User:Woozle/Why Republicans Suck/government dependence
(Maybe this belongs in the "just world fallacy" section, but for now...)
If I hadn't seen it over and over again, I'd have assumed it was a parody of Republican beliefs -- but apparently Republicans actually claim that forcing people off welfare makes them more independent, because welfare creates dependency on government handouts, while not being on welfare gives them an incentive to get a job which of course means that they can get one if they really want to.
One can point out the obvious -- just because you have a really strong incentive to do something doesn't mean you can do it -- and that people on welfare typically either do want a job (regardless of being on welfare) or have circumstances which prevent them from having one -- but of course one then runs into the ever-present Republican obliviousness to facts. They believe that welfare creates dependence, and that if you take people off welfare they'll learn how to fly by flapping their arms just go out and get a job, and what they believe must be right, because it's what they believe and because, of course, the world is a fair place where merit is always rewarded and poverty proves that you aren't flapping your arms trying hard enough
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But seriously, folks... the idea that giving someone something creates dependency, and therefore we should never give help to people who need it is an interesting idea which I think is worthy of further exploration. I'd like to propose the following ventures:
- Free-Fall-Market Skydiving School: Students will be thrown out of airplanes without unfairly providing them with parachutes. This will give them a great deal of incentive to learn how to fly or at least land softly, as well as being less coercive than other skydiving clubs which surrender to the politically correct notion of enforcing safety. On the way down, students will learn to collaborate in order to arrive at unique and innovative solutions to the problems posed by falling out of an airplane at extreme height without a parachute. Anyone who is killed or otherwise fatally injured is a loser who deserves to fail, and will be graded accordingly. (Note: course is conducted by the Self-Determination Flight School, which also offers planeless flying lessons.)
- Independent Teaching Hospital: At most hospitals, you have patients lying around in beds resting, "convalescing", attended hand and foot by "doctors" and "nurses" who thereby create dependence on a liberal medical elite. At Independent Hospital, patients must learn to heal themselves, through intensive study of medical texts which they buy at market rates in exchange for their labor in various other Independent Industries enterprises. The regular course is capped by an intensive eight-hour "emergency room" boot camp where each student is given a fatal injury and must then adapt to their circumstances in time to prevent failing the course.
- Ignite Your Ambition Aeronautics Academy: students will be placed on the surface of the moon without any disincentives to innovate (such as space-suits, a working return capsule, etc.) This will allow them the full, unconstrained freedom to explore their own creativity in designing and building a return vehicle before they lose consciousness approximately nine seconds later.