What is your advice?

[BigRob]

The notion isn't vague. Great idea to take responsibility. Maybe you are rich enough to be blase about who you pay for whatever, but when you are down and out you are desperate for options like rob a bank for a dollar. If you are in Joe's condition do you simply decide: Rather than being irresponsible I think I will just sit back and let my family and life deteriorate to nothing and suffer in pain while my wife and kids suffer too.

Fraud is fraud.

 

[Openmind]

Fraud is fraud.

Yes, fraud is fraud.
And stealing is stealing.

So, you consider that the mother who steals a pound of meat to feed her kids is equally guilty as the "Maddoff" of this world?

And, I bet she wouldn't spend the next 60 days in a luxury penthouse!

 

[Lagboltz]

Fraud is fraud.

Well Rob, that explains why 1 out of 150 people are in jail right now in America. Maybe through their own fault, and maybe not, they find that the laws of America do not work for them. Yes they are bad. That is human nature, and animal nature. You are going to have to just live with it.

 

[Openmind]

Your advice is to dodge personal responsibility, and lie about your injuries in an attempt to make someone else pay for their issue? That is pathetic.

This is the real problem with society, is the death of personal responsibility.

I see it as a survival skill in a society that doesn't care enough about everyone to provide health care for all.

I don't like it. But I believe that, if we were all in the same case, if our lifelyhood depended on it, if our children were going to suffer, 99.5 % of us would find a way. . .legal or not.

That is survival of the fittest in a society that doesn't give a damn whether you live or whether you die. . .if you don't have the money!

 

[BigRob]

Yes, fraud is fraud.
And stealing is stealing.

So, you consider that the mother who steals a pound of meat to feed her kids is equally guilty as the "Maddoff" of this world?

Yes.

And, I bet she wouldn't spend the next 60 days in a luxury penthouse!

Maddoff is in prison...not a luxury penthouse.

 

[BigRob]

Well Rob, that explains why 1 out of 150 people are in jail right now in America. Maybe through their own fault, and maybe not, they find that the laws of America do not work for them. Yes they are bad. That is human nature, and animal nature. You are going to have to just live with it.

I can live with it fine...I have no problem sending those people to jail.

 

[BigRob]

I see it as a survival skill in a society that doesn't care enough about everyone to provide health care for all.

I don't like it. But I believe that, if we were all in the same case, if our lifelyhood depended on it, if our children were going to suffer, 99.5 % of us would find a way. . .legal or not.

Maybe so...but that does not make it right, and it does not mean you should not suffer the consequences of your actions.

That is survival of the fittest in a society that doesn't give a damn whether you live or whether you die. . .if you don't have the money!

More false comparisons...the number of people out starving and dying on the streets in the US is negligible.

 

[Openmind]

Maybe so...but that does not make it right, and it does not mean you should not suffer the consequences of your actions.



More false comparisons...the number of people out starving and dying on the streets in the US is negligible.

I'm surprise to hear you say that.

I believe that ONE child who goes to bed hungry, or one person who is dumped by a hospital on skid row, still in his/her hospital gown, is one too many! At least in a country who prides itself for its "exceptionalism" and of being "the leader of the world!"

 

[Openmind]

Maybe so...but that does not make it right, and it does not mean you should not suffer the consequences of your actions.



More false comparisons...the number of people out starving and dying on the streets in the US is negligible.

I'm surprise to hear you say that.

I believe that ONE child who goes to bed hungry, or one person who is dumped by a hospital on skid row, still in his/her hospital gown, is one too many! At least in a country who prides itself for its "exceptionalism" and of being "the leader of the world!"

[QUOTE: www.nhchc.org/memorialday/HardColdFacts.pdf]
For every age group, homeless persons are three times more likely to die than the general population. Middle-aged homeless men and young homeless women are at particularly increased risk.1
The average age of death of homeless persons is about 50 years, the age at which Americans commonly died in 1900.2 Today, non-homeless Americans can expectto live to age 78.3
Homeless people suffer the same illnesses experienced by people with homes, but at rates three to six times higher.4 This includes potentially lethal communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and influenza, as well as cancer, heart disease, diabetes and hypertension.
Homeless persons die from illnesses that can be treated or prevented. Crowded, poorly-ventilated living conditions, found in many shelters, promote the spread of communicable diseases. Research shows that risk of death on the streets is only moderately affected by substance abuse or mental illness, which must also be understood as health problems. Physical health conditions such as heart problems or cancer are more likely to lead to an early death for homeless persons. The difficulty getting rest, maintaining medications, eating well, staying clean and staying warm prolong and exacerbate illnesses, sometimes to the point where they are life threatening.

 

[Lagboltz]

I can live with it fine...I have no problem sending those people to jail.

