Hardly a surprising article from Mr Johns and no doubt attractive to some who share his undoubted ability to think deeply about superficialities.

However, it doesn't stand even a little scrutiny, which is a common feature of Mr Johns's work. Consistently producing crap is a skill, but not one that most people would regard as worth acquiring.

Let's examine the problem.

1,2,3,4...n-1,n. Mr Johns doesn't like the idea of his taxpayer funded income being threatened by someone else's claim to a taxpayer funded income, especially if they aren't white, like him.

n+1. Something Must Be Done

n+2. Some families have a history of intergenerational poverty
n+3. Poverty creates the conditions for violence and generally debauched living conditions.
n+4. Aboriginal people are over-represented among this group (implied, but never stated by Mr Johns and undoubtedly a fact)
n+5. Someone Orta Do Something.
n+6 - n+x. See 1-n
n+(x+1). Aboriginal people have far too many snotty-nosed kids anyway.
n+(x+2). If poor people didn't breed (especially Aboriginal ones), Mr Johns and the other righteously superficial could have a higher taxpayer-funded income, so there.

I hope I did justice to the argument. Since my taxpayer-funded income is considerably less than Mr Johns', I apologise to Mr Johns and his fellow parasi...learned colleagues for having bred and thereby potentially threatened their taxpayer income. In my defence I can only point out that I don't have Aboriginal ancestry.

It's great to have such an inspirational role model as Mr Johns.

What a twat.

Hmmmm....it sure is an interesting socio-political climate these days.

My question would be how Does Mr Johns suggest the authorities go about policing the said contraception? And would these controls be applied to men as well as women?

(Well said, Craig Minns)

Well said Craig Minns.

What a dreadful article!

How would the author suggest we force the undesirables from having children?
Could we slip contraceptive drugs into the local water supply?
Will we round up the women, drug them and tie their tubes under anaesthetic?

It is obviously aimed at women (the dreaded single mother, the immoral ones who had several partners) because how could we 'force' the equally naughty men to have contraception? Maybe chemical castration?

And if we are not successful in preventing undesirables from breeding, what then?
Do we just stop supporting these unfortunate children, for the sins of their parents?

I speak here as someone routinely and quite viciously abused as a very small child, which culminated in a terrifying attempted murder, one dark and stormy night that will live forever in my memory.

And only saved from drowning in a wild flooded river, by a young sapling on the bank that bent and then threw me back when thrown, so I'm here to speak for the as usual, voiceless consulted children!

(La, da, dee, dee, da, da, da, da. La da dee dee da da dee da.
The trees and the flowers, the abuse by the hours!
She threw her children away, she threw her children away, she threw her children away.
Sung to the tune, they took the children away)

So, I would go further than that advocated, with the permanent removal of unsupervised unnurtured children, where the was an ongoing unresolved issues with routine domestic violence and or abused children; be they black, white of brindle!

And there simply has to be a case made for compulsory sterilization, (third strike and you're out) in the case of permanently welfare dependent drug or alcohol addled parents; unable or unwilling to constrain their urges; or earning a living providing unprotected sexual services, or both!

Simply put, we cannot stand idly by, while mothers/grandmothers, driven completely around the bend by the demands placed on them; do something unthinkable.

I'd sooner take the children away, than see them murdered in their beds; or worse, however culturally appropriate!?

And I dare say that would include the mandatory removal of those kids from their communities!

If the elders and others object, then it is entirely up to them to take adequate measures; and if, and only if they're up to it, protect the children!

Inherently decent people everywhere, have had a complete gutful of the endless excuses, or the fallback position, the endless self pitying victim mode!
Rhrosty.

I couldn't agree more with the author. For decades I have watched the inevitable result of enabling young single women and long term unemployed couples to produce large families, all at tax payers expense. Young men prey on vulnerable single mothers, looking for a meal ticket and accomodation. Long term unemployed with large families receive incomes larger than the basic wage without having to get out of bed in the morning. Women dont bother with contreception because the thought of another child isn't a problem. Men father multiple children to multiple women with no fear of consequences.
The natural outcome of these situations is more entrenched poverty, appalling child abuse and neglect statistics, a disturbing level of juvenile crime, a shameful level of youth suicide amongst indigenous youth and an ever increasing demand for more taxpayer support.
I accept that mistakes happen. Contraception is not 100 % foolproof. Rape happens, as does incest and sexual abuse. But these pregnancies only account for a very small number of the births to people on welfare. We need a policy that supports the genuine cases of women abandoned by husbands, leaving them with a number of small children to support, which is what the initial policy was designed for. For those having children whilst already on a single parent payment or unemployment benefits the message should be clear. Yes, have as many children as you want, but don't expect someone else to pay for it.

Great idea in principle, but I agree with the former posters, it wouldn't work unless sterilisation was introduced and that creates all sorts of unacceptable forces. It all boils down to education and self responsibility and there are many who are drug induced or illiterate for which it is far too late. My mother often said that she would have liked to have 4 children but had no way to afford them in the days before social security, so had to restrict her off spring to two.
Unfortunately we now live in a society that thinks someone else will always come to the rescue and pay. We are fast approaching a system when the 50% of tax payers who are responsible for total income tax will just "jack up" and either go elsewhere to forge an income for themselves or say "what the hell' and jump on the band wagon too. I have friends who think I'm stark raving mad for refusing to take the Old Aged Pension, but why should I take something from someone else when I can afford to look after myself ?

I'm not surprised to see that some commentators have brought up sterilisation. What's next? Eugenics? There is a very slippery slope inherent in this article, and not one worth taking the first smallest step on.
We are not yet Nazis, the current Federal government's support for Ukraine and Israel notwithstanding. We can still keep it that way.

I agree in principle with this theory from the author, however implementing contraception would be practically challenging to say the least. A better method of control or discouragement would be something like the UK conservative MP Iain Duncan Smiths "2 child policy" proposal, which was talked about back in 2012. I'm not sure of its status at the moment however. But Iain's proposal makes a lot of sense, even here in Australian society.
A problem could be what if a mother has triplets?

But in any case, something seriously has to be done to control the ever burdening mindset of parents on welfare benefits expecting newborns to be cash cows for their own hip pockets... As an ex Taxi Driver in Sydney & Tasmania, I have seen first hand in real life what goes on in these lower socio economic areas such as public housing, with its filthy streets, dirty unsupervised children running haphazardly around the place... where are the parents?? boozed and/or drugged out at a "friends" house? or wherever? doesn't matter to the parents, the kids are "things" to get money from welfare...

Big Nana, your comments are spot on!

This shows the rise of fascism in the West. It's Ok for George Brandis to protect ASIO and their associates from any criminal activities under the guise of terrorism. They can even like the USA carry out assassinations legally under the guise of terrorism.

So next we'll see the rounding up of homeless people by our Dept of Homeland Security like Hitler had and find a nice gulag for them.

It is the Central Bankers who created this GFC which continues to worsen. Too big to fail and jail bankers are the real criminals who need rounding up and not let breed. Iceland jailed them why cannot we ?

Why not periodic checks on women every month, at the dole office.

Governments should control what they have a right to control. They should have a right to control where they distribute welfare but they should not have the right to control the bodies of its citizens.

This would be much less of an issue if they refused to distribute any welfare to people because they have children. Having a child should be as much an economic choice as anything else. We all have to make choices according to our finances and if you cannot afford a child then you should not have one. Unfortunately we have a culture which suggests that the decision to have a child should be supported by the government. If you grow up expecting such support to be there then you have grown up with a deficient sense of justice.

Having a child is a choice – no better or worse than many other lifestyle choices. By singling out such a choice for special treatment the government has made a rod for its own back and created a sense of entitlement which is totally unjust. How many people on welfare would have a child knowing they had to pay for it themselves? Removing the automatic expectation of support would make a great deal of difference to the expense of the taxpayer.

Few people dare to question the justice of this support because it may make them question why they want children at all. Is it because of the emotional pressure brought to bear upon them or because they truly want that relationship with a child? If it is the former then they will turn a blind eye to the injustice of it all but if it is the latter they will be prepared to pay for it themselves or at least accept gracefully that they cannot afford it.

To continue...

Mr Johns does have a point about intergenerational poverty and there is no question that the problem of violence in the Aboriginal community is significant. However, his proposed solution is attacking the symptom rather than the cause. Like so many (read George Orwell for the authoritative report)he addresses the what, when the real problem is the why. He, like all of his ilk, are no more than rent-seekers who seek to protect their own primary claim to special treatment. Poor, miserable creatures one and all.

Poverty is an extreme modality of a multimodal system. So is extreme wealth. In order for the mean to remain close to the median, the lower mode has to be significantly broader than the upper one. In other words, there need to be a lot more poor people than rich people to make the average close to the middle-class. Johns is, in his own intellectually limited way, a representative of the meanest of the mean (both statistically and ethically).

If the poorest of the poor are allowed to prosper, the rich have to be allowed to stagnate, or the middle will become dissatisfied.

From where I sit, that doesn't seem like a problem.

From where the rent-seeking former Assistant Minister of Industrial Relations in the Keating government sits, it is a potentially large threat to his hold on the public teat.

The price of his integrity is a sour trickle.

Aboriginal people have survived conditions that would have quickly killed Mr Johns and his ancestors, so why are they now killing each other?

The answer is simple: the conditions that they evolved to deal with have been replaced with the need to deal with those like Johns, who are not like them. These succubi regard the interplay of humanity for the purpose of mutual support as something that needs to be removed, so that they, in their self-appointed authority, can present themselves as the ones who hand out favours.

They choose favourites (after all, to divide is to conquer) and they promote themselves at every chance.

Aboriginal people are killing themselves because there is nothing in the history of their people that can be regarded as admirable in the lives that people like Johns would inflict on them.

Get rid of the contemptible rent-seekers and use the resources saved to help those who only want to be left alone to be able to do so.

We are supposedly a democracy. Yeah, right...

maybe Mr Johns has concluded that the Judea Christian ethics are far superior to those of others. Could not admit that though, as its even more pc incorrect. I no one young indigeneous man who told me his aim in life was to have 10 kids to 10 mothers, His about half way their between prison visits. To bad for the elderly who worked all thier life and can't get a nursing home spot. The again the socialist tell us that health, education and welfare are all free.

I don't see what the issue is with administering contraception, they put one of those little tabs under the skin of the arm and it lasts 3-6 months. Before I had a vasectomy, my partner had them. Dr or nurse does it, you get a immediate clearance on your computerised welfare file and good to go.

Big Nana & Snake correct, we must all remember the age of entitlement is over, so ladies close your legs and men tie a knot in it, as you mention Snake it is some one else's problem to look after the results of two minutes of passion, when lo and behold one has shot their bolt, and now my goodness junior is on its way, but never mind the taxpayer will foot the bill.
I come from an era where if you duffed a woman it was your responsibility to look after your moment of lust, not some one else's, didn't matter how poor you were, there was also your immediate family to consider, they normally felt ashamed that their daughter or son ended up "having to get married" that being the way it was
Now you can run around like a horny rabbit, disappear down the nearest hole after being in one and who cares a f..., not me, it could be Joe's down the road, so let's stay in my burrow, I now will be safe from child maintenance, and that lovely thing called taxpayer will look after my two minutes of the in and out syndrome with a scream at the end.
All hail the taxpayer.

Wasn't the Government encouraging people to have children?
Aren't there payments designed to bring on pregnancies?

All these taxpayer funded little aussies are the future of the Nation.

Yes, but like so many of the thing government does - totally unsustainable

Boy this is a tough one ! My only contribution to this 'debate' is from another angle ? Many of these single parent families, where it's usually just mum, and five or six little kiddies. As they slowly grow, and mum for one reason or another loses control, or can't inculcate any discipline into the family unit, the more rebellious kids, tend to turn their hand to crime ?

Furthermore as it often happens, the lady may've had three or four different fathers of her children. Some of the fathers, you'd not even feed ! Themselves, products of similar unstable homelives ? So again it's left to police to initially, attempt to broker some degree of peace into the waring home, or alternatively try to bring some order into the equation ? And so the whole mess just goes around, and around, and yet, around again !

Snake you seem to be any one with sence, taxpayer funded handouts to not moral men and women does not bring up ideal children, one woman and partner sentenced in court recently could not wait to get back to her drug and drunk behaviour even before the baby was one hour old, it was not wanted,and three years later died, responsibility comes with children, lacking in today's society, let's get all the taxpayers money we can get, if you F.... around with different men and have many babies from them, then that is your responsibility and the men involved, not the taxpayer, if you want to F... around then get sterilised, go for it, then babies are not brought into an unloved world by selfish people who only think of who can lay me next and have more babies for the taxpayer to keep.

You'll have to excuse me, but this topic is just begging for this...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal

A Modest Proposal.

or...

"A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick"

Satire; it most definitely isn't POIROT ! We're talking about young human lives, most born into a situation where welfare is the accepted source of normal income. The poor little beggars have no chance of extricating themselves from an environment not of their making.

Most are taught, as they're growing up, to follow the same path of the parent ? To leave or be expelled from school as soon as possible, then down to the nearest CentreLink Office, and after a series of false starts, with potential employers, enter into a life of being assessed as unemployable !

How can this be you may well enquire ? Because most lack even the very basic of life skills. The necessity of regular personal hygiene, the basic requirement of not using foul or intemperate language while in mixed company at work, to wear modest and appropriate (taxpayer funded) clothing. Desist from engaging in unacceptable and offensive nasal or ear cleaning practices, while in the workplace. All behaviour(s) calculated to earn a very quick dismissal, and to be regarded as socially, highly unacceptable moreover, unemployable.

