posted
Yes, non-citizens can potentially qualify for "welfare", specifically in this case Old Age Security. But not all non-citizens do.
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: ... according to the law you're defending, at least some Canadians [the parents who also happen to be citizens] who are at risk of poverty should receive support from their children rather than the Canadian government.
As I said before, I never used the word Canadian (in this case, Canadians) when summarizing the law.
This isn't really a side-issue.
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posted
If there are any Canadians who fall under the law, then the law dictates that at least some Canadians who are at risk of poverty should receive support from their children rather than the Canadian government. So, unless the law applies only to non-Canadians, I characterized it accurately when I originally said that
quote:according to the law you're defending, at least some Canadians who are at risk of poverty should receive support from their children rather than the Canadian government.
Now, much as I love logic, I'm growing a little tired of parsing out such a minor point in such detail. Neither of us has made an actual argument in quite a while.
Here is where I left things when I last made an actual argument:
(1) In at least some cases (like my "Joe" example) it would be unjust to require a child to provide financial support to bad parents, beyond what they normally pay in taxes.
(2) Since the law you mentioned only exempts parents based on abuse, abandonment, or other legally provable misdeeds, at least some bad parents will qualify for support according to the law. For example, Joe's parents would qualify.
(3) A hypothetical law that simply awarded state-provided, tax-supported benefits to every parent who qualifies for filial benefits under the current law would not place this unjust burden on the children of bad parents.
(4) Therefore, the law you're defending is unjust compared with my hypothetical alternative law.
You objected to this by claiming
quote:At bare minimum, in your story Joe still got food, housing, and was taken care of as a child to the best of his parents beliefs. He might not agree with what his parents believe, but there's nothing in your story that indicates that his parents were malicious.
which I think I refuted by responding
quote:I think you underestimate how much it can damage someone's life to be raised in a religion that doesn't work for them. For example, many people with this sort of upbringing end up with some sort of sexual dysfunction due to deeply-ingrained subconscious guilt.
I'm not sure I understand where you're coming from here. Are you seriously saying in every case where parents have provided for their children financially and not broken the law by abusing them, they deserve major financial support from their kids? You don't have any friends who've been majorly messed up by bad parents?
I'd be happy to carry on this line of discussion, but I think I'm through breaking down word-by-word exactly what I meant in that one sentence a few posts back.
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If the parents had aborted Joe, they would be about a million dollars richer over their life. His life cost them a lot financially, so now that they are old, they deserve something for that sacrifice. Joe doesnt have to talk to them or like them, but a minimum appreciation for their sacrifices is not inappropriate.
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quote: Originally posted by Destineer: (2) Since the law you mentioned only exempts parents based on abuse, abandonment, or other legally provable misdeeds, at least some bad parents will qualify for support according to the law. For example, Joe's parents would qualify.
I'm not convinced that you've established that Joe's parents are bad parents. You said that they haven't abused or abandoned Joe. The only line of reasoning seems to be that you don't like their religion. But you haven't even shown that Joe was abused into following that religion, let alone considered the ramifications of broadly allowing the government to declare members of one religion as being "bad" and discriminating against them.
quote: A hypothetical law that simply awarded state-provided, tax-supported benefits to every parent who qualifies for filial benefits under the current law would not place this unjust burden on the children of bad parents.
I think you're going back on what you've previously stated here.
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: No, of course I don't think that the United States, or any country, should provide state support for every poor person in the world, given the present state of affairs.
Clearly, you don't think that the law should award state benefits to all parents since many poor persons in the world are parents.
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quote:Originally posted by scholarette: If the parents had aborted Joe, they would be about a million dollars richer over their life. His life cost them a lot financially, so now that they are old, they deserve something for that sacrifice. Joe doesnt have to talk to them or like them, but a minimum appreciation for their sacrifices is not inappropriate.
I understand where this line of thought comes from, but in the end I disagree. Joe has been deprived of good things and opportunities worth more than a million dollars. A good education, the friendships he might have had in school, the chance at having a normal sex life without therapy, and knowledge of the range of options available to him in his religious life.
But you don't have to agree with this particular example. All I need to prove my point is one example where a child who has been financially supported and not provably abused should have no financial obligation to their parents, because the parents were so bad.
What if Joe's parents had been racists, raising him as such, and now he has to deal with a crippling reflexive bias against anyone who's not white? What if his parents belonged to Westboro Baptist Church and brought little Joe to "got hates fags" rallies and made him protest at the graves of gay soldiers? What if they were Christian Scientists and prevented Joe from visiting doctors, making them directly responsible for his poor health later in life?
