If you saw a bin at the supermarket labelled "Cigarette Bank donations" would you throw a packet of fags into it? You see, I sat outside a foodbank for over an hour recently and observed how many of the 'clients' smoked (no, I wasn't spying - just waiting for someone who I had given a lift to). People had money for cigarettes but not for food.Now, given the logistics of packing and stacking food items, the difficulties of storing perishables, wouldn't it just be a damn sight easier and more efficient to have cigarette banks?
Not a soul in Christendom would support the idea.
And that's why we have state-funded welfare. Money to fund welfare would never be given over voluntarily if people saw directly how it was being used. So the money has to be forced out of people through taxation.
6 comments:
Money to fund welfare would never be given over voluntarily if people saw directly how it was being used.
Hear hear.
The sad news? I don't think we'll welfare in any other form during our life time.
I have observed this cigarette thing more than a few times.
Example- a low income couple consuming $80 worth of fags between two each week.(approximatly the cost of two smokers geting through 10/day- as modest consumption estimate)
They wonder why these people have no money!-of course, that is simply because they don't get paid enough- *spits*
Another one I have heard from people working in food banks is that 'clients' return or leave food like rice and pasta, wanting heat & eat pre-prepared foods!
The mind boggles...
Yes - good point Lindsay. I support the smoke free legislation and would support banning those who smoke from receiving welfare. As I would those who do not get their children immunised.
But as a libertarian you would disagree. There is a dichotomy here.
Ruth, I didn't support the smoke-free legislation. Smoking is legal. I don't like it. I can avoid it.
But here I am being forced to pay for it.
The more important violated right is the theft of my property.
I'm not going to start putting conditions on the receipt of state welfare when I don't even support the concept.
The worst example we saw was in Manakau a year or so ago.
Mother with baby in trolley reaches checkout and asks for 2 packs of cigarrettes (along with the contents of the trolley of course) but then finds not enough money to pay. Items discarded?
Nappies and baby formula.
(Along with any sympathy myself or my wife ever had for welfare recipients).
There is a famous story in ACT of a bleeding heart liberal who volunteered making food parcel deliveries from a food bank.
Her first delivery was to a family who had told the foodbank they had no money for food the day after the benefit payment. She turned up with the food parcel at the same time as the technician to install a Sky Satellite service.
She took the parcel back to the foodbank and joined ACT the next day.
Post a Comment