DRFseven

I think that could be addressed, too. But this is a separate issue; it involves a whole class of people who were systematically denied the rights conferred to them by citizenship, simply for being a member of that specific group. Hell, they've been spat on for over two-hundrd years and everyone knows it. Happenstance adversity happens, and will happen even to some whose wrongs have been compensated, but at least that glaring cheating will have been addressed.

White America is in the position of having gotten home with the groceries to find that the checker bagged some of the previous customer's paid-for groceries in with our stuff. And we know who those groceries belong to. Should it just be "finders, keepers" or should we give 'em the stuff they paid for?

echidna

It's aguable that Australia has done those things albeit way too slowly. And yet the improvements in social indicators are very very small. In a sense the damage has already been done. Making the playing field level again is not sufficient, the players also need to be trained and motivated.

No matter how efficent one's laws are, the biggest hurdle to overcome is still people's attitudes, the justified and unjustified generalisations which we all hold.

echidna

Hi Jane, now you'd be a tad disappointed if I didn't reply.

I think you’re mixing cause and effect. You’ll find that developing nations start with neither welfare nor good standards of living. FWIW, I don’t believe in zero welfare (that may surprise you), but clearly welfare must be recognised as a double edged sword.

Certainly most international NGO’s such as UNHCR will quite clearly not offer aid too freely since usually it will only perpetuate many causes of suffering.

To draw 2 examples, giving money to beggars clearly encourages begging. I’ve spoken to several young people in Britain and Australia who have experienced the homeless lifestyle, homeless by choice. They describe it as quite a profitable trap to become embroiled in, earning more money than working and only at the price of dignity and self-respect, quite difficult to escape. As long as there are middle class liberals such as myself, gullible enough to think they really need the money, their lifestyle will continue. A closer example is the obvious existence of so-called dole bludgers. Any employer knows how difficult it is to find employees, let alone good and reliable ones. While supported on fortnightly payments, there will always be the freedom to either quit your own stupid job, or wait a little bit longer for a better one.

For better or worse, the majority of people make choices based on money. By subsidising a lifestyle you are also encouraging it to continue. I can get $600 from a fortnight’s work, or $300 for doing nothing at all. I hardly find it surprising that there are many who choose the latter.

Pomp

DRFseven,

But this is a separate issue;

I really don’t think that it is, as I will try to explain.

The question, to my mind, is “do we have some sort of ethical obligation to help those who were born into unfavorable circumstances?” If A, a member of a “majority” demographic, was born into poverty through no fault of her own and B, a member of a formerly oppressed demographic, was born into poverty through no fault of his own, why draw an ethical distinction between the two for purposes of the question? Do we have an ethical obligation to help those whose ancestors were the victims of systematic oppression but not those whose ancestors were the victims of individualized oppression, or just plain bad luck? As A and B are both sufferring due to no fault of their own, I can't see how we would justify helping one but not the other.

Note that this objection assumes that, as in the case of American blacks, the group in question is at least one generation removed from legal systematic oppression. Obviously, I agree that the immediate victims of oppression should be compensated fairly.

DarkDruid

Answer me this; how many products were manufactured by slaves in the early 20th century when my ancestors arrived? How have I benifitted from slavery at all? And what about the white farmers in the south who were plunged into perpectual poverty because their labor could not compete with the free labor slaves were producing? Do they owe black people anything at all? On the contrary, I'd say we owed more to the overworked immigrants of the late industrial age than we do to the plantation workers of colonial America. All the luxories we have now can be traced directly to their labor in deplorable conditions, working shifts that made former slave-owners appalled.

DarkDruid

No. I am saying that the entire reasoning behind compensation is faulty. It would be much more effective to issue aid to all of those that needed it, rather than rooting through one's background to find reason for recieving things based on a people's past grievences.

Here's the way I see... and please forgive me for twisting your sports analogy a bit... Say the US bobsled team was obstructed from competeing fairly, and they went home defeated. Four years later, the bobseld team comes back, and says, "Okay... since we were held back during the last Olympics, we demand that you subtract 5 seconds from our clock this year!"

Jane Bovary

Hi echidna, well you didn't dissapoint me with your response...*LOL*

They describe it as quite a profitable trap to become embroiled in, earning more money than working and only at the price of dignity and self-respect, quite difficult to escape. As long as there are middle class liberals such as myself, gullible enough to think they really need the money, their lifestyle will continue.

