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Florida's debated welfare drug-screen measure kicks in

"Those who fail the required drug testing may designate another individual to receive the benefits on behalf of their children."

So what exactly is Florida accomplishing with this bill? I'm on the legalization side in general, but this seems like a transparent effort to identify drug users which I oppose...

just a guess, maybe they're afraid addicts will trade or sell their benefits for drugs

anyhow, I agree with you.


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billyshelby said:
"Those who fail the required drug testing may designate another individual to receive the benefits on behalf of their children."

So what exactly is Florida accomplishing with this bill? I'm on the legalization side in general, but this seems like a transparent effort to identify drug users which I oppose...

So you're poor, with children, but choosing to spend you money on drugs?!?!?!?!?!??!??!! It's probably a way to identify Parent of the Year nominees.
 
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just a guess, maybe they're afraid addicts will trade or sell their benefits for drugs

anyhow, I agree with you.


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Right, but they're making it pretty easy to get the money if all they have to do is get it from a friend. Which leads me to believe the agenda is to identify drug users, the spin is they're protecting kids. Florida is making a run at Texas for trampling on civil liberties especially with all the nonsense in Orlando. This bill just stinks.
 
Being an unidentified drug user is a civil liberty?

Why stop arbitrarily at drug testing? Why not get them fingerprinted and get swabs of DNA taken? Additionally, why not have random home inspections to make sure the money is being well spent? Perhaps Florida should also make them submit receipts of everything they purchased with the money.
 
The receipt thing isn't a bad idea at all, actually.

I'm not trying to perpetuate a dead thread, but I just want to make it clear in the even you aren't kidding that having welfare recipients submit receipts is a worse idea than making them take drug tests.
 
I guess getting born to an unemployed junkie means you officially lost in the birth lotto of life. Unless your junkie parent was a former professional athlete.

This is a great way to punish junkies. It is too bad for the innocent child...%#$# I forgot Adam and Eve partook or the fruit of the tree of knowledge. They aren't innocent they are the devil like their parents.
 
Here's the thing. As much as it hurts to see an "innocent" child (loaded phrase) suffer because they have bad parents, it isn't my place to save them. At the end of the day that child will be the product of the parenting they receive. By enabling their junkie parents to continue to maintain the lowest possible level of parenting that escapes official notice we really aren't saving them from anything. The best thing that could happen if their parent really would allow them to starve in order to buy drugs is for them to briefly suffer enough that something is done to remove them from the situation they're in.

Children are a choice, after all. But other people's kids were not my choice. Being a human is painful, period. I'm not responsible to elevate the pain of some people's kids while selectively not doing jack squat about the pain of millions of other kids throughout the world.
 
Here's the thing. As much as it hurts to see an "innocent" child (loaded phrase) suffer because they have bad parents, it isn't my place to save them. At the end of the day that child will be the product of the parenting they receive. By enabling their junkie parents to continue to maintain the lowest possible level of parenting that escapes official notice we really aren't saving them from anything. The best thing that could happen if their parent really would allow them to starve in order to buy drugs is for them to briefly suffer enough that something is done to remove them from the situation they're in.

Children are a choice, after all. But other people's kids were not my choice. Being a human is painful, period. I'm not responsible to elevate the pain of some people's kids while selectively not doing jack squat about the pain of millions of other kids throughout the world.

That is easy to say when you have probably grown up in a great home without junkie parents. 'Let him who is without sin cast the first stone' remember those words from Jesus. You might believe in him yet you used the same type of words that Cain did after he killed Able 'I'm not my brothers keeper'.

How may of those junkie kids would grow up different if we didn't just outcast those of society that are struggling with demons we can't comprehend.
 
That is easy to say when you have probably grown up in a great home without junkie parents. 'Let him who is without sin cast the first stone' remember those words from Jesus. You might believe in him yet you used the same type of words that Cain did after he killed Able 'I'm not my brothers keeper'.

How may of those junkie kids would grow up different if we didn't just outcast those of society that are struggling with demons we can't comprehend.

