The benefits class

[mr contrite]

Why? You quoted the figure of £13billion as the annual benefits budget, and I pointed out that it's not really that much in terms of government spending, using the £30billion plus annual defence budget as an example. Totally relevant to the OP. No need for a seperate thread.

 

 

Just imagine how many hospitals, schools, nurses, doctors or police J13 billion could pay for.

[mr contrite]

That's exactly what I'm objecting to. You have deliberately chosen to attack everyone who is in receipt of a benefit, by definition. That is disgusting.

 

Whoah there, entitlement is a big word.

 

Yes it is a big word. And in the context of the current benefits system, as applied to all those who are claiming legitimately, it is the correct word. There is nothing immoral or illegal in someone claiming state benefits if they have hit hard times - which can happen to ANYONE. A society should be judged on how it treats the vulnerable, and the welfare state should be seen as a mark of our civilisation. Clamp down on the ones who abuse it, but for god's sake stop lumping everyone together as detritus. It is despicable and inhumane.

 

But thanks for proving my point that many people see ANYONE in reciept of any benefit as automatically being slobs/scroungers.

 

I happen to believe that while people are in the benefits system (for whatever reason at all) they should receive compulsory contraceptive shots for the duration of their claim. But I also believe that the never-ending persecution of the genuinely sick and vulnerable in society should end. And that will never end as long as people like you and Mr Contrite perpetuate the offensive generalisation that every recipient of benefits is workshy scum.

 

Let me explain again, the benefits class are a group of people who feel no shame or remorse at claiming benefits for year after year, who feel it is a right to be given this money, without making any contribution to society, and being fit to work.

[discodown]

I think there is a point to be made in as much as this: Pakistanis/Bangladeshis/Indians are from the same racial group. The excuse made for the low achievement of one group is often simply put down to racism, but that argument is weakened when a physically identical ethnic group achieves a significantly different outcome from the other. That would point to there being a cultural difference in explaining the disparity - such as English speaking being ubiquitous in one ethnic group, as mentioned previously, but far less common in the other, even when children grow up in this country. Many British born children don't hear English at all until they get to school. A situation which I find shocking, but has nothing to do with inherent race prejudice.

Ok, i see it now. thanks for clearing that up, turns out its me being dim!

[Jonny5]

Just imagine how many hospitals, schools, nurses, doctors or police J13 billion could pay for.

 

I suspect that the comeback will be:

 

"imagine how many hospitals, schools, nurses, doctors or police 30 billion could pay for"

 

[mr contrite]

I suspect that the comeback will be:

 

"imagine how many hospitals, schools, nurses, doctors or police 30 billion could pay for"

 

 

But the J13 billion could be used to supplement the J30 billion spent on defence enabling our security services to stop more doctors trying to blow up our airports.

[Ms Macbeth]

I have felt a growing unease over the last 30 odd years about the benefits system. It does appear to favour long term claimants. People trying to get back to work can be penalised via various benefit rules which makes it hard to take temporary work - often the only way back to employment. There is some truth about people's attitudes changing, it used to be shameful to be on benefits, I'd hate to see that kind of attitude returning. However, there are many more people nowadays who do seem to think that claiming benefits for ever is their right - without any responsibility for putting anything back (not necessarily money) into society.

 

However, I would like to see some sort of welfare to work regime, with lifetime limited benefits (where there are no health, disability or caring responsibilities). Proper training for people in practical skills with jobs at the end of them? Then benefits removed if people still choose not to work. Purdey's suggestion about compulsory contraception is an interesting one - I just hope it would apply to males as well as females?

[Mathom]

I happen to believe that while people are in the benefits system (for whatever reason at all) they should receive compulsory contraceptive shots for the duration of their claim. .

 

Fair enough if you believe it, but it won't happen because it's inhumane and akin to what the Nazis did in 1930s/40s Germany, compulsorily sterilising 'undesirables'. Through no fault of their own a lot of people end up on the scrapheap and althoug nobody likes 'scroungers' it's worth considering why they have been so unlucky as to end up thinking a lifetime on benefits is acceptable or the only option open to them. Because of poor upbringing, poor education (having been brought up on sink estates with no option but to go to a cruddy school), functional illiteracy, dyslexia, dyspraxia, depression, being an immigrant, being a woman, living at the wrong address meaning their CV gets binned, being an ex-offender (would you employ anyone who'd been done for fraud, because I wouldn't), being of the 'wrong' religion, the list could go on for ever...There are few genuine 'scroungers', and even of those numbers, few of them have evil intent, most are simply hapless or know no other way.

 

It might make the middle classes uncomfortable that poor people have the same human urges to have sex and reproduce but they do have those urges. It isn't the best thing that people have kids and then need extra state support, but nevertheless they do. The only way to deal with that if we don't want it to happen is to approach it humanely and educate people. Enforced contraception is just one tiny step away from what you see in Totalitarian fascist and communist regimes where women are forcibly dragged to abortion clinics or made to be mere breeding machines.

