by Sixstrings » Sun 05 Dec 2010, 00:24:11
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Outcast_Searcher', 'A') legitimate question. The answer I've seen posed over the past several years in several credible periodicals such as (if memory serves) The Atlantic Monthly and The Economist (and perhaps the WSJ). and others my sorry-a**ed memory refuses to produce, is that the left pushes so hard for so many government programs, that "typical" middle class citizens end up just assuming that "gubmint should be taking care of it -- after all, that's what all those taxes we pay and programs we hear about must be for".
I used to work for a privatized water utility. When desperate mothers called up, water shut off for a week with kids in the house, we were told to tell them to call Salvation Army or St. Vincent de Paul. If I had a nickel for every time I've told some desperate woman to go call the Salvation Army, I'd at least have enough to do all my xmas shopping.
These women were at the end of the line.. they'd already been given extensions to the point where the water bill got up to anywhere form $400 ish to even one or two thousand -- an amount so high, it was impossible to pay. It wasn't always the womens' fault; sometimes there was a plumbing issue the slumlord refused to fix.
So anyhow the sad thing was having to tell these people to go call a charity when I knew the most these charities would do is maybe $50 or $100, max $150. Which didn't help one bit because all these people needed $400 at best to get the water back on.
That was one of the worst jobs I ever had. Oh and by the way.. private water companies skimp on technicians and so the water quality sucks. Boil water notices were always going out, the fluoride level always out of whack too.
(my point with this anecdotal story is that private charities aren't the government -- they're operated by volunteers, they're on shoestring budgets, they just don't have the money to provide the social safety net that government should)