Or, finally, what if they were physically abusive but were careful enough about it that Joe has no way of proving in court that he was abused?
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: ]I'm not convinced that you've established that Joe's parents are bad parents. You said that they haven't abused or abandoned Joe. The only line of reasoning seems to be that you don't like their religion. But you haven't even shown that Joe was abused into following that religion, let alone considered the ramifications of broadly allowing the government to declare members of one religion as being "bad" and discriminating against them.
See my response to scholarette. And note that I'm not suggesting that the government discriminate against the parents' religion. On the alternative law I propose, Joe's parents would still receive financial support -- just not from Joe (the victim of their bad parenting).
quote: I think you're going back on what you've previously stated here.
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: No, of course I don't think that the United States, or any country, should provide state support for every poor person in the world, given the present state of affairs.
Clearly, you don't think that the law should award state benefits to all parents since many poor persons in the world are parents.
The law I'm proposing would apply whenever the filial support law you're defending applies. The law you're defending doesn't require anyone to provide for non-Canadian parents living outside Canada (for example, it doesn't provide for Sudanese parents living in the Sudan). So the law I'm proposing would not require Canada to provide state support for every poor person in the world. Nor for every poor parent in the world.
So, as I said, I don't think that the United States, Canada, or any country, should provide state support for every poor person in the world, given the present state of affairs.
Sometimes you seem to be suggesting that I've said Canadian law should provide benefits for people who aren't Canadian and don't live in Canada. That's definitely not my position.
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quote:Originally posted by Destineer: What if his parents belonged to Westboro Baptist Church and brought little Joe to "got hates fags" rallies and made him protest at the graves of gay soldiers?
What if?
Does your equivalent of old age security discriminate against people that are racists? Does it discriminate against Westboro Baptists? Even these people get social support services because we don't generally discriminate who to provide social services to based on whether we think they were politically correct.
Divorced husbands don't get to choose whether they pay alimony to a wife based on whether they like their wives religion, why should Joe get to decide whether he supports his parents based on whether he likes their religion?
quote: Or, finally, what if they were physically abusive but were careful enough about it that Joe has no way of proving in court that he was abused?
What if they weren't abusive but Joe merely claims that they were? It seems to be a dangerous precedent to allow people (say, divorcees) to get out of their obligations without any more than hearsay.
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: The law you're defending doesn't require anyone to provide for non-Canadian parents living outside Canada (for example, it doesn't provide for Sudanese parents living in the Sudan).
I don't think you've established this, I doubt there has been a case to establish this. Nor do all non-Canadian parents necessarily live outside Canada.
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quote:Does your equivalent of old age security discriminate against people that are racists? Does it discriminate against Westboro Baptists? Even these people get social support services because we don't generally discriminate who to provide social services to based on whether we think they were politically correct.
No, my version does not discriminate against these people. I have no problem with these people receiving social support benefits. My problem is with these people receiving benefits from their children, the very people whose lives they've already done their best to ruin.
quote:Divorced husbands don't get to choose whether they pay alimony to a wife based on whether they like their wives religion, why should Joe get to decide whether he supports his parents based on whether he likes their religion?
Like I've said before, I don't think alimony laws as they currently exist are just, for exactly this sort of reason. But they're not anywhere near as bad, because your wife's religion can't mess you up as badly as your parents' religion.
quote:What if they weren't abusive but Joe merely claims that they were? It seems to be a dangerous precedent to allow people (say, divorcees) to get out of their obligations without any more than hearsay.
That's exactly right. Fortunately, on the system I proposed no one can get out of their obligations or lose their benefits just because of alleged abuse. That's because in my proposed law the benefits come from the state, not the child. Questions of abuse will never play any part in determining whether the elderly receive benefits from my proposed law. They get benefits if they are Canadian (or live in Canada) and are in need.
quote:I don't think you've established this, I doubt there has been a case to establish this. Nor do all non-Canadian parents necessarily live outside Canada.
It certainly doesn't apply to Sudanese families who all live in Sudan and have never been within 100 miles of Canada. A Canadian law can't force Sudanese children who live in the Sudan to pay for their Sudanese parents. Therefore, as I said, my position doesn't require that Canada, or any country, should provide state support for every poor person in the world.
Now, again, I think I've made my position crystal clear and I'm through re-stating it.
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posted
Also, with the alimony case, one could regard marriage as a sort of contract, so that when we sign up to get married we agree to pay alimony in case of a divorce. There's no corresponding contract between children and their parents.
