Judge overhauls troubled Ferguson, Missouri, court

[Ackmed]

Depending on what source you use between 50-60% of households who receive SNAP are either working or have worked recently. In addition, about 20% are elderly or disabled, so it seems a bit wrong to count them. Maybe 'vast majority' is too strong, but most SNAP households work.

To be clear, unless you were drafted (maybe you were!) you made a personal choice to join the military and that choice comes with risks and consequences. It also comes with benefits, such as enhanced disability protections. I'm very sorry that you have a service related disability and I don't begrudge you any part of the help the government is willing to give you for it. That doesn't make it special or privileged though.

I'm genuinely very happy that you got the help you needed. I'm less happy that you seem so eager to deny other people the help they need.

I have never taken a shot at your service, but you seem to be extremely eager to jump to that conclusion each time your opinions are criticized. My stance is that someone who is currently the recipient of disability checks from the government should be more aware than most that people need help sometimes.

You seem to be trying to peg the people who are criticizing you as military haters or something, probably because it makes it easy to dismiss what they are saying. Well, I served for seven years and many of my best friends to this day are people I met while serving. They are my friends because they are good people though, not because deciding to walk into a recruitment office is special.

You responded in a non confrontational way with no insults so I don't mind replying.

I was not drafted, I understood the consequences. I don't think it is a special privilege, I don't believe I said it was. Denying people that "need" it? Define need. I don't see need as being too lazy to work. Too used to taking a check and other benefits to actually work. Or work enough to get off of government assistance. I needed it, even after trying to deny myself of it for some time. Disabled vets get more money per dependent. I have three children, and don't even have them on there. I would get a good chunk more money if I added them, especially once my oldest starts college. I am not going to add my wife when we get married next month, that would also be more money. I didn't file it to get money, I did it to get medical attention. Sadly you can't get one without the other, unless you pay out of pocket. I could have a disabled vet license plate, but I don't. I park where everyone else does, and walk. I didn't do it to milk the system for all I could, all I wanted was medical assistance.

I wasn't talking about you taking a shot at it, another poster said, "you think your military service some how benefited society?" That is taking a shot, and what I was talking about. I very rarely talk about military shit on here, I think it's only been a few threads.

To be clear, once again I'll state my opinion. People who do not work, do not pay taxes, and live solely on government assistance is not even close to the same as me getting my disability check. I get one for injuries, they get one for being fucking lazy. I still work, pay taxes, etc. Trying to link the two is silly to me, and just looking to argue. I am well aware not everyone who gets assistance depends on it for everything, that some do work and receive partial. I am not talking about them, I am talking about the ones who do absolutely nothing for society, and sit there with their hand out for everything they get. Those are the people I said I don't really give a fuck about. It pisses me off paying for them to be lazy.

 

[cabri]

There is no person in the service at this point that was drafted. (Ended 40+ years ago)
Or has been active duty for the past 10 years.

Everyone is a volunteer, each for their own reason.

Combat injuries/disabilities are due to performing the job that the government asked of them.
Some are eligible for disability and some that are eligible accept the check. Others do not.

And the government is of the people.

 

[Sonikku]

License suspensions and fines disproportionately impact the poor. Somebody who runs a pedestrian over may get no suspension if they can defend themselves while a poor person who gets even a non-moving violation can have their license suspend for a year or two simply because they are unable to pay the fines.

NPR has a 2 part story which helps illustrate the problem:

http://www.npr.org/2014/12/29/372691960/cant-pay-your-fines-your-license-could-be-taken

http://www.npr.org/2015/01/05/372691918/how-drivers-license-suspensions-unfairly-target-the-poor

This.

 

[Darwin333]

Those are the people I said I don't really give a fuck about. It pisses me off paying for them to be lazy.

Purely out of curiosity, do you pay more in taxes than you receive in disability and if so could you maybe give us a percentage or idea of how much more?

 

[JEDIYoda]

Purely out of curiosity, do you pay more in taxes than you receive in disability and if so could you maybe give us a percentage or idea of how much more?

Most people on disability do not pay taxes on their disability!! If they do pay taxes they get it all back when they file their taxes!!

 

[Pipeline 1010]

What good is it to punish people so much that they get stuck in a Sisyphean system that leads to continual punishment? What good is that to society?

It's NOT good to society. It creates desperate, hopeless people who leech off the system and who are more likely to become violent.

It IS good to people who profit from continual punishment: cops, lawyers, judges, and prison guards all benefit financially from ensuring there is plenty of work for them to do. The people arguing for endless punishment due to inability to pay likely fit in these categories. They also have an inability to be moved by empathy, which is why they can smugly say stupid shit like "well you should have thought about that before you broke the speed limit", as if that is a good reason to ruin a life and make society as a whole worse. It's like these people are willing to shit on society and individual lives in order to collect a paycheck. And they feel just fine about it.

 

[Darwin333]

It's NOT good to society. It creates desperate, hopeless people who leech off the system and who are more likely to become violent.

It IS good to people who profit from continual punishment: cops, lawyers, judges, and prison guards all benefit financially from ensuring there is plenty of work for them to do. The people arguing for endless punishment due to inability to pay likely fit in these categories. They also have an inability to be moved by empathy, which is why they can smugly say stupid shit like "well you should have thought about that before you broke the speed limit", as if that is a good reason to ruin a life and make society as a whole worse. It's like these people are willing to shit on society and individual lives in order to collect a paycheck. And they feel just fine about it.

That is the sad part, they not only feel just fine about it but they justify it to themselves. They think that THEY are the good guys and the poor schmuck just trying to keep food on the table is this horrible dredge on society. The irony is that generally the same people that are saying fuck these people are the same people who are pissed off about entitlements. They don't mind their tax dollars going to locking up some guy because he couldn't afford his ticket for not using a blinker but when said locking up causes said guy to lose his job and he goes on foodstamps, oh hell no! He should have paid that ticket, which was worth roughly 35-40 hours of his pay, lickity split just like I would have done! But wait, if you can't afford to pay we have a payment deal for you that even payday lenders are jealous of.

Boggles my mind why so many people despise any sort of subsidized living in the free world but absolutely love subsidizing living in our prison system which is by far the largest per capita AND pure numbers wise in the entire fucking world by far.