P.S. This is what your thinking encourages:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P36x8rTb3jI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P36x8rTb3jI
Quote from Mav88:
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
-Benjamin Franklin
Exactly.Quote from OldTrader:
It's unfair to banks that ran their business responsibly by giving to the ones that didn't. Give billions to AIG would be unfair to the responsible insurance companies. Give billions to GM and Chrysler would be unfair to other auto companies and other corporations in general.
Quote from Trader666:
Oh please... it's not realism, it's cowardly appeasement that will only lead to more and more.
Quote from drcha:
OK, I'm admitting the "cowardly" part--guilty as charged.
As for the "lead to more and more" part--no, this does not compute. In my professional life, I have taken care of many, many people who live off the rest of us.
A few are in these desperate circumstances through a series of strokes of bad luck, and these few usually quickly find their way back to productive work, so what I am about to say does not apply to them.
However, the larger cohort are career freeloaders. They will always find a way to freeload. If you take their food stamps away, they will get "hurt" and collect disability. If you take that away, they will get PI lawyers, get "hurt" and sue you. A minority are actual criminals, but those cost us money indirectly as well. For this group of people, "lead to more and more" does not apply, because the way they think is completely foreign to people like you and me. They have absolutely no sense of responsibility for their actions. There is no cause-and-effect, no action-and-consequence with them. They have no concept of planning one's family, career goals, educational goals, or anything else. As far as they are concerned, everything that occurs is someone else's fault; they have no personal role in events, but are merely victims of circumstances. Some of them think the "system" is rigged and is full of people who are out to get them. So it won't matter whether you throw them steak at them or starve them. They will keep right on doing what they do. To me, the only question is whether they will injure me and mine in the process.
As a coward, I highly value my personal safety, and I am willing to pay for it. I think of the steak-throwing as banding together with my neighbors to put up a fence or guard shack. This way, the freeloaders can stay in their own hood and kill each other instead of killing me.
Quote from drcha:
As a coward, I highly value my personal safety, and I am willing to pay for it.
Quote from Mike805:
At its heart, this is a community issue that is based on utility. Where is the greater harm? Even though its unfair, I think the greater harm results from not helping your neighbor out.
Mike
Quote from drcha:
Since I worked for everything I have, I feel no moral obligation to help. My motivation is purely selfish--once again, guilty as charged.