Generally speaking these poor kids become regular clients of CentreLink, and can look forward to an eternity on welfare ? And if not a life of regular welfare dependence, something else far more gloomy that'll guarantee to lead them straight into gaol. Not wonderful prospects for many of these disadvantaged kids eh POIROT ?

o sung wu,

Are you attempting to upbraid me because I introduced Swift's satire (and I have never understood why you feel it necessary to address the poster's name in capitals)

The condition of Ireland's poor was no more a joke than the situation of the poor Gary Johns is addressing.

Why did Swift resort to satire on the subject?

"George Wittkowsky argued that Swift’s main target in A Modest Proposal was not the conditions in Ireland, but rather the can-do spirit of the times that led people to devise a number of illogical schemes that would purportedly solve social and economic ills. Swift was especially insulted by projects that tried to fix population and labour issues with a simple cure-all solution."

Ditto....

Around half of all US states have implemented policies similar to what Gary Johns is proposing, although the details vary from state to state. Under Family Cap policies, there is generally no additional funding for children born after the mother has been on welfare for more than 10 months, even though am existing large family that fell on hard times and ended up on welfare would get benefits related to the size of the family. The view is that the right to have a large family is not the same as the right to force other people to subsidise it.

http://www.ncsl.org/research/human-services/welfare-reform-family-cap-policies.aspx

Hi there POIROT...

Why do I address those to whom I refer to in capitals ? Sorry, just a hang-over from my copper days ? They've been doing it this way for yonks. I suspect it makes it easier to highlight the surname ? As an example; Robert Jules BLOGGS aka Robert Jules BLOGS DOB: 12/12/66 etc etc. The surname and DOB are considered very important for coppers ?

POIROT, may I sign you up as a probationary constable, now that you've received some basic instruction ? :-)

Upbraid you, never POIROT ! I understand the point of the 'satirical take' of SWIFT and the conditions that prevailed in Ireland in those times.

I'm afraid no matter what satirical presentation some 'wit' may have, unfortunately I rarely see the amusing side of these things anymore ? I've seen more than enough misery in my time, of the long term deleterious effects, caused by the negative exposure, that has been foisted upon the credulous progeny of the 'professional poor'.

Many of these unfortunate children are regarded simply as a 'functionary for emolument' used by some of these more unscrupulous professional procreation centres, that I've reluctantly become involved with ! For this reason any humour, be it satire of anything else, well it kinda falls flat with me at least.

Have a Happy and healthy 2015 POIROT.

Well Gary, you sure have stirred up the bleeding hearts.

The truth is the whole family support system was headed for a train wreck the day it was introduced, simply because not only did it allow people to:do things they couldn't afford (having kids) but it also opened up opportunities for many to make a habit of it. And many did a fine job of it.

While there is simply no chance of introducing your wish, the best available option is to quarantine welfare payments, so at least the money intended to provide for the kids, has a much higher chance of doing just that and, if anyone on benefits takes offense, then get a job.

On that matter we now face the fact that there are not enough jobs to go around, and that's only going to get worse, so now more so than ever we must make sure every single cent of this tax payer gift is spent wisely and not wasted, because while every single kid may be different, color, race, social situation, they all have one thing in common, that being that not one of them asked to be born.

Curious opinion piece.....based upon anecdotal, no evidence or statistics?

Not knowing anything about Johns, except that he is a ageing white middle class Oz male, who as another commenter pointed out, has approached a 'slippery slope'.

Why, because it's eugenics, presented as fertility management, and is not about pro life vs pro choice, but as many white nativists say, should poor non European types have the right to choose whether they can have children...?

Rehctub, I agree.
There will always be couples (let's not forget the willing daddies!) who are not the sharpest tools in the shed and wouldn't use contraception correctly if it was given to them free.

People like these will always be present in our society, and that won't change.
At the end of the day, the children of these couples will need to be cared for by the wider society, because in Australia we wouldn't neglect these kids for their parents mistakes.

I liked Rehctub's suggestion of quarantining the money given to non-working parents who access parenting benefits. It should be given in voucher forms for food, rent, clothing, furniture etc, that is needed to raise the kids properly.
Even better, the money could be transferred straight to the rental agent etc.

Mind you, the logistics of managing all these finances would be mind-blowing!
However, it would be absolutely criminal to ignore the children born after the first two that some posters feel is enough for the Government to support.
It isn't the children's fault....

Compulsory adoption would solve a couple of evils here.

It might make some women not have babies, if there was no profit in it, or they did not like their offspring going to someone else.

At the same time it would provide those who can't have their own with a ready supply of kids for adoption.

IVF could be made available at the users cost only, & save another fortune, if kids were available for adoption.

US Man fathers 21 children by 11 different women... and he's only 29.

A man aged 29 has fathered 21 children with 11 different women, it emerged yesterday.

Desmond Hatchett's brood came to light after authorities in Tennessee in the U.S. took him to court for non-payment of child support. He has apparently set a U.S. record but said: 'It just happened.' He's the daddy: Desmond Hatchett speaks to reporters about his prolific brood He added that he would not have any more children. 'I'm done. I'll say I'm done,' he said. Hatchett, who earns a minimal wage, told TV reporters he knows the names and ages of all his offspring. Their ages range from newborn to 11 years old. Authorities in Knoxville said they plan to take half of his monthly salary to pay for the youngsters but officials said that would work out to just over $1 a week for each. His lawyer Keith Pope said: 'The children can't all be supported by Desmond, so the state of Tennessee has had to step in.'

Many Knoxville residents called for him to be castrated.

He even boasted of fathering four children by different women in the same year. Hatchett's name appeared on court documents 11 times representing 15 of his 21 children. U.S. authorities are now braced for more women coming forward to claim Hatchett is the father of their children after he appeared on local TV. He said the women he was involved with all knew he had other children. One mother, who has two children with Hatchett, said she should get $44 a month but rarely receives any child support. 'It's frustrating, but usually, when I ask he gives it to me,' she said.

Authorities in Knoxville ordered Hatchett to court to explain how he intends to pay child support. He arrived for the hearing with just over $300

Suzette, quantining welfare is not that difficult, it's simply paid in to special debit card, and the card will not allow for restricted purchases. So when used to buy restricted goods, the register/operator simp,y says something like "another form of payment required".

The same card system could also be used fir child support payments, another area that suffers badly from miss use of funds.

I thought the stimulus back in the Rudd days could have been issued this way, with a similar card that had restricted uses and a three month use by date, a use it or loose it situation. We have the tech, but fir so e reason refuse to use it.

Every dollar of welfare waste is a dollar that some child does not see.

Hasbeen, I'm with you on adoptions and IVF, but, like many things, I think the solution is too simple.

When a hatchett job is not enough.

This piece might help Mr Johns and his fellow parasi...learned colleagues move a little closer to a decent understanding of the reasons their superficial solutions to deep problems have failed so badly.

http://iopscience.iop.org/1367-2630/16/12/125008/article

"On 23 October, 2009 a press release appeared, titled: 'The Financial Crisis: How Economists Went Astray. Two Nobel Laureates and over 2000 Signatories Uphold that Economists have mistaken Mathematical Beauty for Economic Truth.' The signatories signed a web petition in support of an article4 by the Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, saying: 'Few economists saw our current crisis coming, but this predictive failure was the least of the fieldʼs problems. More important was the professionʼs blindness to the very possibility of catastrophic failures in a market economy ... the economics profession went astray because economists, as a group, mistook beauty, clad in impressive-looking mathematics, for truth ...'"

It goes on to show why the neo-liberal approach can never lead to an optimal equilibrium state and approaches the delicate problem of the coming failure of the so-called economic rationalist model, although it doesn't deal with it directly.

I hope that everyone interested in this topic will read it. It's not hard going and it is a very important addition to our understanding of the way the world IS, rather than the airy-fairy self-interest cloaked in claptrap that passes for that understanding among so many of our decision-makers and their load of parasi...learned colleagues.

o sung wu,

Thanks for explaining about the capitals. That's totally understandable - and something that never occurred to me.

I do think this topic is way more complex than merely decreeing welfare contingent on contraception for women...because it would only be for women - and that would be an interesting piece of legislation to pass (if it needed legislation)..as it targets only one gender.

A happy and healthy 2015 for you too, o sung wu : )

I totally agree with Phanto, so I have nothing else to add, except:

Dear Rehctub and Suse,

Quarantining of income cannot work as it can be so easily by-passed: simply do the grocery shopping for someone else, then receive cash for their goods.

A couple of points:
We already have the BasicsCard rolled out across the NT and in a few other locations across Australia. Put parental payments and child bonuses on those to see the money is not "pissed up against the wall".
Forced adoption? What a social Neanderthal that Hasbeen is! How will that work? Shall we incarcerate all indigent pregnant women in birthing hotels, await the birth and then take the child? It might be worth trying just to see the women streaming into town to take those hotels down.
And I did like Poirot's observation (Posted by Poirot, Thursday, 1 January 2015 8:02:00 AM) that passing legislation for one gender only might be difficult in today's world.

For goodness sake you people don' t any of you realise that penis and vagina means kids unless contraception is used, means handouts by Governments, don't lay on your back and have all and sundry mount you by irresponsible men, whose only thought is to get their rocks off, say "no" for a change and tell that man to go to the shower and do his bit there, far better down the drain than some child born to be brought up by people who couldn't care a stuff about their upbringing and relying on the taxpayer to do it for you
Handouts by Government were not available in the 1950's and 60's,the pill was not around then,and condoms were the order of the day, we planned our children to fit within our means, not on taxpayer support, unwanted pregnancies did unfortunately end up for adoption, or the family looked after the baby, not the taxpayer, we survived, so bleeding hearts get in the real world, lay on your back and get poked then what happens next is your worry and yours only, not mine with my taxes

Yuyutsu,

Careful there, such straight thinking could spoil someone's day!

I like the idea of a restricted special debit card, that can't be used to make cash withdrawals, (drug money) buy tobacco or alcohol products!
And a computer program could be designed to light up with the repetitive purchase of durable goods, which could be resold in order to produce drug money cash flows?

And of course one can expect the humbuggers/deadbeat dads/alcoholic brothers, in-laws and "cousins" to come out in force at this exclusive debit card; and even play the race card in order to try to kill this highly meritorious idea, before it becomes standard practice in every post code poverty trap!

And where possible, Garnishee deadbeat dads' wages and or benefits; before they see a single cent, to help subsidize childcare payments.

If deadbeat dads had to pay for the kids they help produce, there'd likely be a good deal more of them using easy contraception, or even just relying on Lady Palmer and her five daughters, for healthy sexual relief?
Rhrosty.

halduell,

There are myriad ethical questions involved in this proposal.

For instance, what if you're a poor practicing Catholic?

http://www.catholic.com/tracts/birth-control

Would conscientious objection on religious grounds be applicable?

What are the ethical considerations in decreeing that in order to receive welfare, a person - presumably of female gender - must medicate - ie, introduce a foreign substance into their bodies in order to receive welfare?

Poirot, whilst practising Catholics are forbidden to use contraception, they are also forbidden to commit adultery ie sex outside marriage. If they can commit one sin I'm sure they can commit another with a clear conscience.
In response to those who raise the issue of trading food purchased on a Basic card, for cash, well it's obvious you guys don't live in a high welfare area like I do.
If everyone received their centrelink money on a cashless debit card, in high welfare areas there wouldn't be enough workers with no social conscience to swap with.
Certainly most workers would refuse to engage in this practise, with the exception of family members. However there are only so many groceries one can consume and once you reach your weekly requirement other family members will be rejected when they ask the favour.

Get the old. Pope to look after all the babies,to poor people, that would include nearly all of South America he then may change his tune, me thinks on contraception,

Hasbeen seems to think the welfare train is only populated by the dreaded single mothers, or women with kids from multiple partners.

Unless you believe in the divine conception rubbish, there is always a male involved in creating kiddies, so they should be pursued more severely to support their creations as well as the mothers. If the dads supported all their kids then the government wouldn't have to.

There is no point carrying on about all those nasty women forcing the men to have sex with them so they can have those cash-cow babies. The men should ensure they have their condoms in place, or else take the consequences of a baby, if they want to have sex!

Big Nana, there are many married couples on welfare as well.
As far as I am concerned, the amount given to single mothers, or non-working parents as a parenting payment, is hardly a sum to get excited about! I would not think that having several children would be very lucrative at all, given how expensive raising kids is these days.

The discussion has taken an interesting turn.

I'd like to take a moment to think about the issues raised by Suse and Poirot and a couple of others, which go to the role of fathers.

It's indisputable that fathers are an important factor in the lives of children and it's equally indisputable that some fathers seem to be less than ideal, by any measure. The same holds for mothers, as I'm sure all here would agree. It's easy to point out flaws, after all, but a question that seems worth asking is what an ideal mother or father might look like? A corollary to that is whether that ideal is in any way conditional upon circumstances, such as wealth? What defines an ideal parent - of either gender?

Does anybody have any good answers?

Hi POIROT...

As you so correctly state, this issue is way more complex, than my simple mind to embrace ?

POIROT, my first and ONLY consideration, is ALWAYS the children ? The poor little buggers are rarely brought up, rather they're hauled up by various members of these highly dysfunctional groups. And once these naïve and pliable little kids have been made vulnerable and exposed, to these groups and their often vulgar, dyspeptic, and violent ways, well their prospects are severely limited .

Furthermore, police are carefully regulated and scrutinized by not only the various government departments, involved in Human and Family Services, but a number of Church groups, who also probe and survey the activities off the coppers in these highly sensitive matters. Please understand, I'm not criticising any of these bodies or institutions, because in the main they all have the kids welfare at heart.

The buggers I and most of my colleagues seek, are these blokes who 'drift in and out' of these dysfunctional groups and in so doing, have a couple of 'naughties' while there, and after which they merely decamp elsewhere ? Most have 'no fixed abodes', they'll arrive with a slab, usually with a few mates (generally crims), enjoy a night or two, then off they'll go ! It's the seed from these 'creeps' that produce most of the progeny ?

