Are deliberately unemployed people a drain on society?

[Cassius]

Yes. The problem here is that if you have people who are, as you said, deliberately unemployed, and still entitled to receive welfare payments from the state, then that creates a massive disincentive on the part of many people to work. I mean, like it or not, we need people to do some of the hardest and nastiest jobs in society (street sweeping, cleaning sewers etcetera). Where's the incentive for people to do these (often low-paying) jobs, when they can simply choose to be deliberately employed and receive money from the state anyway. Whilst this wouldn't make everybody want to quit there job, you can bet that it would cause a large swathe of the populace to at least consider doing so. The government paying people for doing nothing when they could be doing something is not a sustainable or even 'fair' policy.

You talked of people being 'forced into squalor by collective spite'. Well, in the case of the deliberately unemployed (whom, by the nature of the term 'deliberately unemployed' I assume would have the ability to find employment), they would be forced into squalor by the fact that they didn't want to behave like the vast majority of society and try and find a job. It isn't callous to be somewhat reluctant to see the money that you pay in tax to the state (skimmed off the income of a job that you might not find very enjoyable or pleasant) possibly used to fund the lifestyle of someone who could work but doesn't work. I mean, the latter is the very definition of idleness.

Whilst, in my view, the sick and those who are unemployed through no fault of their own should receive some form of support, those who are simply to lazy to work should not receive any support, certainly not from the state. If they don't work deliberately, yet don't receive money from the state (which is far more likely) then they're simply a drain upon whomever is having to support them, unless said person or people are fully sympathetic towards them.