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quote:Originally posted by Destineer: ... the very people whose lives they've already done their best to ruin.
This does not follow. Surely actual abuse does a better job of ruining lives than lack of abuse. So if they were doing their best to ruin their children't lives, surely they would have abused them. Or killed them for that matter, wouldn't death qualify as the best way to ruin someone's life?
quote:... But they're not anywhere near as bad, because your wife's religion can't mess you up as badly as your parents' religion.
Depends on the religion of the wife, how much it affected the husband, and how quickly the child switches to a different religion, no? I don't think you can state this as a categorical rule.
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: ... Therefore, as I said, my position doesn't require that Canada, or any country, should provide state support for every poor person in the world.
Precisely, then your position ensures that there are some children in Canada who have parents that live in poverty but who do not qualify for state support.
Why not require their children to provide that support?
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: Also, with the alimony case, one could regard marriage as a sort of contract, so that when we sign up to get married we agree to pay alimony in case of a divorce. There's no corresponding contract between children and their parents.
Not necessarily. Not all marriages have contracts, for example common-law marriages regularly have no contract.
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quote:This does not follow. Surely actual abuse does a better job of ruining lives than lack of abuse. So if they were doing their best to ruin their children't lives, surely they would have abused them. Or killed them for that matter, wouldn't death qualify as the best way to ruin someone's life?
You've caught me in a moment of rhetorical hyperbole. Guilty as charged.
Now, should I assume you don't disagree with the substance of my point (that my proposed law does not discriminate against religions)?
quote:Depends on the religion of the wife, how much it affected the husband, and how quickly the child switches to a different religion, no? I don't think you can state this as a categorical rule.
Indeed not, but on average I think it's fair to say that a parent's religion has more effect on their children than a wife's does on her husband. So, on average, parents have more potential to harm their children through misguided religious upbringing. That's what I meant to say.
quote:Precisely, then your position ensures that there are some children in Canada who have parents that live in poverty but who do not qualify for state support.
I'm not sure I understand what sort of case you're referring to. Do you mean to be describing a case where, for example, a Sudanese immigrant living in Canada would be required by Canadian law to pay social support for her parents who still live in the Sudan? If that's not what you mean, could you give an example?
quote:Not necessarily. Not all marriages have contracts, for example common-law marriages regularly have no contract.
I also don't agree with the institution of common-law marriage. In my opinion it's an anachronistic hold-over from a very different period in history.
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posted
Destineer- it seems like comparing the child's life with what it could be if the parents had been "better" is not really fair. If the parents had say given the kid up for adoption, then the kid could easily had had a worse life too. And the better is not clear. If you believed the same as the parent, by not raising him that way, you would be condemning his soul to hell and not spending an eternity being tortured and burned would be worth a lot.
Also, implied in this discussion is that Joe has money to give his parents. He is not in jail or leaving on the streets. So, the parents could not have completely destroyed his life.
We know the parents gave him life. That is why they have more obligation to him than a random stranger.
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quote:Originally posted by Destineer: ... Now, should I assume you don't disagree with the substance of my point (that my proposed law does not discriminate against religions)?
I don't think that is relevant.
The argument is about why providing benefits should be shifted from the child to the state. You argued that the parents might be racists/of a religion you disapprove of. I argued that we don't normally allow people to get out of providing services based on those grounds.
Stating that services provided by the state side-step this issue doesn't explain why we should side-step in the first place.
quote:
quote:Precisely, then your position ensures that there are some children in Canada who have parents that live in poverty but who do not qualify for state support.
I'm not sure I understand what sort of case you're referring to. Do you mean to be describing a case where, for example, a Sudanese immigrant living in Canada would be required by Canadian law to pay social support for her parents who still live in the Sudan?
Thats one potential example, yes. I'm sure there are others but they would entail that you make some considerations beyond "I don't care who the law applies to in particular."
quote:
quote:Not necessarily. Not all marriages have contracts, for example common-law marriages regularly have no contract.
I also don't agree with the institution of common-law marriage. In my opinion it's an anachronistic hold-over from a very different period in history.
Yet there are a lot of people in them.
It doesn't make sense to propose changes to laws without considering the very large number of people that could potentially be affected by changes in precedent.
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posted
Common law marriages require the people in question have been calling themselves married -- that is, endorsing that they are a social compact between a couple and society that we call married.
So there's no problem.
You might find discussion more productive, Mucus, if you engaged with the substance of arguments rather than trying to find nit picky holes that can be easily dismissed.
