Renegade

Benny, how about you start using your own words instead of borrowing those of philosophers. Those you quote aren't here to explain their positions or intent. As to the contention that it is "lawful for a man to meet his own needs by means of another's property, by taking it either openly or secretly" , it most certainly is not, and it is theft. If a person takes the property which doesn't belong to him based upon his percieved need, then the victim of the robbery is defmitely justfied in actions he takes to protect his property.

See my answer to charter above: But let us suppose that we accept the trade-off that in order to accept benefits of the state, one submits to be regulated by the state there are a couple of measures which can be taken: 1. Determining suitable qualifcations of parents and licensing parenting. This would be similar to driver-license programs, with penalties for non-compliance. 2. Potentially removing infants, from unsuitable parents. 3. Societal pressure by changing attitutes. (eg similar to drink-and-drive) campaigns. I'm sure that there are more measures which can be taken, but the first obstacle is for people to accept that state-aid should come with strings attached. Simply put, if you believe poverty is the problem, then one way to effectively solve that problem is to stop people afflicted by poverty from passing their povety on to future generations.

Personally I don't agree with the way the EI program is run, but regardless, if a person finds that the government provided employment insurance program is not sufficient to provide an employment cushion, they are free to supplement it with other means, such as saving a nest egg for such situations or suscribing to private income replacement programs. The fact that they do not means that they assume their own responsibilty for their situation. See my answer above. If an individual wants to mitigate risk from job-loss, critical-illness, death, disaster, etc, there is no shortage of means that they can use to do so. Many of the programs in the social safety net are not "insurance" programs they pretend to be, but rather disguised charity programs, and charity is always at the discretion of the donor.

Personal behaviours are not independant of situational causes. The situation is deffierent for each of us, and while it is true that the circumstances is more difficult for some than others, the onus is still on the individual to adapt to the situations that they are in. This is true in nature and this is no less true in life as we know it.

So? what does that mean in light of the topic we are discussing. Your one-line replies do not provide any better understanding of your position.

The relevance of your quote is not clear to me. It is not up to the state to liberate onself "from social and cultural forces that are perceived as impeding full self-realization" but as your quote goes on to say... " To become free is therefore a challenge that is only met by personal transformation".

What is certain is that with the freedom to choose should come with responsiblity to endure the consequences of that choice. Conversely when others are asked to bear the cost of one's choice, others become stakeholders in the decision-making process.

I haven't proposed anything yet. I'm simply proposing the idea that if indiviudals expect that society should bear the costs of their bad decisions, then they should also expect that society intervene in their ability to make bad decisions. In some ways society already does this. In certain situations if a parent is deemed to be be unfit, CAS an intervene to take away that child. Similarly potential adoptive parents are screened to determine if they are fit. It is logically consistent if we are ok to screen potential adoptive parents, that we screen all potential parents. BTW, we adopt a similar qualifcations based approprach to allowing people to drive. We have imposed penalties on those who drive despite being unqualfied. We have not had to resort to chopping people's limbs off to prevent them from driving and the current system is pretty effective. BTW, I prefer the opposite approach. I prefer that the state not intefere with people's ability to make bad decisions, but then it should also force people to live with the cost of those bad decisions. I don't thnk you should have one without the other.

Perhaps those irresponsible parents should be precluded from being parents to begin with.

Government actions are not the cause of poverty. If people are impacted by the changes to the social saftey net, it is because the were already poor enough to require that safety net. The government didn't make them poor it simply helped them mitigate the effects of their poverty. It is up to the discretion of the populace at large to determine how extensive a safety net they want, but they are under no obligation to provide one. Many people have not fallen into poverty despite a reduced saftey net. That means that there is something different about those who do. Understanding that, will help determine why those people are poor. It isn't necessarily the lack of a government social safety net, as they all operate under the same governmental safety net. And how exactly do you know that? For some, acknowledging their past bad choices is the first step on the road to recovering from those choices and making better ones. Poverty which is a result of a bad choice is a hard lesson, but likely a memorable one, so long as one undestands the reason the choice led to the poverty. Certainly I understand that there is a problem. It just is not the same problem you see.

