Why do we pander to the poor?

Why is everyone always only pandering to the poor? What about the working class people who did what they're supposed to do and got a trade? I get sick of hearing people say we need to tax me more to give homeless people free houses. The uncomfortable truth is these people will not work. They deserve nothing from me.

I get tired of hearing how its impossible for some people to make it in life. I grew up poor. Ive been homeless temporarily. But I was willing to work so I got out of it. Its always an excuse like "They cant work because they dont have a car. They dont have a phone." But somehow without those things they miraculously obtain drugs on a daily basis! If you are poor and you are willing to work you will not stay poor in this country.

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67% Normal
Based on 9 votes (6 yes)
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Comments ( 28 )
  • Yaidin

    Right on. People work themselves to their graves only to see lazy snobs get to live for free. Sure, it's not as good, but at least you get to have a crack room and spare money to get high.

    Oh, and don't forget hearing from the same snobs amd crypto bros to 'just enjoy life! Don't work too hard!'. Go fuck yourselves.

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  • HarmonysHarp

    We honor broken systems and policies. Seems to be a general culture of normalizing odd shit.

    For example:
    I grew up in a very non-discriminatory *impoverished neighborhood. The slums. The deliberately forgotten. Many of my peers had parents on welfare. Indefinitely. I'm not saying many of these parents didn't originally need assistance, however, affording them endless resources without the eventual expectation/demand of of work in exchange, was irresponsible at best, reckless at worst. It created or perpetuated dependency in the community and what it showed my peers was that you didn't NEED to be self-sufficient, you only needed to know how to consistently apply for “help”.

    *This whole shit broken, y'all. There could be much better systems in place to HELP people when they need it without turning people into “professional” (see what I did there?) aid-seekers.

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    • When I was kicked out of my parents house when I was young I noticed this. I was getting food stamps and luckily my parents did not ever help me because I'd probably still be broke. Thank god for me the one thing I always had was work ethic which was forced onto me by my parents. I didnt have a choice but to work it was mandatory for me. Forcing ppl to work from a young age is very good for them I think. Handouts and pandering to lazy ppl creates more of them. Ive seen it myself.

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  • Trichfuzz

    I honestly don’t know what the best solution is for homelessness, but I agree we don’t need to tax people more. I too am sick of my money going to people who don’t work (not can’t work.)

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    • donteatstuffoffthesidewalk

      it might be the only thing keepin them assholes outta your livin room

      and yeah you could shoot em but who pays to clean up the mess?

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      • Before Ronald Reagan they were sent to mental institutions.

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      • Trichfuzz

        Just throw their corpses in the ocean, it’s much cheaper that way. But you should build a memorial so it seems less cruel.

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        • Or just lock them up like they used to do.

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          • Trichfuzz

            Those places are funded by taxpayers.

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            • 3 options:

              1 Give them free handouts

              2 lock them up

              3 kill them

              Giving them free handouts incentivizes this behavior. Locking them up will force them off drugs and will scare others who want to panhandle.

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  • PurpleHoneycomb

    I want to point out that a lot of poor people genuinely *can't* do work. I'm not speaking about those that just sit around for no reason. I'm referring to people with genuine disabilities; both mental and physical.

    With that being said, a lot of this is the fault of the school system. That "You can pursue whatever you want to do?" campaign that was in schools throughout the late 90s up to the early 2010s gave a lot of people false hope. They pursued something with no genuine plan of how to obtain that goal. This resulted in individuals who have degrees that they cannot use in their immediate area.

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    • LloydAsher

      One can argue we need more mental institutions. Definitely.

      Though I have a more utilitarian approach towards the mentally ill. Pretty much the same set up to privately run prisons as fucked up as it sounds. Better paying of course but for people who are out on their luck and have mental illness they can work for themselves within a helpful circle of mental health personnel while still contributing to the greater society.

      Am I asking for them to be put in mental institutions for the mentally insane? Hell no. My idea is pretty much making towns from the ground up with the intended purpose for the mentally Ill to be treated, and learning/working to their benefits. Their wages will not go towards the medicine or treatment yet their taxes will go towards the collective goal of funding everyone's meds and needs.

      Pretty much a comfy commune where 60% of your working money goes back into the community.

      Better they be working/living with the comfort and support of a community rather than filling the streets.

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      • Could even do work programs like a factory or warehouse where you have apartments outside and they have to work everyday and take drug tests. It should be optional to leave but if they leave and get caught panhandling again they get sent somewhere more strict.
        Once they do it for so long they can use the money for a down payment on a property somewhere and get a job.

        It really is a fixable issue.

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        • LloydAsher

          It should not be treated or created as a prison. It is 100% optional. It's like a company that has lots of benefits but also pays you minimum wage. Just that one of the benefits is free rooms and free basic meals. I'm really trying to make this idea not sound like a gulag or a company town. It's a non profit buisness that handles the disenfranchised in a socially constructive way.

          People need work, it's a requirement for a happy fulfilling life. Even if you dont consider it work. People need something to do.

          If you go back to pan handling on the street. Allow them too, but since they arent in the system they have to deal with the repercussions of said actions. If you want free meds, a bed, security, food and a job. I want that to be an option.

          The company will need to be subsidized by the goverment but ultimately making a profit is counterproductive in what the purpose actually is. It's like goodwill, if goodwill supplied room and board and meds to its employees.

