Stuff Republicans say.

[Revoltingest]

I volunteer on projects with people who have severe back (and other) issues. But when anyone uses a false generality to gloss over people's real issues, he becomes a pandering doufus.
Do people abuse the system? Yes to all systems. Look at the games the wealthy and corporations play to abuse systems. Now if he wanted to start with the largest abusers of the public trust and pocketbook, the bribery system that is in place where people and company in effect buy politicians, I'd be with him.
And if he had specific suggestions about how to have a better constructed system for disability, fine, I'll listen.
But to ignore the powerful and well connected elephants producing tons of dung in the room to attack the weak and powerless, then he's a menace to society or worse.
And when he asserts utter self-interest, selfish-interests, over everything else, he becomes at best immoral in my book.

I get an impression (perhaps mistaken) of justifying abuse of the system by people feigning disability is justified by corporate welfare. You should know that Rand Paul opposes the latter.

 

[metis]

Proposing that a safety-net program should be eliminated because some abuse the system is about as "logical" as believing that we should dismantle the entire U.S. Armed Services because some strategic military mistakes are made periodically. Point being, if there's a problem, fix the problem.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

But having worked in the auto industry, & being an employer, I'd say Paul is right. Many abuse the system with bogus claims of disability.

I don't doubt some people do. But without doing any research of my own I can promise you his claim that "over half of all people on disabilities" has just a little anxiety or regular aging back pains is a steaming mountain of bull. It's not even 25%. But if there are more people on disabilities with anxiety and back pains than any other disability, it's still no reason to try and call them abusers. Anxiety can indeed be disabling. The worst bout of anxiety I've ever had kept me on the couch most of the day, nearly all day, over the period of a few months. And back pain is really a very broad term. That can mean arthritis, degenerative discs, fused discs, slipped discs, or a number of other problems. Paul may oppose corporate welfare, but it seems he also opposes people getting disabilities over things that he seems to not really understand. And if he does understand them, and knows that the anxiety most people get is not anxiety in a clinical sense, he is doing a poor job at making this known.

 

[Revoltingest]

I don't doubt some people do. But without doing any research of my own I can promise you his claim that "over half of all people on disabilities" has just a little anxiety or regular aging back pains is a steaming mountain of bull. It's not even 25%. But if there are more people on disabilities with anxiety and back pains than any other disability, it's still no reason to try and call them abusers. Anxiety can indeed be disabling. The worst bout of anxiety I've ever had kept me on the couch most of the day, nearly all day, over the period of a few months. And back pain is really a very broad term. That can mean arthritis, degenerative discs, fused discs, slipped discs, or a number of other problems. Paul may oppose corporate welfare, but it seems he also opposes people getting disabilities over things that he seems to not really understand. And if he does understand them, and knows that the anxiety most people get is not anxiety in a clinical sense, he is doing a poor job at making this known.

I looked at relevant statistics, & find that his claim does strain the definition of the terms to even approach 50%. Typical politician, eh?

 

[metis]

I don't have any current stats on estimates of whether people on welfare or people in unemployment compensation have the highest degree of fraudulent claims, but it used to be overwhelmingly the latter. However, I don't hear any clamor to end unemployment compensation.

 

[Tarheeler]

Proposing that a safety-net program should be eliminated because some abuse the system is about as "logical" as believing that we should dismantle the entire U.S. Armed Services because some strategic military mistakes are made periodically. Point being, if there's a problem, fix the problem.

But, for many, wanting to help those who need it is the problem.

 

[metis]

But, for many, wanting to help those who need it is the problem.

I wish I could disagree with you.

 

[Tarheeler]

I wish I could disagree with you.

So do I.

 

[metis]

So do I.

Why, you want to tango?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I don't have any current stats on estimates of whether people on welfare or people in unemployment compensation have the highest degree of fraudulent claims, but it used to be overwhelmingly the latter. However, I don't hear any clamor to end unemployment compensation.

Not end it, put yank people's benefits and call people who are having a hard time finding work a bunch of lazy bums.
Personally I think America as a whole needs to pucker up and kiss the poor's ***. Just take a few seconds and think about how much stuff wouldn't get done if it weren't for poor people working the jobs they do for poverty wages. No fast food workers, no grocery stockers, no waitresses, no cleaning services, no gas station attendants, no cashiers anywhere, our society, as a whole, would not be able to function. The ones who deserve credit for driving the economy aren't those sitting down in a cushioned office that's high in the sky, it's those construction workers who can barely afford to take of their families who built that office building.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

But, for many, wanting to help those who need it is the problem.