Yes it is clear to me how you look at the situation. Clearly if a doctor saw a sick man he would try and understand why he is sick because all that is visible is a symptom. Solving the problem requires an understanding of the root cause of the symptom. Unfortunately your superficial conclusion of what the problem is, does nothing to try and address it.

If I have somehow misphrased what you have said, feel free to point out specfics. It is nice how you deflect. Saying it for the third time doesn't make it so, especially since you provide no evidence.

You seem to be freely making up your own content. It is called a straw man argument. It usually starts when a poster tries to paraphrase another's poster's words using the lead-in "in other words..." and makes up his own content. I don't think I "poverty is the result of bad choices" because it is only SOMETIMES true. Poverty is sometimes the result of bad luck. Poverty is sometimes the result of a lifestyle choice. The are many reasons for poverty and I have not generalized it down to one cause, so perhaps in future, if you want to rephrase my words you can do so accurately. You however, seem to believe the only problem is poverty without understanding why that poverty exists.

You saying so twice, doesn't make it so. You offer no proof or evidence. Of course something is wrong, but perhaps what is wrong is the decision of the parents to bring children into those circumstances. Poverty is the symptom of that poor decision.

Why is it THE problem? Or is it simply your opinion that it is THE problem? So what. He was elected on a platform of tax reduction not poverty reduction.

It matters to some more than others. It likely matters to those who are poor. And for those who aren't poor and for whom it matters, they have ample opportutnity for wealth redistribution through charities. It should only matter to government if it is a symptom of a problem. The existiance of poverty in and of itself doesn't necessarily indicate a problem. So I guess your professor is acknowledging that despite all the criticisism Harris didn't actually increase the average time on welfare.

If Ontario Works did not provide skills to participants then it failed in one of its objectives, however it succeded in it its other, imo more important objective: To restrain wefare services by making it a less attractive option for potential recepients. Agreed, and imo Harris had the objective right.

So if there is evidence that certain individuals continue to make poor choices what should our response be? One option would be to continue to enable them to make those poor choices by rewarding them through additional funding. The other choice can be to enforce good choices. Yet a third option is to let them make the choices and live with the consequences. I do recall that workfare was also introduced as a prerequiste to obtaining welfare. I guess welfare payments doesn't look so great if you actually have to work for it. We are only left to speculate as to some of the reasons for the decline. Regardless, IMO, the slashing of the welfare payments and tightened eligibility was a success. It saved the taxpayers money without an undue cost to order in society.

Your "conclusions" are based upon your personal presumptions and biases not based upon facts. For example you seem to assume that welfare benefits should bring up people up to the poverty line. Why? Welfare can just as easily be considered to provide suplemmental assistance to low-income individuals. IMO, welfare is nothig more than a payment to the low-income masses to keep them from resorting to violence which might result in more costly expenentures. If the the goal of welfare is to keep people from starving rather than from being poor, perhaps only funding it to 40% or 50% is fine. Many of the statistics you quote refer to the plight of families or mothers with children. Nowhere in your posts do you talk about what the responsibilities of the low-income households are in making responsible choices and what enforcement should be in place to ensure that they do. For example is it not a poor choice for a woman or family on welfare to have a child. Should that be enforced? Hmm, if I remember correctly the number of people on welfare dropped significantly once welfare rates were slashed. Could it be that these people had more incentive to get a job? It never ceases to amaze me how even in Canada, a land of almost unlimited opportunity, many poor, despite being the beneficiaries of huge amount of income redistribution, still make poor choices and demand to have those choices funded by additional wealth redistribution.

What does being risk adverse mean? Do you mean not wanting to lose their money? It would seem that you agree that business owners who become rich by risking their money in a venture, deserve their wealth.

Why? Do lottery winnners not "deserve" their money?

What is wrong with usury?

As much as a theif has the natural right to be shot? Where did this natural right you claim come from?

EI is a scam which wouldn't exist at all if the government didn't force people into it. Welfare would exist with out without EI. In some countries EI and welfare is the same program.

Why would anyone need to explain that society is not a paradise? It's not by default. How much of a paradise we make it is up to each of us an our interactions with the rest of society. For some it will be a paradise. For others it will be hell.