Is this wrong?

[Richard]

Building on David's thread on federalism, suppose the federal government returns to a minimalist government, and each State is setting its own "destiny."  California and New York, being liberal, offers more welfare, healthcare, and so forth to its people.  Utah does not.

<mirror image>

British Columbia, specifically Vancouver, has a lavish welfare system.  Alberta does not.  A few months ago there was an uproar in Canada because Alberta's premier started a program to give free one-way bus tickets to anyone receiving welfare in Alberta to move to Vancouver because Vancouver offers a much more free money.  Vancouver's mayor was furious.


Going back to the States, say all the conservative states offers free one-way tickets to the welfare nanny states of New England and the west coast.

Would this be wrong?

[Jake]

No

[Bandit3 the Worker]

This is a rather cheap exercise, and it seems mighty wrong to me.

Around 1960, some racists in the South did something similar involving Southern blacks, and it was really quite a crude endeavor. Civil rights leaders said it was really kind of exploitative.

[Richard]

I don't think it is wrong.  But I am wondering: why do you think it is wrong?  Why is it wrong to offer people a better life by offering them a way to get there FREE OF CHARGE?

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Part of it is that people don't benefit from it as much as they would appear to. And it really is kind of condescending.

[Cashcow]

It is both arrogant of those sending away their citizens and hypocritical of those angry to accept them.

[Richard]

It is both arrogant of those sending away their citizens and hypocritical of those angry to accept them.

arrogant: Having or displaying a sense of overbearing self-worth or self-importance


How is this arrogant?  They are admitting that their welfare system is not as good as Vancouver's!  They're not thinking they're more important!

[Cashcow]

You sure can put flowers in a graveyard when it involves your right-wing buddies.

[Richard]

You sure can put flowers in a graveyard when it involves your right-wing buddies.

You're avoiding the issue at hand.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

This reminds me of Minneapolis' plan to cut down on the homeless. They gave them free bus tickets to other cities. Denver's mayor got pretty annoyed.

[Jake]

This reminds me of Minneapolis' plan to cut down on the homeless. They gave them free bus tickets to other cities. Denver's mayor got pretty annoyed.

LOL, that's a good strategy.  Give the bums a bag lunch, fifty bucks, and a bus ticket to Chicago.

[Gabu]

Yes, I personally think that it is.  The point of a welfare system, whether you're in favor of them or not, is to prop up the people already living into an area, not to accomodate everyone on the planet.

As an aside, I wouldn't say that BC as a whole has a "lavish welfare system".  My dad, who, I'm not proud to say, is a pretty extreme anarchist and who hates working because it "serves the system", decided to move to Quebec because he was having serious trouble staying on welfare here.

Now, if you said the same thing about Quebec as a whole, I would pretty much agree.    They're ridiculously liberal there.

[dazzleman]

There's really nothing wrong with this, in my opinion.

If a state is foolish enough to offer welfare benefits that are so lavish as to attract shiftless people from halfway across the continent, then they deserve to have problem people dumped on them.

It's not exploitive because the people involved have to accept the free tickets.  People who make decisions ought to accept responsibility for their decisions, though this is not a concept that is familiar to most welfare recipients.

[Gabu]

There's really nothing wrong with this, in my opinion.

If a state is foolish enough to offer welfare benefits that are so lavish as to attract shiftless people from halfway across the continent, then they deserve to have problem people dumped on them.

It's not exploitive because the people involved have to accept the free tickets.  People who make decisions ought to accept responsibility for their decisions, though this is not a concept that is familiar to most welfare recipients.

Er, Alberta is not exactly "halfway across the continent" from Vancouver.

Nevertheless, I maintain that this isn't right.  If the people can get to Vancouver out of their own means, then I wouldn't have a problem with that, but having Alberta's government personally sponsor their move is going completely against what the point of the welfare system in Vancouver was supposed to accomplish.

[dazzleman]

There's really nothing wrong with this, in my opinion.

If a state is foolish enough to offer welfare benefits that are so lavish as to attract shiftless people from halfway across the continent, then they deserve to have problem people dumped on them.

It's not exploitive because the people involved have to accept the free tickets.  People who make decisions ought to accept responsibility for their decisions, though this is not a concept that is familiar to most welfare recipients.

Er, Alberta is not exactly "halfway across the continent" from Vancouver.

Nevertheless, I maintain that this isn't right.  If the people can get to Vancouver out of their own means, then I wouldn't have a problem with that, but having Alberta's government personally sponsor their move is going completely against what the point of the welfare system in Vancouver was supposed to accomplish.

But Quebec is more than halfway across the continent from Vancouver!

Alberta wants to get rid of these welfare recipients, and with good reason.  What is wrong is to choose to inflict responsibility to support you onto working fellow citizens if you are physically capable of working.  If Vancouver supports this type of behavior, then Vancouver has itself to blame for being dumped on.  And those who accept the bus tickets are responsible for their own decisions.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

This is just that nasty little prick of a Social Darwinist, Ralph Klein trying to piss off everyone outside Alberta again...
Twat.
Any other province and he'd have been out on his ear years ago.