Dear Friends,
It seems to me that government largess is the opium of the people. Once people get addicted to government spending they loathe giving it up. Even when it is in their personal best interest to do so.
When Medicare passed according to a congresswoman on Fox news, there was only 26% of the American people that supported it. Now when asked if they support medicare over 80% say yes. That is because in the premise of the question “do you support medicare?” is the assumption that if you do not, you want all the people who are now getting “free” medical care from the government to get thrown out and left in the cold with no coverage. Most people stop there logic here.
However if there was a better alternative for indigent people to get medical attention, when they need it and that doesn’t require government intervention, most would support the alternative. Other examples of government doling out “free” money are equally as enlightening.
Like the public dole. During the 1990’s there was a concerted effort made to move people from welfare to work. The effort had some success. Many people moved from one side of the equal sign to the other. They are now contributing to US National GDP. I believe that some of the economic growth seen in the 1990’s was due to this program. Without this concerted effort though the number of people on the dole would be much higher.
Fortunately, for the government pushers, we are now in a recession of the government’s making. So they hope to regain some of the lost addicts. They can now get as many people on welfare as possible. All the while telling them that they cannot make it. It is impossible. They are too stupid to ever be more than a welfare recipient.
From the perspective of the welfare recipient it seems a pretty good deal. Sleep in every day. No place you have to be… except the welfare office once a month. Your bills are paid and you have free health care. If you decide to go to work and add your productive labor to the collective GDP, then you loose free healthcare, free housing, free food, your bills are no longer paid and you have to worry about bills.
But when a person moves from the dole to fending for oneself they gain much more than they loose. All the things mentioned in the previous paragraph are just that… Things. Nothing more. What will be gained by working are many and profound.
Independence from others. We can never be totally independent it is our nature to socially interact and raise our collective lot thusly. But we as individuals can gain a level of freedom within the framework of society if we pay for our own things. This independence is more than just physical.
We become independent in our minds. Paying for your own way is empowering by giving our sense of justice a widget. The more widgets we give our personal sense of justice the better our self esteem, the better our sense of self and the better we hold ourselves. Today’s society doesn’t have much use for the way in which we hold ourselves. The inevitable depression is handled by antidepressant drugs. Not by fostering a better feeling of self worth. We seek to minimize the negative effects of our intemperance.
The dole destroys self worth just like drug addiction. When someone does something that is not in their nature, to get something that they feel they need, their sense of self worth is diminished. We are all diminished when this happens. When ever a person falls short of his or her potential, especially when it is government that provides the friction, society is diminished.
But just because something walks like a duck, squawks like a duck and looks like a duck…
