Education
The next person who asserts we need to ‘educate’ the bludgers so well described in Jim’s article, I will strangle.
I see Tamhere is being excoriated for asserting ‘benefits’ should be paid out in kind, not cash. The anti crowd rattle on about abuse of power when a state-dependent is ‘given’ other than the money to spend.
‘What we have to do,’ they crow, ‘is educate the beneficiaries.’
They’ve been crowing that line for years.
Excuse me! Why don’t we go back to naming beneficiaries as beggars in receipt of public largesse. What’s wrong with Tamahere’s concept. We will feed you, house you, keep you warm, and even help you clothe, but will will not give you a cent to waste on booze, drugs or fags.
How many beneficiaries would quickly find a method to get money (like working for example) to buy their booze, drugs and fags?
But then the PC brigade would argue that all which would happen would be a transfer of income from the state to an employer and the money earned would go into booze, drugs and fags.
But would it? Holding down a job requires a bit of focus, regardless of how menial. So we change the employment laws back to the days where the ‘nasty’ employer, he who funds the jobs, gets to say who starts on Monday. ‘You got a hangover, son? Sorry. No work today. You look a bit stoned, son. Sorry, no work today. I told you on Friday, son. You turn up to work in clean clothes or don’t turn up. Sorry son. No work today.’
The employers are the folk who could change the whole game, providing the dickheads agree to limit welfare to provide substance as opposed to money.
But can they? In this environment? Nope.
We need to go back to the ethics of the fifties. In those days a clear social pyramid existed. And I have personal experience of those in the middle of the pyramid, the artisans, who were utterly proud of who and what they were. They weren’t film-stars, lawyers, holders of useless degrees, nor were they welfare dependent. They were proud men and women who knew their place.
But our current government wants to upend the pyramid and demand that the dross rise to the top because it’s their right, and the good fall to the bottom, to support the dross at the top, because it’s their responsibility.
I remember hearing Lange say those fateful words, back in 1985. The words which sunder a civilised society. The words were pure Marxism and exist in Labour polotics of today.
The words are:….
“To each according to need, from each according to ability.”
In other words, the meek have a right to be supported by the great, yet only the great have the responsibility to support the weak. Thus the gravity of the weak drag down the great and we end up with New Zealand society today…..Where the dross are more valued than the providers.
And what has this got us? Those vile parents of the Kahui twins.
Cheers
David
Dear David,
Good one. I’m tired of the educate cliche. It goes to the frenchman Rousaeau and the idea that everyone is born perfect and all we have to do is educate them right and things will be perfect. It is the intellectual poor man’s argument in light of dealing with human nature and corrupt role of the state.
Comment by Intrepid — Sat 1st July 2006 @ 11:34 pm
Hi David,
I hear what you are saying in that it is unfair for the ones that are doing well in life, who have probably made good decisions from a young age, maybe even had 2 good role model parents (or semi-good as no-one is perfect) and worked hard, taken opportunities and sacraficed to get ahead and should not have to give money for taxes for others who only want to bludge.
In saying that people can get heaps of money, more than the average earner on benefits is true but you need to see how they do it and work out who they are and whay they do.
In my experience, people that are addicted to drugs will get it by hook or by crook. They learn to rip systems off, they learn to manipulate through stealing from their employers and companies as well as people they come across and they learn to break into people’s homes, cars, whatever. They also neglet their children because the money they get is needed to pay for drugs and that becomes more important to them than feeding or clothing children.
In these twin’s case they had lots of incomes and lots of births to children does increase the incomes. It becomes thier chosen career.
But not all beneficiaries are like that. There are alot of single people that are on sickness benefits because of accidents that ACC won’t pay for and people on Invalids that cannot work for back problems, heart attacks etc, etc. Many of these people would love to go back to work and are really struggling to live on $180 per week to $250 depending on thier situation.
