From: elg@elgamy.sccsi.com (Eric Lee Green)
Date: 26 Sep 92 12:43:51 CDT
Newsgroups: tx.politics
Subject: Re: Clinton Policies (was: Re: Legalized Theft)
Distribution: world
Organization: Eric's Amiga 2000 @ Home

From article <21625@rpp386.lonestar.org>, by jfh@rpp386.lonestar.org (John F. Haugh II):
> I won't point out that only the poor get food stamps, are allowed to
> use community food pantries by the charities that run them, receive
> housing assistance, free clothing, free transportation in certain
> cases, etc.  All of this "free" stuff is part of the same conspiracy
> to rip them off.
>
> Except that it IS a conspiracy.  The liberals want the poor to be
> dependent on Big Government.  This is how we wound up in the current
> jam - Congress passes out the money to buy the votes and get the
> voters hooked on government programs.

That is why I advocate participation in government aid programs be made
contingent upon either a) participating in a valid work-study program which
leads to a job-ready degree or certification, or b) full-time work. Note
that option b) would require some method of child care for single mothers
-- the baby has to be SOMEWHERE when the mother is working.

The idea is not to make people dependent on welfare. Rather, the idea is to
give people a boost to help them pull themselves up by their bootstraps. If
people aren't willing to work and study towards making themselves a better
and more productive member of this society, I don't advocate throwing them
out on the street to starve (like some members of this group do). On the
other hand, I don't advocate making their lives milk and honey, either. I
think that many current programs are simply too extravagant and too, uhm,
"liberal", when it comes to benefits. If someone wants to be lazy, put them
into some sort of boot-camp style environment and make'em clean up our
filthy roadsides and sweep up our filthy city streets. They might change
their minds after working their tails off for eight hours a day under a
blazing summer sun under the supervision of a stereotypical drill sergeant.

By the way, unlike what some people on this newsgroup seem to think, I am
not a liberal. I am an operant contingent social behaviorist. Liberals hate
many of the things I propose, like making welfare contingent upon becoming
a productive member of society (i.e., no work towards becoming productive,
no welfare). "demeaning", they say. "inhumane," they say. However, if the
goal is to maximize societal wealth (and thus MY wealth :-), I think this
is the only way to do it -- to take these currently-unproductive members of
our society and give them the ultimatum, "do these things or starve." The
higher the ratio of productive vs. unproductive members of this society,
the more wealth there is for ALL of us. Such discussions, though, say the
liberals, are "dehumanizing". I.e. the liberals say we should be helping
the poor little darlings because it's "the right thing to do", rather than
out of enlightened self-interest.

Conversely, I am also not a republican conservative, for the simple reason
that I see some form of government as a necessity rather than as an evil.
There needs to be some sort of social mechanism to insure that things like
police protection, education, etc. are provided on a widespread basis. This
is because the principle of enlightened self-interest assumes an
enlightened population -- instead of a population which says "I don't care
about any kids except my own." A well-educated workforce benefits all,
employers and employees both, and every well-educated workforce on this
planet has been the result of government. There does not exist a single
country on this entire planet which has ever produced an educated workforce
via private and charitable means. I have challenged the members of this
network to correct me on this statement, but three years have passed and
not a single person has ever found a counter-example.

I repeat: No country has ever educated a significant portion of its
population via private means.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

--
 Eric Lee Green  elg@elgamy.sccsi.com
 uunet!nuchat!elgamy!elg      Houston, TX
Newsgroups: tx.politics