Welfare Quotes

“Some people look as if they have lost their eagerness and passion. Their aspiration seems to be exhausted and fresh inspiration has abandoned their weary mind. Life has boundlessly given them material welfare, which has fully spoiled them in the end. No energy for longing has been left, as they have reached a twilight zone. The twilight of desire. ( "Twilight of desire" )”
― Erik Pevernagie

“It is easy to be conspicuously 'compassionate' if others are being forced to pay the cost.”
― Murray N. Rothbard

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the people discover they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the canidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy--to be followed by a dictatorship.”
― Alexander Fraser Tytler Woodhouselee

“This is what Jesus had in mind: folks coming together, forming close-knit communities and meeting each other's needs-- no kings, no major welfare systems, no presidents necessary. His is a theology and practice for the people of God, not a set of suggestions for empire.”
― Shane Claiborne, Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals

“I am opposed to animal welfare campaigns for two reasons. First, if animal use cannot be morally justified, then we ought to be clear about that, and advocate for no use. Although rape and child molestation are ubiquitous, we do not have campaigns for “humane” rape or “humane” child molestation. We condemn it all. We should do the same with respect to animal exploitation.

Second, animal welfare reform does not provide significant protection for animal interests. Animals are chattel property; they are economic commodities. Given this status and the reality of markets, the level of protection provided by animal welfare will generally be limited to what promotes efficient exploitation. That is, we will protect animal interests to the extent that it provides an economic benefit.”
― GaryLFrancione

“God works in mysterious ways but at least he works, he's never on welfare in a mysterious way.”
― Steven Colbert

“Once you go on welfare it changes you. Even if you get off welfare, you never escape the stigma that you were a charity case. You're scarred for life.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“Capitalism is a social system owned by the capitalistic class, a small network of very wealthy and powerful businessmen, who compromise the health and security of the general population for corporate gain.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“Welfare reforms and the whole “happy” exploitation movement are not “baby steps.” They are big steps–in a seriously backward direction.”
― GaryLFrancione

“When it comes to animal agriculture, there is conventional, which is really hideous, and "compassionate" or "certified humane" or whatever, which *may* be *slightly* less hideous. But it's all torture. It's all wrong. These "happy" gimmicks are just designed to make the public feel better about exploiting animals. Don't buy the propaganda of "happy" exploitation. Go vegan and promote veganism.”
― GaryLFrancione

“One of the main arguments that I make is that although almost everyone accepts that it is morally wrong to inflict “unnecessary” suffering and death on animals, 99% of the suffering and death that we inflict on animals can be justified only by our pleasure, amusement, or convenience. For example, the best justification that we have for killing the billions of nonhumans that we eat every year is that we enjoy the taste of animal flesh and animal products. This is not an acceptable justification if we take seriously, as we purport to, that it is wrong to inflict unnecessary suffering or death on animals, and it illustrates the confused thinking that I characterize as our “moral schizophrenia” when it comes to nonhumans.

A follow-up question that I often get is: “What about vivisection? Surely that use of animals is not merely for our pleasure, is it?”

Vivisection, Part One: The “Necessity” of Vivisection | Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach”
― GaryLFrancione

“The Labour party on the whole has not been a very effective opposition since the election, partly because it spent months and months electing its new leader. I think the Labour party should, for one thing, stress much more that for most people in the past 13 years, the period was not one of collapse into chaos but actually one where the situation improved, and particularly in areas such as schools, hospitals and a variety of other cultural achievements—so the idea that somehow or other it all needs to be taken down and ground into the dust is not valid. I think we need to defend what most people think basically needs defending and that is the provision of some form of welfare from the cradle to the grave.”
― Eric Hobsbawm

“I have more concern for my nephew's welfare than for Lannister pride.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“Prison is, simply put, the bottom rung of the welfare ladder.”
― Stephen Reid, A Crowbar in the Buddhist Garden

“We advocate the atheistic philosophy because it is the only clear, consistent position which seems possible to us. As atheists, we simply deny the assumptions of theism; we declare that the God idea, in all its features, is unreasonable and unprovable; we add, more vitally, that the God idea is an interference with the interests of human happiness and progress. We oppose religion not merely as a set of theological ideas; but we must also oppose religion as a political, social and moral influence detrimental to the welfare of humanity.”
― E. Haldeman-Julius, The meaning of atheism

“The ones who are always on your side, or so they think, are the ones who keep you down. Everything they do keeps you down. They'll forgive you for anything. Rob, rape, pillage, and kill, and they'll defend you to yourself. They understand all outrages, and all your failings and faults, too. Perfect! You can go on that way forever. What do they care? Excuse me: they do care. They want it that way.
How would they make a living, these servants of the poor, if there were no poor? What enabled me to rise above all the people who don't know enough to come in out of the rain is that one day I looked face to face at a man who hated half of everything I was and had the courage to tell me so. I remember his very words. He said, 'What you're doing is hideous--a perfect way to die young. Unless you want to live sweetly only in the hereafter, you ought to learn how to do the right thing.'" The doctor stopped what he was doing, dropped his hand to his sides, and looked directly at Peter Lake. "I hate the poor. Look what they do to themselves. How could you not hate them, unless you thought that they should be like this.”
― Mark Helprin, Winter's Tale

“I believe the Law of the Land should allow migrants three months on benefits and then the benefits cease”
― Karl Wiggins, 100 Common Sense Policies to make BRITAIN GREAT again

“We should not be surprised that more and more people feel comfortable about consuming animal products. After all, they are being assured by the “experts” that suffering is being decreased and they can buy “happy” meat, “free-range” eggs, etc.. These products even come with labels approved of by animal organizations. The animal welfare movement is actually encouraging the “compassionate” consumption of animal products.