And police attend these premises, not to check on the welfare of these poor kiddies ? We usually have a specific warrant for that, or in receipt of specific information ? It's usually they're seeking the creeps who loiter thereabouts, in connection with other criminal matters !

It's a mess, it really is. It's the poor little kids who invariably suffer, suffer all their miserable lives POIROT.

Dear Craig Minns,

If you think about it, a good portion of our efforts
as parents are devoted to external matters that
may not really matter at all. What will be important
ia the content of our children's hearts and minds, or
what's often described as character. When we say,
"It's what's inside that counts," we speak a simple but
profound truth.

All of us have growing agendas for raising our children.
But while we are feverish about providing our children
every opportunity from music lessons, tennis lessons, to
a college or university degree, it seems that our job
as parents is much simpler, and that is to raise a decent
human being.

Decency might sound like a modest ambition, but in today's
culture it's not so easy to achieve as we might think.
Every parent I know lives with the uneasy sense that their
children are growing up too fast, without clear values
or a real code to live by. While we spin our wheels worrying
about "reading, writing, and arithmetic" our children may
be missing the "real basics" like respect, loyalty, and a
sense of fair play. Survey after survey shows that children
who will be the best educated and most privileged in human
history, are too willing to do anything it takes to "get
ahead."

As parents we need to start looking seriously at ways to
help our children learn right from wrong, and to know
that sometimes there is a decision to be made in the middle.
Children growing up are facing tough choices and complicated
situations that as I've discovered often cannot be
addressed with simple lectures on the values of kindness or
isolated chats about standing up for one's beliefs.

I try to surround my children with a sturdy sensibility, a
world view, and I try to make it different from the
"Me" mentality of modern culture.

Spending time with them, making time for them, taking an
interest in them and their activities, listening to them,
Letting them know they are loved.

I hope this helps.

Craig,
There's no ideal parent, only good and bad Mums and Dads, our "tough love" approach to our wayward older daughter has horrified the extended family but it's bearing fruit because she's getting back on track, working and taking on more study.
What's a good parent? Someone who's reasonable and consistent so the kids have clear boundaries, someone who's there to guide the child, not micromanage their lives.
I've known White people who grew up in extreme poverty alongside the Aboriginals in rural housing commission homes, race isn't as big a deal as it's made out to be, some went bad and didn't make it to 30, most turned out OK. What I can say is that in the town where I grew up there was no racial discrimination whatsoever, there were only social classes, well off people who owned the factories and small businesses, working class people and housos. The housos were mostly families whose breadwinner had died, run off or been disabled, my mum used to say that so and so "had a sad life". The Aboriginal adults who could work did work, alongside our mothers and fathers in the abattoir, for the shire, on the railways, the clothing factory and the engineering works.
As a kid I didnt even really know what an Aborigine was until I met some on a trip to the Red Centre when I was about 12, my parents were good colourblind lefties but they did point out to us that actually a few of the people we knew back at home were "Half Castes" and that Aboriginals didn't just live in the desert.

Before we lay half the blame on men, let us consider

"....Artificial insemination may employ assisted reproductive technology, sperm donation and animal husbandry techniques. Artificial insemination techniques available include intracervical insemination and intrauterine insemination. The primary beneficiaries of artificial insemination are heterosexual couples suffering from male infertility, LESBIAN COUPLES and SINGLE WOMEN. [my capitals] Intracervical insemination (ICI) is the easiest and most common insemination technique and can be used in the home for self-insemination without medical practitioner assistance.[1]"
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_insemination

Probably the commonest technique is the syringe without a needle,
simply suck full, insert and squirt.
The Greeks are said to have used a wheat straw, suck, insert and blow.

The donor male does not necessarily know that his sperm will be used as post coital expression from the vagina is one devious means of collection.

@Suseonline, you seem to be under the impression that all large families on welfare use their income to provide all the necessities of life for their children. Yes, there are couples raising children on welfare, but in my area they aren't married and they certainly don't only have the one permenant partner for an extended period. I know mothers who received more than the average wage through Centerlink payments, cheap housings, government rebates etc. and rest assured, their children in many cases receive the bare minimum for existence. Much of the money goes on cigarettes, alcohol drugs and gambling. Then let's not forget cable tv, air conditioning 24/7, and iPhones.
However, those issues are not my main concern. What really distresses me is the number of step fathers many of these children have to endure. And yes, I mean endure!
Do some research on all the known cases of sexual abuse, physical and mental abuse,neglect leading to severe illness or death, and death itself. I think you will find, that in the vast majority of cases a stepfather was involved, either directly or indirectly. Occasionally it's a stepmother but on the whole it's the male partner who is the risk factor.
What Johns is alluding to in this article is the fact that our welfare system not only enables, but encourages women to produce children they cannot care for. And yes, I personally know women who deliberately get pregnant as soon as their youngest child is approaching school age, just to avoid the necessity of having to look for work.

Craig Minns ' What defines an ideal parent - of either gender?'

An interesting question!

I would say that an ideal parent is one who provides unconditional love and safety for their children. They need to be able to provide adequate shelter, education, clothing, medicines, food and drink.

They don't need to be wealthy at all (although it would sure help if you have several kids!).

Big Nana, I am well aware of all the social problems out in the community, as I work among them. I just don't see what marriage has to do with the equation?
Marriage has never protected many kids from neglect and child abuse, and there are also many well -functioning homes where there are single parents, step-parents and unmarried couples too.

There will always be promiscuous men and women in any society, whether they are married or not.
Paedophiles will always find a way to access kids, whether that is in the form of step-fathers, fathers, grandfathers, priests, scoutmasters, school teachers or swim coaches (with many of the aforementioned married).

The main issue here is to ensure the children are cared for by the rest of the community.
If that means coming down harder on ALL deadbeat parents, then I am all for it

In my view parenting itself is an ideal no parent achieves. We all try (ideally) but we all fail. There are just too many variables for parenting to have an ideal effect.
A better question is perhaps, 'what defines an ideal culture?'.
A culture, in as much as it can be described as formative, has arguably far more influence than parents do. Parents are in all likelihood indistinguishable from that culture, and much of their influence on their children is unconscious and automated, rather than ideal in any genuinely inspired sense.
In general, I would say parents are the problem.

Big Nana,
True enough. Kids aren't a burden to people who don't put any effort into raising them, it literally costs them nothing to have kids.
I had this conversation with my daughter, explaining that the kids she was hanging around with in the city instead of going to school weren't cared for, that their parents wouldn't know where they were, ever and what's more didn't care because they were off chasing the shard or down the pub gambling.
Suse,
Yeah but what can you do with people who are technically mentally retarded or have acquired brain injuries and are hopelessly addicted to drugs, alchohol and gambling?
A lot of these people are physically and mentally burned out by age eighteen, what do you do with crystal meth addicts like the woman who killed her kids in Cairns?
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/state/castaway-kids-parents-use-meth-children-casualties

Big Nana,

"Poirot, whilst practising Catholics are forbidden to use contraception, they are also forbidden to commit adultery ie sex outside marriage. If they can commit one sin I'm sure they can commit another with a clear conscience."

I expected that response.

The proposal one imagines is for some kind of legislation which allows the govt to dole out welfare with certain conditions attached.

In a situation where a couple are applying for welfare, who are married, faithful (ie, not promiscuous), practicing Catholics - would that be covered by Mr Johns' proposal?

So a happily married Catholic couple go strolling into Centelink to apply for the dole...all goes forward up to the point where they are informed that they can only receive the dole if the missus practices contraception...(sorry the Billing's Method won't do)

If legislation was passed giving authorities blanket power to withhold the dole if women refused to use contraception, would that only apply to single women and/or married women who aren't Catholic....or all women?

If a woman is funded from the public purse and falls pregnant that is her business. Her children on the other hand are funded by taxpayers, we have every right to say NO to funding her offspring and expect the father to pay for his "jollies". So many on OLO seem to be happy to spend the hard earned cash of others. I quite like the idea that you get to have a say in how our money is spent rather than listening to those so keen to give our money to those who don't earn any! Imagine if we reach the stage where charities "require" us to donate to causes they we don't support. Oh, I forgot the UN.

Jay of Melbourne, if any of the women you mentioned had kids then I think it is up to the state to remove those kids from their parents care until, and if, the parents are ever in a position to care for them properly again. This already happens....a lot.

Spindoc, it is all very well to come on all high and mighty when discussing this topic, but if, despite all the warnings re offspring they can't afford to have, some couples still produce them, what to do with the kids?

Would you like them to die of neglect and malnutrition that would be sanctioned by our Government?

Maybe a move to some of the poor nations in Africa would be more to your liking?
We live in a democratic Western country that is reasonably well off....not a third world country.

In Israel health workers were implanting female African migrants with the contraceptive bar without telling them what it was for.
http://www.jpost.com/National-News/State-Comptroller-to-probe-claims-of-Ethiopian-birth-control-shots-319780

An ideal parent is one from the 1950's & early 1960', we brought up our children on one wage with all the love we could give them, we lived within our means, the house we had was built with a maximum of three thousand pounds, we bought floor coverings and furniture when we could afford them, we only had an endowment payment of a few dollars not the hand outs given today to keep all in the lifestyle they want, remember this was one wage,, mortgage to pay, children to rear, children we had when in our early twentie( cloth nappies to wash) not forty plus as of now,where grandparents are expected to rear them, or sent off for other people to look after them, we survived and our children have had university education, we worked hard to support our family, children new how to play with frugal toys, they were happy, I am sure many other writers here would agree with me of that era and perhaps could enlarge on what I have said, not the me, me society of today where selfishness abounds, and what I can get from the taxpayer, we were a family back then.
When writing I have mentioned males as well as females (Suseonline and others) who think one writes about the female gender only, read the posts Suse, having spoken to a lot of friends today on this subject,all agree, no contraception, no dole, no excuses, be responsible for your own actions.

OK, no contraceptive no dole; but supposing the contraceptive fails.

What then?

Suze,

"Would you like them to die of neglect and malnutrition that would be sanctioned by our Government?"

Of course not, what a sick proposition. I would however like the fathers of these children to accept responsibility for their own offspring. Why would you wish to try to burden me with the decisions others make in their lives? Switching to my inhumanity or lack of care for children is quite disgusting. The focus should be redirected back to those who own their problems.. I don't own their problems and neither do you! Insert yourself into the social issues of others if you insist, but don't drag other Auastralian taxpayers into your twisted ideology.

If you wish to side with the takers, at least put your hand in your own pocket rather than insisting that others fund your passion for supporting the children and responsibility of others

[Deleted for abuse.]

As I've said in earlier threads, some of the 'fathers' of these kids are ducking out from their financial obligations to support the mother of their child ? It's a case of 'a fling' and run ?

On the other hand these unlucky kids, and their dysfunctional mothers, are sometimes far better served when some of these fathers decide to remain away, rather then interfering with both the mother and child ? Their characters are so fundamentally flawed, their habits so disgusting as to strongly influence these very impressionable young children ?

Problem is these children fall under the aegis of the relevant government (welfare) department (most with chronic staff shortages), and when their Officers enter these homes for inspection purposes, the occupants often disregard or ignore the advice and warnings that are given. Yet when it deteriorates to such a point, it becomes a police matter, it tends to reverse itself and the occupants are too scared to openly communicate with the coppers ? You know, it's a case of 'a rock and a hard place scenario !

And it's always the children who continue to suffer and remain the real victims here ?

Never mind, spindoc...Suse won't nominate your abusive post for deletion.

But I have....

As have I!

Thanks ladies, that makes three of us.

It beats me how any of these tough posters would force these fathers and mothers of uncared for kids to 'face up to their responsibilities', so the rest of us don't have to contribute in their care via our taxes.

Don't you think this Government and those before them have tried everything to avoid having to pay single mother's benefits or the dole etc? You all think you know better?

I hope I never see our country refuse to provide for these kids, or that there is ever any question of forced contraception.
In any case, the men who like to love 'em and leave 'em would never agree to chemical castration to control their 'urges'....

Joe,
In simple English, what I meant is that you and your fellows here are acting like sad, miserable old men who get pleasure out of trying to spread their misery as widely as possible.

I tried to soften the blow with a metaphor. I won't make that mistake in future.

You'll be pleased to know this will be my last word on this topic. My initial purpose was to make it clear that my nation isn't represented by the squawking of the mob of galahs that were attacking two decent people for things they have no part in. I believe I have done that.

I've seen some of your other comments, particularly on some aspects of Aboriginal welfare and history and the stuff you're putting up here isn't worthy of your talents or of your nature. Leave it to the sad, miserable semi-literate buffoons.

‘morning Poirot, Foxy and Suze,

Isn’t progressive hypocrisy a joy to behold?

I guess it’s OK for you to accuse me of wishing to see children “die of neglect and malnutrition”, a truly dreadful, offensive and abusive comment to make, but it is not OK for you to be labeled by me with a simple line from a “rapper” song?

In admitting to nominating my comment for deletion, you have clearly demonstrated a mind numbing level of hypocrisy that you neither “see” or “accept”. I posted my comment separately as a “sacrificial anode”, anticipating your astonishing hypocrisy in rushing for the delete option.

We can conclude that it’s OK for the “Three Witches of Eastwick” to make vile comments but hey, don’t you dare threaten our victimhood by biting back?

Your faux quest for ownership of national compassion is disturbing. You glibly refer to the source of social funding as “taxpayers”, the “Government” and even the “Country”. What you will never acknowledge is that fact that everything the nation spends is funded with “borrowed” money. Billions of it.

The likes of you and me won’t be paying anything of course, but our children and grandchildren will. So enjoy spending the inheritance of your own future generations in the name of ideology and living off their credit card.

Sick puppies.

Wrong thread, Craig. And back-to-topic girls :)

Gary has raised what would be called a 'wicked problem', asocial evil with few options; he has pointed to a real problem, with disastrous consequences for so many of the next generation, and the next ..... and the next.