It would have to be a poorly paid job indeed to be worth less than the dole. So what do we do about people who can't find a job? The disabled? A teenage single mother? People who have been made redundant in their 40's and 50's, or the long term unemployed, who lack the resources and confidence to find work? The way to help these people is through training schemes, education, societal support and every reasonable encouragement for people to help themselves, but NOT cut them off or make it impossibly hard for them to get help and imagine they will then rise above their circumstances.

I don't consider receiving social welfare benefits as "begging"...but rather the result of living in a humane, civilised society...and a safety net which we may all be entitled to. After all, circumstances may change and anyone of us could find ourselves out of work, disabled, a single parent without support...whatever. If you talk to welfare organisations, they clearly say that cutting people off government assistance exacerbates their problems...it doesn't solve them or help them in any way at all.

As a "middle class liberal" accustomed to privilege,[I assume] it's rather easy to dismiss the unemployed as "dolebludgers". I've been unemployed and I can't imagine many people choosing it as a lifestyle...not for long anyway. It's incredibly hard to live on the dole! Even if some do, it's a small price to pay for a society which places a high value on its citizens, by looking after them.

I really believe it benefits the whole society, not just those on the receiving end.

three4jump

I would be willing to pay higher taxes in order to compensate the Native American Indians in and around Seattle. The only trouble is that we have crushed their culture so completely that it's hard to know how best to help them financially. It would be fair to say that almost all of the land owned publicly and privately in the Pacific Northwest was basically stolen from the indigenous tribes. Can we give it back? It's a little late for that, but I think the remaining tribes should have more land than their little reservations.

I would also like to see the languages and oral histories of local tribes preserved with the help of the government. Recently, linguists, historians and paleogeologists teamed up to combine evidence preserved in dead forests with oral histories of a tsunami to theorize that a 9.0 earthquake (100 times stronger than last year's quake that caused so much damage) about the year 1700. This changes our idea of what is adequate to protect ourselves from the next earthquake. Other useful information may come from helping them preserve their oral histories.

Also, helping the indians get back on their feet would probably save us some money in the long run. Reservations have inordinately high rates of alcoholism, poverty, illiteracy, and poor health. We're going to pay, one way or the other, so we might as well pay in the most cost-effective manner, helping them with programs that will give them skills and a connection with their culture rather than simple welfare. I suppose we ought to just give them the money without telling them how to spend it, but after reading stories of tribal leaders building themselves huge houses with money that was supposed to go to education, I think we need to be careful how we compensare them.

echidna

Thanks Jane, I’d be devastated if I ever disappointed you. Sivakami_S, I apologise on behalf of Jane and I for slightly side-tracking your thread. We do this dance from time to time.

The disabled and the special cases are the safety net which I would want to protect with welfare. But it becomes impossible when others seek shelter under it as well. This is where the illegitimates anger me so much, that the safety net needs to be so low as to keep them out.

That the work-for-the-dole scheme is so unsuccessful is quite poignant, not a perfect scheme by far, but its imperfections hardly account for the spectacular lack of attendance. I really don’t see why payments need to be continued for those who choose not to participate.

Sorry, my reference to begging was a poor choice & not meant to be a direct comparison to unemployment benefits, simply an example of how money can perpetuate another lifestyle.

Again, as an employer, call me politically incorrect (but please not all at once), but the most favoured demographic for unskilled labour is clearly migrants. Without immigration our industry would be dead & you will find few manufacturing employers who disagree. Let me quickly add that I am all too aware of the gross exceptions to this generalisation, and that I am quick to select the right people from outside this stereotype as well, and quick to reject people from inside the stereotype too.

But why are migrants so much easier to employ ? I believe largely because our affluent culture of comfort has degenerated work ethics and there is a lesser and lesser attitude of responsibility for one’s own life and life decisions. Young Australians (not that I’m quite so old) are so obsessed with their rights and very reluctant to discuss their responsibilities.

A friend of mine (in my mind) chose to stay unemployed. Thinking things were tough for her I asked if there were any housecleaning jobs in country NSW. Oh yes, but I wouldn’t do that.

Ms. Siv

If you have an alternative or better method for compensation, let us hear it

The first question is ... whether or not centuries of oppression need compensation. IMO, YES !
Once we agree on that, if we have better methods than the currently prevalent ones, lets discuss it.

- Sivakami.