Discussions

Starhc said "I'm not living in MB housing or on social assistance. We work and provide for ourselves and our family. I don't need to get an education - I have a job and an education already.     I also recognize that while I've worked and studied, not everyone has the advantages I was born with in life - two parents who worked, a home they owned, food on the table, clothes on our backs, etc. I learned my way by watching how they provided for us and trying to do the same for myself. How do you think children born into poverty learn? What do they see and what do they hope or expect for their own future?     Poverty is a cycle. Some people are able to break free of poverty by working and educating themselves, but we do not make it easy for them. We make it easier for people who are born into poverty to stay in the cycle, to live they see others living, and to accept that as enough. So the cycle repeats.     People can be as wealthy as they want, I am not complaining that they have too much money so much as answering to the people who look to those on social assistance and think that they are a drain on the resources of working people. We resist social spending because we think it is costing the working and middle class. We know that we worked for our money and we hate to see our tax dollars going to help those who are not helping themselves, like it is coming out of our own pockets and going to theirs. That is simply not how it works. In our society, the wealth is not being 'drained' by the poor people, it is flowing upstream.           "

I myself learned from both my parents who worked had for everything they have, lessons of working hard, be proud of what you have accomplished, Educate yourself and never stop learning.  
I also learned never to judge anyone unless I know the whole story, yet still don't judge. It sure is hard not to look at people who "leech" off the system, feeling they don't have to lift a finger in order to make an honest living.  
Like I said before I admire the single parents working there butts off to provide a better life for their family. Its the people that can yet don't want to work that annoy me, stating they can't work because they have a medical problem yet you see them working under the table...Hello stop adding to the already overloaded system.

Starhc said "We have plenty of wealth in this nation, but it is concentrated in a very, very, very, very tiny percentage of the population. So what a handful of people have is equal to what the other 11 million people have.     While I agree with the principle, it is way out of hand. For one, we don't have 'half' the population working and not paying and the other half paying for it. Nobody is talking about legislating the wealthy out of their money - make no mistake, they will still be very, very, very wealthy even if a fraction of their income is used to provide social services for those with the most need. The needy outnumber the wealthy but it does not take much of their wealth to address that problem. Check out the actual distribution vs. what people perceive or think is fair. What is actual is so far away from what we perceive and think is fair. People can still be successful and extremely wealthy. There will always be poor people. But the extremes are what is keeping everyone in between - the actual majority of the population (I will jump to assume, that means most of us here...) people from being as successful and stable as we should be.     The problem most people have with the poor people is that they take more than they contribute. I am only asking that people consider for a moment who *else* is gaining far much more than they contribute to our country, and at what cost to the rest of us?     And then, what party or government actually has an idea to address it? The answer there is, none of them because the citizens in the country are not asking them to. We need to start looking in the right direction to solve these problems because the middle class is getting stretched very thin. Of course we don't like it when expanding social programs is on the agenda. It feels like we're already doing more than enough and no progress is being made.             "

Have you ever sat on a downtown bench and notice the people walking by, do you look and wonder to yourself "what is there story"?  
I have often found myself speaking to the ones that I saw on a regular basis. The homeless for instance are that way because they came upon hard times yet others have chosen that way of life. Meanwhile the "snobs" don't have the time or patience to understand others situations unless it will benefit themselves.  
Housing for instance, the occupants of one home may have found themselves on hard times due to a breakup, one parent "usually the mother" is raising the children alone, they maybe driving a old beat up car, working while the kids are in school. Meanwhile the next home rides the wave of being looked after, going to the food banks, collecting assistance as well as even working under the table and not claiming it. Driving a newer vehicle and refusing to lift a finger to find work, where they can eventually get out of housing as well as off assistance. Then as their children grow older they find they are in housing and on assistance. A endless cycle that needs to be stopped. Especially the ones that still claim for children that have moved out of their home yet are still receiving money for them.