tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post811787091918777471..comments2024-03-26T06:17:49.527-07:00Comments on Had Enough Therapy?: On the Ground in Salzgitter, GermanyStuart Schneidermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12784043736879991769noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-70501981471146978482017-12-04T18:48:47.877-08:002017-12-04T18:48:47.877-08:00Sam L, your question is obviously impossible to an...Sam L, your question is obviously impossible to answer in the abstract. The simple answer would suggest MOST people are proud and hate the idea of welfare, but many people can develop "learned helplessness" if they've never been in a situation where effort consistently produces desired outcomes.<br /><br />I do understand the conservative argument against "welfare" of any sort as psychologically destructive. It risks taking away the incentive to rise beyond your own fears, and face the world head and see what you have to give.<br /><br />I imagine a missing component to liberalism is address the issue of pride. I still know a number of unemployed people without health insurance, and don't believe they deserve free or subsidized healthcare, while knowing they can't afford it any other way. So the trick social workers often use is say "You've been paying into the system in your taxes for X years, so you deserve this." And whether or not that's accurate, it can break through irrational pride that prefers to deny problems, which ultimately cost more later, like pricey emergency room visits.<br /><br />My "liberal" approach says the best way to help the poor is to have hidden subsidizes that lower the cost of living (housing/food/transportation), rather than fighting with minimum wage laws that make some work not worth hiring people to do.<br /><br />Ideally any work is better than no work, as long as the person feels they are contributing, and that would seem to be the bridge to people being willing to keep trying to improve themselves, as they see effort makes a difference, or if not for them, at least their children.<br />Ares Olympushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09726811306826601686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-3982546903668126192017-12-04T17:43:04.987-08:002017-12-04T17:43:04.987-08:00Question, Ares: Do they really want to work? Do ...Question, Ares: Do they really want to work? Do they have skills with which they could work? If not, where would they learn such skills? Do they have sufficient education to build on to develop skills?Sam L.https://www.blogger.com/profile/00996809377798862214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-9315628386952852092017-12-04T15:07:25.674-08:002017-12-04T15:07:25.674-08:00DM: These young men are idle and angry, and there ...DM: These young men are idle and angry, and there have been murders, rapes and knifings as they wait and hope to find a place in German society. <br /><br />It all makes me wonder how immigration ever works well. My great great grandfather came here from Norway at age 62 and never learned English, but brought 4 of 5 sons, and many more from the same village, and they got nearly-free land to farm, and so they didn't need welfare, and had a generation to adjust to the new land and language.<br /><br />I heard Dan Rather on the radio today, trying to sell his new book "What Unites us". Here's a recent article he presents his argument, seemingly to hint around the questions of tolerance and inclusion. It makes me think how unlikely western democracy, probably more explained by a drive for opportunity than our older human nature to herd ourselves among our own "kind".<br />http://time.com/5014390/dan-rather-tolerance/<br /><br />The argument I guess is that all change is demanding, and if we listen to our comfort, we'd prefer to put up walls, and protect ourselves, once we got our own needs met. But if we foolishly let in strangers, and all the conflicts and confusion that arise from that, we'll find resources in ourselves to rise to the challenges that result, and perhaps out-compete those who merely put up walls when they're feeling threatened.<br /><br />So the issue is not one or the other, but the middle ground where walls and bridges can both exist and serve their functions.<br />Ares Olympushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09726811306826601686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-61837457116642814642017-12-04T13:05:26.803-08:002017-12-04T13:05:26.803-08:00*Unexpectedly*.
The Cloward-Piven Strategy explai...*Unexpectedly*.<br /><br />The Cloward-Piven Strategy explained the current landscape years ago.<br /><br />That the media don't report the reality is evidence of their lack of good will and fellow-feeling.<br /><br />But mankind is infinitely malleable.<br /><br /><br />"The Cloward–Piven strategy is a political strategy outlined in 1966 by American sociologists and political activists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven that called for overloading the U.S. public welfare system (how?) in order to precipitate a crisis that would lead to a replacement of the welfare system with a national system of "a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty."<br /><br />https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward–Piven_strategy<br /><br />-shoeAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-57665811082757513092017-12-04T10:03:01.724-08:002017-12-04T10:03:01.724-08:00Truth eventually becomes obvious.Truth eventually becomes obvious.Sam L.https://www.blogger.com/profile/00996809377798862214noreply@blogger.com