BXProject

[mat_the_cat]

I don't normally take much notice of email forwards, but I like this one a mate sent me. Apparently written by a fireman - I like the simplicity of his idea!

I work, they pay me.
I pay my taxes and the government distributes my taxes as it sees fit. In order to earn my monthly pay, I work on a fire station for the Fire and Rescue Service, I am required to pass a urine test for drugs and alcohol at my three yearly medical, with which I have no problem.

What I do have a problem with is the distribution of my taxes to people who don't have to pass a urine test. Shouldn't one have to pass a urine test to get a benefit cheque because I have to pass one to earn it for them?

Please understand that I have no problem with helping people get back on their feet. I do on the other hand have a problem with helping someone sit on their arse drinking beer and smoking dope.

Could you imagine how much money the government would save if people had to pass a urine test to get a benefit cheque?

[Philhod]

Good idea!! I'll put it to my MP next surgery

[docchevron132]

That's genius!
I'll E-mail downing Street with that at once.

[Scarecrow]

Utter twaddle - he is required to pass a urine test because he is in a high-risk job where inebriation would be a danger to work colleagues, himself and members of the public and is a requirement for insurance cover. If he doesn't like it (or the special pay and conditions) he should find another occupation (maybe as an MP).

It never ceases to amaze me how many people are prepared to walk into a totalitarian state. I would fight any move towards such a situation in Britain. I am not a cog in a machine (though I might be a spanner in the works). I'm not interested in the so-called rewards of being a high achiever (believe it or not, I've been there), and I'm not interested in spending my working life helping someone else to become rich. I do my thing. I pay my taxes. I don't spend my life consumed with jealousy for the lifestyles of the feckless and the inebriated, but then I don't spend much time wringing my hands over their plight either.

My answer would be to create employment opportunities for the unemployed whereby they could do just enough work to earn their benefits. Like the old workhouses, but without the cruelty or stigma. So, you'd go to the dole to get some money, but you might have to go and work on a "government" farm for a day first, or go and paint an old ladies house, or do a bit of strimming, or help out at the hospital.....

[docchevron132]

See, I kinda go t'other way.
If people want to work, but cant, no problem. They get state help.
But if people can work, but would rather not, then I'd use them as cannon fodder.

[mat_the_cat]

But should people on benefits be allowed to spend (waste?) that money on something that is not legal? Leaving aside the issue of whether it should be legalised or not...

I suppose the system /\ doesn't differentiate between those who are actively seeking work (but who enjoy the occasional spliff in the evenings) and those who sit on their arses all day getting stoned.

[Scarecrow]

The trouble is, people are unemployed for a reason - and all too frequently it's because they have personality disorders. If there were proper schemes where these people could work to earn their keep they could also be "educated" about the social skills they need to demonstrate to keep a job, they might also learn about the benefits of earning their own money and being masters of their own destiny.

I guess there's no simple answer and it might be we just have to accept that no matter what initiatives governments introduce, there will always be a hard core of people who cost the state money. No era has ever been able to eliminate the problem by punitive measures, and I doubt if there will ever be a solution.

I do understand the emotional reaction hard-working people have to the feckless - I know a woman who has lived off of benefits for most of her life, works really hard selling rip-off designer shit to other idiots who want to pretend they're better than they are, whilst the father of her twin kids earns a thousand pounds a week, lives with her without telling the council in a very nice council house in an otherwise private residential street, rent free, and now her kids are 7yo she has fallen pregnant again! Her mother is the same, but she has a disability living allowance (and car) and yet spends her life running around for her adult kids. Oh, her son is a drug dealer driving around in expensive BMW's towing a jet ski or an expensive motocross bike.... and Id still rather have my life.

Hmmm... I kinda get your point as well, Doc. I would just hate to stamp on the genuinely afflicted in order to stop the real cheats. I should grass her up, but I don't want to be responsible for the harm it might cause to the innocents involved.

[Scarecrow]

Anyway - better do some work now

[docchevron132]

But should people on benefits be allowed to spend (waste?) that money on something that is not legal? Leaving aside the issue of whether it should be legalised or not...

Short of introducing food stamps instead of cash that would be hard to police though.

Dont get me wrong Mr. Crow. I'm a big supporter of the welfare state.
BUT, I know countless people in Brizzle that live on benefits, could work, and have fuck all wrong with them, but they choose to sit on their collective arses whilst I go to work and earn not a lot to keep them. This makes me angry.