If I couldn't have gotten help, I'd still have a torn cartilage and ACL in my left knee, I'd still be on a cane, and I'd probably still be jobless.

 

[Tarheeler]

It's amazing, isn't it?

We set up a system where everything, food, education, housing, water, healthcare, is a commodity, stack the deck so that a significant portion of the population must be at the bottom in order for it to function, and then deride and demonize those who fall behind.

 

[metis]

It's amazing, isn't it?

We set up a system where everything, food, education, housing, water, healthcare, is a commodity, stack the deck so that a significant portion of the population must be at the bottom in order for you function, and then deride and demonize those who fall behind.

Commie!!!

 

[Tarheeler]

Commie!!!

More socialist than commie, but what ever works.

Last year, a bunch of us were sitting around at oneg talking politics. I let it slip that I identified as a socialist, and was a bit worried of the coming reaction (I am in the south, after all); a young guy who had just been stationed here shrugged and said "I always assumed we all were".

 

[metis]

More socialist than commie, but what ever works.

Last year, a bunch of us were sitting around at oneg talking politics. I let it slip that I identified as a socialist, and was a bit worried of the coming reaction (I am in the south, after all); a young guy who had just been stationed here shrugged and said "I always assumed we all were".

Reminds me of a guy who lives in a suburb of Dallas telling me that when he's with his his fellow Jews there it's like a spot of "blue" in a sea of "red".

 

[sun rise]

We could change America by stopping throwing away perfectly good food and clothing. Of course, some would claim this encourages the poor, but the poor I know want to improve themselves

More socialist than commie, but what ever works.

....

I'm a "whatever works" kind of person as well. As such I've been following both social entrepreneurs and something new to me: benefit corporations. Having a corporation with a defined social goal where there are no idols to the almighty dollar in the executive suite is an interesting development.

I'm also a general fan of employee owned businesses.

None of these are perfect, of course, and there are always abuses, but they're steps in the right direction.

 

[metis]

We could change America by stopping throwing away perfectly good food and clothing. Of course, some would claim this encourages the poor, but the poor I know want to improve themselves
I'm a "whatever works" kind of person as well. As such I've been following both social entrepreneurs and something new to me: benefit corporations. Having a corporation with a defined social goal where there are no idols to the almighty dollar in the executive suite is an interesting development.

I'm also a general fan of employee owned businesses.

None of these are perfect, of course, and there are always abuses, but they're steps in the right direction.

I love the above post.

There are both some local and chain restaurants that take what's left at the end of the day and donate it to food kitchens, and Panera's nationally and Buddy's Pizza locally here in the Detroit area do just that. The latter has an annual fund raiser for our local Capuchin food kitchen that we never miss.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I'm a "whatever works" kind of person as well. As such I've been following both social entrepreneurs and something new to me: benefit corporations. Having a corporation with a defined social goal where there are no idols to the almighty dollar in the executive suite is an interesting development.

I'm also a general fan of employee owned businesses.

None of these are perfect, of course, and there are always abuses, but they're steps in the right direction.

These are also the same small steps that Marx saw as necessary to transition from Capitalism, to Socialism, and eventually to Communism. I see sometime in future the prevalence of employee owned businesses that are heavily regulated by the community, which means the community will be able to make the business disclose all practices, all chemicals used and produced, effects of the environment, employee policy, and if the business is found to be too detrimental to the local community (such as pollution that poisons local water sources) then the community will be able to have it shut down.

 

[esmith]

These are also the same small steps that Marx saw as necessary to transition from Capitalism, to Socialism, and eventually to Communism. I see sometime in future the prevalence of employee owned businesses that are heavily regulated by the community, which means the community will be able to make the business disclose all practices, all chemicals used and produced, effects of the environment, employee policy, and if the business is found to be too detrimental to the local community (such as pollution that poisons local water sources) then the community will be able to have it shut down.

And then they could go to making a determination of what persons are not beneficial or economically feasible to the community and terminate them.

 

[metis]

And then they could go to making a determination of what persons are not beneficial or economically feasible to the community and terminate them.

And if that were to be done it would be the antithesis of what socialism is supposed to be about, namely that all people are important enough whereas society has a responsibility to each and all, and each and all have a responsibility to all of society as well. Capitalism, however, have no intrinsic process to help anyone.