How to require single women to use contraceptives, i.e. BEFORE they become pregnant ? Even single mothers, who know the consequences of not using contraceptives ? If they don't, and then get pregnant, what's to stop them having another child and claiming for it (baby bonus, fortnightly payments, concessions, etc.) well into the future ?

We can't go back to the days before the single parent benefit. We can't penalise innocent children by cutting, or reducing, benefits to their feckless mothers [Get stuck in on that one, girls: I said 'feckless']. It would not b possible to take babies from mothers by force - in fact, that's never really been lawful. 'Persuasion', yes, but not force.

So, what tov do ? Perhaps requiring a single mother, after her say, second child, to simultaneously undergo vocational training, so that, the more children she has, the more training courses she has had to enrol in. No, that won't work either: it's easy enough to swive your way through TAFE course after TAFE course.

Free child-care for single mothers while the mothers are studying or working part-time, with 'adjustment' to their benefits ? From, say, the age of three ? Yes, that might encourage single mothers to get pregnant again when the youngest is going on three.

I suppose a single mother could have a baby every three years, from 18 to 42 - that would be an extra nine kids growing up fatherless (except for the occasional visits), with a clapped-out mother into the bargain. Not much role modelling there, but it would equate to at least one extra social worker in the system. Later, one extra in the correctional services system. And if some of the nine kids are girls, more of the same next generation. And all for what ?

Wicked problems, indeed.

Joe

spindoc,

Why are you so outraged we took you up on your dare?

Referring to a fellow poster as "you are one sick bitch" in an effort to lure them into pressing the red cross - and then pouring on the belligerence when they do is really just hysterical nonsense.

"The likes of you and me won’t be paying anything of course, but our children and grandchildren will. So enjoy spending the inheritance of your own future generations in the name of ideology and living off their credit card."

How about we get real about who's reaping the lion's share - it ain't the poor people or their kiddies.

http://www.theage.com.au/business/a-taxing-tale-of-two-peak-bodies-20150101-12gcty.html

"In the investment world, the typical product disclaimer runs like this: "Past performance is no indication of future returns." The same might be said of government but if last year's performance is any indication, social welfare will be under siege this year while corporate welfare will proceed apace.

While the government has held firm against advances from the likes of Qantas and SPC Ardmona, who were chasing cash handouts (the former suddenly bounced back as oil prices dropped, and the latter received help from Victoria), it has not managed to bring a single meaningful reform to stem the flood of Australian company profits being transferred offshore via aggressive tax avoidance schemes.

The talk has been hot and heavy, the action measly.

Of its two major tax reforms, the abolition of the carbon tax and the abolition of the mining tax, the greatest beneficiaries are multinational mining companies, the great majority of whose shareholders reside overseas."

"The corporate tax rate in Australia is 30 per cent yet a host of multinationals – with income of billions of dollars a year – pay nothing near the statutory rate, and that is after transferring collectively billions of dollars in profit offshore with the likes of interest on loans to their foreign associates."

That last post was obviously on the wrong thread. It was meant to be on the "Black and white flag" topic.

I'd like to thank the people who took the time and trouble to answer my question about defining a good parent. As the answers showed, it's not as easy as it might seem!

The consensus seems to be that the obvious nurturing aspects are something of a given and that a more important facet is that of providing a framework for a life that may be well lived, which I agree with wholeheartedly.

However, that then opens the question of just what a well-lived life might look like. Is there any difference between a life well-lived from the POV of the person inhabiting that life and from the POV of those outside it? In other words, if I was to ask the kids in a condition of intergenerational poverty if they think they have a good life and a good family, would their answer be different to the answer that someone living a different life might give?

To some extent this is reflecting Squeers point about culture, but I think it goes a little deeper, since different people within the same culture, living what appears to be a similar life, might give different answers.

Since we have apparently agreed that poverty is not a determinant of a good life per se, what is?

For me, it's related to resilience, a sense of personal purpose and of personal capacity to achieve things one thinks worthwhile. It is, as Foxy says, knowing the right thing, but extended to being in a position to be able to do it. I suspect that many in poverty lack any sense of self-efficacy and having dealt with our bureaucracies I know that they are very good at producing learned helplessness in their clients.

We can do better, I think. Does anybody have any ideas about how?

Is Mise don't root, then the contraception won't fail, simple as that, grab a dildo, or have a wank, same excitement, no kids

Dear spindoc,

Your accusations are simply hysterics.

I actaually had not read any of your previous
posts or those of anyone else on this discussion.
I simply did not have the time - what I responded
to was your vile slur against Suse - which no matter
what the reason was abusive and has no place in any
discussion.

You have to take responsibility for your own actions
here - and your outbursts merely indicate that you
can dish it out but can't take it.

No likes or supports an illogical and abusive debater.

Foxy and others, please accept what writers may say, I always look forward to either the accolade or nastiness in reply, we are open to be critisiced here, we all have different opinions on any subject, that is why it is so interesting, we must accept things we do not like, even a slap in the face, O' dear how dare they say I am looney, accept it and get on writing, like all things in life we are going to change nothing, wars, rubbish throwers, graffiti artists, unwanted babies, babies in poverty etc, but we can put our two bob's worth of writing here, as to how we think it should be, right or wrong, thank goodness for that, being a straight forward writer and generally using words that are used daily, one hopes that writers are not offended by root, wank, dildo, penis, vagina, f.... If I am called a penis cranium so be it, it will not upset me. Even d..... h.......comes up as a profanity here but the equivalent penis cranium doesn't , same thing, different expression, so my I Pad is having a go at me, o' dear I am offended.

Dear Ojnab,

The art of reasoned, intelligent argument is a
skill not easily acquired and as I stated
previously no-one likes, or supports an abusive,
illogical or weak debater. Of course it doesn't
take very long to discover that we all have a
streak of prejudice within us which at times, for
some seems a compulsion. While we all like to think
of ourselves as tolerant persons, even passionate in
our belief that all are equal, it is apparent that
some of us have a continuing obligation to work on
our attitudes. Spindoc is a prime example - all one
has to do is look at his posting history.

Every day we hear of grievances in connection with
which ethnic background, or gender, or some
similarly irrelevant difference, is blamed. It is, of
course, the height of arrogance to believe that we
are superior to others, yet this attitude is hard to
eradicate. Sometimes our suspicious approach to those
who seem different appears to be heightened by media
presentations that distort and aggravate incidents.
At times this almost appears malicious.

I recently heard of an infuriated theatre attendant
who became irritable by a migrant who was unsure where to
lin-up, "Why don't you learn how we do things here?"
she shouted in exasperation at the bewildered victim.

Such absence of courtesy and understanding is inexcusable
and should prick the conscience of all of us. Incidents
such as this one can provoke defiance, and even a desire
to retaliate.

Our aim should always be to behave with respect towards
others, and to encourage this in all people.

Snopes would be broken in seconds if it had to respond to the creative stories of OLO's faux* Leftists. Talk about the favourite predictable anecdotes, buffed a bit perhaps and all asserted as new. Fables. Is it life lived in a rut or hardening of the arteries?

<I recently heard of an infuriated theatre attendant who became irritable by a migrant who was unsure where to line up. "Why don't you learn how we do things here?" she shouted in exasperation at the bewildered migrant.
..
Posted by Lexi, Thursday, 18 November 2010 9:23:36 AM>

Never a good story about Aussies though. Not unless there is an ethnic culture adjective before that is - as the political 'Progressives' aka International Socialists are in the habit of doing in the US for instance, with 'Negro American' and so on. What a way to foster division, while always claiming the high moral ground.

*faux Leftists - the old (true) Lefties would be rolling in their graves.

Craig, most good parent, my wife and I included, can't claim to be good parents until you have raised your children to at least early adulthood.until then you are only trying to be a good parent.

Spindoc, the very least the tax payer should be entitled to is the assurance that their taxes are being well spent. If I had my way I would make it a condition for receiving such hand outs, that the recipient sign a legal declaration, stating that they WILL NOT use these funds to fund the likes of cigs, grog or gambling, or risk being cut off, or at least have their funds quarantined if any of the conditions are breached.

Suze, what I would do with the kids from unwanted families, is make adoption much much more accessible as we have the kids, and we also have the willing wannabe parents, we just have the authorities in the way.

As Spindoc rightly says, every cent we are spending is from borrowed money. Unless we come up with ways to address waste, in all areas, we will be doomed.

Now someone mentioned African women have birth control devices unknowingly inserted, I ask, what's the problem with that, because after all, they are not capable of helping themselves.

First off, it is counter-productive and most unfair to have fertility limits for young Aussies, when thousands of migrants may qualify for support for themselves and their dependents. Cannot see any of that stopping either where the taxpayer funds ethnic lobby groups and they are granted the ear of the minister.

Political parties have an eye for the margins and the parties must be confident that the Aussie 'unwed' mums don't have the electoral clout of ethnic groups. Unwed mums are not organised though and they don't have that regular taxpayer-funded income, from grants too, to make their case.

Just to stop at a second point, although there are many more, I suspect that many of the pregnancies being criticised here (and there is a case for that criticism too) are vulnerable girls who may want a child to give them the love they missed, or they are on drugs, or could get organised to see a doctor, or couldn't afford it and so on.

What I am endeavoring to say is that a symptom is being treated and not the causes.

Dear Foxy, "superior to others and hard to eradicate"'now that is a comment we will leave for another debate. Keep up with writing I would miss you all, keeps my mind ticking over at this very late stage of my life

Dear Ojnab,

Bless you.

Maja Angelou the American writer once stated:

"I've learned that people will forget what you said,
people will forget what you did, but people will
never forget how you made them feel."

Here's to a vitriolic-free New Year on this Forum.
At least for most of us. Some, just simply can't help themselves
it seems. They are best ignored.

One of the things I now impress upon my children (they're mostly teenagers) is the need to develop personal "accomplishments". So far, this has meant learning musical instruments, dance, drama and 'how to play the social game', as well 'tricks' (card tricks/drawing, slight of hand), critical thinking, reading quality literature (I would need to define what I mean by this, but I don't mean for the sake of acquiring cultural capital), or indeed anything that demands some patience and dedication in the mastery of.
One needs a sense of personal accomplishment, I tell them, in order to rise above the mere gormandising popular culture in its myriad form is given to.
Consumption without discretion and accomplishment is consumptive. It tends to sedentariness, obesity, depression and other diseases of the mind (as distinct from the brain) which consumer culture cultivates.
Personal/professional accomplishments are the staples of happiness (such as is available to us) and to want for them is to be impoverished indeed.
In short, our culture is so shallow as to demand individualistic cultivation in its stead. Even our ceremonies (weddings and all) are confected. All is affectation--especially sincerity!
Here is what our generationally-disadvantaged tend to lack: accomplishment/artfullness.
Their shallow, rapacious and ruthless culture gives them nothing to cleave to and their want of accomplishment leaves them desolate, even vicious. Their sincere wretchedness is not affected, but pathetic.
So when I urge the acquisition of accomplishments, it's with misgivings but in the knowledge that artful self-deception is the most important accomplishment of all in the world as it is.
"what a well-lived life might look like" is dictated by the culture and the POV it cultivates.
The old question, "how should we live," can only be addressed outside the confined mental space composed by life as we know it.

As things are, a well-lived life is one of accomplished awareness and sufferance.

A few commenters here have queried how such a system would be administered, but no one so far (that I can see) has queried the expense.

What the media and political class never mentions is that, for every welfare crackdown that is introduced, the expense far outweighs any savings made in benefit payments. So, for every one welfare recipient that fits the criteria of ‘no contraception, no dole’, at least 5-10 other people would be required to police and administer it.

This would include at least one medical practitioner (plus nurses and other medical assistants) to carry out the procedure and to conduct ongoing medical monitoring. Also, at least one social worker would be required to conduct one-off and ongoing interviews, make one-off and ongoing assessments and write one-off and ongoing reports.

Then, Centrelink would need extra administrative staff to deal with the extensive paperwork and payment procedures involved – no doubt, an extra Fertility Control section would have to be created within Centrelink, or contracted out to a private community health firm.

So, in order to prevent the innocent taxpayer from having to pay an 'unworthy' pregnable female about $250 per week, the innocent taxpayer has to foot the bill for about $1000 per week to all those employed to save the innocent taxpayer some money

Having a baby is a public act, Killarney. Each baby requires a birth certificate to be considered as a future citizen of any country.

Here is how it can work. First illegitimate child unsupported by father, full child support from social security. Second illegitimate child unsupported by father, child support halved. Third illegitimate child unsupported by father, children removed to government care as mother is clearly unfit to be a responsible parent.

The present system of government handouts to that part of our populations which are the most troublesome and irresponsible, so that they can breed and become even more of a problem in the future, amounts to Eugenics in reverse. The fundamental problem for western society is that those among us who have the lowest intelligence and the greatest need for social security, are breeding at a much higher rate than the intelligent people who pay the taxes that support the dummies. Extrapolate forward and western society is doomed.

Unless we think up some way to get intelligent people to breed and stop the dummies from sending us broke through welfare, we may s well buy prayer mats and start facing Mecca when we pray.

LEGO

I have a pretty good idea of how the system would work. What I'm referring to is the expense.

Countless measures have been introduced over the decades to 'crack down' on unworthy, immoral or illegal social welfare recipients, but all this has ever done is escalate the welfare spending budget.

Your premise of 'first illegitimate child ... second illegitimate child' etc is simple on paper, but it would be an expensive bureaucratic nightmare to implement. You would need an army of not exactly underpaid social workers, medical practitioners, lawyers and government bureaucrats to plough through all the paperwork.

Then there is the bureaucratic hassle of determining whether a multiple MARRIED woman unsupported by the father(s) of her children should be deemed unfit for benefits. Again, that same army of doctors, lawyers, social workers and admin staff would have to spend a considerable amount of time and (paid) effort to determine her 'worthiness' to continue doing her taxpayer-funded 'bad' parenting.

