There certainly is a difference. Promoting some thing leaves it up to the whim of whomever is actually doing the thing.
There were charities and soup kitchens and flop houses for a very long time but many people still starved and went homeless. When it comes to life and death we can not count solely on the generosity of our fellow man. Surely that has been evident down through history.
There are still charities and soup kitchens and homeless shelters. However, nobody starves, unless they do not want to eat, at least not the homeless. (This is based on the very real experience of going out with a local newsie and living on the streets for a month to see exactly what it is like. Believe me, you do not go hungry, though sometimes we were cold.) And the reality is the vast majority of the solution to the actual problem of homelessness comes from sources other than government. Places like Step Thirteen.
People do not willingly go on welfare or other government programs if they have an alternative. They give up some of their freedoms for the sake of survival.
So your solution is to force them onto it regardless of their choice and whether they believe they have a need? I prefer to let people make that choice and to live with their decisions.
I would say your comments are more of the parent/child variety. "This is going to hurt me more than you."
Disingenuous. Nobody has spoken of giving them spankings or punishing them. We just disagree on whether people should make the choice when they have need of welfare. You would prefer to step in before they feel they have need, and then take their hand and choice away and force them to follow whatever program to mediocrity you believe will make them "content". At least this appears to be what you are saying. With one breath you say people won't ask for welfare, then say we must provide it sooner before they have real need.
Adults do not need to be treated as children. People do not deliberately seek out hard times. At least not "healthy" people.
This disregards the reality that more often than not their choices lead them to where they are now. Even today your choices will continue to have repercussions, some positive and others negative. People may not "seek" it, but they sure do make mistakes. You would deny them responsibility for their own action, give to them something they don't ask for, and take their freedoms without regard to their choice. It's what you have argued for in this thread. That isn't benevolence or compassion, it is control.
That is another thing that sticks in my craw. There are people who feel others should be doing something regardless of how inconsequential and meaningless it may be.
For example, rather than an unemployed individual be given a chance to return to school to update their skills they would prefer to see that person doing some job regardless of how trivial and unimportant.
Again the same straw man argument, you are being deliberately disingenuous and directly ignoring points that we have gone over before.
Again arguing the imaginary bogeyman. Both parties support education in this fashion and often such programs to get people off welfare are offered by conservatives. Teach a man to fish, rather than give him fish.
I honestly don't know where that attitude comes from. Rather than wanting to help the individual it's like some folks enjoy watching others struggle. Jealousy? Anger? I don't know.
Bogeyman. You must frighten yourself with this constant imaginary scary creatures that don't exist, because if you recognize the other side as humans with the same compassion, just applied differently it may actually change your mind.
Regarding those examples/other places you mention surveys have been done and the citizens are more content with their lives compared to North Americans.
Again something you pretend we have never discussed and that the past discussions go into the black hole of your imaginary monster. You prefer to constantly attack your straw men to actually participating in a conversation.
The difference is cultural. Let me repeat it again for everybody else because you will read it, ignore it, and later pretend that you never saw it.
People in the US are constantly impressed with the need to never be "satisfied" (which is the phrase those surveys use), to always drive further for improvement, while the cultures in many European communities do not drive in that direction like our culture. If you asked people if they were "happy" rather than "satisfied" the results would be much different. However the surveys are paid for and taken by groups that want to "prove" that socialism really satisfies. However, life isn't a Snickers commercial, and we prefer to remain unsatisfied. It doesn't mean that our lives are any less happy, just that we are less often willing to stay in the same place we are now....
Being "satisfied" with the mediocre is not something that I think we should work towards, while you apparently think that "good enough for government work" should be the catch phrase of all.
They have comparable lifestyles except for additional social programs. On the whole their life is easier because needs are combined. There is less worry. They support, through social programs, the helping of their fellow citizens.
Which again, "less worry" and "less jobs" go hand in hand. I prefer the "more worry" and "more often employed" to "less worry" and a constant level of unemployment that is the same level that we have at the bottom of a economic crisis. This should not be something the US should ever settle for.
I like the fact that we have a drive to improve rather than to settle and hope that the future generations will continue that drive despite your best efforts.
