3 ms·

It does sound quite reasonable when you put it that way. On the other hand, you could also describe it as, "we should starve poor families to death if the mothe

It does sound quite reasonable when you put it that way. On the other hand, you could also describe it as, "we should starve poor families to death if the mother is sexually active and doesn't use approved birth control." Which sounds decidedly less reasonable to me. But ultimately my counterargument would be that we should focus on helping people who need it, rather than on not helping people who we think don't deserve it. This country has a puritanical mindset about public help, where we're outraged at any person who receives it who we see as being in any way unworthy. For a pervasive recent example, look at drug testing for welfare recipients. It's more expensive than not doing it, but people love it because we see drug addicts as being evil and therefore unworthy of help. We need to teach compassion, or at the very least rationality, rather than a punishment mentality.

PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
The solution needs to be long term viable, which means that voting tax payers have to find the people who receive help sympathetic enough they don't vote to change the system. It's a hard balance to strike.
tomjen3 8y ago
>we should starve poor families to death if the mother is sexually active and doesn't use approved birth control. We also murder people who have expired tags, as long as they don't pay the fine, don't show up in court, resist the police officers enough to get them to shoot them. In reality essentially everybody stops before it gets to that point, and in your example the women buys (or ideally gets) a bunch of condoms, use them and no more children nobody can afford is brought into the world, and maybe she also avoids some STDs. Look I don't want to compel her to do it, but at the very least make sure that she understands that the people who pay for her children have certain justifiable expectations. >people love it because we see drug addicts as being evil and therefore unworthy of help. If you work hard at a crap job that pays say 22 usd/hr, you don't want to pay for somebodies meth bill. If you want a system that can help people then you need it so that it is politically palatable enough -- or you won't be able to focus on it at all.

PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago

The solution needs to be long term viable, which means that voting tax payers have to find the people who receive help sympathetic enough they don't vote to change the system. It's a hard balance to strike.

tomjen3 8y ago

>we should starve poor families to death if the mother is sexually active and doesn't use approved birth control. We also murder people who have expired tags, as long as they don't pay the fine, don't show up in court, resist the police officers enough to get them to shoot them. In reality essentially everybody stops before it gets to that point, and in your example the women buys (or ideally gets) a bunch of condoms, use them and no more children nobody can afford is brought into the world, and maybe she also avoids some STDs. Look I don't want to compel her to do it, but at the very least make sure that she understands that the people who pay for her children have certain justifiable expectations. >people love it because we see drug addicts as being evil and therefore unworthy of help. If you work hard at a crap job that pays say 22 usd/hr, you don't want to pay for somebodies meth bill. If you want a system that can help people then you need it so that it is politically palatable enough -- or you won't be able to focus on it at all.