People on the DPB with one child will get the same as Invalids but extra per child.It is the accomadation allowances etc that give them the extra. Rents in Auckland are so expensive and the rest of the country is catching up. $300+ a week plus water rates and many landlords are putting rents up because of rates increases.
If we were to treat all beneficiaries (including pensioners) as beggers of money handing them out only the neccessities what would we end up with? A list of what is neccessary.
WINZ already does that. Phones are not neccessities yet many beneficiaries will sacrafice a bit of food or cut down on elecricity to have one. If you only pay out coupons then beneficiaries will never be able to get ahead either. The gap between rich and poor is continuously increasing with middle class just holding on.
It is OK to be angry for the twin’s family to have gotton away with ripping off the system but most beneficiaries are genuinely in need and budgeting thier money. In fact, it is a growing trend for budget advisers to receive beneficiaries money, pay their bills and give any extra to the beneficiary because it is so tight.
I guess you will have to strangle me because I am a believer in educating people. You have to give them choices. We all know what the results are when you take people’s rights and powers away. We also have to stop putting people in boxes.
Comment by julie — Sun 2nd July 2006 @ 9:08 am
A child is taught at school, and educated at home. Isn’t that our problem.
Comment by Bevan Berg — Sun 2nd July 2006 @ 12:02 pm
Bevan,
You are right in saying that children are educated at home by the actions of the parents and the rest of the family as well as the results the parents get.
The children can grow up to disagree with thier parents actions and want a better chance and may move away from the family while others will stay and become a copy of their parents.
I remember hearing a story about a mayor in USA. His father was the town drunk and so was his brother.
The reporter asked the mayor how is that he became mayor. He answered, “With a father like mine, what do you expect?”
His brother who had become the town drunk was asked, “How is it that you became the town drunk?”
He also answered, “With a father like mine, what do you expect?”
They both did the things they did for the same reason. What is the difference? One felt that he was doomed from the beginning while the other felt he better do something.
If we can educate people to believe they have just as much as chance as someone else and that their background is not an excuse, then we are educating. If society tells a different story than their home environment and we can get to them, then we can educate them for better things in life.
I know lots of people that have taken interest in their children’s friends and made a difference to their lives.
Comment by julie — Sun 2nd July 2006 @ 6:41 pm
I also will put my hand up for education. The benefit system is not at fault. Far worse living conditions occur in rich countries with no state welfare.
Some people will always focus on the worst cases (eg the Kahuis). These people cannot see that the glass is half full. They cannot see their own prejudices or the imperfections in their own family or means of economic support.
At the moment NZers are acting as a blind mob in their effusive condemnation of the events surrounding the Kahuis. Socially he Kahuis are bottom of the heap. Their lives were miserable before this blew up in their faces and the universal condemnation only makes it worse. The whole family is now serving a sentence.
People from all walks of life rip off the system. Blaming welfare for the money wasted on the Kahuis is like blaming the legal system for money wasted on Achmed Zowie (The Albanian asylum seeker). Because he was able to rip it off, does that mean we should do away with our legal system? I think not.
I can’t believe the resources and media time being spent by people ranting and raving away with the same old red necked prejudices that get wheeled out each time some poor unfortunate on a benefit gets themselves into front page news.
What about coming up with something original?
Comment by Kent — Mon 3rd July 2006 @ 1:42 pm
Hi guys
for someone to get a benefit someone has to provide or lose money somewhere… and this in most cases happens to be the person who sweats out there pays all taxes and contributes.
the beneficiary just happens to milk the system and sit around for easy money as you may refer to it.
Now i agree that the margin between the rich and poor are increasing but is it an enforced margin or is it because someone chose to think about their future and do something about that?
todays generation if you observe them have no drive to work or secure something for themselves.. they know that they can use the system to get easy money if needed. now is this fair on the wortking few who contribute their efforts to this system but when they need it they are run thru a massively high red tape to get it? and in most cases ” use up your saviings you have for your old age and then we will consider…” or ” stop contibuting to your super and use that”… when the pension system has been abolished?
