Entitlements and Crime

Money NOT well spent

Published on August 15, 2005 By lifehappens In Current Events

Dharma started the idea that led to this thread...Link

The article was about "Faces of Meth". SPC NBS added a comment about the dental side of the story and included this link...
Link

That got me thinking. Why are we paying for complete dental work on drug addicts and criminals? They get free food, housing, cable and job training in most cases. This seems backwards.

Why are soldiers, dependents, retirees and thier spouses being forced to pay for the same services that are just handed to the scum of society? The military promised full medical coverage to all retirees and spouse for years and years. Now they are backing away from that promise and leaving the people who served honorably with a bill that isn't always easy to pay.

A spouse has to pay for the medical care that the government had promised to provide for free. She gets a chipped tooth or a cavity? She may have to wait and try to eat soft foods until she can afford the co-pay. On a tight retiree's budget, throwing another bill in can be disasterous. Yet there is immediate treatment for criminals.

Society needs to adjust the "rewards" system for those who choose not to abide by the standards and laws of society. If I can't afford it or a retired military family can't, then don't give it to them for free. They shouldn't be allowed to sit around and laze for the term of their sentence....they should work to support themselves. If they refuse to work, they get the bare bones essentials...nothing more. No jello at dinner, no tv time, not one iota of anything. They should work. I don't care what they do, but if they expect "extras" then they need to EARN IT. If they have assets on the outside, then they should PAY for what they use. This is not supposed to be a free ride. This is a TIME OUT or a banishment. Niether of which should entitle you to anything other than bread and water.

Comments

greywar

on Aug 15, 2005

Wellthe folks behind the entitlement programs of this nature think that everyone should get free everything. They are at heart socialists. That fact that socialism is an idealistic yet unfeasable utopia doesn't even enter into their cloudy little heads.

lifehappens

on Aug 15, 2005

Wellthe folks behind the entitlement programs of this nature think that everyone should get free everything.

Couldn't they just throw some free my way then?

Glad to see you around!

greywar

on Aug 15, 2005

Couldn't they just throw some free my way then?

Well to be brutally honest there is a pretty fair amount of "free" thrown to the Army and it's dependants... I don't mean the dental or medical since those are contracted benefits but I mean the manifold support groups, MWR facilities, and so on that are NOT required by any law whatsoever. I agree that it sucks that prisoners get better treatment than soldiers do but we get it better than quite a few as well....

bakerstreet

on Aug 15, 2005

Good point. You could take it even further and speculate that the "entitlement" attitude might create the idea that stealing and breaking the law to make money is just a way of getting their "due".

When people have Liberals telling them all the time how they are being screwed by the system, maybe it offers them a little bit of validation for screwing the system back in illegal ways.

lifehappens

on Aug 17, 2005

Couldn't they just throw some free my way then?Well to be brutally honest there is a pretty fair amount of "free" thrown to the Army and it's dependants

I was being a *little* sarcastic there. I know we get a lot of free benis....

speculate that the "entitlement" attitude might create the idea that stealing and breaking the law to make money is just a way of getting their "due".

White collar criminals use that one all the time.

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