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quote:Destineer- it seems like comparing the child's life with what it could be if the parents had been "better" is not really fair. If the parents had say given the kid up for adoption, then the kid could easily had had a worse life too. And the better is not clear. If you believed the same as the parent, by not raising him that way, you would be condemning his soul to hell and not spending an eternity being tortured and burned would be worth a lot.
Sure, it's very complicated. Did Joe's parents do enough for him to deserve his love, let alone his financial support?
To my mind, these are private questions about the relationship between Joe and his parents. Questions that Joe and his parents should work out among themselves, without interference from the state. If the parents need money to live, they should be given money by the state. Whether they deserve money or help from Joe is for Joe himself to decide, based on his own feelings about their relationship.
quote:Originally posted by Mucus:
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: ... Now, should I assume you don't disagree with the substance of my point (that my proposed law does not discriminate against religions)?
I don't think that is relevant.
It was certainly relevant to this question you raised:
quote:Does your equivalent of old age security discriminate against people that are racists?
That said...
quote: The argument is about why providing benefits should be shifted from the child to the state. You argued that the parents might be racists/of a religion you disapprove of. I argued that we don't normally allow people to get out of providing services based on those grounds.
Of course it's not important whether I approve of the religion or not. It's important whether the child approves of the religion and the impact it's had on the child's upbringing. More broadly, it matters whether the child has justifiable reasons to complain that they were raised badly, in a way that harmed them.
quote: Stating that services provided by the state side-step this issue doesn't explain why we should side-step in the first place.
We should side-step it because it may be of great personal importance to the child. Think of how excruciatingly frustrating it would be to put your unpleasant childhood behind you, only to be roped back in by laws that require you to pay support to the same parents who subjected you to that same unpleasant childhood.
It would rightly feel like a terrible injustice. One that shouldn't be forced upon people.
quote:
quote:I'm not sure I understand what sort of case you're referring to. Do you mean to be describing a case where, for example, a Sudanese immigrant living in Canada would be required by Canadian law to pay social support for her parents who still live in the Sudan?
Thats one potential example, yes.
In that case, I would say that ensuring the safe retirement of Sudanese people, who live in the Sudan, is not the job of Canadian social services.
Regarding the common-law thing, obviously there would need to be many other changes to our laws if we eliminated common-law marriage. The topic would have to be studied at length. That said, I hope it happens some day soon.
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quote:Originally posted by Destineer: Think of how excruciatingly frustrating it would be to put your unpleasant childhood behind you, only to be roped back in by laws that require you to pay support to the same parents who subjected you to that same unpleasant childhood.
Right, but if we're talking about feelings. Think about how excruciating it would be for that Sudanese parent to be in actual hunger. To know that they managed to scrap together enough resources when they were young to raise a child that was successful enough to have resources to spare in Canada, but they themselves face starvation.
quote:In that case, I would say that ensuring the safe retirement of Sudanese people, who live in the Sudan, is not the job of Canadian social services.
I'm not sure I agree. Via the UN resolution on Libya, we've decided that we have a responsibility to prevent death and suffering of non-Canadians in a hugely expensive and risky undertaking. Given this, it seems odd to not consider social policy in a much less expensive and less risky situation that could also prevent death.
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posted
If you look at it from the state's viewpoint, Joe's responsibility makes sense. Bob and Jane had a kid. In doing so, they lost one million dollars in lifetime earning potential. The state also lost whatever percent of that would be taxed. In addition to lost earning potential, instead of investing in retirement, Bob and Jane spent their money on food and clothes and Bibles for Joe. Now, Bob and Jane are too old to work and they will soon be starving on the street. Joe has money to spare. Why shouldn't he pay? If it weren't for joe, they wouldn't be in that bad a financial situation. Also, as the state, we got less money from Bob and Jane throughout their life because of Joe.
Before I had kids, I probably would have agreed with Destineer, but now I see a) just how many sacrifices parenting takes and b) how hard it is to make the right decisions. For example, I decided on preschool A instead of 1. preschool 1 would be more academic, less social. In 20 years will my daughter look back and say if my parents had put me in school 1, I would have got into x school, which would have guaranteed my harvard admission and therefore my parents ruined my life. But if I put her in preschool 1, maybe in 20 years, she would complain that I put too much pressure on her- I even put her in super academic peschool, never letting her be a child. Clearly, I ruined her life.
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quote:We should side-step it because it may be of great personal importance to the child. Think of how excruciatingly frustrating it would be to put your unpleasant childhood behind you, only to be roped back in by laws that require you to pay support to the same parents who subjected you to that same unpleasant childhood.
