppy and it dies, taking all the parasites down with it. Families if they stick together are a great support resource for the occasional problem, but a lot of families are fragmented and can barely stay afloat. In the USA at least a lot of people lead such destructive lives that they are essentially unemployable. The same government that seems to be encouraging cannabis is telling us and other industries we absolutely cannot hire these same people. The liability of taking a chance on someone and having them act out while in a company's employ is very large with everyone waiting for an excuse to sue. If you can't read and write, pull your pants up and show up sober every day, why should an employer hire you? The Bible says there is a way which seems right to a man but its end is destruction. That seems so true now. People think they are helping but the more they help the worse it gets. | ||
| Robert Noel Reddington Prolific User Username: bob_uk Post Number: 180 Registered: 5-2015 |
Randy, You have brought up an important point. The family unit. I watch a TV show called Jeremy Kyle which about dysfunctional families arguing and worse. My wife and I even though our youngest is 30 still look out for them and their kids. My wife is very wise and always gets it right. The continuity of the support is what makes the family unit work. | ||
| Brian Vogel Grand Master Username: guyslp Post Number: 1421 Registered: 6-2009 |
Bob, I was born into what I consider to be one of the world's most minimally dysfunctional (MMD) families. My personal theory is that there is no such thing as a truly completely functional family. Provided you were born into a family with no significant dysfunction then I believe you are absolutely correct regarding long term continuity of support, which can go from parent to child, child to parent, or both directions at any given moment in time. The problem is that my life experience has shown me that MMD families are far rarer than I had ever thought, and that even minimally dysfunctional families, which still "work," are at least somewhat rare. I used to be (and still am, when I see it happening in what by all appearances are MMD families) slack-jawed when I saw children who simply have nothing to do with their parents, particularly as those parents age and need help. Now, I withhold a lot of snap judgment because there are a lot of parents who should absolutely never have had children and were nothing short of cruel toward their children. My own trip with my Mom and her dementia has shown me exactly how and why children who had really rocky relationships with their parents would be easily inclined to wash their hands of their parents. Having "made it out alive" of one's childhood shouldn't, in and of itself, create a lifelong obligation and duty to a parent who was neglectful, cruel, and/or abusive. I thank God/fate/whatever the reader believes should be thanked every single day for the parents I had and the genuine concern and goodness with which they treated me and my siblings. Now, in its own strange way, my Mom should be thanking her lucky stars that she was such a great Mom, since that's why she has the ongoing level of support that she does now. What goes around truly does come around. Brian | ||
| Robert Noel Reddington Prolific User Username: bob_uk Post Number: 185 Registered: 5-2015 |
Brian Be nice to your kids because they will choose what old peoples home you are going to. I was fortunate to have parents that were good they were married for 50 years and died within 6 months of each other. In return I always gave my parents my utmost respect even if they were wrong. I am glad I did because often years later they would be proved right. I have seen and heard of many dyfunctional families. Its an easy thing to slip into I always think carefully about problems I don't take sides. If I say the wrong thing I back track fast. A key to a stable family unit is a home a place to be. | ||
| Brian Vogel Grand Master Username: guyslp Post Number: 1422 Registered: 6-2009 |
Bob, I have no children and at my stage of life I have no intention of having any. By the time an old people's home is on the horizon I am quite certain I'll be on my own as far as which one and where. Brian | ||
| Robert Noel Reddington Prolific User Username: bob_uk Post Number: 190 Registered: 5-2015 |
Some of my friends have no children and they are free to do as they please. To a certain extent l am restricted in what I can do. However the things I am restricted from doing I dont want to do. I am fortunate because in my extended family we only have one bad apple. Hes a thug who mugs old ladies. He won't come near my family because my eldest wants to break his legs. My household is a constant hive of activity. About midnight they go to sleep and it sounds like a farm yard. About 8am it starts again. I can sleep though anything. They don't bicker they all rub along together. They tidy up after each other, well sort of. I take the view that things do get knocked about but simple decorating is easy and quick to redo. Esp as one of them is good at decorating and fast. I get a pleasant warm feeling from them. | ||
| Vladimir Ivanovich Kirillov Prolific User Username: soviet Post Number: 281 Registered: 2-2013 |
I was a very ugly baby and therefore orphaned. I was raised mostly by rich, mean, cruel often violent people but I often rode in a limousine. I made my one way out of hell at 15. I found family in Russia. They were the nicest I have ever had and hardly rich by even Soviet standards. Also, my closest friends are family. Some parents should be shot Stalin style. I will cut and grind up the Camargue's grill entirely and eat it before I go to any old people's home. Doctor 38 will come for me when the time is right and the angle certainly will be. Regardless of how rotten your life has been it does not take a genius or long to find people who had it harder. Conservative politics in the west attack the welfare state but end up spending much more money in the long run by increasing the prison population. Yes some people get welfare benefits when they should not and they should be put into the army for the long march. In Soviet Russia everybody got a job and it was nowhere as bad as what a lot in the west think it was. But the human race has not found the perfect solution yet and maybe we never will until the aliens arrive and eat us. Owning a Rolls Royce is a perfect solution to woes and thinking the world owes you a living. As Johnny Rotten said "we should all learn to love each other more because we are only getting one go at it" Long Live Johnny Rotten. | ||
| Robert Noel Reddington Prolific User Username: bob_uk Post Number: 195 Registered: 5-2015 |
There are often calls in the UK to bring back national service (military service). I do see the merit in the 18 to 20 years old doing national service. When I left school every school leaver got a job. The government owned utilities soaked up the ones who were maybe thick. Johnny Rotton or John Lydon. Is correct. You only get one go its not a rehearsal and no ones exempt. My wife and I over the years have helped friends of my kids. The way the parents treat them is appalling. Like not allowing a 14 year old in the house until 11pm. He used to stay with us till 11pm. We fed him as well. He now has a good job and loads of money and doesn't talk to his parents. |