I'm a Democrat (if there is such a thing anymore), but man, you're making me re-think my position.
 
I'm a Democrat (if there is such a thing anymore), but man, you're making me re-think my position.

You are funny did you grow up successful despite having junkie parent.

Actually, bringing Jesus into politics is a wrong. But, I think that we should examine this; maybe I should start a thread Would Jesus be a Republican. Because if you are new to politics there is a strong religious push out throughout the Republican party that a true Christian is Republican. But, would he?
 
That is easy to say when you have probably grown up in a great home without junkie parents. 'Let him who is without sin cast the first stone' remember those words from Jesus. You might believe in him yet you used the same type of words that Cain did after he killed Able 'I'm not my brothers keeper'.

How may of those junkie kids would grow up different if we didn't just outcast those of society that are struggling with demons we can't comprehend.

Your assumptions are wrong. I grew up in a poor neighborhood. In 1991 when we moved to a nicer neighborhood my parents sold the house we were living in for a little more than $16,000. The house was what I would call after watching "Weeds" on HBO a "grow house," the basement was dedicated to marijuana cultivation. Today the house would be about 110 years old. The majority of kids I went to school with got free school lunch (meaning they were on food stamps for the most part). I went to elementary school with the youngest person to be imprisoned at point of the mountain (a decade or so ago anyway, I don't keep up on such things) who was sentenced as an adult for murder when he was 16, I believe. His name was Miguel Flores. I also went to elementary school with Marcelino Delgado, who I learned a few years ago was shot by police. He was a pretty good friend of mine in elementary school. Fred Edwards also went to Franklin Elementary. Not sure if he did anything especially noteworthy outside of prison because he's spent most of his life locked up, including several years before he turned 18. Pretty sure he's killed a few people in prison, though.

Personally, I was convicted of 5 felonies as a juvenile. I dropped out of high school. I finally got a diploma when I was 23 so that I could get the job I qualified for in the Navy based on the ASVAB, but couldn't get without a diploma. I served 6 years in the Navy and was honorably discharged. I'm not privileged.

Five years ago my father shot himself in the head. He had a gambling addiction. My mother divorced him about 7 years earlier "for financial reasons." He lived in a crummy apartment in Tooele, alone. He was an engineer at the Tooele Army Depot Chemical Weapons Incinerator (no degree, but worked as an engineer for Questar before and produced a couple patents for them. They fired him after 18 years because he failed a drug test for marijuana). He used the company credit card to gamble and felt like that was it. Too humiliating to live after that. I have the receipt from the pawn shop where he got his gun out of hawk a few days before he killed himself with it. It was the first handgun I ever shot. He bought it after a "friend" of mine broke into our house and stole some stereo stuff. I still have the gun.

My mother is currently dying from cancer. She'd be lucky to have a week. She was forced to retire from her lucrative position at the post office as a letter carrier due to disability. Her workers compensation claim was denied and she's been living off social security for the last several years. All her medical expenses are being paid by medicare.

Yeah, what I said was easy to say. I said being a human is painful, period. Why don't you chase your daemons and I'll chase mine. That's the only deal I really want.

Oh, and I'm a second generation Atheist, so you can save your Jesus stuff.
 
Holy piss.

Yeah, I don't know. I've been spending the last several days with my mom and it's getting pretty rough. She's "close." I'm just in a weird place right now.

It really does piss me off that people think my political views are based on privileged ignorance or lack of compassion. I think it's exactly opposite, but that's a long conversation.
 
Yeah, I don't know. I've been spending the last several days with my mom and it's getting pretty rough. She's "close." I'm just in a weird place right now.

It really does piss me off that people think my political views are based on privileged ignorance or lack of compassion. I think it's exactly opposite, but that's a long conversation.

There's no doubt that most of your views are based on your probably unique experiences. Knowing you now, I would never guess you are a high school dropout convicted of 5 felonies. That blew me away. Big time kudos to you for changing your life around. That probably wasn't easy.
And if you need anything, even just to talk, let me know. What you're dealing with right now can't be any easier.
 
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