 

Me, I'd rather live in a country where there are kids whose parents rely on my tax to support them than live in such a repressive regime. And I aint even religious - get along that track of forcing people to go against their faith and you will unleash all manner of trouble. Then of course there are the human rights issues that we would automatically be condemning a lot of people with disabilities or of certain racial groups to an entire lifetime feeling less than human, the Untermensch. Note I have a disability, I have Jewish relatives and I was unemployed for a few years despite playing by all the rules. I was not hapless, I was not a scrounger, I was a victim of cr@p economic policies and ugly mindsets. If the state had told me I was to be denied a basic human right like that and have my body pumped full of hormones because I was an 'undesirable' I would have acted against the state in the strongest way imaginable...

[CockneyMafia]

I have said it once, and I will say it again.

 

Don't issue money, issue vouchers with ID tags. Vouchers can only be redeemed if shown in conjunction with a supporting social security card etc.

 

Granted, sales of cheap booze, Berkely Red, microchips and scratchcards might plumet, buts its a concequence I can live with.

[Mathom]

I have said it once, and I will say it again.

 

Don't issue money, issue vouchers with ID tags. Vouchers can only be redeemed if shown in conjunction with a supporting social security card etc.

 

Granted, sales of cheap booze, Berkely Red, microchips and scratchcards might plumet, buts its a concequence I can live with.

 

Can you also live with the consequences of increased benefit fraud? Overnight people who had been perfectly law abiding would seek cash in hand work or resort to crime just to get an extra tenner to spend on something other than the state-sanctioned dreary macrobiotic food and mung beans.

 

However, even the scummy, filthy, thick poor of this land are entitled to spend their meagre money as they see fit. Strange as it may seem they are not five year old kiddies who need to be slapped if they eat too many sweeties. If someone on the dole wants a £1.99 bottle of cider on a Saturday night it's entirely up to them to decide what else they are going to cut down on, not some self-righteous prig.

 

Then again, so many of just lurve the interfering Nanny State, why not roll it out even more!

[StarSparkle]

Fair enough if you believe it, but it won't happen because it's inhumane and akin to what the Nazis did in 1930s/40s Germany, compulsorily sterilising 'undesirables'. Through no fault of their own a lot of people end up on the scrapheap and althoug nobody likes 'scroungers' it's worth considering why they have been so unlucky as to end up thinking a lifetime on benefits is acceptable or the only option open to them. Because of poor upbringing, poor education (having been brought up on sink estates with no option but to go to a cruddy school), functional illiteracy, dyslexia, dyspraxia, depression, being an immigrant, being a woman, living at the wrong address meaning their CV gets binned, being an ex-offender (would you employ anyone who'd been done for fraud, because I wouldn't), being of the 'wrong' religion, the list could go on for ever...There are few genuine 'scroungers', and even of those numbers, few of them have evil intent, most are simply hapless or know no other way.

 

It might make the middle classes uncomfortable that poor people have the same human urges to have sex and reproduce but they do have those urges. It isn't the best thing that people have kids and then need extra state support, but nevertheless they do. The only way to deal with that if we don't want it to happen is to approach it humanely and educate people. Enforced contraception is just one tiny step away from what you see in Totalitarian fascist and communist regimes where women are forcibly dragged to abortion clinics or made to be mere breeding machines.

 

Me, I'd rather live in a country where there are kids whose parents rely on my tax to support them than live in such a repressive regime. And I aint even religious - get along that track of forcing people to go against their faith and you will unleash all manner of trouble. Then of course there are the human rights issues that we would automatically be condemning a lot of people with disabilities or of certain racial groups to an entire lifetime feeling less than human, the Untermensch. Note I have a disability, I have Jewish relatives and I was unemployed for a few years despite playing by all the rules. I was not hapless, I was not a scrounger, I was a victim of cr@p economic policies and ugly mindsets. If the state had told me I was to be denied a basic human right like that and have my body pumped full of hormones because I was an 'undesirable' I would have acted against the state in the strongest way imaginable...

 

Absolutely, Mathom, well said.

 

I can't believe some of the stuff said on this thread - talk about fascism!

 

Some of these statements are straight out of the Nazi's creed - compulsory contraception for those in receipt of benefits indeed! And just how is this going to be policed? Are people going to be held down while given their injection forcibly or what? And why? Because they've had the temerity to fall on hard times? Ridiculous. What about human rights here? Human dignity?

 

I'm surprised at your attitude on this, Purdyamos. I nearly always agree with the sentiments in your posts, but you're way out of line on this. I had to re-read what was said several times, as I couldn't believe it was you who'd said such things.

 

StarSparkle