Kates neighbour hasn't "worked" a day in his life, and yet makes over £1000 a day selling drugs from his council flat that I pay for.
This makes me very angry.
He was taken to court, and both myself and Kate gave evidence. He walked, and went straight back to selling drugs the same night.

[Scarecrow]

Yeah, it does my head in when I see the amount of fraud and money/resource wasting that goes on, but to be honest that's across the board - everywhere in society. It just seems crass to me to erode the welfare state at a time when there will likely be much less work about. The welfare system should have been fixed in the good times.

It's certainly not nice when someone close is affected directly by someone else's selfishness. If it was me, I'd probably just get all angry and not be able to stand the sight of the cunt and then confront him at a time when I'm not disadvantaged I'm actually an awful coward, but out of fear comes great strength sometimes. Failing that I'd move somewhere nicer and brood on it for a while....

[Vanny]

he is required to pass a urine test because he is in a high-risk job

erm? He's a fucking painter, how high risk is that?

He works ON a fire station, not in or at but ON, so i reckon he's a painter, or builder, or possibly a roofer. And he probably has to pass a urine test because he's a risk to the public because hes on parole for killing two people with his bare hands . . . hmmm, too much imagination me thinks.

[Scarecrow]

Now I've read it again... I bet he's got a nice store of red paint in his shed then People think because they're on the make that everyone else should help them or get the hell out of their way because, hey, no one else has to make a living because we're all benefit cheats or maligners or feckless anyway...

Haha - I think the rat-look tzd is going to my head. I feel free.

[Philhod]

You obviously haven't heard the latest from this lot of cobbled together idiots in Westminster.
We have all heard the one about all the newly public sector unemployed being taken up by the non existent private sector. Well now they are starting the ethnic cleansing. Workhouses could make a comeback. If you don't work, for whatever reason, and live in a "posh" area, the new housing benefit cap will not allow you to live there an longer. You will be moved out to make room for working people and housed in poor ghetto's or even B&B's.
This lot seem bent on completing the work that Thatcher started...closing down this country to all but those that don't need to work and live off investments.
We already have a cabinet of millionaires, telling us we are all in this together.
The disaster I forecast cometh, there is already serious unrest throughout Europe.

[Vanny]

Or maybe, just may be they are being more realistic than Labour government has ever been? Hand out states dont work!

[Philhod]

Hitler did much the same thing circa 1932-45. Albeit for different reasons...no wait....

He didn't have much success in the long run as I recall

[docchevron132]

Thats simply not true!
It's being looked into that a council house is no longer necessarily for life.
It's not a lot different from what the last were doing when say, a mother and her son (of working age) lived in a 2 bed council house.
The mother dies, and even though the sons on the tenancy, he gets a choice of moving to a one bed flat that he's offered, or fuck off and go private.
It's been happening since 2000 so nothing new.

Quite how the current austerity measures (which had to happen whether we like it or not) can be taken in the same context as a dude that was mad as a box of frogs and wanted to own the whole world for his arian race I'm not altogether sure..

Look, If anyone seriousley thinks whoever got in wouldn;'t have shafted us they must be on some pretty good drugs.
The colour of the party is irrelevant, and Milliband can jump up and down all he likes, but the fact is, we are heading for a TRILLION quids worth of debt as UK PLC, now in my book thats pretty fucking bad, and any political party or man on the street can bellyache about it being the banks fault, but, who let the banks do it? And regardless it doesn't alter where we are now.
People of my generation (who granted on the whole are useless cunts) will have to work longer and harder for less.
Ok, being retired right now aint a bed of roses, but I have to accept that things are shite, not just for me, but for my neighbour, his neighbour and every other tosser in this land, so thats it, I'll pay my taxes, not moan too much about it and survive as best I can on what I have because the sorryass situation we find ourselves in has to be dealt with.
Here endeth todays lecture.

[Vanny]

I don't remember any Nazi propaganda stating;

sie müssen für ihren Lebensunterhalt arbeiten

Quite frankly the two situations bare little resemblance!

[docchevron132]

WTF are you doing up at this hour Vanster?

[Vanny]

reinstalling Vista on twatty Hodds twatty computer

Vista is a fucking pointless bag of shite, and not suitable for an athlon 64 with but 1gb of ram. The computer is actually slower than its owner. Been at it 7 days now, tossing wank.

[docchevron132]

Haven't you got work in the morning?