There is no solution, just less bad solutions. My original aim, being young, was looking for a perfect solution where all would be looked after equitably, without anyone having to guess which people really needed help and which didn't. Now I realize that the original idea of Auckland Sheltered Workshops was better than simply handing welfare money out. I would collect the workers each morning in a van, they'd work all day at the Auckland Sheltered Workshops as best they could, then I'd deliver them home.
It was a really nice place to work. Some could do nearly nothing other than sit in a wheelchair and make various noises. Others could do a reasonable job of the various work that we got, all of it manual jobs of one sort or another. It was a happy place. We had lots of fun.
I have various family members and friends in various kinds of welfare. I pay heaps of tax which is filtered through the system, with much of the tax funding the filterers and plenty going to outright fraud, misappropriation and extras for friends of people in high places with the remainder getting to the people needing help.
For the unloved, murdered, and generally tortured infants and children, cutting off the free cash flow would see those babies and infants abandoned to somebody who does care enough to adopt them. Swarms of people are lined up waiting to adopt babies and infants whose mothers are unable or unwilling to care for them. Before welfare, babies were adopted by grandmothers or other family, Even when there was no easy contraception available, with hordes of unwanted pregnancies, often to unwed mothers, orphans and solo mothers got by [my grandparents being such orphans/solo mothered]. Now there are relatively few babies and relative wealth is enormous.
It isn't material possessions that children need.
In the modern world, used clothing is free. Nobody wears rags [other than as fashion items like Steve Jobs with deliberately ripped jeans].
Churches and other voluntary charitable people would look after any babies and children.
Young women would see the problems and be more circumspect about letting some loser put them in the welfare category. In NZ, many young minimum wage women have chosen to have babies as a lifestyle option, without bothering with the father. It does not surprise me that the state does not make a good father.
Mqurice |
