Lunch Break: Alexandra Pelosi interviews welfare recipients
by LauraLoo
Real Time with Bill Maher met with Alexandra Pelosi who interviewed some lazy welfare recipients with an entitlement mindset.
What is the long-term solution to this problem so that your kids and grandkids don’t have to keep supporting lazy folks like them for generations to come?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2kGPdxkofo[/youtube]
Email LauraLoo with your Lunch Break suggestions.
[HT: Jill]
May.14, 2012 12:00 pm |
Video of the day |
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
welfare enslaves. It is not being used as a helping hand as intended. It is only going to get worse however as family and community fracture even more. People in need will think the governments role is to take care of them. Our whole nation will end up in poverty because socialism always eventually leads there.
Yes, even welfare intended to directly help families raise their children—something that is so seemingly pro-life—actually enslaves, too.
yeah that was balanced.. lets get rid of welfare cause this lady found two or three bums looking for free money
you know you can fill out everything from a computer these days so the ppl who are getting benefits and searching for a job at the same time,, not standing around in line, they are looking for a job
How about I go to a picket line, interview two ppl, and say they are representative of all of pro-lifers is that fair?
“How about I go to a picket line, interview two ppl, and say they are representative of all of pro-lifers is that fair?”
I’d say you’re too late, they already do that.
yes u-104 and its unfair isnt it? It is wrong to judge a group of ppl by finding the two worst examples you can, the young lady was not standing their in the far shots telling me that at lest some time passed durring the filming, clearly the worst examples were hand selected to make a point, ppl have pre0concieved ideas about who recieves aid and most of the time they are wrong
is this a Christian attitude? to judge people you have never met?
Here is how to get rid of welfare.. the church does its job. If the church stepped up and helped the poor I would say no problem lets get rid of gov welfare so that the bums cant sneak through the loopholes. BUt having been in poverty in America I ca attest that the church is NOT the place to go for help
want to get rid of the welfare system.. make it unecessary
“If the church stepped up and helped the poor I would say no problem lets get rid of gov welfare so that the bums cant sneak through the loopholes. BUt having been in poverty in America I ca attest that the church is NOT the place to go for help”
Hmm. Seems like you’ve just done what you object to having done with these welfare recipients. You’ve judged all churches based on your limited experience.
In my town, my church is the often the first place place the poor go. Anyone seeking food is given food from the pantry. Gift cards to the local grocery store, gift certificates for gas, rent assistance, utility assistance, personalized help for job seekers, referrals to other agencies…all things we offer the poor.
As much as I hate this Bill Maher segment, I guess it does point out a problem with the welfare system. When people receive welfare they don’t really need, it takes away from others that need that assistance. The system needs reform.
You are correct that my experience can not be the sum of the all that is available. However, I am basing this on my personal experience in two major cities and the informal research of many others in this position
And really.. it speaks for itself. I know the church is not the place to turn for help (although there may be exceptions) in America because people dont. If the church as a whole was doing its part, there would not be horrific poverty along side enormous church buildings.
We have a president running for re-election with the belief that the typical woman (Julia) has Uncle Sam as her husband. No wonder our nation is one big dysfunctional family.
“I know the church is not the place to turn for help (although there may be exceptions) in America because people dont.”
You’re kidding, right?
Catholic Charities USA $22.3 million spent on the poor in one year
Catholic Charities New Orleans $31.3 million
Catholic Charities San Francisco $31.9 million
Catholic Charities Fort Worth $15.9 million
Catholic Charities Cleveland $82 million
Catholic Charities Buffalo $23.7 million
Catholic Charities Los Angeles $24.1 million
Catholic Charities Santa Clara $19 million
Catholic Charities Spokane $7.5 million
Catholic Charities St. Paul/Minneapolis $30.5 million
Catholic Charities Galveston/Houston $33. million
Catholic Charities Milwaukee $4.3 million
Catholic Charities Oklahoma City $3.5 million
Catholic Charities Oakland, CA $4.9 million
Catholic Charities Denver $15.7 million
Catholic Charities St. Louis $8.4 million
and on and on
Gee, look at all the people NOT turning to the church for help. :-/
Liberals LOVE welfare because it exonerates any guilt they might feel about not getting their hands dirty and really assisting poor folk. If Big Daddy takes care of everyone from Washington, and you can absolve yourself of any responsibility by pushing a lever, why NOT welfare?
Remember, welfare is the Ebenezer Scrooge ethic. I’ll repost something below. But notice how Tova claims the church is as unhelpful as Scrooge, and how Lrning all too easily fisks that.
