The last link I posted didn't work but I'm going to try again. This one relating to Policy and how it can change a child's life for the better ~ http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/grains-of-truth-good-policy-can-give-children-a-future-20130228-2f8y6.html

If it doesn't work, perhaps you might look it up for yourselves. 'Grains of truth: good policy can give children a future' by John Watson, senior writer, The Age. March 1.

"Globally, governments are making a difference in the lives of the young.

It ought to be a redundant observation, but it is a necessary one: the world's parents care as much about their children as we care about our own. What stops many parents from being able to give their children a reasonable chance in life is that ''we are failing at the basics'.

As important as parents' role is, it is equally important to care about the policies that frame what even the most loving parents are able to provide for their children."

Kate
That comment would only make sense if government got the money from a moonbeam. You need to take account of the fact that government got the money by taking it from people who, and withdrawing it from uses which were to that extent less able to provide care etc. for children. Not only do other people care as much about their children as we do about our own, but their is no validity to the mere assumption that government officials care more in their official capacity.

And you need to show that the results on a whole-of-society basis, however defined, were better considering the sacrifice of those other children's needs, PLUS the other important social values that were also sacrificed.

Go ahead. Failing that, you've just lost the argument.

Hey Jardine, how's this? You win! You are the winner of the argument! Woo Hoo, congratulations. Gosh that must make you feel good. Tell the world Jardine, you are the winningest winner in the whole wide world! Wow.

Now back to the issue at hand.... that involves real people, real lives, real children and real costs to our society.

Thank you for admitting that the single mother’s pension is worse for real children, real people and real lives.

No doubt those on the receiving end of the handout would be better off. But that's not the issue. The question – in your own terms - is whether society as a whole would be better off.

You can't just assume that it's beneficial, because the issue is whether it is, or not. You need to prove it, otherwise how are we to know that you're not making the situation worse, all things considered? You can’t just assume that the money was taken from satisfying less urgent or important social values.

The question is, how do we know that the care that children could *not* get, as a result of the resources withdrawn by government and given to bureaucrats to give to single mothers, didn’t result in the whole of society being worse off?

To justify it, you need to take into account the downsides of what you're advocating. But you're not doing that.

Plus you haven’t explained why these pensioners shouldn’t have to work for a living like everyone else.

All you're doing is *imagining* that we create net benefits for society by using unprovoked force on a double standard that you haven’t justified, and when this is pointed out, responding with personal argument.

So don’t bore us with your conceit that you care more about real children and real people. You don’t.

If you do, go ahead and show us how you've taken into account the downsides of the intervention, for the care of children in particular, and for social values in general.

If you can’t do it - and let’s face it you can’t - you should have honesty and decency to admit it with a good grace, not just to us, but to yourself as well

Dear Jardine,

<<Therefore you shouldn’t call on people who don’t consent to submit or live and die in exile from human society. Rather you should call for the abolition of government’s self-granted legal monopoly of pilfering the money supply.>>

I AM already doing so, although the topic of single-mothers is not exactly the best place for that.

As you just said.... "I'd like to see that!"

Meanwhile, I believe that statists should have freedom of choice just like anyone else. If they want to print money for themselves with draconian conditions attached, then they should be able to do so - so long as those who do not agree with those conditions can use their own currency.

Well, J K. J, you have fairly thrown down the gauntlet, but pray tell us just how far your 'every man for himself' philosophy would extend?

Surely you could not be content at merely discontinuing single parent pension, but surely would remove all family allowances, education allowances and carer pensions too? But, what about Newstart? And, Old Age Pension? Where to draw the line? All this government largesse at the expense of ordinary taxpayers - and without their specific explicit or implicit consent. Horrendous! And, what about all this overseas aid stuff? When did ordinary taxpayers give approval for that? And, what about these asylum seekers? We can't afford to keep them in detention indefinitely, so what to do? Send em back where they came from?

Just too easy, hey? Nobody's justified all this 'welfare' to the taxpayers, not obtained their consent, so it should all cease, and that way all the kids of fair-dinkum working families will be that much better off, won't they?

And, everybody can sleep better at night, eh?