It's my belief that the welfare spending budget could be virtually halved if all the self-righteous protectors of the innocent taxpayer would lay off their obsession with distinguishing between 'worthy' and 'unworthy' welfare recipients. Spending up to $60 billion per year just to feed our sense of self-righteousness is beyond a joke.

Well said Killarney.

One wonders why, when there are more people out of work than there are jobs, Centrelink needs to monitor dole recipients.

Squeers, thanks for your well-considered answer. I'm not sure that I agree with you that a well-lived life is beyond our subjective judgement, although I most certainly do agree that our modern world is not conducive to the contemplative dispassion that is needed.

One thing I am pretty sure of, though, is that there are some kids from disadvantaged backgrounds who rise above their beginnings and others who don't. I'm also sure that there are plenty of children who live in poverty or with parents who are a long way from ideal by the measures we have come up with here, who consider themselves to be happy and have little wish for their lives to change (although they would have a large list of things they'd buy if they won the lotto, I'm sure).

Given those things and referring to the work of Martin Seligman and others on positive psychology, http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu/ppintroarticle.pdf is a good intro and there are some excellent resources on the net, it seems to me that it is not beyond the reach of our ambition to socially engineer (in the true sense, rather than the usual sociological constructionalist flim-flam) enhanced outcomes for those in the worst of circumstances without spending a huge amount on doing so.

It would mean starting at the top, where the decision-makers set policies and where managers design bureaucratic processes. It would also mean starting at the bottom, where children meet the world, by teaching prospective parents the skills needed to make good decisions about their childrens' upbringing. It would need to start in the middle, by training high-quality teachers and culling those who are not able or willing to meet the standards of training and commitment needed. It would need to be supported by decent communications and power infrastructure, enabling people in remote and poor communities to be as connected to the world and the opportunities it offers as those in the best schools.

We need to give people a dream they can build on and the tools to make it happen. They'll do the rest for themselves

Craig Minns:
“I'm not sure that I agree with you that a well-lived life is beyond our subjective judgement”.

It’s not merely that our contemplation of a well-lived life is constrained within existing ideological constructs, but that prevailing material conditions preordain and enforce those limits. Further, that the prevailing system is not conducive to a well-lived life in any qualitative sense that is also ethical and sustainable. As you’ve implied yourself elsewhere, the system within which we must attempt to live the good life is riven by disparities which are fundamental to its partial and uneven prosperity. As things are, a well-lived life must remain a privileged condition in the now global context.
Looking at the remainder of your post, you illustrate my point in that your social engineering ideas fail to address the root of all our social and material woes: the mode of production. The system in which we strive for a well-lived life is fundamentally unethical and unsustainable, making the cherished object untenable.
This is not to take a Marxist stance except in recognising his insight that the mode of production remains idealistically untouched. Thus, all progressivisms to date have sought to address the ugly social consequences of an economic rubric which ‘demands’ them.
If anyone can offer a plausible scenario whereby the magic pudding continues to get bigger in a finite system, or whereby equality and prosperity among our leavening populations is finally achieved (to say nothing of ethical glitches like the Anthropocene mass extinction, or destruction of the biosphere generally, and ultimately ourselves), I’ll rethink it. The reality is that inequality is growing and set to soar (again), and no amount of positive psychology can foster a well-lived life under these conditions—unless it’s based on renunciation.
Thus my unfortunate predicament in having to preach cynicism to my own kids, in wishing them worldly success yet despising them for it—or rather, hoping they’ll season it with modesty, ‘genuine’ thoughtfulness and a refusal to give in to Panglossian logic.
I’m not calling for revolution but economics based on husbandry; rather than arbitrary generation of wealth.

Killarney, while I accept that there is an expense involved in this, you have to ask yourself, what's more important, costs, or caring for kids, because after all, wasted welfare effects kids more than anything else. They can't (little ones) fend for themselves and rely 100% on being born to caring, loving parents.

Now if they're not, then they need all the help we the community and tax payer can give, in exchange, we ask that our welfare dollars not be wasted.

Is Mise, this is not about monitoring dole recipients, it's about trying to broach the often generational problem of children being brought up where parents, even if they do care, can't possibly support them while on the dole. So the very least they can do is distribute the kind (compulsory) tax layers donations in an appreciative manner.

Perhaps one out there idea would be to take non working fathers, who abandon their kids, or this who simply refuse to pay support, and place them in some type of publicly run detention centre where they are cared for, in exchange for their benefit and remain there until one, they get a job, and two, they take responsibility for the children they fathered by way of finical support.

Now if they don't like it, then they simply have to pay for their kids and, if they claim they can't due to not having a job, then detain them so at least they can't create any more kids to abandon.

The problem is, having kids and abandoning them is just too easy.

Thanks Squeers, another interesting and provocative post, although I'm not sure that it addresses the same discussion, necessarily :). I'll set out the things I think are not in contention first.

Prevailing defining material conditions are not optimal and are a limiting factor in generalising opportunity to enjoy a well-lived life.

The mode of production is a critical factor. I agree with this, but I think my reasons are different. See below.

A continual growth model is not tenable long-term. As above.

A conservative, consumption-limited ethos is a pragmatic necessity.

So where do we differ?

Primarily, I think in the way we see the functional role of materiality and the effect that has on the way we weight the importance of distributive fairness on the one hand and access to the fruits of production on the other.

While I don't disagree that a life without fear of material want is something we would all aspire to for those we love, there is no strong evidence I am aware of that supports an argument as to the causal nature of material satiety and having a life that is subjectively perceived as worth living for its own sake. In fact, there is a lot of evidence that materiality as a predictor of subjective evaluation of quality of life is not much chop.

Most generally, that a well-lived life is dependent on anything but the interaction of individuals within a community [family, village, workplace, etc] motivated by mutual goodwill to act to identify and satisfy intrinsic needs, with some extrinsic challenges that are tough but doable with effort.

In other words, it is the way we think about things which makes us able to live a life well or in some cases, tragically, to give up without trying because we've been taught to be helpless.

Rehctub, unfortunately it is different now, having come from an era where the male who fathered a baby out of wedlock was expected to help keep that baby, or either of the family, that is parents, both the male and female were probably intending to get married anyway, the scenario today is for all and sundry males to take advantage of females, but these females seem to not care if they get pregnant, not knowing who the father is, that is the difference from past situations to now. Having viewed many females and the way they are dressed late at night I can understand from a male point of view, they are easy meat, but then "I can dress as I like"if your boobs are just covered and your dress or pants just cover your bum, what really is it saying to a horny male.

Squeers, Craig Minns, time to come out of the kindergarten & into the real world kids. Perhaps you might notice people aren't equal. If you are less competent, or productive, you are of less value, & have no right to expect others to pick up your slack.

It has always been such, just a damn sight harder & more direct in days of yore.

The less competent fisherman, or hunter, & his family had less to eat than the better performer.

The family of the less competent farmer, or finder & digger of roots was likely to starve in hard times, along with her family.

In todays much kinder western world, we feed clothe & house the incompetent, & even give them money for TVs, cars, & medical treatment. Now you expect us to fund their breeding, so as to produce more incompetents for us to fund.

Russia & China tried this under communism, & million starved when the competent got sick of providing, & decided to do no more than the growing bludger class.

The seeds of our destruction are in your constant demands for increasing handouts for the useless.

Hi Hasbeen,
Sadly, I haven't been a kid for a long time.

I think you may have misunderstood my argument, so please accept my apologies for not being clearer. I'd also appreciate it if you could give me your opinion on how I could do that.

I like your argument from evolution, but I think it's incomplete. Man has prospered to the extent that we are a group species. The noble savage struggling alone against a savage nature was never a part of the human success story. All our closest relatives among the higher primates are group species, so it's not a new invention.

What I am suggesting is that as a group species, our evolutionary past tells us the best way to address the problem of people who have a bad start to life is to teach them how to make the most of what they have and the confidence in themselves to have a go. From what I've read of your values here, having a go is pretty high on the list, as it is on mine.

A society based on the harsh utilitarianism in your first paragraph is one that hasn't moved on from its roots as a dumping ground for the human waste products of 18th Century Britain's rapid industrialisation and social decay. It's a pretty poor result for nearly 250 years of having a go, don't you reckon?

Tennyson said it better even if, like me, you aren't religious.

"Man, her last work, who seem’d so fair,
Such splendid purpose in his eyes,
Who roll’d the psalm to wintry skies,
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,

Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation’s final law-
Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek’d against his creed-

Who loved, who suffer’d countless ills,
Who battled for the True, the Just,
Be blown about the desert dust,
Or seal’d within the iron hills?

No more? A monster then, a dream,
A discord. Dragons of the prime,
That tare each other in their slime,
Were mellow music match’d with him."

Dear Killarney,

<<It's my belief that the welfare spending budget could be virtually halved if all the self-righteous protectors of the innocent taxpayer would lay off their obsession with distinguishing between 'worthy' and 'unworthy' welfare recipients. Spending up to $60 billion per year just to feed our sense of self-righteousness is beyond a joke.>>

Thank you so much for bringing some sense into this discussion!

Indeed, welfare and children are two very different issues and should not be mixed.

Welfare should be unconditional, so anyone who earns less than a bare minimum receives it with no other questions asked (other than about their income). As you wrote, this will save us a lot rather than waste the tax-payer's money, because each public-servant costs 10 times more than a dole-recipient.

And as for children, while what's done is done, bringing more children into this overcrowded world should not be encouraged in any way, thus should be treated like any other hobby - paid exclusively by those who pursue it.

If I got you right, Killarney, (correct me if I am wrong) your thinking goes like this.

It costs too much money to differentiate between parasites and people who genuinely are in need of social security. So, just give everybody who wants to live on the dole or the DSP what they want.

You must have a bit of Greek in you if you think like that.

I thought you were an Arab because of your reflexive anti Americanism. Now you have got me confused as to who you really are.

Craig,
It seems to me you’re assessing the human capacity for eudaemonia as a state of mind that may be cultivated independently of material conditions. I would argue that this capacity for spiritual/psychological transcendence is an indulgence first afforded by material comfort. “Grub first, then ethics” as Brecht has it. Philosophy is a social construct ruminated idly and on a full stomach, as it were. Even the Buddha had first to taste decadence before he could renounce it. Philosophy does not occur to us spontaneously except in as much as carnal pleasures are found wanting. Even then, it is the knitting of idle minds which the novice takes up in an attempt to add a row. Language affords us the capacity to pass our ‘wisdom’ down, lending the noviciate the illusion of its primacy. But now the well-lived life is formulaic, a prescription, self-enchantment cut off from its inspiration, a fetish couched in positive suggestion.
Psychology, rueing its negative spin and tendency to pathologise hitherto (to worship empty norms), now wants to spin it the other way. As if material conditions were beside the point, then and now; the individual, rather than its culture, remaining the subject to be treated. Mental illness, like mental health, is largely affectation, an industry built on the fetishisation of the self. Neurosis is largely a lifestyle disease.
You suggest we differ in “…the way we weight the importance of distributive fairness on the one hand and access to the fruits of production on the other”.
This sounds ‘holier than though,’ but I beg to submit that redistributionism has always riled me; I object to glut and unsustainability and have scarcely more sympathy for wealthy mendicants than millionaires. Your second clause seems to make a conceit of abstemiousness; while I applaud asceticism—I’m anti-consumerism myself—a cloistered state of mind amounts to abnegation of responsibility. There are larger ethical and ecological issues at stake.
The way we think about things can certainly be a comfort or a curse, but this has no bearing on the actual conditions and ramifications of our social existence, which remains precarious.

Dear LEGO,

<<It costs too much money to differentiate between parasites and people who genuinely are in need of social security. So, just give everybody who wants to live on the dole or the DSP what they want.>>

This occurs all the time in your intestines, where there are beneficial bacteria as well as parasites and everything in between sharing your food. You could use antibiotics to kill them all, but the cost to your health would be too high. Also, the money you pay in the pharmacy for your antibiotics could easily buy the extra food needed to feed your bacteria.

Squeers/Craig Minns,

It must be wonderful up there on Olympia.

Yuyutsu,

Surely any moves to reduce child neglect is to enable carers to be better careers by providing opportunities for them to get out of the hole they are in and give their children far more positive role models.

Perhaps Andrew Forrest's proposition - that jobs should be identified, people selected to train for those jobs, those people undergo effective training and then move into those jobs - could be tailored for single mothers, not straight away, but once their child is in FREE child care and they care able to devote time to study.

When somebody is in a hole, don't throw blankets into it, and deliver hot meals, so that he or she can exist more comfortably in their hole - surely the aim should be to get them out of it as soon as possible.

Single mothers are probably no less intelligent than anybody else: they can study and move into employment at an appropriate time, like anyone else.

Surely the aim of any decent welfare system is to get people out of welfare and on their feet, as soon as possible ?

The children of single mothers deserve it. They deserve better than to be raised for fifteen or sixteen years in potentially negative and dangerous environments: Big Nana's point about step-fathers should be borne in mind, that problem's real, not just some scare-story.

Joe

Squeers, it's sounds like your are the ideal parent, however, all of what you mentioned cost money, with some families spending thousands a year just on hobbies/sports alone, and that doesn't include the travel costs.

I am retired from business at present however one thing my wife and I did was to spend heaps on our kids education, both school and no school, and it's paid off. Unfortunately I would like a little more cash nowadays, but that's the price one pays to ensure your kids will not be a burden on the tax payer and it's money well spent.

However, if we were starting again today, on average wages, we couldn't afford it.

Loudmouth...Surely any moves to reduce child neglect is to enable carers to be better careers by providing opportunities for them to get out of the hole they are in and give their children far more positive role models.

Are you forgetting it's often a self dug hole.

If we placed more effort on finding ways to make fathers who do the 'dump and run' more accou table, many if these problems would be solved, because as it is there is very little that can be done to address the problem. Making parents who dump their kids more accountable would be my first step.