No, the church (and church can stand as a proxy for “private institutions” — not to mention just private individuals quietly, and often anonymously, caring for their neighbors) is the two gentlemen approaching the statist Scrooge and expecting him to actually be a caring person, instead of outsourcing it to a government who merely conscripts wealth to “serve” the poor with a bureaucratic dole.
Should a vibrant society inculcate the virtue of compassion — or should it merely install political hacks as compassion commissars: we shall have a teat of steel and marble. I don’t understand people who, facing two risks (Loss of virtue, loss of food/necessities), decide that in order to insure against the latter, the government must implement means that subvert the cultivation of the former. In order to fill a belly, these geniuses would vacate the soul of a nation.
I’ve cited Scrooge before on this:
“At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge,” said the gentleman, taking up a pen, “it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.”
“Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge.
“Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
“And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”
“They are. Still,” returned the gentleman, ”I wish I could say they were not.”
“The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?” said Scrooge.
“Both very busy, sir.”
“Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,” said Scrooge. “I’m very glad to hear it.”
Scrooge loaths the notion that anyone should accept personal responsibility to redress the misfortunes of those fallen on hard times. He deems the gentlemen soliciting him fools for imposing on men such as himself, for expecting that “it takes a village,” as Hillary observed.
In short, it is statist liberals who personify the spirit of Scrooge, and it is the benevolent gentlemen entreating his personal participation in the lot of the poor that is righteous and good.
Scrooge: “But you were always a good man of business, Jacob.”
Marley: “Business! Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
Not an agency’s business. Not Washington’s business. Not a department’s business. MY business. And Scrooge’s redemption did not consist in becoming a better taxpayer. He already was:
“I help to support the establishments I have mentioned — they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.”
In his redemption, he didn’t expand the state’s care of those in need. To the contrary, he left the state with fewer expenses and less need of tax revenue:
(To Cratchet): “I’ll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon.”
What? No queue at a federal office? No waiting for paperwork to go through? Wow, individual citizens are sure more nimble than the State when they’re virtuous.
This is probably what those of us who oppose statism wish for everyone:
“Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. [anyone’s health plan come with that kind of benefit?] He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world.”
God — not the State — bless us, everyone!
Lrning–I’m looking at your list, and I’m thinking of all the money Obama spent on crappy Solyndra.
There’s another issue, and that is to whom one is grateful for services rendered.
The State?
Really?
Have you ever been put on hold by some big company? Heck, even a small one.
Robovoice: “We’re sorry to keep you waiting; your call is important to us and will be answered in the order yada yada yada.”
Hold on thar. Please, someone, tell me — who, exactly, is “sorry?” To whom is my particular call — inasmuch as the voice saying as much to me — important?
Do they hire a person to sit around implementing the level of regret and grief incumbent upon any organization that puts a voice out there claiming — actually claiming — that regret is occurring? Once that person’s emotional limits are reached, do they message another emo contractor to begin their shift? What would a resume look like for this specialty?
Yet people actually believe that bureaucracies “care.” Yes, and gullible people on hold probably think someone is actually instancing regret on their behalf as the voice claims it, as well.
Just because something sounds good, or is said, or is claimed, or enters one’s ears — it doesn’t make it true, or even useful if one values integrity. To the contrary, a normal reaction would be “please, jackass, cut the robo-yammer and just play your lame 8-bit muzak from hell.”
Pssst! Want to know something hilarious? In general, progressives are against the whole “corporate personhood” thing — but look how they speak of government as the proper locus for compassion, for caring for people, and so forth. They anthropomorphize the State as if it were the very mother behind all that apple pie. They regularly appeal to Jesus himself to justify this. Thus, corporations shouldn’t fund PACs for campaigns because corporations aren’t persons — but the government itself should pattern its programs on Jesus because, well, because it’s on a level with The Person Of All Persons, or something.
We can’t have corporations tinkering with elections (what we’d expect them to do, if granted such freedom), but we should expect government to bare its teats, clean our diapers, and sing us bedtime lullabies. Somehow, though, progressives who think this way are oblivious to the irony.
You can’t make this stuff up.
Sure, they may not represent everyone, but no instantiation does. So selecting this sampling does serve a purpose, but it is not dishonest. Do you think it was difficult to find these types of interviews? There are lots of welfare recipients like this. There are also a lot not like this. But the problematic cases make the system problematic.
Education
Really? There are a lot of really well-educated pols who created the systems the leeches latch onto.
And a lot of well-educated voters who celebrate these same systems.
The same voters, I’ll wager, are constantly defending the public education system in their Democratic-governed urban utopias. Every few years, more “reforms.”
So much for education. Even the educators can’t get it right.
Rasqual –
How many people in that video do you think are high school educated?
