Rant

[DoesntMatter]

I'm 100% with you on this Bob. It's apparent you think with your head and not your heart

Welfare money comes from the taxpayers. When people given welfare money buy drugs the cost was subsidized by the taxpayer, and that's simply wrong

And misombra, I love your claim that this bill is racist. That's a pretty typical thing to say by social remodelers and liberals

[misombra]

oh yeah the whole liberal, socialist thing. i could say, "that's what right-wing, conservatives on those cable news shows say blah blah blah" as well. but i'm not. because it's a stupid argument.

anyway, do you know that you pay your appointed officials a lot of money too and you know what they do? they buy better, more expensive drugs. your tax money goes to buy viagra for some old man on medicare. my dad works for the government, my aunt has a very high position in our state government, they have both told me some stories about those guys doing cocaine, throwing huge parties where they buy everybody drugs and alcohol. that's with your tax money.

besides, food stamps aren't stamps anymore. it's a card and you cannot buy anything but food with it. can't buy cigarettes or alcohol. can't buy paper products. can't buy weed or crack with it. so it's not like we're paying for peoples drugs.

why not be upset with paying for 50 year old men to keep their dicks hard?

there are a lot of working people out there who smoke pot. a lot of pot. college professors, doctors, lawyers, politicians. i have met them all. hell the president admits he smoked pot. he probably still would if people weren't out there getting all pissy about it. i bet obama has been sitting around at night after a long day in the office thinking, "i wish i could smoke a big, fat blunt right now."

nobody should lose their job that they're good at, lose their chance at a college education, lose their ability to get help when the economy is fuked up because of it. and i think obama agrees, according to the news report i read this morning.

[DoesntMatter]

Wow!

OK, I have a test in an hour so let's make this short

Yes, even giving someone food stamps that can only be used on food shouldn't be granted to drug addicts. It increases the amount of money they have in total, and what more they get in one form (such as in food stamps) will result in more going out the other end (drugs and other stuff)

People who work for the government can't even be compared to handouts given to people. Why? Because they are earning money IN A CAREER! No shit they're gonna spend their money on stuff besides essentials. They provide a service and the government provides a SALARY, that's the trade

[DoesntMatter]

BTW, I still want to know how that is racist. That's an outrageous claim

[misombra]

drug laws=racism.

reagan set up all this drug testing shit to get rid of mexican farmers in california.

that is racism.

south and central americans have been chewing cocoa leaves and using hallucinogens for hundreds of years for spiritual reasons, healing reasons, and because it's a social thing, kinda like having a drink after work. and it was made illegal in the u.s. to justify treating those people like shit and turning them into modern day slaves.

that is racism.

east indians used hemp for hundreds of years to make just about everything. they got horribly rich using hemp as an export. but we can't have that kind of thing here in the u.s. can't have brown people getting rich!

that is racism.

it's not outrageous. it's just beyond your way of thinking. which is pretty limited.

[Sonrisa]

are you a follower of Castaneda by any chance? just wondering.

[DoesntMatter]

Attributing drug laws to having racist motivation is such bullshit. IT'S THE WHITE MAN KEEPING ME DOWN!!! WAAHHH!!!!

I can make any huge and unfounded connection to having racist motivations just like you

Cry me a fuccking river. You wanna hear about RACIST DRUG LAWS? I have some RACIST DRUG LAWS that YOU and the ACLU would NEVER talk about because it hurts WHITE PEOPLE!

Guess who makes methamphetamine, LSD, ecstasy, etc, in labs? White people. Guess what prison sentences are for people who get caught? We're talking way worse than crack dealers

Why don't YOU mention that and how come the ACLU never talks about that? Oh yeah, cause its WHITE PEOPLE who go to jail for the rest of their life

[Gribble]

Alcohol isn't needed. Television sets aren't needed. Gas guzzling trucks aren't always needed. New shoes aren't needed on a yearly basis.

Why focus on drugs specifically? There are many, many things people on welfare waste their money on while relying on food stamps to get them by.

If you want to force them to submit to drug testing, fine. But don't deny them their welfare and leave it at that. Do something. Rehab, whatever. Denying them welfare helps no one. Instead of food stamps your tax dollars go toward maintaining law and order in the face of increased crime as these people are forced to do whatever they can to survive and maintain their drug habits. It ain't like a crackhead's going to give up crack if he doesn't have food. He's just going to rob a gas station.

[IndiReloaded]

This issue has always boiled down to one question for me:

Does your society believe that social assistance is a right or a privilege?

Personally, I vote it is a privilege. As a taxpayer, I think that we are entitled to put conditions on handouts. I want to know that any money I give out is going to be used to help better society. To me, that means that those individuals who are demonstrably trying to better themselves and become productive societal members. Or have proven themselves such already, such as war veterans.

Things like unemployment assistance are obvious b/c those recipients have been working and *paying* into those systems. There is past evidence of their work ethic.

So, drug testing for addicts? Hell yes. Schooling for single welfare moms. Hell yes. Especially with today's online technology. These women can be *at home* taking courses online from good universities while their kids are safe in bed.

Nothing in life is free. Someone, somewhere has to pay for it. I am tired of the 'entitled generation'. Many families I know were immigrants who lost almost everything in WWII. Even tho assistance programs were available, most were too proud to accept and made it from their own sweat and initiative.

I think a lot of these social programs are actually very demotivating. Changes are needed so that only the truly needy receive and they are empowered to become self-sufficient asap, even if that means a barely-making it job at McDonalds. Nothing like working in a job you hate to motivate you to learn and improve.

