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Healthcare should be gauranteed. Financial wealth is no measure of a person's worth.
Also, illness strikes at random. If there are two people working the same job - for the same pay, both equally hardworking, and contributing to society - and then one of them is struck down by a force beyond their control - then that person (and his/her dependents) should be helped; because anyone could just as easily end up in the same position.
People need to take care of eachother. That's the first rule of civilization. If that fails, then it creates a ripple effect throughout society and everything gets fucked up.
I don't like most people at all. But I'm pragmatic. I know that if peoples needs aren't being met (even if it's a result of their own 'stupidity' or 'laziness') then we all have a problem.
These people can't just be writen off in some darwinisitic equation. They are not just going to magically disappear to affirm capitalistic ideals of how we wish the world worked. Social welfare is basically a bribe. Either society provides a basic safety net of the bare necessities, or the disenfranchised will kill and rob you for they need. That's the awful reality.
Welfare is not only the right thing to do for those truely unfortunate, but the wise thing to do to sedate those who would rather cause harm than contribute. If you look around the world, as a rule, you will see that the societies who provide the most gaurantees against desperation are those with the lowest crime rates.
Some feel it is better to be driven out of the city centers to cower within gated communities, rather than pay a higher tax rate, but I don't think that's an effective longterm solution. This country needs to invest much more in education (college should be available to everyone who wants it) and do everything possible to make sure even the poorest among us do not feel dangerously desperate.
It's cheaper to provide enough for an apartment and microwave dinners and cable TV ... than it is to provide all of the above + police and lawyers and guards.
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