heavenlyabyss wrote:
I think there are some valid arguments against welfare. The effort should be focused on providing the poor with jobs, and not merely giving handouts. The reason is because many poor people are capable of work, but simply don't have the wherewithal, intelligence, mental ability, social skills, confidence, or job experience to actually get a job. It is very hard for a homeless person to get a job without any support, very close to impossible actually for many homeless people. Isn't it a little cruel to say that these people are simply lazy? Actually it is extremely cruel and self-centered, I take it back.
When people take advantage of welfare, I get pissed myself, but come on, some poor people are mentally ill (schizophrenic for example and do not deserve to be demonized. Most homeless don't even realize that they are deserving of welfare, and so the people who take advantage of the system help while the people who are severely disabled get nothing whatsoever. I admit this is very backwards.
Even autistic people, while many are capable of work, many who are low functioning are going to have extreme difficulty finding jobs, and so these people need to be supported.
It is about the mentality, this mentality that the rich are good and the poor are weak, stupid, and lazy, that is the mentality I want to rebel against furiously. Because it is elitist and cruel.
I wasn't actually talking about welfare at all there, so I'm not sure why this post is addressed in response to my comment. I was more interested in this sort of passive aggressive defense mechanism that some people use to rationalize their lack of something normally though of as desirable by labeling it as unethical or the result of dishonesty or some other falseness or mendacity. If you think that all rich people are cheats and liars, it's much easier to tell yourself that you're morally superior if not financially superior. You can see similar mental gymnastics on such subjects like attractiveness, social skills, background, etc, especially on this site if NTs are involved. I'm a big believer in accepting luck as part of life, and luck, as life, is not always fair.
True but the treatment you get from the system doesn't necessarily reflect life's inherent hardships. The system itself is man made so it is subject to both the inherent flaws of man and life. The issue I have with the more extremely egalitarian types is that they often confuse the two and frame every flaw of the system as socially engineered.
I tend to think of this differently. If rich people are unethical I think it generally started after they had made their fortune.
I see it the other way around. It only brings out what was already there all along. Hence, I don't think rich people are any more or less ethical than any other class. Kinda like how booze doesn't make us douchebags, it only brings out the douchebaggery within us.