          Legally though they would be classified as contractors. That's to prevent unions and reduce the amount of red tape. I honestly think this would be the best solution to a good chunk of the homeless population.

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    • I dont have a problem helping people who can not work. But people who use a miniscule mental illness to get out of work should not get anything from me.

      A lot of these so called mentally ill people can sit by a stop light 10 hours a day in 105f heat, with a sign, but we are supposed to believe they cant do a job at a factory where they just stand there and press a button or something? They're working harder to not work.

      To be so mentally ill they sure understand how the money in the jar works.

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      • Grunewald

        You know what? Why don't you support a group or something that gets these kinds of people into that kind of work?

        If they can't earn enough to live a basic existence on by working that job though, then it's a change to the national minimum wage that needs to be paid for. If not some other way for a worker to at least receive their keep.

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  • Grunewald

    There is more to a human being than their ability to work. However, what I do agree with is that the super-rich should pay more to help the poor to live, at least because they effectively got super-rich as the poor got super-poor.

    The 'self-made' rich should be even more willing to help because they know what it's like to struggle. You can almost understand a person who has known nothing but opulence their whole life, for needing an education of a very particular kind before they can hope to appreciate what financial hardship feels like and how people suffer under it.

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    • Even if it were not to have any negative effects on the system and no taxes would be increased for anyone id be against giving them more government handouts. The market dictates the wages. Not the government. If they were paid a fair market rate for their job they shouldnt get subsidized by the government. Wages are actually pretty fair in my country. Its more than enough to live on.

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      • Grunewald

        But they often aren't paid a fair market rate for what they do - there are too many ways for employers to cut corners in order to avoid paying their employees properly and cream the profits. Big, successful businesses are seldom built on fairness - they're built on people wiggling their way out of doing things and treating people properly, for the sake of making more profit. Also, how can we be sure that the wage of the lowest-paying 'proper' (i.e. non-scammy) job can keep someone in a decent standard of living? How can the market be an ethically sound force when not even people behave ethically?

        It has to be said that even Jobcentre public servants shunt benefits claimants into scam jobs and jobs with unstable contracts that will remunerate them ungainfully, just to get them off their books. It happened to me. I recall falling into an MLM and then ending up in the back office of what looked very much like a money laundering shell company, during my stint on Jobseeker's Allowance.

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  • LloydAsher

    Of course its relative to your area. I would be piss broke in san fransisco. Yet in the midwest I can foster a single worker household.

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  • You're wrong tho I havd tried to help them thats why I'm so frustrated. I actually had a another friend just overdose recently and die and I tried my hardest to get him onto my company. He just simply wouldnt do it. He'd rather work a low wage and do a lot of drugs. But then he would go on the internet and complain about billionaires. The mindset is the problem and you cant think for them they have to change their mind themselves.

    MAYBE if he was forced to work or starve he would have been able to turn it all around. His parents would bail him out and he also had all kinds of government aid.

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  • Anonnet

    Could just monitor them more closely. I believe granting them the necessary resources is a good thing, but working on getting out of the hole could probably be more strictly enforced. Like, get them an agent or something.

    And whatever job they do get, make sure they're paid WELL for it.

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  • Ones family finally gave up on them the other figured a way to mooch off their family and the government. Both are lazy and deserve nothing from me.

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  • LloydAsher

    One is lower than another.

    Here you go!

    Homeless and jobless, really poor, regular poor [typical homelessness is rarely last 6 months], lower class, (goverment poverty line), lower working class, (actual poverty line) working class, upper working class, lower middle class, middle class, upper middle class, lower upper class, upper class, high class, and then you reach the level of rich where money really doesnt matter as a point of reference.

    It's not a caste system as america has one of the most robust class mobility systems on the planet. Unless you are within a generational system with your family even then. Wealth typically doesnt last longer than 3 generations.

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  • LloydAsher

    Since I'm a right libertarian my perspective on the homeless is that unless they are in extreme circumstances; have or are children or are so disabled they cant do basic tasks. That's when you should get aid.

    The rest of them schmucks they can get a job and make a (crappy but still productive) life. Work any and I mean ANY job for 10 years and you can drag yourself out of poverty. If not I will not donate more aid then what is required for you to not starve to death.

    I'm coming out of this as a navy vet who has seen fellow navy vets squander their potential thinking that the service will make them irresistible for employment. As well as squandering my own potential. That being said I have a hardworking but happy life.

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  • hauntedbysandwiches

    I half agree. Some people who are homeless have medical issues and that's why they go homeless. I've seen it but I'd say many more homeless people are homeless by choice. In fact near me many people of all ages fully admit to wanting to be homeless. They have people handing them money and food and some even have communities where they sleep in tents then walk into town to beg for money.

    Then there are those who have more and more children but don't work and lie about being disabled just so that they can get free handouts from the government, it's truly sick. The only thing that they should be getting is health care but getting money and food free every month is a bit weird. Those are the only people that annoy me. The government shouldn't be taxing anyone more to make up for it. Lower middle class, upper middle class and even upper class shouldn't be taxed more because they earned their money.

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    • They already get healthcare from the government. Only poor people get government healthcare because people who work get it from their job. But then ppl who work have to pay for the ppl who dont want to work to have healthcare.

      Its just weird that we are supposed to all sit and pretend that these panhandlers, who are nodding out at the stop lights, are oppressed people.

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