To hell with the poor

[dajoki]

To hell with the poor
by Jack Lessenberry | September 28, 2011 - 9:32am
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/node/38645

Throwing all those kids off welfare felt great — until they turned to crime to survive

We have reason to celebrate this weekend: Michigan is cutting off welfare payments forever to nearly 30,000 poor children!

Good thing. Little bastards are eating too much, and if their growth isn't properly stunted and they are allowed to survive, they'll eventually start breeding too. Yes, I know we should castrate them.

Back in the day, we used to do that to Native American children, or the "feebleminded," as long as they weren't from Texas and didn't have family money. But the liberal do-gooders put a stop to that.

Thankfully, the so-called do-gooders haven't been able to stop this new wave of welfare reform, which will only continue to grow in scope because those 30,000 kids are only the start. Beginning Oct. 1, people will be kicked off welfare permanently, every day. That's because in July, the Michigan Legislature passed a law saying you can qualify for welfare cash payments for a maximum of four years. ...

Lifetime. Then you are cut off for good. What if you are badly injured and can't possibly look for a job at the end of that period? What if you have three small children, and absolutely no cash? What if there are no jobs, and hundreds of thousands of others are out of work? (Hey! That's what's happening right now! Who knew?)

Tough titties, kids.

Face facts, poor children of Michigan: Those in power in Lansing believe your low-class parents had no business having sex, let alone having you. If you think the state will save you, think again.

You're on your own.

If you think the above is dripping with sarcasm, you too can be a literary critic. Naturally, our leaders wouldn't put things that honestly. Mike Green, for example, the gauleiter — oops — state senator from someplace up in the thumb called Mayville, put it this way:

"These common sense reforms make sure that limited dollars get to those in need, while encouraging independence and rewarding hard work among able-bodied individuals."

<<snip>>

[KamaAina]

1. Kill the poor!

Oh, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill the poor,
Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill the poor,
kill, kill, kill, kill, kill the poor toni-i-i-ight, ni-i-i-ght...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgpa7wEAz7I

[Starry Messenger]

2. Holy crap.

Back to the Gilded Age.

[dkf]

3. Maybe if the adults had taken better care of the finances in years past it wouldn't be like this.

It's the adults that suck and the kids that pay. As a society we are so irresponsible that I don't understand how we can look ourselves in the mirror.

Yet it's still who will pay for my retirement and my ever increasing health care costs and you know what the answer is? It's the kids.

We suck. I'm so sick of us us us.

[tblue]

4. In Mexico they'd get healthcare.

Public health care delivery is accomplished via an elaborate provisioning and delivery system instituted by the Mexican Federal Government. Public health care is provided to all Mexican citizens as guaranteed via Article 4 of the Constitution. Public care is either fully or partially subsidized by the federal government, depending on the person's (Spanish: derechohabiente's) employment status. All Mexican citizens are eligible for subsidized health care regardless of their work status via a system of health care facilities operating under the federal Secretariat of Health (formerly the Secretaria de Salubridad y Asistencia, or SSA) agency.

/snip
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Mexico

[LooseWilly]

5. My '80s high school history text pointed out welfare was, among other things, a response to crime...

... I specifically remember mention being made of poor farmers hijacking milk trucks.

I'm sure history textbooks have since been "cleaned" of such messy implications— but the ideational linkage persists (http://www.journalofamericanhistory.org/teaching/2011_06/teaching.html)

During the 1930s, changing notions of crime, law, and the state combined with an economic crisis to create paradoxes between punishment and welfare. Like many other aspects of state and society, the politics of punishment underwent significant changes as a result of the Great Depression and the New Deal. Many Americans feared that unemployment and poverty would push more people to commit property crimes such as theft, robbery, and burglary, or to look for work in the underground economy of the liquor trade—illegal until the end of Prohibition in 1933.
...
On the other hand, crime prevention gained new importance in the New Deal administration. During the depression, more Americans understood crime and delinquency not as the product of inherent inmate characteristics, but as the unhappy outcome of social circumstances. In that regard, popular opinion was aligning itself with an academic consensus that had emerged during the 1920s: crime did not stem from the immorality of the individual, experts agreed, but instead was primarily a social disorder that required a social response. Social instability led to increasing levels of crime, they argued. As a result, the preservation and restoration of economic security for families, particularly for young men, could prevent such a dangerous trend.

Young men, especially those from cities, seemed most prone to crime and violence. It was in cities that unemployment was highest, men’s ambitions for success as family providers were most frustrated, and opportunities for crime were plentiful. You can find evidence of this philosophy in excerpts of Roosevelt legislation for the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).
...

Cut families off welfare permanently after four years... brilliant. Michigan legislators had better hope that veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan don't find themselves unemployed and having family tossed off welfare rolls... I'm sure many have some mad milk-truck hijacking skills by now. ;)

[liberal N proud]

6. No jobs, no wealfare - there is only one thing left to do

I expect the crime rate in Michigan will climb due to this brilliant move.

:wtf: