OK I get your point of view, I am not offering feel good solutions, I have stated I don't really know what the answer is to people addicted to drugs or find themselves homeless, I was just offering some ideas. I am really sorry to hear about the problems in your family. I also grew up in Lansing I am a graduate of Barnes Avenue School, Dwight Rich JHS and JW Sexton HS, Lansing Community College and Michigan State University, I was a Cub Scout and a Boy Scout perhaps that is where I learned to be a liberal bleeding heart. What I learned at Sexton HS is that there are people who face a lot of issues that I as a white Euro-American did not have to face. I am also a gay man so I can understand prejudice, being written off as a faggot [a useless stick to be thrown on the fire] I was turned away from my student teaching assignment because the principle of Creston HS in Grand Rapids was homophobic and told me never to come back after only one visit to the school, [I'm a fairly normal man in terms of behavior especially around my students] if I did I would be arrested! What also I learned at Sexton was to stop looking at black kids as some sort of other and finally broke free of my family's age-old racism. I left Lansing after collage and moved to a place where being gay was not the first thing people saw, they mostly did not care, they only wanted to know if you were an honest hard-working person who pays the rent. My husband of 45 years and I were safe there. I had found a community that offered freedom to live and love in peace. That place was not offered to gay men in Michigan in 1981. I did not just "wish" for a solution I went out and found one. I really don't see how offering a solution to poverty racism and mental illness is something that destroyed generations. Yes, there are lazy people, there are bad people, do I care about them, or should I? sorry but yes, I do. Our prisons are called Corrections Facilities with the idea that "bad people" can change. In those old days some communities had "poor houses", living on street was not allowed. If you think being homeless and taking whatever charity is offered is easy than give it a try sometime and see how wonderful and easy that lifestyle is. Sell your house and hide the money when you apply for a [ if you want to receive most sorts of government assistance, they require information about your resources] "free tiny house" because "I'm sure" a lot of people would do that if they could. Here is a reality check for you most people who need assistance do not blow up their life in order to get those sweet resources. I really don't see what solutions you have offered here, only a critique of my guilt-tripping ideological disease. What did you think when you encountered friends and family with these kinds of problems, was it that they were just dumb lazy or just bad people and because you made it and avoided those issues, they should be able to as well. Lastly, I would replace the word wish with hope, I think I am a little older than you and may have had more experience in life that has led me to a more charitable and sympathetic point of view. I do not have guilt in any way for what has happened to these folks, just the question of how and why, their situation is not my fault in a personal way, however I do remember Bible lessons about turning away the stranger asking for help and can feel bad about turning away because I have nothing to offer and if I do, maybe I'm being dupped or ripped off but what that person does with my charity is none of my business. I guess in this weakness or something. This wonderful modern capitalist society, which is true there are many wonderful things about this time, it also leaves people behind for many reasons, hoping for a society that leaves no one behind is what I will continue to do. I find your point of view rather heartless and short sighted. I hope you can take another look at those views someday. You are confusing charity and sympathy with weakness in my opinion, nothing personal.
@Lymon89 Yeah, it's disappointing that some highly partisan folks are incapable of even having the discussion that we're having here, the lack of civil discourse (obviously) doesn't bode well for the future. My main goal with these sorts of conversations is to make it ok to discuss these things, make the proverbial Overton window a bit larger.
@gbdinlansing Thank you for sharing a bit of your story.
You asked how government assistance keeps people down: I don't know how to adequately cover this, it's such a tangled mess of policies that vary amongst the many assistance programs and each state that administers them, but I'll try to be brief and paint in very broad strokes... I think we're all at least loosely aware of the kind of assistance policies of the (mostly) past that heavily disincentivized two parent households, those policies were atrocious and probably the worst example of the kind of problems that persist. But I see it at least two major specific issues still: the sharp cutoff often present in many of these programs where rising above a certain income threshold results in a hard cut off in which you experience a decrease in net income as your wages rise, that's a BIG negative incentive. The second being the big picture economic angle: offering these sorts of in-kind benefits (not cash, but tied to specific use like food or housing), is treading into dangerous market-manipulating waters. Programs like SNAP cause prices on those healthier items to rise disproportionally versus non-SNAP items. Housing assistance causes landlords to raise rates to squeeze everything they can out of Section 8 coffers and residents don't care to force competitive pricing because it's not their money. HMO-style employer-provided insurance causes healthcare costs to rise because you remove competitive market forces, government vouchers exacerbate this. This is just as true with all forms of corporate welfare and targeted incentives. These are the actions that destroy a capitalist economy.
...And an area where my own opinions have shifted dramatically, largely because of my seriously thinking about the application of UBI: I now feel pretty strongly that if we are going to offer any sort of individual government handouts it's best offered in the form of untethered cash benefits, people can then sink or swim. There may still be some need for institutional settings, like with severe mental issues, but that is not a preferable solution.
There's no need for too much sympathy for my family, it's very big, there's bound to be some with issues. Life happens, sometimes people are thrown into impossible situations, some people crumble in the face of moderate challenges, some are simply incapable of functioning. Once people are totally broken and unwilling to help themselves you have to start thinking about the good of the community (or family), not just helping out the worst off. None of us have infinite wealth, resources, or time. You cannot allow yourself to be broken by your broken neighbors (or loved ones). Think of how in an emergency on a plane you're supposed to get your own oxygen mask on before you help a kid or elderly person. In this modern era we can help more than ever before, virtually nobody literally starves anymore, and even in the much maligned US everyone gets emergency medical care without question. But there should be limits. I happen to think that not offering able-bodied adults everything they need to survive comfortably on the taxpayers dime, and not allow them occupy public spaces or ignore other norms/rules the rest of us live by, is a good place to draw a hard line.