Or college educated?
If education isn’t the way – maybe forced sterilizations? Or we cut off all services and help, and mock people as they die in the street?
EG: You come up with the weirdest solutions. ;-)
Well golly, EG, I wonder why we have so many dropouts in Democrat-run, Union-run, urban education utopias? How about this: generational failures from a generationally failing education system.
My mom dropped out, her mom dropped out. My dad dropped out, his dad dropped out. Whoever they are. And by golly, I’m dropping out.
I work for a private company that works with over 2000 BD/LD K12 kids a year. At our church, I work with urban kids, and most of the young men have no idea who their father is. And no, their mothers are not grads. So don’t try to tell me that magically, out of nowhere, the people you see in videos like that are failures in school despite their parents’ success, inasmuch as the public schools are so vunderful that generational failure is surely an aberration.
My company’s schools exist because the public schools can’t handle some kids. Yes, that’s right — a market exists for difficult kids precisely because the public schools can’t handle them. Yet the public educators will claim that if vouchers existed, they’d get stuck with the toughest kids. Damn liars. DAMN liars. They already outsource their toughest kids.
No patience for this B.S. from me, EG.
Is the issue you are discussing with how to make people more employable or more virtuous?
Private versus government help.
As for making people employable, that can get complex.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-why-job-market-will-continue-shrinking
Interesting food for thought.
Rasqual -
No need to make this political. I never said “more public education” or “keep doing what we’re doing”.
People need to see a way out – need to have educational opportunities and understand that taking those opportunities and succeeding will lead to better opportunities and break that cycle.
The unemployment rate for college grads is 4%. Unemployment rate for high school grads is a shade under 10%. Unemployment rate for those who never graduated high school hovers around 13.5%.
So yes, if you want to break the cycle, you’ve got to figure out how to educate. If you have another thought, I’m all ears.
So yall just gonna whine and scream about Maher until he has a segment you can feel morally superior about?
Seriously, I am honestly ashamed of the people on here that took this video as any type of representation of welfare recipients and took this as an excuse to sound off. And that door man? “They look like they don’t want to work”. What the heck ever, he may have super powers that let him figure out everyone’s unique situation at a glance, but I sure don’t.
I’m sure that it makes everyone feel great to snicker at a stereotype of welfare recipients, but its sure ain’t nice and it sure ain’t Christian. I can’t remember a post that has irritated me more, and there have been some doozies.
Thanks, Ex, for adding a bit of sanity to this blog. I always appreciate.your patience lol. You have far more than me.
Thanks Jack – I appreciate you.
I’m wondering where the post is concerning how we break the cycle of massively large companies and their dependency on government handouts?
Should oil company execs have to take drug tests before getting our tax money? Somehow, I haven’t seen that poll go around on facebook or any of these sites.
Don’t be silly, Ex. It’s much more important to make fun of poor people, do drug testing for welfare that cost my state millions to catch a couple potheads, and scream about socialism than to actually pay attention to where billions of dollars are disappearing. Where would we get our moral superiority if we actually started to improve things?
Who is snickering and making fun of poor people?
If you can’t see why a cherry picked video of a couple people who don’t remotely represent the demographics or attitudes of most who live in poverty, or how it was disingenuously used to start a conversation about how to get these lazy people to stop using Our Tax Dollars ™ then I can’t help you understand why this irritates the crap out of me.
Jack,
As someone who comes from a large family living on the poverty line who has used government assistance in the past as a TEMPORARY MEASURE, we can’t deny people like this exist, and we can’t deny that government assistance programs need a HUGE overhaul.
Who pretends they dont exist, X? As a person who has lived under the poverty level my entire life, and never taken assistance, it seems that every. single. conversation. about welfare has conservatives bemoaning the lazy jerk “living off the system”. Nobody seems to focus on the fact that single mothers comprise a lot of recipients. I seriously have never heard a conservative talk about the fact that a lot of benefits are paid to people who are working part or full time and still can’t make it. It’s ridiculous to act like people receiving benefits are like this. “I want some Obama money herp a derp”. Come the heck on.
If you can’t see why a cherry picked video of a couple people who don’t remotely represent the demographics or attitudes of most who live in poverty, or how it was disingenuously used to start a conversation about how to get these lazy people to stop using Our Tax Dollars ™ then I can’t help you understand why this irritates the crap out of me.
Nope. I get it and don’t like this blog post myself. I thought you were saying those commenting were snickering and making fun of poor people. I didn’t see anyone doing that so I was curious what I was missing.
Sorry for getting snippy with you Lrning. This video really made me mad, lol. And I don’t like the “lazy people” stereotyping and how people seem to just accept it.