cc_wk

It has been argued that the diplomatic cables had a strong influence on the uprising in Tunisia after they spread on Facebook and when Bouazizi lit himself on fire the stage was set for their revolution, which was the first domino of what we later called the Arab Spring, which Syria became a part of, but has not resolved for six years.

If the holes of a safety net are large enough for a person to fall through, than it's not a safety net at all is it? If a tightrope walker is learning the skill, you want a safety-net that will catch them 100% of the time, until they don't need it anymore. A social safety net should be the same - relentlessly available.

Personally, I'd be fine with overlooking what I would assume to be the small number of people who would shamelessly exploit it, because I'd like to think that basic dignity and self-respect would prevent that number from ever being very large. In other words, the system would need some functional slack and it should be funded adequately so that it's not considered a "scarce resource" and the slack can be generous.

Myself, I'm ok if a system like this existed so that if I did have a problem family member, it wouldn't be assumed to be my responsibility to take care of them, and further, I don't like the idea of charities because it presumes benign wealthy people are available to fund them. It seems better, with social programs, to socialize the cost so that I can pay into a general fund so that it can be another-person (aka a professional)'s problem.

"Someone being too expensive to help" ... that makes no real sense today given how much money is swirling around. It's just a matter of what you prioritize.

Occam's Razor suggests old-fashioned sexism

One of the episodes of the 1960s Batman series involved the UN, and seeing that episode playing in bar a couple of months ago made me think of how no TV show today would feature a UN plotline; the most likely plotline indeed would only be about diplomatic immunity - ie how some people get to be above the law. My point here is that in the late 1960s, international diplomacy was respected enough to be part of the pop culture conversation. Fifty years later, teh pop culture conversation centres around popular violence (mass shootings) and terrorism, like ISIS. It seems to me that in the past, people had hopes for the future and believed the politicians were working to make a better world. Today, they don't believe that and see how politicians have created a world were some people are above the law and the rest of us are considered irrelevant and to be placated with realty-tv entertainment.

When inequality leads to hopelessness, what are we to honestly expect?