Animal welfare reforms do very little to increase the protection given to animal interests because of the economics involved: animals are property. They are things that have no intrinsic or moral value. This means that welfare standards, whether for animals used as foods, in experiments, or for any other purpose, will be low and linked to the level of welfare needed to exploit the animal in an economically efficient way for the particular purpose. Put simply, we generally protect animal interests only to the extent we get an economic benefit from doing so. The concept of “unnecessary” suffering is understood as that level of suffering that will frustrate the particular use. And that can be a great deal of suffering.

Killing Animals and Making Animals Suffer | Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach”
― Gary L. Francione

“The poor who have neither property, friends, nor strength to labor are boarded in the houses of good farmers, to whom a stipulated sum is annually paid. To those who are able to help themselves a little or have friends from whom they derive some succor, inadequate however to their full maintenance, supplementary aids are given which enable them to live comfortably in their own houses or in the houses of their friends. Vagabonds without visible property or vocation, are placed in work houses, where they are well clothed, fed, lodged, and made to labor”
― Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia

“All redistribution, regardless of the criterion on which it is based,
involves "taking" from the original owners and/ or producers (the "havers" of something) and "giving" to nonowners and nonproducers (the
"nonhavers" of something). The incentive to be an original owner or
producer of the thing in question is reduced, and the incentive to be a
non-owner and non-producer is raised. Accordingly, as a result of subsidizing individuals because they are poor, there will be more poverty. By
subsidizing people because they are unemployed, more unemployment
will be created. Supporting single mothers out of tax funds will lead to
an increase in single motherhood, "illegitimacy," and divorce.”
― Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy: The God That Failed

“Оскільки невдачу варто було змалювати як успіх, Росії довелося заявляти, що це вона є прикладом для Європи, а не навпаки. Для цього потрібно було окреслити успіх не в термінах заможності та свободи, а в термінах сексуальності та культури.”
― Тімоті Снайдер, The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America

“It's the welfare of society that matters, not the opinion of society run by populism.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Yarasistan: My Wounds, My Crown

“We've wandered a long way from the Founders' vision. The intellectual turning point was the complete obliteration of the concept "rights" during the twentieth century, when individual rights were "supplemented" with collective "rights" and from when rights went from protecting a man's freedom of action to guaranteeing him certain outcomes (so-called welfare rights).
— Free Market Revolution”
― Don Watkins, Yaron Brook

“It is customary to call the point of view of the advocates of the welfare state the “social” point of view as distinguished from the “individualistic” and “selfish” point of view of the champions of the rule of law. In fact, however, the supporters of the welfare state are utterly anti-social and intolerant zealots. For their ideology tacitly implies that the government will exactly execute what they themselves deem right and beneficial. They entirely disregard the possibility that there could arise disagreement with regard to the question of what is right and expedient and what is not. They advocate enlightened despotism, but they are convinced that the enlightened despot will in every detail comply with their own opinion concerning the measures to be adopted. They favour planning, but what they have in mind is exclusively their own plan, not those of other people.”
― Ludwig von Mises, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis

“Only producers constitute a market - only men who trade products and services for products and services. In the role of producers, they represent a market’s supply; in the role of consumers, they represent a market’s demand. The law of supply and demand has an implicit subclause: that it involves the same people in both capacities. When this subclause is forgotten, ignored or evaded - you get the economic situation of today.
The man who consumes without producing is a parasite, whether is a welfare recipient or a rich playboy”
― Ayn Rand, Philosophy: Who Needs It

“Även om välfärd är en sorts förutsättning för att en bred djurrättsrörelse ska slå rot kan samma materiella välfärd bära på strukturer som tar kål på rörelsen. Åtminstone i ett homogent land som Sverige.”
― Magnus Linton, Veganerna: En bok om dom som stör

“Most consumers believe that because prices in these industries are state regulated they are protected from the “evils of capitalism.” It is just the opposite, but both the regulators and the companies regulated have powerful incentives to nourish that misbelief. [...] Some people delude themselves into thinking they can manage markets better than market forces can. They try it, but it’s not sustainable. That made me realize that many of the basic things we believed about economics were wrong.”
― Vernon L. Smith, The Evidence of Things Not Seen: Reflections on Faith, Science, and Economics

“In a 2010 study, 64 percent of parents who put money in 529 accounts wrongly reported that they had "not used a government social program." The government gives this money away so easily that two out of every three people who receive it don't even notice. Wealthy Americans live in a welfare state invisible to nearly everyone, including themselves.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“After removing a debilitating number of jobs and the funding to ensure quality schools, after instituting laws that disrupt families' possibility to thrive, welfare laws beginning in the 1970s meant that women often lost benefits needed to feed their children if they had a man present in the home, even if, between the two of them, they still subsisted on poverty wages. Our mothers and fathers and daughters and sons were criminalized for choices made out of absolute desperation and lack of any other real options.”
― Patrisse Khan-Cullors, When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir

“For every church, mosque, and temple you build, if you're not building ten schools and hospitals, to provide affordable education and healthcare, you are serving none but your own delusions, for holiness unfolds in human welfare.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The God Sonnets: Naskar Art of Theology