(03-24-2014, 07:52 AM)ScottK Wrote: The problem with that is you would be on the hook to someone else in order to gain that benefit. It doesn't matter whether that someone else is government or another person - you will have just given that other entity power over you by accepting a benefit from them.
I have to agree with this. Because it makes you essentially powerless to the government.
In England what they do at the moment is create the situation where poverty is enforced and then in exchange for a little money make people apply for jobs, and set out a vicious campaign at demonising those people as apparently lazy people for not getting a job. (Sometimes those that are low on money actually have jobs and still need benefits.)
The point seems to get as far as possible away from the idea that the government actually owes it's citizens anything; by making it the fault of the people that are low on money.
The power of the implication of 'we are giving you money and you have to give xyz back' is quite total. I have heard people say many times that they don't feel they can complain because they are being given money.