Squerrs/Craig Minns,

Sorry, I meant 'Mount Olympus', not the town of Olympia.

Retchtub,

Yes, I was trying to be tactful about single mothers: that they should be provided with opportunities to get out of their difficult situations.

But if they don't actually want to, then what can be done ? Free child care after three years old, free vocational training for the mother leading to a job, perhaps with a bonus when they successfully complete their studies and are in a job - say, $ 5,000. Continued free education in every sense for their child while he or she is going through school, right through to university.

And of course, bugger-all if the mothers don't move themselves.

Surely the aim of any decent welfare system is to get all able-bodied people off it as soon as possible and into employment, perhaps through free vocational education ? What on earth is wrong with that ?

Joe

Perhaps we could give all the billions of dollars spent on unnecessary fireworks for the new year to help the disadvantages, when I see this utter waste of dollars go up in smoke I then tend to refuse any charity,including the hard done by brigade and wanting money who come knocking at my door, go ask those that organise these events for the money they waste, which includes Governments who should know better A party pooper but a sensible thinker.
Children seem to be not wanted by anyone these days, no sooner born than in day care parents not working also placing children in daycare with taxpayer handouts, grandparents having to look after them, not the parent, forget about the second Land cruiser and look after your kids, or if they are a bother refrain from having any Unmarried mothers for goodness sake get on the pill and men use condoms, but then pigs might fly. The me society and what I can get from the taxpayer.

Dear Joe,

<<Surely any moves to reduce child neglect...>>

Please go no further - I am already wary of any such moves.

Who is to decide what "neglect" is? While it could refer to what you and I may agree are some of the worst child-care practices, those who are biased, prejudiced or simply ignorant, might also refer by this term to anything outside the norm, including the best of practices.

I am happily willing to hear and evaluate suggestions for helping single mothers who agree that they are having difficulty raising their children, provided that they consent to receiving help in that area (from the body that offers it).

Without such consent, I rather have 1000 children starving due to parent-neglect than to have one baby-sage with a potential to develop into a Jesus or a Buddha, be suppressed and turned by the system into an ordinary neurotic frustrated slave of the Western shallow material fashion.

<<but once their child is in FREE child care and they care able to devote time to study.>>

And what guarantee do you have that once the generous child-care relieves them of their duties, they won't use that time to instead beget further children? Or that their friends won't follow their example and have their own babies on the assumption of free child-care? People should not be helped to forget that rearing children is a huge burden which should be avoided if they cannot afford it. This is especially true in cities: children are meant to grow up in open spaces, close to nature and close to their parents, learning from seeing how they do their work - raising children in cities and by commuting parents does not do them any favour, in fact I consider it a neglect.

(continued...)

(...continued)

<<surely the aim should be to get them out of it as soon as possible.>>

However, it is NOT possible. People get into holes in order to learn something - until they have learned their lesson, if you take them out of their hole, they would soon find another similar hole where they can complete their lesson.

<<Single mothers are probably no less intelligent than anybody else:>>

Those who swapped their brains with their genitals, now their genes are intelligent while they have become fools. Those intelligent genes would seize any opportunity to avoid hard study and work if instead they find further opportunities to multiply.

<<Surely the aim of any decent welfare system is to get people out of welfare and on their feet, as soon as possible?>>

I disagree. People would not get on their own feet until they have learned their lesson and are spiritually ready to proceed into the next phase of life.

Some of the aims of the welfare system that I identify are:
1. Provide unconditional food/shelter security, in order to reduce the general anxiety.
2. Compensate for the compulsion to live in civilisation and use money.
3. Reduce dependence on employers, especially employers who make immoral/unethical/unhealthy demands.
4. Provide public safety by preventing rampage of crimes by hungry desperate people.

rehctub,

As I've said above, I don't believe in ideal parents. I try to give my kids the benefit of my experience, but this requires real honesty and not merely the perpetuation of social norms. This might not be the best preparation for the kinds of lives they are more or less obliged to follow, but they are at least armed with multiple perspectives rather than mindless conformity.
My wife and I also have to make sacrifices and lead a modest lifestyle in order to foster the accomplishments I believe kids are best armed with. But I also urge self reliance and my three eldest all work part-time while at school and uni.
We spend thousands a year too, but if we can do it on our very slender means, so can most anyone else, especially if they give up the booze/drugs/cigarettes, tattoos and other trappings of Western 'poverty'.
This is not to defend our system, which is responsible for our pathological decadence in the first place. As I say, there are no viable alternative lifestyles available, but hopefully my kids will add theirs to other dissenting voices, and otherwise live vibrantly on the margins of our collective sleepwalk.

Joe,
perhaps in an effort at dumbing OLO down you should start punishing anyone who says anything too thoughtful?

Sorry Squeers, I won't be following your example: "you should start punishing anyone who says anything too thoughtful". Back to your Olympian cave !

Yuyutsu,

If you have to ask what 'neglect' is, then you would never know. Get out a bit, when you see it, you'll know it.

And where do you get the idea that " .... People get into holes in order to learn something" ? In respect of this particular hole, people et into one either through thoughtlessness or calculation, either way ending up as a single mother. I don't think they intend to learn anything, ever.

As for your weird list of reasons to pander to the welfare population, your list begs so many questions:

"Some of the aims of the welfare system that I identify are:

1. Provide unconditional food/shelter security, in order to reduce the general anxiety.
2. Compensate for the compulsion to live in civilisation and use money.
3. Reduce dependence on employers, especially employers who make immoral/unethical/unhealthy demands.
4. Provide public safety by preventing rampage of crimes by hungry desperate people."

If they are not simply gratuitous insults on society, a gaggle of zombie straw-men, perhaps you could substantiate some of these, before you rely on them as justification for ever-more welfare ? Are you, or have you ever been, a social worker by any chance ?

Joe

I see we can agree on one thing at least Ojnab, these ridiculous fireworks.

We are bombarded with state government advertising about the banning of smoking near schools, I presume due to some bull about the danger of passive smoking tobacco, but meanwhile we approve the pumping of hundreds of tons of heavy metal carcinogens into our air on a regular basis.

Surely people realise these metals are really dangerous, compared to a bit of tobacco.

Dear Joe,

<<If you have to ask what 'neglect' is, then you would never know.>>

The interests of a child cannot be all fulfilled, if nothing else, due to the fact that there are only 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week.

No parents, even be they kings and queens, can provide their child with extra enrichment lessons in all arts, all sports, all musical instruments, all martial arts, all religions, all philosophies, etc. etc., then still allow their child time to play with their friends or to simply relax.

Could they then be accused of neglecting their child by not providing this or that lesson?

"Neglect" is therefore all about priorities and the risk is for governments to accuse parents of neglect for acting on their own priorities rather than on what the government wants. If government is allowed to dictate the tennis is more important than flute, then there is the danger that it could also dictate that physical food is more important than spiritual nourishment.

<<In respect of this particular hole, people get into one either through thoughtlessness or calculation>>

Then in the first case they need to learn to be thoughtful and in the second to be less selfish.

I've never been a social-worker. I believe that my 4 points are good reasons for having welfare - unconditional except on income:

1. Misfortune and catastrophe can happen to anyone, thus a source of anxiety. Knowing that one would not be totally forsaken, cold and hungry, reduces the level of that anxiety.

2. Civilisation and its laws prevent people from living in nature without regard to money. Welfare (using money) can be seen as a form of compensation for the inability to live without it.

3. Anxiety over losing one's job can bring workers to degrade themselves and compromise their morals and health. Knowing that welfare is always there reduces that risk.

4. Hungry people tend to steal and rob as they have nothing to lose. Feeding the hungry unconditionally is cheaper than heavy locks and iron bars on all doors and windows.

Squeers,
I seem to have a knack for being unclear! I don't for a moment suggest that comfort is undesirable, merely that it is not a quintessential component of having a good life as a human being doing the things that make beings human and may actually come to be destructive of the best experiences of human natures, to the detriment of subjectively experienced well-being.

We need to be focussed on enjoyment, which is produced by doing and is a deeply satisfying hedonic experience. Far too much of our lives are driven by pleasure, the fleeting buzz of sex, or acquisition, or consumption of the fruits of someone else's work.

This extract from the reference I provided earlier might help to better understand my perspective.

"The aim of positive psychology is to begin to catalyze a
change in the focus of psychology from preoccupation only
with repairing the worst things in life to also building
positive qualities.
The field of positive psychology at the subjective level
is about valued subjective experiences: well-being, contentment,
and satisfaction (in the past); hope and optimism
(for the future); and flow and happiness (in the present). At
the individual level, it is about positive individual traits: the
capacity for love and vocation, courage, interpersonal skill,
aesthetic sensibility, perseverance, forgiveness, originality,
future mindedness, spirituality, high talent, and wisdom. At
the group level, it is about the civic virtues and the institutions
that move individuals toward better citizenship:
responsibility, nurturance, altruism, civility, moderation,
tolerance, and work ethic."

Joe, would you mind explaining your reference to Mount Olympus? Regrettably, I don't seem to be able to grasp your meaning, although in the context it seems to be intended pejoratively, which is an interesting usage. We seem to be in some agreement generally, which is encouraging.

Hi Yuyutsu,

Thank you for elaborating on what you meant earlier. But you're still barking up the wrong trees.

Of course, welfare should be available for all who need it, for as short a time as possible. It should not be a lifestyle option.

There are families around which have been - from the historical record - welfare-oriented, with no-one in regular work, for six and eight generations. Those 'families' have, more willy-nilly than by design, 'raised' their kids to expect never to work, to always be able to skive and scam the system, but in an environment of violence, boredom, injury, starvation and humiliation. The one lesson people seem to learn is: grab it while you can, so one sees fat adults and skinny kids.

So those kids are almost bound to do poorly in school, and get out of it as soon as they can: they often see nothing in it for them. So they begin the cycle of reformatory, welfare, prison, welfare, violence, hospital, child-making, welfare, prison, child-making, violence, hospital, prison, sickness, and so on, until, on average, a very early death.

We each have only one life, one life potentially well-lived. Many kids raised in a welfare culture are robbed of that. They will never know what you and I may perceive as achievement, fulfilment. As long as they have to rely on welfare, they will never know it.

So the task is to get able-bodied people off welfare as constructively and as soon as possible. The cycle has to be broken. So single mothers should be assisted to improve their work skills - yes, so that they can work like 'normal' people for forty or fifty years - through free child care services while they are studying to improve their skills, ideally with jobs already identified.

Should they expect an easy job, well-paid, interesting, clean, in an air-conditioned office ? No. One of my brothers used to get up each morning at 5 a.m. to clean toilets, to put himself through his Ph.D. You do what you have to. Like the rest of us.

Joe

Yuyutsu, thank you for your comments. They reflect a great understanding of the essential aspects of humanity.

It seems to me that all of the contributors to this discussion (including me) are to some extent groping in the dark for a lost key that will open the door to a better life. The shape of that key is in some dispute and for some, the key is not important, but finding it first is vital :).

Only a few generations ago the vast majority of humanity lived in a world defined by how far one could walk in a day (a great many still do). The vast majority of those never walked that whole distance in a straight line, so their world was smaller still: their village and perhaps the village over the hill were all they ever knew. In that world, if someone seemed to have a better share than others, it was either because they deserved it: perhaps some special talent, some special skillset, or perhaps great frugality; or they were in some way cheating their neighbours.

There was no other way to significantly exceed the group average prosperity and both have their drawbacks: the first requires hard work and perhaps some genetic luck, while the second risks a loss of status if discovered. However, if everyone fell into one of those groups, the whole group would be worse off, so most people simply did what was expected, like all group species.

However, there was a strong incentive for everybody to watch for the cheats (nothing special about that, dogs do it too) by keeping an eye on what other had and evaluating how hard they seemed to be working for it. That is what we call envy and in today's world, where the group is enormously large and where it is not readily apparent how hard anybody works, but very easy to see the outward signs of prosperity, it has become a powerfully negative force in some people's lives, even those who should, by any material measure, be satisfied with their lot.

Dear Joe,

In India there is a term for such families as you describe: they are called 'Shudras', which are the lowest of the fourfold caste system.

The Indian caste system became very unpopular today, when this crazy politically-correct idea as if "everyone is equal" reigns supreme, and is now even banned by the Indian government.

But however faulty and degenerated that caste system has become, it was based on some observable truth which no philosophical fashion can brush away.

Shudras have their respected role in the world and it is not a shame to be a shudra, but a necessary step in one's spiritual evolution. Once successfully completed, a shudra is reborn into the next caste, as a Vaishia (independent farmer, tradesperson or merchant, etc.).

The natural occupation of shudras is to perform menial work. Vaishias are defined as those who can perform a day's work without supervision, which shudras cannot. Shudras typically are not expected to live beyond the age of 50, but that's OK because they have nothing to look for once their physical strength has departed, because study is simply not in their nature.

None of this of course can be acceptable to those who believe that we only live once, then die and that's it, as you just wrote yourself: "We each have only one life, one life potentially well-lived."

Historically, prison and violence were not part of the life-cycle of shudras. In fact, if they committed a crime, the law gave them lesser sentences on the grounds that their understanding is limited. Historically they had plenty of work and were happy with that.

The problem is in the modern society, where technology substituted their natural skills thus little work remains which suits the Shudras. I repeat, study is not in their nature: while they enjoy simple work, they experience study as torture and cannot grasp why that is required from them. This may be hard for you to understand because if you [happily] participate in OLO, then you are not a shudra.

(continued...)

Hi Yuyutsu,

Sorry, I wasn't aware that this thread was focussing on the world, not just Australia.

But are you saying that Shudras or dalits are living on welfare ? Paid by the Indian government ? I didn't know that.

