Why do you vote as you do?

[expat]

I'll tell you what would be of "massive benefit to the country as a whole"!! shall I?
The implementation of a system that ensures that it is impossible for someone to be worse off by actually going to work, than by staying at home watching Jeremy Fooking Kyle till the Bookies opens!!
Whether or not that system would involve the dismantling of our Welfare State, or a sizeable rehash of it, is another debate. But until we purge ourselves of the dependency underclass that NL have gone out of their way to foster, we are all going to hell in a handcart. And the last thing we need are smug apologists coming on here telling us we are out of touch with what is best for our fellow countrymen!!

I agree about welfare dependency being a handicap. Strangely enough, so does the Guardian, in a comment article today.

What I can't agree with is the idea that it's fixed by having no welfare state, "simples". I don't think people should be worse off working than not; but I also don't think that decent fellow-citizens should be forced below a certain poverty level just to insure that. If working doesn't pay enough to live, maybe it's work, employment, and wages that we need to look at. Or at least the application of welfare (and in that respect, things like working tax credits are based on a good principle that you don't let people be poorer for working).

And I do agree with the principle that dang65 is putting forward in his lonely stand: we do all benefit from the welfare state. That is because there is such a thing as society, and we live in it. The country that we live in is the better for being a better country.

And BTW Margaret Thatcher did not announce in universal terms that "There is no such thing as society". She used that phrase in a specific context, to argue that specific duties were personal duties rather than societal duties. There clearly is such a thing as society, otherwise we wouldn't need police. And just as policing people benefits us all, so educating people benefits us all, healing people benefits us all, and ensuring people's basic welfare benefits us all.

[DodgyAgent]

Personally, I'd like to see a reduction in the amount of handout, instead replaced with something along the lines of Food Stamps, and maybe the equivalent for the paying of rent and the like. At the end of the day, these guys are supposed to be at the bottom of the ladder and in need of a helping hand to lift them up. If however their spending their dole money on Fags and Booze, then this is wrong. I don't have a plasma TV at home, just a 32 inch CRT. How many people on the dole do you think have a nice big 40 inch stuck on their wall?

There was an interesting Panorama programme last night that followed the activities of four young men over two years. Two left school at 16 and were clearly working class and struggled to find work. The other two were middle class who had clearly screwed up their A levels. The two younger ones eventually found steady work having been in and out of jobs and were thriving, the posh ones clearly had no work ethic and had managed to talk themselves into not bothering. The latter two had comfortable homes, music, PC and a nice little earner from the benefits suystem.

Digby Jones spoke to them and said that the best thing for them would be to remove benefits from them and adopt the US system of "workfare" no benefits unless in training or in work. It would have worked with these two

[sasguru]

Interesting arguments all round. This debate generates a lot of heat.
Going back to first princiiples however, why is working per se necessarily a good thing?
Perhaps humans were meant to doss around and make the occasional kill (hunt) much as muggers do.
Or claimants. They go on their "hunt" on Thursdays to the Social, innit.

The fact that these people don't want to join our status-obsessed, materialistic culture is to be applauded, in my book.

You lot earn too much money for posting on here anyway, so don't whine about subsidising those who stay at home.

[dang65]

You do not actually have any logic to support your views. You make sweeping statements that are meaningless. How exactly for example does Welfare "benefit the country as a whole". people here are not impressed or influenced by cliches and soundbites. I have made an argument that says:

1. You dont give a s**t about the poor
2. The Welfare state is a handy moral totem for you to be a self righteous socialist.

So try and explain and maybe i can change my conclusions

DA, I explained before how the Welfare State benefits the country as a whole. I've explained it several times in different discussions we've had on here, but when you reply to those posts you just pick one phrase out, misconstrue it and then rip it to pieces.

I'll try again though, coz I'm a sucker:

As you go about your daily life, DA, you encounter other people everywhere you go - driving your train, serving your coffee, teaching your children, nursing your elderly relatives, maintaining your mobile phone network, running your payroll, working as contractors paying you a cut as their agent... just everyone around you, right?

