Welfare recipients to be drug tested

What ever happened to individual responsibility? We could simply solve poverty and expect persons who are not in official poverty to be more responsible for themselves.

 

*shrug* That's what we're talking about. The testing helps us identify those who are failing to be more responsible, so we can exclude them from a plan designed to temporarily assist those willing to take on responsibility for solving their own personal productivity to consumption deficit.

 

Dunno, would have to see an example.

 

How does denying and disparaging individual liberty engender individual responsibility or respect for the rule of law; those externalities are not accounted for by the line of reasoning of those of the opposing point of view.

Why not require a drug test to eliminate a natural unemployment rate instead? Do you believe simply administering a drug test can actually solve any social dilemma we current are faced with? In my opinion, a drug test can not solve for the social dilemma we have be spending our tax monies on for over thirty years; why sacrifice the end to the means, contrary to plain reason and legal axioms, simply to not solve the problem and infringe upon our civil rights at the same time. What happened to individual liberty with which to be more responsible with?

Why is it that alleged conservatives seem to be giving us less to be grateful for?

 

You think that would work?

 

I don't think it would work any better than drug testing welfare recipients to ensure more poverty rather than less poverty.

 

I'm surprised to find that I don't have a problem with this.

However, I do think cannabis should be legal.

 

I don't personally and think anyone on government subsidy with it in their system shouuld lose their benefit.

 

No one seems to be suggesting that. I believe the suggestion is for drug testing to ensure that people asking for government enabled charity are not squandering that charity and the opportunity it represents on expensive and illegal recreational drugs.

 

The goal or the End of "public charity" is to eliminate poverty. How will administering a drug test achieve the goal or that End?

If administering a drug test will not solve the problem or achieve that End, why are you advocating for sacrificing the End to the Means, contrary to the dictates of plain reason and legal axioms?

I would agree with you if simply administering a drug test could solve poverty instead of simply induce more poverty by sacrificing the End to the Means.

Don't you believe that simply being in poverty in one of the richest countries in the world is punishment enough? Would what you claim of expensive recreational drugs even be an issue, if it were easier to find a job than to buy illicit drugs?

 

The goal of the drug test is not to end poverty, it's to discourage and reduce abuse of a system that provides government enabled charity.

Punishment implies that someone is imposing poverty. I have no interest in penalizing people and I do not believe poverty is being imposed. I simply do not want to waste the charity I might provide. I do not believe someone who is consuming illegal and expensive drugs to keep themselves in a dissociative state is attempting to become self sufficient. Offering assistance in becoming self sufficient to someone who will not try to become self sufficient is wasted charity.

 

How would this program hurt the fight against poverty? It encourages behavior that fights poverty and only punishes behavior that is guaranteed to keep a person in poverty.

 

That is not what you said before

Once again

I think I got it, so if a tool or a program by itself will not solve the problem entirely then we should not use that tool or engage that program. What nonsense.

Free birth control is not going to solve poverty either, should we end those programs and not use that tool? It is expense too and doesn't work all the time. Well that settles it stop it now.

There is nothing be sacrificed to have those asking for government assistance to prove they are capable of accepting employment.

There is no sacrifice.

But since it will not solve poverty according to your position we should not offer it.

 

The program exists to solve for poverty. Sacrificing the end to the means is contrary to plain reason and legal axioms. Why advocate for being wrong on this issue?

What you claim of drug use can be applied to the abomination of hypocrisy, yet, I don't hear any clamor for drug testing people who may resort to hypocrisy. Why waste good money over bad if you already know it won't work?

Povery can be considered institutional in nature under our form of government. We already have laws on the books which could have ended poverty so that we could have been the posterity on this one, but an elder generation dropped the ball.

 

It hurts the fight against poverty by increasing forms of poverty rather than decreasing forms of poverty. Why not provide an option for rehabilitation instead of a drug test?

 

You may be resorting to a fallacy of composition.

Not sacrificing the end to the means is what I have been saying for awhile.

It is not about degrees of solving poverty via a drug test; but about not even being in the same class of programs designed to end poverty.

A drug test that denies and disparages individual liberty also increases poverty to the extent it is used to deny and disparage recourse to a social safety net that would otherwise decrease poverty.

Free birth control provides another option; a drug test does not. Why not provide free rehabilitation instead of a drug test, if you really want to help eliminate poverty rather than simply engage in arbitrary forms of command economics while claiming to abhor forms of Communism or Socialism?

There is nothing for the government to prove, other than using public sector intervention in private sector markets to macromanage a natural unemployment rate that is a root cause of poverty in our republic.

Micromanaging individual liberty is for truer communists or truer socialists than any American should be under our form of federal government, Constitution and Bill of Rights.

 

Nope

Originally Posted by danielpalos View Post
You may have missed the concept. I would agree with you if we could solve poverty with a simple drug test.

And you don't have to test everyone every year.

Not a good one and we can do hair testing also.

Hardly and if you do it random.........

Why do you believe welfare recipients should be able to engage in drug activity while living on the dole?



While I do agree that people on welfare should be required to actively seek employment or be enrolled in school, that is hard to legislate.

What you are saying makes sense on paper but I do not think your ideas would survive the trials of the real world.[/QUOTE]

 

No I am addressing your claim.

We're not sacrificing anything.