I have to say that I find that whole caste system disgusting and vile: regardless what a shudra might think of himself or herself, they are as worthy as any Brahmin, and yes, in my view, they each have only one life. I find it disgusting that one person can be born, and live their entire life, in affluence, while so many others will be born, and live their entire (one and only) lives in utter poverty.

Hinduism strikes me as a completely idiotic religion, and on those grounds, I despair that India will ever rival China. I wouldn't be surprised to see Indonesia race past it, economically and socially.

Not because Indonesia is mostly Muslim - after all, there are nearly as many Muslims in India as in Indonesia, but because Indonesia seems to take its religions a little more casually than other countries. On that score, obviously Pakistan will remain a basket case through-out my life-time, and probably India as well.

Anyhow, to get BTT: Actually, I've had a vague suspicion for thirty or more years that there were, in patches of Aboriginal society, tendencies in the direction of caste systems. Certainly, putting that together with the lifelong welfare population, is it possible - I ask this especially of Big Nana - that many Aboriginal people think they are, indeed, a sort of Brahmin care, and that white (social workers, nose- and arse-wipers generally) have a permanent role as glorified shudras.

As a friend of many years in the field noted, many Aboriginal people that he associated with were quite convinced that they should be paid full, lifetime, salaries for being Aboriginal. Is that close to thinking they have some innate or God-given position high up in a caste system, or what ?

It ain't me, babe !

Joe

Craig:
“I seem to have a knack for being unclear!”
On the contrary you’re lucid and eloquent. In my experience here the problem is partly word limits (necessary of course), but mainly that we tend to be at cross purposes. Each poster is inspired by a different set of ideas—Gary Johns by his neoliberal think-tank.
I agree btw wholeheartedly with the rest of the paragraph from which I’ve quoted you here, which my own research interests tend to reflect.
I did look at your link and have some knowledge of the field, and my response above was indeed partly a critique of it—see, I also have a knack for being unclear.
Addressing the subject again apropos your last to Yuyutsu, if I may. I’m not groping in the dark for the same thing, as it seems to me we must get our priorities in order. We claim to be civilised and our first priorities ought thus to be renewal and ethical standards. These are abused and in jeapody thanks to our open-ended mode of production. Striving for the life well lived without addressing these priorities is foolheardy and unconscionable. In any case the only good life available to us is constrained to a rubric and dependent on positive thinking.

TBC

Cont:

Now this is interesting:

“…That is what we call envy and in today's world, where the group is enormously large and where it is not readily apparent how hard anybody works, but very easy to see the outward signs of prosperity, it has become a powerfully negative force in some people's lives, even those who should, by any material measure, be satisfied with their lot”.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but this sounds like an apologetics of the vast inequities which divide humanity? That is that we should be grateful with the quality of life we enjoy and not be drawn into negative impulses like envy?
I agree with this to a point. I couldn’t in all conscience own a private jet or a mansion for instance, and I see through the folly of acquisition and wealth for their own sake.
But in the global context these inequities between nations and individuals are to a large extent ‘dependent’ upon those disparities, nor are the respective conditions adequate or sustainable.
As I said above, I’m not advocating ‘redistribution,’ it’s not about wanting to share out the booty; it’s first about ‘living and renewing sustainably,’ and ‘then’ about the life well-lived. We are the only species capable of appreciating these fundamental requirements, yet we continue to exploit our global habitat as if there were no tomorrow. Can’t you see how talk of a life well-lived is incongruous in these delinquent circumstances? This is the point I’ve been labouring to get across. It’s not about envy. I despise the trappings of wealth. I despise the profligate of any demographic. But preaching contentment, letting Caesar have is due as it were, is no longer a Christ-like submission to God’s will, but an irresponsible betrayal both of posterity and any coherent ethics based on what we now know about the world.

(...continued)

The caste system degenerated into strict and enforced social boundaries where one could never escape their family's caste. This was obviously wrong: individuals CAN escape their caste, either with supreme effort and determination, divine grace or the help of a competent guru. Such supreme effort and determination, however, cannot be expected of the general public and competent gurus do not tend to be born in Australia where the tall-poppy syndrome prevents them from developing their potential.

--- so far my previous post, cut by exceeding my posting quota ---

<<But are you saying that Shudras or dalits are living on welfare? Paid by the Indian government?>>

First, Shudras and dalits are distinct different groups.
Second, I did not say anything like it and previously, historically, it was never so.

Shudras in Australia live on welfare because their natural source of income has been replaced by machines.

<<they are as worthy as any Brahmin>>

So is a 7-year old as worthy as a 70-year old, but the 70-year old no longer needs to learn reading and writing in school.

---

Dear Craig,

Thank you for your kind words.

Cont:

Even supposing we ignore our calamitous situation—strive for the well-lived life ‘for the moment,’ and at the expense of future generations (and other life on Earth); hedonism implicitly condones this—this is still more problematic than you suggest.
I agree with you that ‘doing’ requites much better pleasure than consumption—“of the fruits of someone else’s work”? This again looks like a veiled apologetics of neoliberalism—though I take you to be promoting creative work—but you seem to forget that consumerism is not really a choice.
We are enjoined to consume conspicuously from the outset and everything is geared to exploit desire and foster appetite. We can hardly blame the uneducated and wretched if they heed the marketing and their own programming.
Even supposing one sees through our utterly materialistic lifestyles—and a minority does, bless them, preferring to raid supermarket bins and eat road-kill than play the consumer game (I have more respect for these activists than those who seek diversion in religion or ‘qualitative’ hedonic pursuits)—there is little scope for living a modest life dedicated to doing anyway.
All forms of doing have been commodified, they are subject to fashion and there is a range of increasingly sophisticated, soon to be obsolete or defective, products dedicated to every hobby and pursuit. We live to consume, to service the economy, and not the other way around. A truly creative dimension to our lives is all but lost, nostalgia, and even the remnants are necessarily conceived and pared back as commercial prospects. It seems to me then that your notion of the well-lived life is idealistic and even naïve—as well as ethically negligent of the facts of our moral and material insolvency. At bottom, we are too conditioned in any case to be persuaded away from the feast in numbers—my daughters are hooked to fashion, cosmetics etc., indeed only one out of my six is at all resolute. Erich Fromm and Herbert Marcuse tried to persuade us down a more fulfilling path and failed spectacularly.
I say all this in the spirit of genuine striving for answers to the problems that beset us.

Perhaps Gina Rinehart could open her gold lined purse to let out a million dollars she receives every half an hour, a billion would not be missed, this would help many unmarried mother's children, perhaps a certain Duke could spend more time helping unmarried mothers and children in poverty than bedding minors, the part time fun of the super rich.
Poverty is a world problem whether unmarried, married, single male or female, this will not change while the elite control the dollars and Governments will make sure they keep this control over those struggling, Nothing will change, people are people, there are those that know how to manipulate the free dollars by handouts from taxpayers and there are those that will manipulate all to earn and keep their billions.

Mr Gary Johns
One might also make a similar argument for the countless social and political troubles that likely would have been avoided had only certain Kings, Princes and Lords been ‘de-sexed’.

Do you remember the WWII competing ideologies of ‘free choice’ versus ‘totalitarianism’ and the massive sacrifice of millions of young made by the “common people” to fight and die in world wars? Do you recall why they believed they fought?
. . . . . so that they could provide their family and children with the freedoms to be able to “choose” in life how to vote, think, love, and the ability for all citizens from genius to handicapped to have reasonable work a fair pay and conditions [e.g. unions] as well as for al to be able in reality to purchase land/home for their family?
Remember how this mass, widespread and generic improvement to the common classes in the west was seemingly leading to more and more property/land ownership/control being transferred from the traditional elites to those more ‘common’ which resulted in a rise of political power and influence of those regular classes mostly in the visible form of the Union movements whose power made sure our system even still today cannot openly and officially/legally oppress people and workers. Yet with the elite classes infiltrating and subverting the will of the political representation for these worker unions [mostly Labour Party but later also any ‘Leftist’ group] and pretending by trickery and lies to their masses to be their kin and representatives [e.g. Whitlam, Hawke, Keating etc.] to be on their side whilst in secret reality both they and the right/business classes sold ALL our low-skilled manual jobs to the slave-worker markets of Asia which effectively overnight undid 2 centuries of British anti-slavery motions as well as millennia of worker/poor classes rights improvements in one stroke of signing business deals.

Big Nana . . . and others –

IF our society really did outbreed the poor such that only the “useful” and richer more ‘qualified/educated’ classes were left in society, WHO would your insightful ilk turn to when needing to locate a person or persons for construction of roads or bridges or damns?
I mean, that is if we assume by then the only hard-labourers remained are third world over-worked and weakened from over-abuse workers of slave pay thus zero liability commitment standard which I doubt such spoiled brats would stoop towards hiring . . . and unless technology can very soon invent a never-ending supply of robotic worker droids who run from an endless cheap power source . . . . . then HOW will the fake and self-proclaimed charlatans of the modern world who have hidden even from their own gaze in 99% of cases in the constructed form of a ‘decent’ and ‘egalitarian’, authentic image of a social being [i.e. mostly as leftists, pretend socialists, refugee advocates etc.] . . . make their way through these types of realities?

I mean, unless the white professional classes are willing to take turns at hard, manual labour like bridge or road construction and without the technology to employ an army of worker-bots who require no pay nor voting rights, they will be left with having to rely upon the labour classes of other nations/races like in Asia which will take the 3rd world’s political hold over the west to an extremely high level of near WWIII settings.

I wonder how many people on this thread who SEEM TO despise the article's bigotry this day MAY have previous held classist/oppressivist opinions, perhaps in other posts on issues like ‘work for dole’, ‘bogans versus refugees’, etc.’?
I wonder – who is who? REALLY? Class pig/bigot animal . . . OR ‘good guy’?

So if contraception fails there will be enforced abortions, right?

Arjay,

I agree, it is more the “merchant bankers” and “insurance conglomerates” including “futurist pundits” who are the real crooks and thus it is them who if anyone should be sterilized and deleted out of our world and future timelines.

However whilst the political power movements in the West that call themselves “Leftists” and “egalitarian” as if they are the decent, moral “good guys” of not just European/western history/society but all of planet earth . . . . . are directly to blame [apart from those filthy Ayn Randian or Nozockian libertarian individualistic self-centred mania] for the current oppression and abuse of the poor in the west and as continues always elsewhere. These “leftist” movements no longer endeavour to serve Karl Marx’s noble anti-oppression, anti-classist ideologies even though the left claim spawning from such. Instead of class oppression or land/property owners ruling over workers/renters, the elitists of the western leftist culture push for maximum political/cultural/social coverage of issues such as ‘ethnic identity’, ‘sexual preference’ such as ‘transgender concerns’, ‘women rights’ but which in respect of the majority of non-western societies having varying degrees of inequity in gender equality . . . . . the leftist phenomena was unconsciously forced to spew forth a new perceptual paradigm claim, the substance-less claimed position of being “cultural/moral relativists”.

Jenny H,

Would you, really ? Is that how your mind works ?

Matthew,

Nihilism is such fun, isn't it ? What's the point of anything?

My god, OLO gets some crazy ones. Although I suppose I shouldn't talk.

Joe

Matthew S how about the Duke and his mob digging holes instead of digging underage holes or swanning around the ski resorts of Europe, but then again it is the poor who doff their hats to the hole digger. No wonder the world is in a mess.

It is precisely this ‘moral relativism’ philosophy that has brainwashed western society such that a situation has arisen by hard religious work of Leftists in their indoctrinations in which average live in terror of being imminently outcast by the leftist clergy IF they even imply anything remotely claiming the falsehood of moral/cultural relativism since by extension that implies that some cultures and moral/political systems on earth may be bad or somehow immoral or wrong for a society wishing to be free and foster equality and fairness – and this equates to being ‘racist’ or ‘bigoted’ to the left clerics

Although surely it is TRUE and JUST to claim that certain beliefs and ways of social ethos should be deemed wrong and anti-egalitarianism by any person especially those whom self-profess universal deliverance of human rights as their primary objective in life; for example Nazism is wrong or bad or against freedom ?
Therefore it seems that ‘cultural/moral relativism’ cannot be true but rather that human kind’s myriad of cultures/beliefs/moral/political ways and systems throughout history can be compared, judged against and interfered with, which is possible by virtue of the essential and universal fact that all individual persons are equal in beingness and presence at an existential level.

Thus it seems this is the way the world IS, but the Leftist phenomena has created a cultural environment bringing to heel all citizens from highest to low, forever in fear of being ‘caught’ for believing in this “truth” and forever to be at risk of becoming an instant ‘leper’/’outcast’ in society for any citizen who hints at this TRUTH. It is this ANGST of the deepest and darkest orders that has essentially crippled our society’s centuries old traditions of open mindedness and honest inquiry, inherited even before the Greeks in which intellectual inquiry and honest analysis governed society

I claim that TRUE racist/bigots would dare not to place non-western peoples/cultures on equal par with our own western/white ways, since being treated as equal also requires being honestly told when an error in perspective exists, especially if it affects badly equality of persons.

Mathew.

Forgive me, but I'm REALY struggling to understand what you believe in, so I am totally confused by what you are trying to say. Can you simplify your argument please.

Matthew,

Re your last post: don't confuse 'culture' with 'people', that slide from one to the other is really not on.

As for culture, how's this: that it is the mask of power within a group (family, tribe, nation) and usually sanctions, in a multitude of ways, male power within groups. There's nothing 'neutral' about it, anywhere, so it's always open to critique, everywhere.

i.e. critical studies of culture: how's that ?

Joe

Snake I do agree about being confused, I think the writers have completely left the subject matter, "No contraception, No dole" I do appreciate the writers who write easy to understand posts, some unfortunately I need the help of a dictionary to help fathom out what they are saying.

Aside from the impact on the long term unemployed (which is discussed more sensibly un the other thread) such a plan would be an unfair intrusion into the lives of the short term unemployed. Why should someone who's trying to get pregnant only do so at a time she has work even though she'll have to take time off work to have the baby?

