I get up every day and go to work too. Why should someone be allowed to get away with not doing that?

Because they're ill? Because they're mentally or physically disabled? Or both? Because they're senior citizens? Or homeless?

You spent the first 18 or so years of your life unable to support yourself. You got a lot of help from a lot of people with no expectation of you paying them back. Housing, food, clothes, transportation, an education.

Without that help you would not be capable of supporting yourself in a job as an adult.

And eventually, you will again not be able to work to support yourself the way you do now. If you're lucky, you'll have a retirement to look forward to, a nice reward for all the hard work you put into your working years.

If you're not lucky....don't you want there to be a social system in place so you can eat and keep a roof over your head and not have to starve or steal or deal drugs to eat?

It's why the UK has the NHS isn't it? So rich and poor alike all have access to health care? Or would you rather the UK emulate the US system?

The social safety net isn't just there for "society's scumbags". It's there for you, too. It helps people who will never need it, too, because it means the less well-off don't need to commit crimes just to eat. Or to revolt to better their lives.

Go read Dickens and Victor Hugo to read about the kind of societies that existed when social welfare systems were far less generous than today. Do you really want to go back to all that? Oliver Twist was based on Dickens' own childhood. He was writing about what he experienced. So was Victor Hugo. Jean Valjean imprisoned for 20 years because he stole two loaves of bread. And when he got out the French Revolution was in full swing, people calling for the deaths of all rich and powerful people. I don't want to live in that society. Do you?

The Glorious Revolution? The French Revolution? The Terror? What do you think all that unrest was about?