: To wit: If you're a commercial success, why are you on the dole?*No, the idea is that you might be allowed to receive the dole (without being commercially viable) for twelve months or so if you can prove that you will be a commercial success by the end of that time span. I suppose you need to draw up some kind of time line.
Poor(jan)------------------------FILTHY RICH COMMERCIAL SUCCESS!!!!(dec)
: In any case, your dedication to personal liberty is a noble sentiment. One ought never to allow others to enslave you. That would be, one should never allow someone the capacity to force others to support them, except of course those individuals who might be found to
: engage in trade (in particular, "profitable" trade) within too close a proximity of the doleists (with my apologies to Mr. Robert Dole, who is assumed by many to be a 'dole-ee').
: As to your prospects in becoming servitors, I should think that you might avoid that terrible fate. You seem quite steadfastly committed to being unproductive, seemingly expouse an ethical aversion to doing that which might be considered renumerable by others (i.e., by being what the capitalist swine call "profitable"), and seem already to have shifted the yoke to said capitalist swine in any case. It is quite rare for slavers to become 'enslaved' themselves; they are frequently too full of arrogance for such a vocation, and often compel others to "put them down", as it were.
: "Doc" Cruel
: P.S.: This Australian fellow of your truly doesn't seem all that bright. Then again, perhaps he is not picking up the check, in which case he is simply practicing good politics, and thus presumably can be excused - for the time being.
*Actually, here's a more practical response to your hilariously cynical follow up....
The conservative government in Australia recently introduced a scheme called Work for the Dole. The idea is that the recipients of unemployment 'benefits' (I prefer to call it compensation) don't really find it impossible to find work, they're just lazy and, as such, they should be forced to work and 'earn' the right to receive the money. This work tends to be digging ditches, clearing grass from the roadside etc.You get the idea.
Now, at this point we should, I feel, be asking a couple of questions. Firstly, why, if these are genuine jobs can these people not be employed properly on award wages and why haven't people already been employed to do them if they are so important. Secondly, if these are not genuine jobs then what is the point?
Answer:Unemployed people are being used as scapegoats by an incompetent government eager to show that the problem is not theirs and that the problem is, in fact, people who are so lazy that they have to be forced into work and punished for their crimes.
Too emotive! I hear you cry.(possibly)
This is where Mr Abbot comes in. He has something of a reputation as a hater of the unemployed - which is unfortunate as he is Employment Services Minister (he is famous for accusing the unemployed of being 'job snobs', that there is plenty of work, it's just that the unemployed think they're too good for it).
The major question for Mr Abbot is, why is it acceptable for unemployed people to spend the day digging ditches but being a member of a band is unacceptable. This is where the idea of punishment comes in. Mr Abbot is happy to play on the idea that unless it really hurts then its not real work. It's okay for the unemployed to get their payout as long as they don't enjoy their 'life of leisure'. What is essentially happening is that the unemployed are being punished for being so - a stae of affairs which is, by and large, out of their control.
I think that this is revolting.
Just for the record: I do work, I do pay tax, I am a 'productive' member of society.