I don't like the people that commit crimes either, but as we back them against the wall the jails will fill up ever faster. That will be the way of America. Screw the poor and send them to jail.
Cost per state inmate in 2001 was $22650. That is the figure Wikipedia gives. That was 10 years ago. That's more than my Social Security now.

 

[Lagboltz]

More false comparisons...the number of people out starving and dying on the streets in the US is negligible.

In 2006-2007 1.56 million people experienced homelessness in the US - half of them children. Interesting attitude - those millions of people - aww screw them.

 

[Openmind]

I don't like the people that commit crimes either, but as we back them against the wall the jails will fill up ever faster. That will be the way of America. Screw the poor and send them to jail.
Cost per state inmate in 2001 was $22650. That is the figure Wikipedia gives. That was 10 years ago. That's more than my Social Security now.

Yep, this is what is commonly known as a "criminogenic situation."

I think you should all do some research on that. Basically it says that most laws have been decided by the elite, to protect the elite.

And that, many of those laws do not consider that they are, in themselves, placing people in "criminogenic" situations where they basically have no choice but to commit a "crime!"

It's like: Your kid is hungry. If you steal to feed him, you will go to jail, and he will starve.

If you don't steal, he will die.

Nice choice!

Again, who has seen the movie "John Q" Excellent, and it certainly demonstrates a perfect criminogenic situation:

You accept the "law" that you must pay the hospital BEFORE your kid can receive a heart transplant, but you can't pay the hospital.

So you take the "law" into your own hand, you grab a gun, and you force the hospital to perform a heart transplant. . .then send you to jail.

Why are we living in this kind of "no win" society imposed by laws made solely by the elites?

 

[BigRob]

I'm surprise to hear you say that.

I believe that ONE child who goes to bed hungry, or one person who is dumped by a hospital on skid row, still in his/her hospital gown, is one too many! At least in a country who prides itself for its "exceptionalism" and of being "the leader of the world!"

What society has ever accomplished the total eradication of poverty or other social ills?

www.nhchc.org/memorialday/HardColdFacts.pdf][/url]
For every age group, homeless persons are three times more likely to die than the general population. Middle-aged homeless men and young homeless women are at particularly increased risk.1
The average age of death of homeless persons is about 50 years, the age at which Americans commonly died in 1900.2 Today, non-homeless Americans can expectto live to age 78.3
Homeless people suffer the same illnesses experienced by people with homes, but at rates three to six times higher.4 This includes potentially lethal communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and influenza, as well as cancer, heart disease, diabetes and hypertension.
Homeless persons die from illnesses that can be treated or prevented. Crowded, poorly-ventilated living conditions, found in many shelters, promote the spread of communicable diseases. Research shows that risk of death on the streets is only moderately affected by substance abuse or mental illness, which must also be understood as health problems. Physical health conditions such as heart problems or cancer are more likely to lead to an early death for homeless persons. The difficulty getting rest, maintaining medications, eating well, staying clean and staying warm prolong and exacerbate illnesses, sometimes to the point where they are life threatening.

I don't think anyone disputes that being homeless is miserable, but there will be homeless in any society.

 

[ProudLefty]

I can live with it fine...I have no problem sending those people to jail.

You would send a mother to jail for stealing food for her child, thus removing any chance of her raising that child, and adding that child on to the rolls of Americans on the dole.

That really sounds like a lose-lose-lose to me.

The rest of the world seems to get by with a very different prison system, and their crime rates, recidivism rates, and prison rates make our rates look barbarian.

In many European countries prisoners have the weekends and holidays off from prison, and are sent home to be with their families. If that were suggested here the howls of laughter would rock the rafters, yet their results make our results pale by comparison.

Maybe, just maybe, America needs to be learning from others.

Put another way, there is something wrong with a society that would force a mother to steal to feed her child. Especially a society that is so strong in its belief that every child should be born.
Its almost hypocritical, wouldn't you agree?

 

[BigRob]

In 2006-2007 1.56 million people experienced homelessness in the US - half of them children. Interesting attitude - those millions of people - aww screw them.

That is hardly my attitude...I regularly give money to homeless shelters and even go volunteer in them.

Additionally, what does it mean to "experience homelessness"?

The government defines homeless as:

an individual who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence; and

an individual who has a primary nighttime residence that is -

a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter designed to provide temporary living accommodations (including welfare hotels, congregate shelters, and transitional housing for the mentally ill);

an institution that provides a temporary residence for individuals intended to be institutionalized; or

a public or private place not designed for, or ordinarily used as, a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings.

This means you can be homeless, yet sleeping in a shelter, eating at the shelter, and seeing a doctor at a shelter's clinic.

Let me ask you this...do you think the government is capable of eradicating homelessness?