Yes it is as degrees of solving povety.

You have no liberty to engage in unlawful drug use which can prevent you from seeking employment or even worse accepting a position while asking other tax payers to support you.

Yes it does but once again you avoid the question, if we use your logic that giving out free birth control will not stop all unwanted pregnancies then we should not hand out free birth control.

That was YOUR standard not mine.

Why not do both and even more reason to drug test to make sure the taxpayer is not wasting their money on free rehabilitation.

Demanding people meet certain standards before government takes someone else's money and gives it to them is not violating anyone's rights.

 

I am not Danielpalos... That was posted by someone else, not me.

How often would you test? For probation, they made me take those tests every single month without exception. Of course, I also had to pay for them at $50 each, not to mention the work I missed for going to probation, as well as the money I had to pay the probation officer, as well as fines and fees.

The drive back from Bonnaroo cost me about $3500 in 2008. The drug tests were ineffective and the punishment just compounded my contempt for authority.

Hair testing cost significantly more than urine tests. And I can shave. It also takes much longer to get the results back.

Less of a deterrent of you do it randomly.

I don't, and I have very obviously stated that in several posts in this very thread, including the one you quoted.

I think people on welfare should have to prove they are looking for a job and I don't think they should give them money at all. I already gave an alternate solution to the problem while pointing out that drug tests won't help at all and giving reasons why.

 

Addressing my claim with a fallacy is still a fallacy. Non sequiturs are usually considered fallacies.

Why do you believe you are not sacrificing anything? How much more poverty will a drug test engender? If poverty is increased as a result of a drug test, then we have made a sacrifice of the cost of a War on Poverty by sacrificing the end to the means.

It is not about degrees of solving poverty via a drug test; but about not even being in the same class of programs designed to end poverty. Can you explain how a drug test will do anything to solve actual poverty? From one perspective, it could be considered a form of "barrier to entry" to a social safety net that ameliorates poverty.

Simply engaging in drug use, whether lawful or not does not preclude an employer from hiring someone if they really feel that way about couch potatoes going on welfare instead of working. It does show more about forms of hypocrisy and a blurring of the distinction between at-will employment and for-cause employment, without any real benefit to potential employees.

You are resorting to a fallacy in this instance since a drug test is not an option to solve for poverty, but can only induce forms of poverty of anyone who fails a drug test. Why not offer free rehabilitation instead of drug test if you really want to help solve poverty regarding people who are prone to abusing drugs, maybe due to their current circumstances. Birth control is an option for ending a form of generational poverty while a drug test is not.

We should not deny or disparage individual liberty just for the sake of a drug test. There is no reason to test for drugs anymore than there is to test for the abomination of hypocrisy, even with a McCarthy era phrase in our pledge. If we cannot be moral enough to test for hypocrisy to ensure that "hypocrites do not rule over us", why should anyone confide in the sincerity of a person who is unwilling to be that moral while claiming we need to drug test persons on public assistance?

The money is being spent on poverty elimination as the End. The Means of a drug test will can be considered an infringement to civil liberty. Why be more communist than necessary, especially if you are not even trying to solve the actual social dilemma of poverty?

 

Addressing mine with bromides more so.

Because I'm not.

More logical fallacies on your part.

It was your statement not mine.

Can you explain to me how allowing welfare recipients to sit around and do drugs does?

It prevents a person from answering a call to work and to report the next day for their drug screening. It allows people who would prefer to engage in drug use and live of the taxpayer dime to do so rather than getting a job and paying their own way.

Non sequitur.

It does nothing of the sort unless you are going to claim living on the taxpayer dole so you can do drugs is a right.

No sequintur.

It does not violate any civil right.

Hyperbole.

It's gonna happen whether you like it or not.

 

These addicts don't deserve to be on welfare. While I believe there is nothing wrong with taking drugs as a recreational luxury, it is still a luxury.

In that same vein, welfare recipients shouldn't be able to buy any luxury items with their welfare money.

This is a waste of time and will do nothing to fix the problem. This is a waste of money and it is targeting the wrong group.

Then there is the fact that there are people that abuse the system without using drugs. What are you going to do to go after those people? Nothing at all?

If someone is willing to sit around and live off welfare, do you think that person will make a good employee or coworker? Do you want to work with them? What would you do to motivate that person to a point where they will actually try to keep a job?

There are soooo many holes in the drug testing plan that it hurts my head to think about it.

 

Welfare recipients sitting around and doing drugs while not in official poverty is solving for official poverty not drug use. It does not sacrifice the End to the Means, contrary to plain reason and legal axioms, like simply testing for drugs does.

How does simple drug use prevent someone from answering a phone call they were expecting? Why is there even a drug screening for at-will employment?

Actually, I am claiming that denying and disparagine individual liberty is a wrong. Where is there any specifically enumerated power delegated to test for drugs for public assistance in a manner that denies and disparages the privileges and immunites of the citizens of the several States? Why is a drug like marijuana even illegal in the first place; it should not be any more illegal than alcohol.

 

Not just elected officials. If we're going to make being drug free a requirement for receiving welfare then the management of any company or corporation which receives government subsidies or tax breaks needs to be tested as well. If anyone fails, no more government money. Remember, corporations are people too.

 

The vast majority of those companies already require drug testing.