Quote:
Originally Posted by Pudding
Ahhh, lets throw the 'you're a prejudice' label on someone, the same as people throw the you're a racist, you're sexist, you're homophobic labels around like candy, just because someone doesn't agree with what they're saying  |
You can roll your eyes all you want, but when Sarge said that buying decent food is hard when you're on benefits, your response was "It isn't hard at all," which you justified by saying "it's just that most people I know who are on benefits tend to buy shite and things they don't need like cigarettes and alcohol. This is a real bugbear with me ... " which suggests you may have some level of prejudice .. How many people do you really know who are on benefits? And how genuinely representative are they of all those on benefits? Or are you basing your view on those of your family you dismiss as lazy and tarring everyone with the same brush?
When I was on benefits I didn't buy "shite", nor did I drink or smoke .. and those I've known might have had the odd roll-up, occasionally a cheap bottle of wine .. but to suggest they found it easy to manage rent or mortgage, bills, fares, shoes and clothes for their kids, and still have sufficient to find it easy to buy good quality food would be wrong. You can, as I've said, eat healthily; I've been that soldier .. but that comes back to education, and we have a generation of people many of whom were brought up on convenience food and didn't learn food budgeting and cooking on a shoestring; yet suddenly at a time when they may be at their lowest, they're kind of thrown in at the deep end and they struggle.
Any welfare system will have its element of scroungers, but it's unfair to assume that all claimants are such. Most want to find work, and most struggle to make ends meet on their benefits. In some areas work is very hard to find .. and those who will take anything at all rather than remain unemployed tend to find taking low level jobs, far from impressing some future employers when applying for jobs at their previous level, tend to find their recent employment history makes them suspect. Life when you've been caught in the redundancy trap isn't that easy.
Caryl