It would rightly feel like a terrible injustice. One that shouldn't be forced upon people.
I think the whole run-around with this entire issue (which is growing quite astoundingly long-winded) comes down to the fact that someone who opts to bring a child into the world of their own volition should not at all consider any option to indenture their child to obligated reciprocation of servitude. The obligation is from the parent to the child. The child does not have to feel obligated to provide their parent anything. Ideally, they will feel free to reciprocate to their parents because their parents, if anything, deserve it, but this will not always be the case.
Society already pretty much agrees, here. Note the extreme lack of prevalence of this law being brought up or enforced. It's an archaic holdover, one of those quirky and obsolete laws. I consider it actively immoral to wield these laws against your own child, and I consider the whole moral idea of the law to be bankrupt. Normally, I'd say 'get rid of it' but there's no point to that; it's already mostly irrelevant and I don't even think it would survive judicial review, so it'll mostly sit and moulder.
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Perhaps its foolish of me to try to resurrect a deadhorse, but I've been mullying over the question of the whether or not the Social Security Trust Fund is real or not and have one more thing to say on the issue.
The Social Security Trust fund is real in the sense that the money and interest owed on it has all been recorded and by law, the American people have a legal obligation to repay those funds to social security (and by extension retirees). The fund is not secure, not because of the nature of the bonds themselves, but because the people who owe the debt are the same people who make the laws, so if we decide they don't want to repay the debt, we can change the laws.
The bottom line is that the Social Security Trust Fund is only as real as we believe it should be. It's very much like an unsecured loan. The question isn't whether or not Americans can walk away from this debt, they can. The question we face is whether or not we should choose to honor this unsecured debt.
From my perspective, honest people pay their debts, period. It shouldn't matter whether the debt is secured or unsecured, whether you are bound by law or only your word, or whether the debt is to the bank or a friend. Honest people pay their debts even when its inconvenient. I can make an exception when tragedy strikes and people really can not pay their debts, but America isn't anywhere close to declaring bankruptcy. We can repay this debt simply by returning taxes to the levels they were only a few years ago.
The FICA tax structure, where the poor pay a higher rate than the wealthy, isn't one that the American people would ever have approved as an income tax plan to support the military and other general expenses. Usurping that money into the general fund is flat out immoral.
That's what makes me so angry when people start saying that we are in a budget crisis and social security should be treated like everything else. Imagine for a minute that your brother loans you a bunch of money with the understanding that you will pay it back when you can. There's nothing legal, just your word. Some time later, your brother comes to you and says, I really need that money can you pay me back. Well your wife wants a new car, and the kids birthdays are coming up and you've been planning a family vacation and (....) and you don't have enough money to cover it all. Do treat his request like everything else on the list, or up its priority because you owe him?
We owe a debt to social security and even though we can change the law in various ways so we never have to repay that debt, doing that is dishonest. Saying we should do that, is saying we should be dishonest as a people and a nation.
The question at hand (at least for those of us who are US citizens) isn't whether or not Americans will choose to behave honorably, its whether or not we should.
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Personally I would lump the people that never pay into it but receive it as being dishonest unless there were a physical or mental reason why they were not able to contribute.
Other than that I agree with your observation. I don't think we really need to get rid of Social Security completely. I do wish however we would elect people that would be wiser with the money that should be in there, regardless of political party.
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quote:Originally posted by Geraine: Personally I would lump the people that never pay into it but receive it as being dishonest unless there were a physical or mental reason why they were not able to contribute.
As I understand it, the only people who can collect social security benefits who've never paid into are the surviving spouse or minor children of someone who paid into social security. Do you think its dishonest of widows and orphans to collect SS or are you referring to someone else?
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I checked it and here are the basic guidelines for collecting social security.
quote:To get Social Security retirement benefits based on your own work record, you need to earn at least 40 Social Security credits. Most people earn 4 credits per year, and have earned enough credits after 10 years of work.
. . . .
To get family benefits as the spouse, divorced spouse, or child of an insured family member, you do not have to earn any credits. However, the insured family member (your spouse, ex-spouse, or parent) must have at least 40 credits.
So aside from spouses and minor children of people who've paid in to SS and people disabled before the age of 22, no one can legally collect social security who hasn't paid in to it.
Even though you can collect SS by earning very little for only 10 years, your SS benefit is a function of your total lifetime SS earnings. Those who pay in very little, also get very little out.
I'm sure that if you looked, you could probably find some people who've found a way to collect SS benefits without ever paying into the system, but those people aren't just dishonest they are guilt of fraud and if caught could be sent to prison.
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