So the question as part of above also becomes does the wage earner have to lbe penalised for earning?
Comment by starr — Mon 3rd July 2006 @ 2:16 pm
Dear Kent (Or should I say Mr. Bureaucrat?),
When something does go terrible wrong are you saying people aren’t supposed to complain at this time? When, pray tell, should they complain and scare the elite? When the elite can deal with it with media manipulation and shutting down sites they don’t like, maybe?
Individual men have complained in small numbers and been fox-like swept aside in such numbers with no weight to have any change for justice. Your glorification of education as always being good seems… well like you aren’t well read for an educational supporter.
And if you like something more modern:
By the way I’m an atheist, but truth should always trump bureaucarts and pencil pushers. Your worship of education as the cure for government corruption and power over reach is very ill conceived. Sometimes the mob is right, and you educated bureaucrats are wrong. I know it hard for you to desire such things to be true. But spare us your use of the word “mob” to describe you enemies(what’s next Nazis again!)Your effeminate use of fear is getting old too.
If you wish to keep your job, just say so and be done with it.
Comment by Intrepid — Mon 3rd July 2006 @ 2:46 pm
Intrepid,
I give you top marks for being original, but your post doesn’t make a lot of sense, to me anyway.
There is a tendency to bag all beneficiaries as if they are some unique form of bludger that are morally reprehensible and don’t play a useful function in society.
This was the original post:
The next person who asserts we need to ‘educate’ the bludgers so well described in Jim’s article, I will strangle.
I see Tamhere is being excoriated for asserting ‘benefits’ should be paid out in kind, not cash. The anti crowd rattle on about abuse of power when a state-dependent is ‘given’ other than the money to spend.
‘What we have to do,’ they crow, ‘is educate the beneficiaries.’
I was simply putting myself on the strangling block for the original poster.
This is supposed to be a site for enlightened male attitudes, but it may as well be the ‘Young Conservatives Gripe Board’. With the attitudes being displayed in this thread I would wager few of this site’s objectives will ever be met and men will stay in the dark corner that they complain society has put them in.
Beneficiaries are a weak minority, so GO BASH ‘EM!!! Men are also now a weak minority, so they get the bash too.
Comment by New Zeal — Mon 3rd July 2006 @ 4:16 pm
I might add that I disagree with Tamihere’s assessment and his suggestions merely make dependents even more dependent. There will be always some people who make a mess of it. Most beneficiaries are well meaning citizens doing their best to get back onto the production line.
Comment by New Zeal — Mon 3rd July 2006 @ 4:48 pm
Dear New Zeal,
You’re not of the New Zeal Blog site are you?
You state:
So I guess no one who is a young conservative can be enlightened in you modal!(moonbat) I guess to attack feminist philisophical led states is to automaticaly be a young conservative or whig (for their are so few people ready to call themselves conservative for fear of being called a Nazi, in New Zealand). You seem to be doing the same thing to me by way of name calling, instead of being logical.
I was talking of Kent. Are you Kent by another address or name? I guess I should be happy to be called original, and the fact that you don’t understand Burnham & Cicero, and think this is superior in the comment:
The reason we use older wise men quotes is to take the emotional sting off of you verses the neo-con under every whig or libertarian rock.
The point was desired based education is propoganda, and therefore will not fix the problem. The only thing I wish “to bash”, your emotional words, is false rationalizations to defend your government, your job and your propaganda called education.
Quick call me a neo-con and dismiss all men’s rights men as female bashers before you have to think a bit about your golden temple of education (girlie man)!
Comment by Intrepid — Mon 3rd July 2006 @ 5:04 pm
Again, you are not making much sense to me, intrepid. Your grammar and sentence construction does not reflect that which I am familiar with.
I have nothing agains neo-conservatives, but I would have thought that you would feel more at home on the Federated Farmer’s web site, than at MENZ.
Comment by New Zeal — Mon 3rd July 2006 @ 5:14 pm