I'm guessing a lot of times you get a serious response from someone who knows you're just being funny...

Haven't read the other replies yet...

I think this question boils down to each individual. I don't think we can broad stroke it.

For instance, if something happened to you and your wife was left alone to raise all your kids. Do you believe accepting food stamps and welfare would automatically make her lazy?

There are people who take Welfare that really are using it as a hand up, not a hand out.

Having said that...most entitlement programs require little if any effort on the part of the beneficiary outside of tedious paperwork. Therefore, it sets people up to be unconcerned about their performance.

You may not have used the word lazy, but it was inferred and then in the next sentence (above) you validate my reasoning.

I am not disagreeing with you here Gid. I do think a lot of people on Welfare are lazy. I don't think we should do away with helping people who have legitimate reasons for being down and out though.

How does the GOVERNMENT determine this, Tova?

Charity is not the duty of the government, much as we would like to think it is. It is the responsibility of the individual. The idea of confiscating wealth to feed the poor is not charity, it's theft.

As for the welfare state encouraging laziness, you've challenged my thesis, fair enough. Where do I start to back it up? Well, I could point to the numerous studies that have shown how poverty is intergenerational. People raised on welfare are more likely to live on welfare, Tova.

At some point, true compassion demands we encourage people to stand on their own two feet rather than continue to pay them for doing nothing. If we pay them for doing nothing, I can virtually guarantee there will be a class of people who will ALWAYS do nothing.

Welfare encouraging laziness is different than welfare MAKING people lazy, Tova. HUGELY different. The fact is, we are creatures of convenience. All of us, every single one, will choose the path of least resistance to get the things we desire. It's why obesity is so epidemic in our country. The idea of walking two blocks has become repugnant.

When you give people a "free ride", they'll take that ride as long as you give it. And then, because they've grown dependent on the system, it's danged hard to get them off of that train.

Gideon, so you're against Robin Hood? Who can be against Robin Hood?

Well, Jyth, it depends which Robin Hood it is.

Cary Elwes was a Robin Hood I support, and the foxy Robin Hood is the king of all.

But Kevin Costner? I'm totally opposed.

Gideon, a coupla reasons why the customer service might be so bad. Forgive the length of this reply, but it takes some explanation to go beyond the "darn lazy poor people!!" rationale

The entire fast food industry is designed to have the dumbest workforce possible. This is not a conspiracy, but just good business sense to maximize profit. People like the founders of Mcdonald's and A&W discovered that if most of the job was automated and the food as pre-prepared as possible, that they would not need to pay skilled labour wages to their front line staff... it doesn't take a rocket scientist to fill up your coke and shovel your fries, right?

Fast food companies have intentionally made the job as simple as possible for two reasons-

1) So they can pay their employees as little as possible
2) So that employees will get fed up and not stick around very long, thus creating the revolving door effect for staffing. This is no joke, fast food companies plan for their average employee to last anywhere from a few weeks to a few months, and they want it that way. Sure, a small percentage of employees do stick around but most of those will eventually move into management or do the job as a time-filler (like the retiree greeters at walmart for example).

Fast food companies WANT their staff to leave after a short time so that they don't have to worry about paying any kind of benefits, have to haggle with staff for too many raises, or heaven forbid deal with an attempt by the workers to unionize (which does statistically happen if restaurants have enough long term employees)

And it's fine for the company to lose workers left right and center because the job is so easy. You could literally kidnap a random person off the street and put them behind the counter, and chances are that they would be able to learn and do the job in about two seconds. Loud beeping noise means fries are done. Shovel fries into container and give customer change. Wash, rinse, repeat.

The low prices that people pay for fast food explains why the service is so bad, in my opinion. Because the employer is able to pay minimum wage (or less if the employee is on some kind of work release or high school work experience program) and because they don't have to worry about benefits for most of their staff they can charge you less for your meal and still bring in a tidy profit for themselves. Because the pay is so crappy and the job is so mind-numbingly, soul crushingly boring and simple, and the staff are payed peanuts to do it, I don't really blame anyone working in fast food for looking like a zombie or not jumping to attention whenever a customer walks through the door.

Basically, you get what you pay for- pay a small amount, you'll probably get little or no customer service. So if anything I'd say it's not the welfare state that is to blame but the joys of the free market, as that is what you are seeing whenever you walk into a fast food franchise!

Another note: I don't get much better service on a $15 steak dinner than I do on a $1 value menu item at Mickey D's. So, low price isn't the issue.

Haha. Tiddler is funny.

"would" seems to imply an anticipated future or alternative present in which you'd be left nothing with which to buy faux quesadillas.

on the other hand, you seem to be claiming america is a welfare state at present.

i'm confused.

'The waiter bellowed down the hall,
"You gets no bread wid one meatball."'


if that lyric isn't familiar to you, gid, you really need to find a recording of 'one meatball' (preferably the josh white version, but dave van ronk and ry cooder both covered it as well).

according to some dude in a folkie forum, this song (originally entitled 'one fishball') may undercut your thesis.


"I think folklorist BA Botkin pointed this out in one of his many collections. "One Meatball" may be the only well-known song in the folk tradition that was written (in 1862) by a Harvard professor. Its author was Martin Lane, and Botkin noted the irnoy of a man highly regarded as a great Latin scholar having all of his "serious" work forgotten and while this comic ditty is remembered (even if the authorship isn't). It eventually became a favorite in music halls, etc. but I don't know who might have recorded early versions of it before it got into Josh White's hands; in any case White is credited with having a million-seller with it in 1944, the same year that it was waxed by the Andrews Sisters (at the same seesion that produced thier hit version of "Rum and Coca-Cola").

either america was already a welfare state in the mid-19th century or professor lane was misinformed as to the cause of poor service. based on his curriculum vitae--also provided by none other than that same some dude--i doubt that's the case.

'(Lane) graduated 1846 at Harvard, and in 1847-1851 studied at the universities of Berlin, Bonn, Heidelberg and Göttingen. In 1851 he received his doctor's degree at Göttingen for his dissertation Smyrnaeorum Res Gestae et Antiquitates, and on his return to America he was appointed University Professor of Latin in Harvard College.

From 1869 until 1894, when he resigned and became professor emeritus, he was Pope Professor of Latin in the same institution.'

disconnect em from the net (easy enuff...and that's the least lil thing you could do to help those sharing your connection to focus on their work)

Well, there's also the race card to be played for many of these 'workers' as well

Where does this continued notion that race is some magical card come from? It's not a card that's used to trump your way out of trouble. If that were true, the prison population in this country would look castly different. My culture is not some sort of convienence, it's a reality I'm proud of. Racism is alive and well and I still face it. Perhaps not every day as my parents did, but I still get slurs (and an occasional rock or bottle) hurled at me. There's no card for that.