Those people, whether they are poor or well off, educated and skilled or a bit fick but still able to carry some bricks or drive a van, whether they are young or old... they are all helped every day by the Welfare State. If they are taken ill, they will be looked after by the NHS, so they can carry on working for you and working for me and working for each other, rather than ending up bedridden or dead because they can't afford health care. They are educated to a standard which allows them to understand money or medicine or telecommunications or engineering so that they can provide these services to you and to me and to each other, rather than ending up unemployed or fighting over a handful of unskilled jobs. In some cases they are also helped with housing, allowing them to continue living in their own home towns instead of emigrating en masse and destroying communities and family groups, allowing teachers and nurses and bus drivers to continue living in London, for example, where you otherwise have to earn a total fortune just to be able to buy a flat.

I mean, surely you have some awareness of all this and can see the many ways in which this benefits society as a whole? I did ask previously which country's system of government you feel the UK should be emulating, but everyone ignored that question. Any chance of an answer?

[sasguru]

I did ask previously which country's system of government you feel the UK should be emulating, but everyone ignored that question. Any chance of an answer?

I think DA's model would be the 19th century US. No benefits, plenty of exploitation, only the strong and armed win.
What you need to understand about DA is he's a short thick man obsessed with his lack of height and brains. Like many other people with "small-man" syndrome he's desperate to be dominant in some way - in his case he wants to feel superior to "layabouts".

HTH

[BlackenedBiker]

Interesting arguments all round. This debate generates a lot of heat.
Going back to first princiiples however, why is working per se necessarily a good thing?
Perhaps humans were meant to doss around and make the occasional kill (hunt) much as muggers do.
Or claimants. They go on their "hunt" on Thursdays to the Social, innit.

The fact that these people don't want to join our status-obsessed, materialistic culture is to be applauded, in my book.

You lot earn too much money for posting on here anyway, so don't whine about subsidising those who stay at home.

How's the jag, did you buy it with your bonus.

Just wondered

[sasguru]

How's the jag, did you buy it with your bonus.

Just wondered

No though about it, then almost decided on a Porsche Panamera.
Now changed my mind and may buy two cars - one family estate and a new MX-5 for fun.

[Weltchy]

And I do agree with the principle that dang65 is putting forward in his lonely stand: we do all benefit from the welfare state. That is because there is such a thing as society, and we live in it. The country that we live in is the better for being a better country.

I agree that we should all benefit from the welfare state. However, if you switch that around to say that no one should be at a disadvantage from the welfare state, it would be easy to say that there are an increasing number of people in this country who are benefitting from it at the expense of others who might be in more need.

Surely the whole point of the welfare system is to ensure fairness for all. I personally don't think this is the case.

In terms of money you could save by making "Efficiencies", if you have 500,000 people who don't need to be claiming benefits using the system at say £80 a week, surely thats 40 million pounds a week (Or just over 2 billion pounds a year) that could be better spent elsewhere. even if the review and implementation of this cost 1 billion pounds over 5 years, thats a saving of 9 billion pounds which can then be either allocated or saved!

[Weltchy]

I mean, surely you have some awareness of all this and can see the many ways in which this benefits society as a whole? I did ask previously which country's system of government you feel the UK should be emulating, but everyone ignored that question. Any chance of an answer?

I doubt if any country has the perfect government, therefore we should be looking to improve our own. We can of course borrow ideas from other countrys however. Take America and Food Stamps. Or even better, I like the australian system of enforcing a vote, as per

Voting Australia

[Weltchy]

Interesting arguments all round. This debate generates a lot of heat.
Going back to first princiiples however, why is working per se necessarily a good thing?
Perhaps humans were meant to doss around and make the occasional kill (hunt) much as muggers do.
Or claimants. They go on their "hunt" on Thursdays to the Social, innit.

The fact that these people don't want to join our status-obsessed, materialistic culture is to be applauded, in my book.

You lot earn too much money for posting on here anyway, so don't whine about subsidising those who stay at home.

The key point is not that everyone should work, but that everyone should contribute to society. People on long-term benefits do not generally contribute to society.