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Originally posted by: TutontowQuote
Originally posted by: pjstroh
I don't understand how people who benefit from government programs can fall victim to stereotypes about those programs and the people who subscribe to them.
Chefantowan....you spent many hard months unemployed - looking for work without success. You posted about your plight frequently. Anyone who knows you understands you are not lazy or content to live on handouts from the government. But weren't those handouts a good thing while you were trying to get back on your feet? Should they have been cut off? If they were cut off would that have made you get a job more quickly? Of course not. SO why is it ok to believe that of other people in your plight?
Jatki ...your struggles with medical issues are well documented on this board as is your assistance from government programs to deal with them. I don't object to that for one second. Why would you paint with broad brush unflattering profiles of other people using the same assistance?
Values vary from person to person. I'm not an overly religious person but a value I was taught at an early age was to love thy neighbor. I was unemployed myself for three months and was given benefits from the government...and I'm proud to contribute my taxes to other people in the same predicament. We live in a country where there are more people than jobs...and some people cant work because of a disability. I don't know what values anyone is taught that finds the best way to confront this situation is to throw those people in the street...or to ridicule them with ignorant stereotypes. I must have went to a different Bible school.
pj it is very easy to stereotype when you go into low income housing day after day. I firmly believe in helping those that need help. You said a mouthful when you said you were on unemployment for three months, I was on unemployment for five months. We both needed it and it short order got a job or went back to work where we were working. To me unemployment, Medicare and social security are all things that are earned. I really don't look at them as government handouts.
To get back on track if you saw what I saw day after day you might become a little jaded like myself. Like I said three generations, a dozen people in the same apartment. No one has a job and no one goes to school and pregnancy becomes a means to get more money. Another thing that really stands out in my mind is that on more than one occasion I had brand new section 8 housing built in my first alarm area. They were gorgeous when I first responded to them. Then you would go back in six months and they were totally trashed. Nothing had ever been cleaned, trash everywhere, holes in the walls, the stove and oven had roaches all over the place because dirty dishes and food where everywhere and there was not a vacuum to be found.
I am a liberal democrat and I am a Christian who believes the Lord loves a cheerful giver. Believe me I give and help those that need it and I stated above I firmly believe we need to help those that need it but if you could have seen people abusing the system day after day like I did you would see how some people would start stereotyping those that have made a career off of government benefits.
Once again I will say it some people have just been dealt a bad hand and they truly need others to help them but unfortunately there are many people in this country who look at the government as an ATM machine and those people we need to address.