I envision making policy decisions on a pretty simple principle: What maximizes the total years lived of all current & future humans along with what maximizes the amount resources/energy they have at their disposal. You can weight those metrics to value the near-future more than the far-future but the guiding principle still stands. I cannot think of a more broad metric at defining what success for our species is. No need to quantify stuff like "happiness" or "freedom" or "creativity" or "greater knowledge" or any of those common, and very much subjective, things people think about when aiming for utopia.
About leaving people behind: Do you truly believe that parity is possible or even preferable in society? Should people who are smarter, harder working, or providing more benefit to society get more out of society? What exactly do you mean "leaves no one behind"? How fully do you want to stick with "no one"?
If anyone is short-sighted it's those who are happy to risk our societies, or even species, future to help a few unworthy people in the present. I fully understand the good intentions. I'm telling you the road to hell is paved with them.
I would like to offer an end to this conversation at least for me, I do understand that everyone is intitled to their opinion on this issue, however I find that being called out personally for mine is upsetting, and I don't think offering assistance even if some are not really "worthy" of help will lead to the end of modern civilization. There cause and effect to government assistance, I am sure, however I think the benefits outweigh the negatives. I am taking a break from commenting for a while, but I hope everyone will keep posting news about developments in Greater Lansing my hometown which I love probably too much.
Happy to agree to disagree if we're leaving it here. That being said, I hope you're not calling me out for the "short sighted" statement when in your previous post, which I was responding to, you called my stance (and by proxy me) "heartless and short sighted". Like, really?
This thread isn't really productive at this point. I really value the posts that both of you contribute to this site and I hope that neither of you leaves as a result of this conversation. I'm going to lock this thread now to prevent it from further spiraling.
Comments
@gbdinlansing Thank you for sharing a bit of your story.
You asked how government assistance keeps people down: I don't know how to adequately cover this, it's such a tangled mess of policies that vary amongst the many assistance programs and each state that administers them, but I'll try to be brief and paint in very broad strokes... I think we're all at least loosely aware of the kind of assistance policies of the (mostly) past that heavily disincentivized two parent households, those policies were atrocious and probably the worst example of the kind of problems that persist. But I see it at least two major specific issues still: the sharp cutoff often present in many of these programs where rising above a certain income threshold results in a hard cut off in which you experience a decrease in net income as your wages rise, that's a BIG negative incentive. The second being the big picture economic angle: offering these sorts of in-kind benefits (not cash, but tied to specific use like food or housing), is treading into dangerous market-manipulating waters. Programs like SNAP cause prices on those healthier items to rise disproportionally versus non-SNAP items. Housing assistance causes landlords to raise rates to squeeze everything they can out of Section 8 coffers and residents don't care to force competitive pricing because it's not their money. HMO-style employer-provided insurance causes healthcare costs to rise because you remove competitive market forces, government vouchers exacerbate this. This is just as true with all forms of corporate welfare and targeted incentives. These are the actions that destroy a capitalist economy.
...And an area where my own opinions have shifted dramatically, largely because of my seriously thinking about the application of UBI: I now feel pretty strongly that if we are going to offer any sort of individual government handouts it's best offered in the form of untethered cash benefits, people can then sink or swim. There may still be some need for institutional settings, like with severe mental issues, but that is not a preferable solution.
There's no need for too much sympathy for my family, it's very big, there's bound to be some with issues. Life happens, sometimes people are thrown into impossible situations, some people crumble in the face of moderate challenges, some are simply incapable of functioning. Once people are totally broken and unwilling to help themselves you have to start thinking about the good of the community (or family), not just helping out the worst off. None of us have infinite wealth, resources, or time. You cannot allow yourself to be broken by your broken neighbors (or loved ones). Think of how in an emergency on a plane you're supposed to get your own oxygen mask on before you help a kid or elderly person. In this modern era we can help more than ever before, virtually nobody literally starves anymore, and even in the much maligned US everyone gets emergency medical care without question. But there should be limits. I happen to think that not offering able-bodied adults everything they need to survive comfortably on the taxpayers dime, and not allow them occupy public spaces or ignore other norms/rules the rest of us live by, is a good place to draw a hard line.
I envision making policy decisions on a pretty simple principle: What maximizes the total years lived of all current & future humans along with what maximizes the amount resources/energy they have at their disposal. You can weight those metrics to value the near-future more than the far-future but the guiding principle still stands. I cannot think of a more broad metric at defining what success for our species is. No need to quantify stuff like "happiness" or "freedom" or "creativity" or "greater knowledge" or any of those common, and very much subjective, things people think about when aiming for utopia.
About leaving people behind: Do you truly believe that parity is possible or even preferable in society? Should people who are smarter, harder working, or providing more benefit to society get more out of society? What exactly do you mean "leaves no one behind"? How fully do you want to stick with "no one"?
If anyone is short-sighted it's those who are happy to risk our societies, or even species, future to help a few unworthy people in the present. I fully understand the good intentions. I'm telling you the road to hell is paved with them.