[misombra]

our system doesn't let people empower themselves. our welfare system is designed to keep people poor.

i don't see why people shouldn't have the right to not be so dependent on the ups and downs of the economy in such a rich country as ours. many other, less rich countries have that benefit and it serves them well. welfare "well fare" should be taken as seeing to it that the people in our country get what they need to survive. if we don't then we're the same as mexico. yes there are people who take advantage, but there are other people at the top who are taking even more advantage with even more money and not much happens to them. they're not drug tested!

if we were really concerned with raising people up, which our welfare system is not designed to do, and doing this drug testing will work to continue that pattern, then we would be making more jobs and helping people get them. you know who i see doing drugs and on welfare a lot of the time? people who were convicted of a felony. somebody makes a stupid mistake in their life and that's it. they'll never get a good job after that. the justice system doesn't rehabilitate, our welfare system punishes people who are working their way up. they don't feel good about themselves, so they're going to drink themselves or shoot themselves up into oblivion.

point is, this drug testing thing isn't going to do anything.

dm, yelling doesn't work with me. i work with retarded people, remember?

[doppelgaenger]

I thought about this deeply for a bit, and at first I thought, "Yeah, if a person is heavily dependent on food stamps, the random drug testing might scare him/her out of doing drugs." Then I read the comments about rehab to go along with it, and I just couldn't agree more. How inhumane that would be! Maybe, instead of wasting all the money on the materials for drug tests, they should hire a sociologist who didn't spend his college days on la ganja to analyze and research the root of the problem.

In my opinion, I think part of the problem is the education. You have all those D.A.R.E. programs and whatnot who tell the students simply to just say "no" because the drugs are "bad for you." I don't think that's really effective. Positive reinforcement for good behavior and clear explanation as to why such things are bad for a person, seems like a much better alternative. If you can get a child to think logically about these things, instead of just telling them to just "avoid it" because it is "bad" a child will be more conscious about the decision he or she is making, and hopefully make the better decision for his or herself.

On another note, I wonder how President Obama feels about this. Anyone hear any speeches pertaining to the topic?

[DoesntMatter]

dm, yelling doesn't work with me. i work with retarded people, remember?

What do you do with retards? Jerk them off cause they can't do it themselves?

[misombra]

I thought about this deeply for a bit, and at first I thought, "Yeah, if a person is heavily dependent on food stamps, the random drug testing might scare him/her out of doing drugs." Then I read the comments about rehab to go along with it, and I just couldn't agree more. How inhumane that would be! Maybe, instead of wasting all the money on the materials for drug tests, they should hire a sociologist who didn't spend his college days on la ganja to analyze and research the root of the problem.

In my opinion, I think part of the problem is the education. You have all those D.A.R.E. programs and whatnot who tell the students simply to just say "no" because the drugs are "bad for you." I don't think that's really effective. Positive reinforcement for good behavior and clear explanation as to why such things are bad for a person, seems like a much better alternative. If you can get a child to think logically about these things, instead of just telling them to just "avoid it" because it is "bad" a child will be more conscious about the decision he or she is making, and hopefully make the better decision for his or herself.

On another note, I wonder how President Obama feels about this. Anyone hear any speeches pertaining to the topic?

i am so glad to hear somebody admit to thinking deeply. happens so rarely nowadays.

[Aeradalia]

A welfare system is needed... however, it needs to be focused at rehabilitating people back into the workforce.

From what I can see there are a few ways in which a person would need help:

* Lost job - for whatever reason... sooner or later, someone will be out of a job with no time to have another one lined up. In cases like this... unemployment needs to be provided with a cut-off date corresponding to a reasonable amount of time to find another job. If a job is not found by the cut-off date, then the person can apply for more aid, but has to show proof of their efforts to find a job.

* Financial difficulties too great to support current children - sometimes unplanned pregnancies happen... sometimes a financial crisis disrupts a stable family. In such cases assistance needs to be provided for a reasonable amount of time - daycare and help with getting another job. The legal guardian(s) are enrolled in a program to help them get a job. The aid continues (but is significantly reduced) for a certain amount of time after their initial hire, then discontinues as they show stability in their new job).

* Debilitating Drug Addiction - regardless of how it happens... some people become hooked on drugs and cannot break the habit themselves. In this case, this person would have to submit to a drug screening (to verify which drug(s) are in their system) and be enrolled into a drug rehabilitation program BEFORE financial aid can be provided for them. As they progress through this, they will also be trained on how to get a job. There will be time constraints on the rehab... and then additional aid after they leave rehab -- this aid has a cut-off date to encourage them to find another job.

I also think certain criminal records need to be expunged after a certain amount of time... so that once their after jail 'punishment' is complete, they can have access to better jobs and be a 'normal' citizen again. I feel (just my opinion) that ex-con's make up a noticeable portion of the drug addicts so often noticed.

The welfare system is a privilege, just like any other form of 'giving.' There can be conditions... and yes, the potential 'recipient' can choose to 'tough it out' if they do not want to submit to the conditions in order to get the aid. It is their choice... they cannot, nor should be, forced to accept aid.

However, as stated once before... whatever aid system is put in place needs to have the goal of rehabilitating people back into the workforce --- not just throw out free food and/or money. There has to be an incentive to join the workforce... because the country is dependent on its workers.

[misombra]

What do you do with retards? Jerk them off cause they can't do it themselves?

no i listen patiently as they yell, scream, and rant because they have no other way to get their point across.