So that's where your tax money goes

[shawn]

I just read this and cannot make up my mind if this is for real or a wind up. I know that if a case like this happened here I would seriously think about going around and taking one or more of the items that my tax paid for.

What do the UKers think about this?

[Cpt Matt Sparrow]

I really should try and keep 'abreast' of these issues more.

[Trigger]

I am not inclined to believe all I read here because it is a story reported in the online version of the 'Daily Mail'! they dont really give too much consideration to facts if they can fill us with fear, they seem to target elderly Tory ladies with private incomes in the home counties and try to instil fear and danger is just around the corner!!

A few people will know I speak Arabic (very badly now I might add!) and I was in London and a Muslim protest happened and in the daily Mail it was reported that they 'In Arabic' were trying to gather support for an islamasisation of Britain what they meant was 'Fear it fear it!
what was actually said at the protest was we need to intergrate into Britain and keep our faith and identity! the Mail just lied to get the story they wanted.

[Trigger]

I am not inclined to believe all I read here because it is a story reported in the online version of the 'Daily Mail'! they dont really give too much consideration to facts if they can fill us with fear, they seem to target elderly Tory ladies with private incomes in the home counties and try to instil fear and danger is just around the corner!!

A few people will know I speak Arabic (very badly now I might add!) and I was in London and a Muslim protest happened and in the daily Mail it was reported that they 'In Arabic' were trying to gather support for an islamasisation of Britain what they meant was 'Fear it fear it!
what was actually said at the protest was we need to intergrate into Britain and keep our faith and identity! the Mail just lied to get the story they wanted.

[Cryptic Night]

islamasisation

Try saying THAT five times fast!


I would really like to believe people aren't THAT stupid. I mean, from what the article was saying, the lady felt like she deserved this free money and stuff. One part of it said something along the lines of "My mother worked hard and payed her taxes, so now I deserve to be treated with luxuries."

That's not the exact quote, but that's what I took from it. Which really pisses me off that someone would be THAT stupid, and then she has the nerves to say she's a good mother! She doesn't provide for her family, the government does!


I really hope this interview was taken horribly out of context.

[Trigger]

I think the problem with stories like this is that twenty years ago ordinary people here in Britain would shy away from talking to the press and maintain dignity and privacy, now though this trend people have of wishing to be a celebrity seems to make them willing to say anything because they will see themselves in print or on the TV!
I see it being similer to these dreadful 'chewing gum for the eyes' programs like Jerry Springer where people will say and do anything because they fool themselves that they are now celebs and people will love and admire them!!!! truth is we think they are idiots and we are laughing at them and not with them.
I would add another dimension to this and suggest that horrible nasty 'so called' news papers like the 'DAily Mail' seek out people to write a story about because they know they are idiots, know they will say anything for publicity and are happy that these stories promote their 'Fear it fear it' agenda!
Add to that the fact that they will write the story with a slant and we can only hope that people see through this kind of tasteless right wing unpleasentness

[cableguyxx]

Add to that the fact that they will write the story with a slant and we can only hope that people see through this kind of tasteless right wing unpleasentness

We have that problem in the US except 95% of the media is left-wing liberal biased. Thank God the people are finally waking up to the nonsense.

There is plenty of welfare abuse and fraud, and unfortunately what it does is, make normal good hearted people suspicious of giving up their own hard earned money to help the so called victims of society. I do not dispute that there are people in need, now more then ever in fact, but it's the many (not the few as alluded to above) that abuse the system that take away from those that truly need it and make the taxpayer pissed off beyond belief when the Government wants to yet again raise taxes. Atlanta recently had an open call for Section 8 Housing applications...just applications mind you. A circus ensued. Over 30,000 people showed up and camped out in advance, even though they were told not to as it was not necessary. The TV cameras were there capturing all of the action. What was present? Fast food and lots of it, with the trash EVERYWHERE. Why pick it up? Someone else will do it right? Cell Phones! Can't afford a place to stay, but damn sure have to have a cell phone. Oh yeah, there are government run programs that offer free cell phones to the "less fortunate", I forgot One women interviewed was whining poor me about trying to get into the Section 8 system for ELEVEN YEARS Good God, in Eleven Years she couldn't find a way to make some money on her own? She's probably holding out for a management position like Cousin Eddie, right Matt ? Loafers...government bred loafers who know nothing more then how to work the system (it's the only "work" they'll ever know). The funny thing is that by allowing these life long moochers to perpetuate, those who really have good intentions of helping the poor lose the would be support of those who would otherwise be willing to help. Government assistance no longer has a stigma to it. There is no motivation for the majority on assistance to do anything at all. Their housing is taken care of, food, education, utilities..I could go on. There are those who will try and better them selves, and that is what the programs should be for. Not 3rd, 4th and 5th generation welfare teet suckers.

[Cpt Matt Sparrow]

You keep cousin Eddie out of it LOL!!

