Night Strike wrote:Dukasaur wrote:The assumption is that wasting one's money on drugs is somehow worse than wasting it on other stupid crap. Personally, I challenge that assumption. One stupid person wastes his money on drugs, another on fortune tellers, a third on donations to televangelists, another on cosmetics and designer jeans, another on idiotic "must-have" gadgets. Most of the welfare people that I've known keep themselves mired in poverty by the simple (and perfectly legal) expedient of eating take-out food instead of cooking. Will you monitor that too? What difference does it make? All of the above are equally wasteful sinkholes.
Why should you cut someone off welfare for spending all his money on drugs and not if he's spending all his money on phone sex? The fact is, you can't monitor every idiotic thing people waste money on, and singling out one particular item is ridiculous.
Now, the entire idea of welfare might be a bad idea. I won't challenge that, but that's a separate debate entirely. If you accept that you should give people money, at least get out of their way and let them waste it on whatever they want.
Although I agree with the theory behind your point, the reason why the other activities wouldn't be cut off is because they aren't illegal. It's illegal to possess and consume drugs, which is why those who get caught or test positive should lose their handout. I agree that they shouldn't be wasting that money on those other activities/items, but those are legal under normal circumstances. It's also why this action is NOT discriminatory: it's just another way to enforce laws that are already on the books. It not singling out a specific group of people and prohibiting them from exercising the freedoms other people have.
"It's not discriminatory because doing drugs is illegal" is your argument?
It's still discriminatory because it unfairly targets one particular socio-economic group while not targetting others who also use government subsidies and may buy illegal materials with that money. You're just trying to
justify your discriminating viewpoint.
In order for this to not be discriminatory, anyone who receives tax credits (i.e. government subsidies) should be drug tested
because they could use that money on drugs--just like welfare recipients! There's still that chance, which is pretty big considering that so many Americans use some kind of illegal drug.
If you don't test everyone who is a recipient of a government subsidy, then you're still discriminating against one socio-economic group of people.