The whole idea is incredibly ill conceived (no pun intended).

Hi Aidan,

That raises the question of why a woman who is out of work would want to get pregnant at that particular time ? I can appreciate that no time is perfect for getting pregnant, a working woman's work course, and promotion chances, is disrupted no matter when, but being unemployed doesn't seem like an optimal time for it.

Gary's suggestion really involves two different cases: single women, and unemployed women, and proposes that, in either case, while those women are in receipt of government benefits by virtue of not being employed, that they undertake not to get pregnant. Thus the two sides of a social contract.

Of course, once a single woman gets pregnant, then she must be supported by government benefits, for the time that she is now unable to work, or study for future work. So, in a sense, this thread is concerned with whether or not single women have the right to have more children and retain benefits - effectively, that she can access such benefits for as long as she is fertile, and the extra years until the youngest is six (six ? Or eight ?)

In effect, if this was so, a woman could have kids as soon as she leaves school, have another one every three years, until - thanks to the miracles of modern fertility science - she in her mid- to late forties, then for the extra six or eight years of the youngest - then she can state doing some of those bullsh!t TAFE courses, which could take her into her mid-fifties; then if she's lucky, she can get onto a disability benefit until she's seventy-odd. Sweet !

So those are the options:

* the current one (immediately above), and

* Garry' suggestion that a single woman is entitled to benefits while her first child is growing up, to six or eight, then needs to be prepared for lifelong employment like everybody else, but in the meantime she agrees to voluntarily stay on contraception for the duration.

Joe

Ojnab

It's not so much the dictionary I need, it's the faux intellectual dissertation that creates something which needs interpretation to understand what the writer is trying to convey. I think that sometimes it's an effort to try and impress rather than persuade.
My father once asked me if I knew what a periphrasis was and when I said No, he said it's simply a circumlocutory and pleonastic cycle of oratorical sonorosity circumscribing an atom of ideality obliterated by verbal profundity... in other words an indirect method of speech writing !

Snake L O L, I do admit my brain goes into overdrive trying to work it all out, keeps Altzheimers at bay though thank goodness.

Hi Squeers, there's no apologium of the sort you suggest, merely a recognition that making my personal capacity for happiness dependent on your material attainment is a doomed venture for both of us.

We need to decouple fundamentally different aspects of human endeavour, or we must face up to the fundamentally contradictory aspects of making the one dependent on the other.

You say you lament the materialist credo, yet you define the limits of the human capacity for happiness materially. With all due respect, in this it is not possible to have it both ways.

Snake, beautifully put.

Craig Minns,

after all this time you might at least show me the courtesy of addressing my argument in detail, as I've addressed yours, rather than misrepresenting me. Clearly you dislike being taken to task and would rather fob me off in this false and simplistic fashion.
So be it, but I shan't waste more words in the face of this kind of treatment.

In addition, considering you like snake's tips on style so much, you might like to revise your dense first sentence.

Snake,
I for one strive for clarity, with some consideration for style and not to impress unduly; I suspect the problem lies with you.

Squeers, my sincere apologies, I had no intent to denigrate your argument or to misrepresent. My reply was dashed off in haste and I should probably have waited to do a more comprehensive job. As for snake's comment, I may like it

My point was that life is what we make of it from what we have. For my own part, I have few financial resources, I share my rented home with sub-tenants who have become good friends to save on rent, my 16 year-old son and I live on Austudy and a share of FTB along with a small scholarship. I have effectively no super for various reasons and I don't own a car, just a motorcycle which I haven't bothered to register for the last 12 months since I live close to uni.

Should I mope because Gina Reinhardt or Frank Lowy exist? To what end?

I enjoy my life and I take pride in living it as well as I can. We have all we need to be comfortable and to thrive as a family.

I grew up in PNG, where poverty is the norm for the vast majority and life for many of those is precariously situated at the edge of urban centres. The disparities are broad and deep across that beautiful, mismanaged country and the politics of envy are deeply rooted. Despite that, some people manage to enjoy their lives and to do what they can to make the most of things. Others spend their time bemoaning their lot in misery or plotting crimes against the wealthy expats and locals, their lives brutish and often short.

Inequalities of distribution are undesirable but inevitable, even in command economies. On the other hand, living life well is largely a personal choice. Even the very rich can screw that up and often do, c'est la vie.

The Snake Summary
Life is short. Live it well. Do good where you can. Help if you're asked to; ask for it sparingly. Do things that challenge you. Learn from your mistakes.

Craig,
You’re most gracious.
I admit I’m probably better materially situated than you are, though also modest. I was born in the same room as my mother in a council flat in London, second of five.
We caught the boat to Australia in 1970 for ten pounds apiece, settled in Inala, Brisbane, and I started work in 1975, aged fourteen, just as recession was ending the postwar Trente Glorieuses.
I think that’s the difference between the generational poor then and now; jobs were plentiful for my mother and father, with little or no expertise necessary, thus plenty of encouragement for the upwardly mobile working classes. No such vistas are in prospect for our consumptive poor now, who are bred for indolence and would be difficult to inspire with your ascetic psychology. A difficulty psychology’s always had is its focus on the individual. Individualism suits neoliberals like Gary Johns, but the people he excoriates are part of a ‘cultural’ malaise.
I spent the next 25 years working in factories and finally went to uni when my wife died and I had four kiddies to raise. I now have a few letters, BA(Hons) PhD after my name, but make ends meet mostly as a cleaner/handyman.
“Should I mope because Gina Reinhardt or Frank Lowy exist? To what end?
I enjoy my life and I take pride in living it as well as I can. We have all we need to be comfortable and to thrive as a family”.
No, we shouldn’t ‘mope’. But the passive stance you take, however apparently admirable, is not real independence. You’re in receipt of government assistance and live at the sufferance of the State, whose patronage is increasingly questioned and ‘rationalised.’
As things stand, we in the West ‘do’ mostly live well enough thanks to welfare—I said myself I had little sympathy for ‘rich mendicants.’ But democratic capitalism means a constant battle to maintain minimum standards, arbitrated ultimately by the ‘health’ of the economy—ailing since 1975.
You’re likely to find your circumstance even more straightened in the future, while the rich get richer:
http://books.google.com.au/books/about/Capital_in_the_Twenty_First_Century.html?id=iv0HngEACAAJ&redir_esc=y
TBC

This is not simply a matter of envy. You say you’re not religious—so the meek shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven? Without this religious carrot, surely our priority must be renewal?
The current system, which affords all you “need [modest as ‘tis] to be comfortable and to thrive as a family”, resents the expense. You can’t rely on it. Meanwhile, the crumbs are much thinner away from the apron of the table. The system that ‘supports’ thrift, exerts the same indifference where thrift will not suffice.
Even supposing there was sufficient for us all to live adequately, our economics is premised on limitless generation of wealth, garnered via ‘endless material expansion in a closed system’ (it amazes me how few people are truly confronted by this insuperable contradiction!), where signs of exhaustion are already clear.
Even if we rationalise this, what of the global destruction wrought by the capitalist juggernaut which suffers the emergence and humble subsistence of countless millions more? Capitalism doesn’t pull millions out of poverty—as if they’ve been waiting around to be rescued! It literally cultivates them, breeds them to feed the engines of growth.
Supposing we can live with this dystopian reality, tutor ourselves to enjoy life—take up woodwork; comfort from philosophy/psychology/religion—and ignore the manifest insecurity of a social existence which was initially adopted for precisely that, the security of the group?
Even then, what finally of the ethics of our forbearance? We know of all this: obscene wealth/poverty; beaurocratic control and denigration of what it ‘potentially’ means to be human; rape and pillage of the planet; species extinction; living beyond our means—in spite of enforced thrift for the vast majority.
This again is my challenge to your otherwise inspiring position. The great religions offer no hope in ‘this’ world. And this is why, imo, this world has always been treated with such contempt.
Enchanting oneself with a healthy mental attitude when our material circumstances are so imminently dire, amounts to culpable neglect of the human enterprise and spirit—along with whatever morality we claim to support.
Another time perhaps…

Squeers, I really have to correct you on a couple of things which you have quite wrong.

First, the positive psychology of Seligman et al is specifically about the functioning of communities of individuals acting to create positive outcome for themselves and the group into the future. It is far from ascetic and anyone who knows me will tell you that label doesn't fit me at all.

Second, passivity is not a part of my makeup. I closed a business which failed in 2011 and I immediately sought work, leaving a decent job to undertake study, as a positive, active choice. No hard feelings, you had no way of knowing.

Third, if for some reason I feel the need to increase my income, I will get work. I prefer not to at the moment, because it allows me to support my children's schooling and properly pursue my own studies. FWIW, I have collected unemployment benefits for a grand total of 10 weeks in the last 20+ years and for most of that period I've been self-employed.

Fourth, there is no good reason for any government to reduce individual student stipends or, for that matter, to reduce unemployment benefits to adults, although there may be a case to make out for reforming some eligibility rules. Every cent paid as a benefit is returned to the economy as personal consumption spending. It's a highly efficient stimulus measure, without even considering the social welfare aspects.

If you'd like to have a discussion on economics, it would be interesting, I think. I agree with you that the capitalist expansionary model is fatally flawed, but we differ in our views of the implications.

Craig,
I don't think your corrections amount to much as our personal circumstances are not important, except perhaps in as much as they influence our thinking.
The 'passive' stance I allude to is one of contentment under the patronage of a rapacious and unsustainable system. How you or anyone else perceives you is beside the point. The point being that the system is doomed to fail and 'positive psychology' is thus a mode of blinkered naivety naive.
The self-help movement has always had a big following, but as I say it puts the onus on and rewards the individual. Apart from the egotism, there's not enough prosperity under capitalism to go around, just enough for unethical entrepreneurs, the charismatic, the lucky, and the ruthless.
Group self help still passively condones and accepts prevailing institutions, notwithstanding as I say that they are corrupt, inequitous, unsustainable etc.
Your forth point is contradicted by austerity measures around the world, and the fact that the federal government is currently trying to get cuts to welfare and privatisation of the tertiary sector through the senate.
My daughter begins her degree this year and will receive about $215 per week in 'youth allowance'. How is she supposed to live on that? But even this is hard to get and the government has lots of wriggle room based the student's family's means.

I do not complain about the dispensation, however, which is to importune and so legitimise the tyrant/system. I condemn it as irredeemable.

Squeers, with respect, it seems to me that one making the choice to be helpless in the face of great forces is not me.

I'm going to be a little personal here, but please don't take it as an insult, it's not meant that way. You have a higher research degree and yet you work in a menial job, full of resentment directed at things you cannot change, but refusing to even consider changing the things that are within your gift.

That is a form of learned helplessness and it is pervasive within our society. A common misnomer for it is the 'sense of entitlement' which is only half the story.

The social welfare model we have allowed to be constructed is a large part of the problem. Not because redistribution is unneeded but because it teaches people that their own welfare is best managed by someone other than themselves, even people who by any objective measure are well off. It goes further, explicitly and implicitly impugning the capacity and will of people to make decisions about the simplest aspects of their lives, such as looking for a job without being compelled by the threat of an impersonally administered punishment that isn't the product of a judgement, but of a process designed largely for the convenience of its administration.

Screw that for a sick bloody joke.

We need to be teaching people to look at themselves as products of their own decisions and to do that we have to teach them how to gather and evaluate information and make good decisions they can live with. Critical thinking isn't enough, what is needed is purpose and determination to do what can be done.

Near enough can be good enough and if it's not, then work out how to make it better. You are your own most important project

Craig,
you're no more in a position to make personal speculations than I was. Your own potted history seemed quite romantic and invited my response; the fact that you are much more pragmatic than that was difficult to infer.
I also do part time teaching--not easy finding a permanent position in the sector once you're over fifty, but I'm working on it. I've also had a successful if modest work history as a printer, and The 'menial' work I do now is my own business and quite successful. I don't have to do all the 'menial' work so manage to keep my chin up.
My position has nothing to do with resentment, but learning, and what is within my gift I most certainly work on, having weaned my self on the self-reliance advocated by Montaign and Emerson long before I went to university.

I agree that the welfare model we have is large part of the problem; this is implicit in my posting above, though unlike you I see more deeply than the need for people to find a job (often non-existent or merely 'menial'), pull their socks up etc.
People are not merely products of their own decisions, and not everyone has the kind of drive you recommend.

"...what is needed is purpose and determination to do what can be done."
To do merely what 'can' be done is capitulation, and that's what keeps the system going.

Thank you for the interaction, but I do urge you to look at the limitations of the world view you're advocating.

Squeers and Craig Minns

I have been interested in your correspondence and have come to the conclusion that you are both articulate and comprehensible enough to make some pocket money writing. You obviously enjoy it too.

For what it's worth, you may find money can be made by submitting articles and opinions to such diverse publications as Readers Digest or Crikey for instance. If you have something interesting and topical to say, these publication will pay to print it. As long as you are prepared to get "knocked back" from time to time, it might provide a rewarding outlet for your talents. There are a number of publications that are often looking for something to fill their pages. It has worked on a minor scale for me in the past.

Just a thought.

Thanks for the kind words and the suggestion, snake. I do enjoy writing and I've thought about doing as you suggest in the past, although for the past year my studies have taken priority. Perhaps I'll revisit the idea.

Snake I prefer your writing to OLO, it is straight forward, easy to understand, not long, and to the point which is great, when I have to analyse a writing I tend to give up and never completely read the article, perhaps as you say others prefer this type of writing, the subject here is " No contraception, no dole" an easy article to write about, let's not bandy about with lengthy essays, just to prove a point, I have always understood that hard to read articles and long tend to bore the reader, perhaps I went to the wrong school.

Snake thanks also for encouraging comments.

.onjab. am probably in the wrong place as don't see the use of opinion, except as something to inform.