by Peleg » Fri 01 Aug 2008, 00:13:37
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bruce2288', 'P')egleg, You must not have liked the "do your service for your welfare check" idea. Your cute one man supply line reply didn't make much of an agrument.
Even on one leg my words make more sense than your silence. Here is a more verbose reply.
No man is an island, and sometimes everyone needs a little help. I personally think the Europeans have it dead right on welfare. And as a counter example to your implication, they have not seen a major rise in crack moms, or delinquent violence coming out of welfare homes. Most people do not feel good about welfare and so they do act to use it as little as possible, the problem is that in a modern society welfare is a built in fact. Somebody had to spend their valuable time making the Starbucks cups we drink our lattes in. That is time they are not going to get back. Did we really pay them for the comfort of a latte? My comfort for their pain?
Also, we have a pretty hardened sub-group of blue collar workers in the land who think that unless you are mindlessly stacking boxes for $10/hr you are not actually working. And as soon as the union fails them they are out on the web venting about how the man stuck it to 'em again. The problem is everyone is the MAN, together we are THE MAN. The social psychology of the working man's burden is what made songs like 'Working Man' by Rush and 'Blue Collar Man' by Styx so popular. The noble savage circa 1975, pride delux.
If I am allowed to make the comparison, a pastor who helps one person turn their life around touches through that person tens of thousands of other lives and preempts more negative things than we care to admit. How much is that worth? Certainly much more than the lifetime salary of most pastors. How many souls have you saved?
Then again, someone who works in a public policy think tank and helps develop a welfare system whereby no one ever feels like they have been forgotten by society preempts many crimes, they preempt many needless pregnancies because you can use a carrot and stick approach in family planning. What about someone who uses their time and talents to get educated enough to help develop a sustainability committee on a college campus, how many lives will that affect positively?
I've seen the self made men, time and again, assert that everyone needs to yank themselves up by the seat of their own pants. 'We just want a chance.' Ok, well your job is going overseas where people work at 95% the quality you do for 25% the pay. So in the mean time here is some welfare and some education credits, good luck. Talking the big man talk works until you are about 60 with bad knees, hoping beyond hope that you don't die of a heart attack before you can get some time to enjoy the good life promised by your pension and SSI. But wait, isn't SSI welfare too. It now serves as defacto retirement for most people who do not either have the income potential or the savvy to build their own retirement. Should'nt we get rid of Social Security too? Medicare? Medicaid?
Your position as written fails to show any humanity. Judgment is without mercy to those who show no mercy. You have it all wrong. I am not willing to argue to the extreme either way. sometimes people need help, and sometimes the contributions made by others are not appreciated by us.
The bottom line for this 'Christian' nation is that the Bible is very clear in stating that society should care for the poor. It is also common sense when we consider human origins as revealed by modern science. Why would we find graves from the ancient hunter gatherers where elderly and infirm members showed growth in their bones for years after suffering debilitating injuries?
What about the externalities of your way of life? Are you paying for them? The pollution you create? What about the loss of productivity that comes from the fact that you are not the absolute best person to do the job you do? I mean surely you are not the 100th percentile man right? So by not seeking out someone who will work more and complain less, isn't your employer giving you a subsidy? Don't you actually need your employer to be located where it is in order to have a job at all. Is that a need you have or is that something you allow them to do so they can be graced by your illumination?
The world that your short inputs here looks for is one in which people like you in the extreme would suffer greatly. In such a world of desparation people would turn to each other for help like they always do. Who could be there to help you if you need no help?
I'm sure that makes it clearer, my opinion on the matter. It's sad you have to share the world with so many people like Bill Gates, who soundly defeated you in the game of life and is now giving away the evidence of his thrift, superiority, genius, and luck to the tune of billions of dollars. Do you know how much money a billion dollars is? That's 1000 millions. 1 million is more than 33 times $30,000. Therefore giving away a billion dollars is the equivalent of an entire city of 30,000 employees working for 33 years. The Bill Gates Foundation will give away in the next 30 years the equivalent of ten average midwestern cities. How does that make you feel? Have you ever heard Bill Gates say he did it alone? Certainly he did not sell himself out, but look at how many lives have benefitted from his contribution to society? How many doctors offices are less likely to lose patient data because they have a PC running Windows? Does that matter? We could go on and on. Should their not be a great reward for that?
For a man who did it all by himself, you make me envy you less with every word of self sufficiency you utter. I hope you find the courage to mellow a little and understand that there is more to life than having and not having. Sharing, loving, patience,... actually caring enough to notice the hardwork others do,...to understand how much most people who are perpetually on welfare have to overcome.
Do you have the courage to look into the eyes of the 50 million Americans who are survivors of child abuse and tell them society owes them nothing? It costs the nation billions of dollars per year to treat depression and other mental illnesses related to that abuse. Those issues reduce our productivity and therefore in some way our GDP.
Many Americans have been making the wrong choices about humanity for a long time. I am happy to say that we see a rational middle rising up who do not think that selfishness and malevolence toward those in need is a pathway forward. When the hurting become the abusers they rob themselves of sympathy, abusing themselves even further, and the end of that path is a prison for the soul and often for the body also.