Thursday, August 11, 2011

New Poll: What To Do With Looters On Welfare

The Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster, ...                                       Image via Wikipedia
London to debate stripping looters of welfare benefits.

What do you think?

Don't forget to vote in the latest Ball Bounces poll!
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12 comments:

Anonymous said...

If they have the time to go out and loot and pillage, they obviously have the time to go out and look for a job!

Dollops said...

I vote "give them more". The welfare state is not yet recognised as the soul and society destroying farce that it is, so make it more easily recognised.

BallBounces said...

Soul-destroying. You are right. Getting something you have not worked for and don't deserve destroys the self-respect of a person. It is an act of kindness to deny an able-bodies person perpetual welfare.

Alain said...

I would add another option which would be to force them to do a minimum of national service (boot camp style).

dmorris said...

Yes,I too voted for "give them more",for the same reason as "dollops".

It's going to be very interesting to see what type of new social programs the government is going to initiate to prevent this happening again. I hope their efforts will be fully reported in the Press,along with the statistics showing how effective they are.

We should starts a pool on how many times the phrase,"root cause" is said publicly by the experts in the discussions about why this occurred in the first place.

James said...

As tempting as it is to revoke their access to social services, I'd say no. Doing so would only ensure rioting & other forms of civil decay in greater numbers. Whatever change must occur on this front will have to be gradual & measured.

Furthermore, if the rioters are to be punished for the wanton destruction of the last few nights, should we not also punish the speculative investors, bankers, government boffins etc, that have caused far more damage to our society in the last few years? Their greed, self-interest & lack of social responsibility is far worse for our societies --primarily because these individuals should know better, and have been entrusted with both a leadership role and immense privilege. Nobody's talking about seizing their assets.

Were the Vancouver riots (for example) worse for our society than the Liberal sponsorship scandal? The answer is no. I'm all for coming down on the rioters with a sledge hammer, but let's make sure we put the fear of god in the golden handshake, wink wink, let's all hide our money offshore, ponzi scheme class in our society as well.

As to the frequent calls to send these rioters off to boot camp: these degenerates are not fit for service in any branch of the forces. I've served in the army --have you? I want the man next to me to be the best there is, not some societal reject dumped there as a balm to your current whim.

Would you want these people working at the desk next to you? No. Now imagine giving them weapons (and weapons training) and placing your life in their hands. Sorry, but that's worse then just cutting them a welfare cheque.

Like the rest of you, I have a moral compass and a sense of societal responsibility. I don't break the law, and don't need someone else to tell me the difference between right and wrong. These rioters lack both. That can't be fixed with hand-holding and nanny state solutions. They need to be controlled with fear --fear of consequences, fear of pain, fear of backlash.

I'm all for the reintroduction of corporal punishment. The rioters need some strapping 6-footer to lean into them with a whip. The pain, the humiliation and the scars will serve to keep these animals in check while we gradually go about rebuilding our fractured societies.

But of course, the same people that have destroyed the west with one bit of lefty legislation at a time will howl that we couldn't possibly do anything so barbaric. These people dithered about using water cannons as too harsh. Things won't change until we decide that these primitives can't be reasoned with (both the rioters & the left) and need to be brought to heel.

bertie said...

Cut them off completely..Start with dollops & dmorris. Obviously the fact that giving money to idiots for doing nothing is the reason most cities are bankrupt now.There is no money folks,no FN money left in the bank for people who do not contribute a thing to society.I would add that,to start with any healthy body that does not accept a job with minimum pay when it is offered to him or her should be cut off from any form of subsidization.And arrest them and jail them the first time they commit a crime.There are laws to be followed by every citizen of this country,not just taxpayers.So I say again cut off the welfare and shut down the welfare offices for these punks & punkesses

maryT said...

A few centuries ago, England send these types of people to Australia. Can't do that anymore so how about making a deal with Canada to send them to Hans Island. Let them take their stolen goods and try to get along. I am sure those phones and tv screens would work very well.
When I got a new phone a while ago I had to get it set up with telus to work. Will some company just let all those stolen ones work, without question.

Anon1152 said...

"Getting something you have not worked for and don't deserve destroys the self-respect of a person"

I didn't "didn't work for" and surely didn't deserve (since in the beginning, I had not done anything worthy of any sort of desert) two loving, supporting and (though I can only really say this in retrospect) well-above-average parents.

I may lack self respect, at least on occasion. But... my parents are certainly not the reason.

Also... I thought that a sinless Christ suffered and died for our sins so that we might enjoy (at least the possibility of?) eternal life, salvation for our eternal souls. Surely Jesus is not an unwitting "soul-destroyer".

Anon1152 said...

James. You write: "I'm all for the reintroduction of corporal punishment. The rioters need some strapping 6-footer to lean into them with a whip. The pain, the humiliation and the scars will serve to keep these animals in check while we gradually go about rebuilding our fractured societies. "

If the rioters need such corporal punishment, what punishment do you propose for the "speculators, bankers, and government boffins, etc" who, according to you (and I'm not saying I disagree with you), caused more damage?

BallBounces said...

"I didn't "didn't work for..."

Good observation.

There are things in life that are gifts, and there are things we should provide for ourselves. We are wired to work, and when we are set aside from doing this, it is soul-destroying.

Unrestrained welfare rewards the wrong kind of behaviour and punishes, via taxation, the right kind of behaviour.

James said...

Anon1152:

I think one of the fundamental flaws of our justice system is that only the law-abiding middle class can be punished.

Those with tremendous wealth can simply lawyer-up and barter their way out of trouble, or if they are punished, their wealth renders punishment to the realm of meaninglessness. A $125,ooo dollar fine (for example) would destroy most people --as would the lawyer's fees atop such a judgment. But those at the top of the totem pole can more or less shrug off such punishments, because as a proportion of their net worth the censure of the courts amounts to mere pennies.

I'm not sure what an appropriate punishment would be, but I'd suggest seizure of assets as a good place to start along with lengthy prison sentences. And I'd also make sure the wife and kiddies of such criminals don't get to keep the multi-million dollar house and the posh lifestyle.

On the other end of the socio-economic scale is a particular class (like many of the rioters) that is completely beyond punishment as well.

After a stint in the military, I worked in both the oil patch and heavy industry, and in the two latter examples found myself working with people that had been convicted of everything from assault to 2nd degree murder.

Some of the older and wiser members of this demographic were quite reasonable fellows and had come to regret the crimes of their youth, but most spoke of their crimes with the same nonchalance I'd use to describe a parking ticket.

I'm training to be a teacher. A conviction for assault would mean throwing away my university education and any prospects of a job in my chosen profession. That would be a severe punishment for me, a law-abiding member of the middle class. And it would be considerably more harsh than the seven years my onetime co-worker did for killing a man.

Many of the rioters know that nothing the courts can do to them really qualifies as punishment. They view charges for crimes like assault, even jail time, as a minor inconvenience, an inevitability, a mark against themselves that carries no shame (insofar as shame is a part of their consideration). That's a serious flaw in our system.

One of my grandfather's peers was sentenced to three strokes of the lash as a young man for a crime I have forgotten. He told me that the pain was so blinding, so severe, that by the third stroke he resolved to never be in a position where this could happen to him again. He was in his late 70's when he told me this, and even as a boy I could recognize this wasn't the tall-tale of an old man.

Last I heard of him, the fellow I worked with that killed a man was back in jail for stabbing someone. To my mind, his previous incarceration clearly did not provide a severe enough example for him to amend his behaviour. From my perspective, that experience is all too common.

Regards,

James

"... nothing intellectually compelling or challenging.. bald assertions coupled to superstition... woefully pathetic"