There was an excellent comment from a lady on the Uk news a few weeks back. When asked about how the governments cracking down on benefit abuse was going to affect her, she said with an air of injustice and anger "now I am going to have to get a job!"

It was of course an obvious answer to a simple question. The beautiful irony lost on her, was how something that seemed so unfair and wrong to her was to us (and I imagine millions more watching) exactly what she was (and shouldn't have done years ago) going to have to do.

Matt

[cableguyxx]

It was of course an obvious answer to a simple question. The beautiful irony lost on her, was how something that seemed so unfair and wrong to her was to us (and I imagine millions more watching) exactly what she was (and shouldn't have done years ago) going to have to do.

Matt

yes Matt, but that beautiful irony that many of us see, are lost on the far left who think it's mean spirited or whatever. The problem for the left, at least at this moment in time in the US, is the majority are neither right nor left, but land somewhere in the middle, and they have gone so far to one side, they are not only pissing off the right, but also the independents that enabled them power in the first place. Instead of taking the opportunity to lead by example and embrace all, they have thumbed their nose and said nanner nanner nanner and then blew a raspberry at the voters. Unfortunately for the current administration, I don't believe it's so much right or left this time around. Times are tough and people are flippin' tired of the government trying to fix everything by throwing (our) money at it. Less and less are people that the left would like to label as "right-wing". I believe more and more are financially conservative, but moderate to liberal on social issues. My fingers are crossed for a slaughter on Nov.2 and then whomever wins better start working on shrinking BS social problems or at minimum cracking down on the fraud, before they come knocking for more, more, more like usual.

[Cpt Matt Sparrow]

Hi Darin

There is a show in the uk too that is a parody on life on a council estate. A few of the Brits here will know it, it is called 'Shameless".
All the characters are either petty criminals and/or benefit abusers. The show is extremely non politically correct and gets quite a few complaints as well as rave reviews and a huge following.

I heard two girls earlier in the year with hair 'scraped back' (excessive hair gel), cigarette in mouth, jogging bottoms, huge asses , loads of Mr T gold bling and a baby each in pram. They were discussing the programme as if it was a serious drama!!!! LMAO

All the parody of the programme had flown over their heads. They had not seen it as a piss take on themselves, but a drama they emotionally connected with!

Matt

[Trigger]

Hi Darin
There is a show in the uk too that is a parody on life on a council estate. A few of the Brits here will know it, it is called 'Shameless".Matt

That is true Matt but I have said to you in the past, for me Shameless is difficult for me to watch because most of my family is like that and they are which is why I strive to be better than them and rely on nobody but me to support myself.

These people who seem to be the focus of this conversation are so familier to me infact my brother has not had a job since 1985 and of his 5 children only one of them works, she like me didn't want to be like our broader family and has like me gone into business and now owns a very sucessful salon who's clients travel from all over the country to have the hair cut by her.
I don't want you to think my parents are vulger either, my Dad left home at 17 and decided he wanted to better himself and became the first person in his family to own a property and have a trade. The fact my brother slipped so hard is to do with his lack of motivation and ambition, I still find it odd that my brother regressed so far from me.

[cableguyxx]

Ian, I have an Uncle and cousin(his son) who are the same way. One's passed it to the other and now they both are living quite comfortably off of the system. They know the game well. It makes me sick. I applaud your effort working with those who truly need help. I too will help anyone I can who really truly needs it, as I would someone would do the same for me if I were in need. Carreer loafers on the other hand, get no sympathy for me and I'm afraid that is what our current administration seems to focus on, albeit in the name of the common man. The common man needs more for the government to stay the hell out of his life and focus on things they should be, instead of making sure people are taken care of from cradle to grave. The far right are also busy making sure their own morals are put into place. I just want them to do them, whomever they may be, to do the basics, secure the freakin' border and stay the hell out of my paycheck. They need to do with less. I think the best step forward, regardless of party affiliation, would be to limit terms.

[Cpt Matt Sparrow]

I give you Cousin Eddie

[Cpt Matt Sparrow]

and Frank Gallagher and his family.

I wonder if they would forge a friendship across the pond? (I doubt either have left their own country though LMAO)

[Whipper]

Man, this article isn't even from my country, and yet reading it practically had me foaming at the mouth with rage! But you just know the same thing is going on here too.

Seems a lot of us have close relations to someone similar. I have a brother who's hardly worked all his life, only he didn't milk the system. Rather, he milked Momma's welfare system instead. He has played her like a '57 Goldtop Les Paul all his life, and we suspect that's where a good portion of what my father left behind with her has gone to. Although, some of the others have did a pretty good job of swooping in and playing the game for the leftovers too. I haven't asked for a single dime in 20 years now.

Back when the internet was just beginning to take off, he put up a personal web page (in his early 40's at the time), where he described himself as "semi-retired" How the hell can you be retired if you don't work! I think it was a typo, and he meant to say "semi-retarded". Actually, he's quite brilliant and I wouldn't be surprised if his IQ is upwards of 140, and that's the most aggravating part of all... he could have been anything he desired, and yet he chose this path??