Guilherme Zoldan said:
Bertylicious said:
Guilherme Zoldan said:
Bertylicious said:
The whole notion of the "deserving" poor. They're all undeserving, otherwise charity wouldn't be neccesary.
Also people who argue against giving foreigners aid. They don't understand the meaning of goodwill.
I wonder if trolling or just republican. I dont think I understand your concept of charity, why would it not be nescessary if the poor deserved it?
If the poor were "deserving", by which it is most often meant that they're capable of working and basically looking after themselves, then they won't need charity. Like say a dude who's a welder but has lost his job. He's a skilled worker so it won't be long till he finds re-employment, although he may need to relocate himself and his family to do so. I think that's the sort of thing people have in mind when they think of the "deserving" poor.
Now lets take a single mother who got pregnant at 15, has 4 kids by 4 different fathers and has never worked a day in her life. She is what many people might consider "undeserving". Both these examples, however, are equally needy; neither can sustain themselves without the assistance of others it's just that the welder will probably not require the charity for as long as the single mother, who will probably need it her whole life.
To put it more clearly; charity should be about providing help to others unselfishly and making a distinction belies self interest in only wanting to give up to a certain point. I'm not certain that making this distinction is right or wrong though. Seriously, I genuinely don't know and would be interested to hear your thoughts.
I....didnt expect such a reasonable and inteligent reply XD
Your original post really struck me as the angry republican kid. Guess first impressions are deceiving.
Anyway my opinion is that everyone is deserving, everyone has the right to a decent living. Call me an idealist but I just think we should aim for the best.
Oh and contributing to the thread:
30-year-old man with 15-year-old girl = What a pervert exploiting that poor girl
30-year-old woman with 15-year-old guy = What a lucky kid!(as long as she is hot anyway)
What about a hot 30 year old bloke with a munting 15 year old girl? Personally I reckon good on her.
Well, what I meant by my parting shot about being uncertain was about a bit of a crisis of faith I'm having about charity as a whole. See, I work in HR and time and time again I see employees going on the sick with some sort of long term illness and only returning to work when the money runs out. Now these people aren't skiving; they're genuinely ill. They just aren't that ill. The ones that come back to work tend to dust themselves down and get on with their lives but there are also those that then go to the government and start claiming benefits. These people tend to deteriorate.
One of the things that also fed into this line of thought actually came from Knights of the Old Republic 2 of all things. In it the player has a rather metaphyisical conversation with a character called Kreia, a mentor basically, who challenges the player about constantly taking on quests for other people. She makes the point that you're getting the experience from doing the quests, depriving those people of the opportunity of solving their own problems and enriching themselves with that experience. Naturally this was a bit more direct in the game because you're literally taking these people's xp, but I feel the same sentiment translates into real life. By giving people handouts you remove the need for them to develop themselves.
But not everyone wants or needs to develop themselves! And is that really the place of society? To create some sort of academy for us all to strive to be the ubermensch? Is the function of society not to merely create a structure in which people live? We can see oppressive regimes where political parties and leaders have striven for more and all they've done is create authoritarian dystopias.
So what about our fat ***** with her 4 kids and council house? If we kick away the support from her and her family, isn't that going to cause more problems? I mean I've seen people who've been long term unemployed and their pathetic attempts to compete with people who have been living in the private sector all their lives. It's not right. These people shouldn't be in the trenches with us; they should be the pillars of our communities, they should have friends with other parents or in church spending time with people in pain or working with youngsters in Circumstances or just lvong their friends and families and co-existing in chaotic, splendid, human, interaction. At least in an ideal world. But are we robbing her and, by proxy, her children of a better life by helping her cling to her current one?
But if you make distinctions, if you say there is such a thing as an "undeserving" poor, aren't you setting an example to those children that the only way to get ahead is to work hard? Singapore might be an authoritarian dystopia but fucking hell they don't half make a lot of money. And the shit they were in before! Things are much better now, even if you can be publicly flogged for littering.
I really, really, really don't know. I'm not even sure it's something that is knowable.