what is the actual percentage of Americans who are on welfare (as the uninformed keep calling it)? A tax return is not an entitlement. For instance for a single male to get food stamps he HAS to have a job where he works AT LEAST 15 hours a week and believe me it is not much money, definitely not enough to eat for a month. And if he makes too much money or works more hours- they cut it down accordingly.
Welfare State is largely a myth held up as an excuse by those who want to avoid the real reasons for poverty and desperation that exists in this country and around the world. Now that is not to say that there are not those who do sit on their butts as you have termed it and do nothing... although all of the good for nothings I know end up working pretty hard to trick the system into getting food and money. What I see when I look around is that as a country we have raised a couple of generation of children who believe that they are entitled to, deserve it, require instant gratification, are too selfish to put effort in earning their own way. Our media/TV/Advertising is targeted at those kids and their parents purporting the idea that a person deserves that credit, that car, their entire settlement, benefit right now and by golly they need to get it.
What you end up with is people who think/believe that they deserve to be taken care of by the state/community/parents/families/our taxes. They are not the poor or the homeless per say. I have seen them come from all walks of life. Keep in mind that when the media talk about the homeless and show the beggars and vagrants that only makes for 1-5% of the homeless in this country. There families living in tents, cars or worse where 1 or both parents have lost their jobs, had their house foreclosed on, can't get work and ended up on the street. Or have a disability and can't get of the disability (which for the record is extremely hard to get on in this country- it often takes years for a person to get on disability- usually takes a lawyer and years of negotiation to get on it - and then the lawyer walks off with a tidy sum of the disability to boot.
If you really want to know, it's been studied and then largely ignored by those who are most vocal about it. The poor and homeless are not nor ever were the druggies, alcoholics, frauds and criminals that everyone seems to believe them to be. Don't believe me, take a look at the great depression in the US and the homelessness created by the dust bowl and over farming in the late 20's and 30's.
I remember a book I had to read for Education, can't remember the exact title, but it was really telling about how poverty works in America and why it is a largely unsolvable problem in this country.
Giving people money- charity- will not work and it is not what most people actually want.
What do they want Mike?
They want a chance to work, they want a chance to get that job, they want a chance to learn/train to become more than they are.
Don't believe me?
How come so many of the recruits to the army over the years have come from the poorest- most desperate parts of this country?
Because the Army (and the military) has been and will continue to be the single best way for those people to change their circumstances. The bad news?
The Military never took just anyone and no recruitment standards are a lot higher. AND it's no breeze to stay in once you get there.
I almost signed up for the ROTC. I stopped because I had (at the time) decided to be a Christian in every pacifist definition of the word. The irony for me is that I would have been disqualified soon if not immediately because I have depression and sleep apnea- I had no idea at the time and the depression was not diagnosed until 3 years later, the sleep apnea did not get recognized or diagnosed for almost a decade.
But like others I saw a way to be more.
After all, when I was going to join, the Army slogan was "Be all you can be."
The problems with poverty is not so much that people are lazy or unwilling to work as they find themselves trapped in it. I have relatives who grew up in it. They had to get help to get out, they had to have the opportunity presented to them. A few of them did not escape, or found that they could not. The problem for some of them is attitude and responsibility.
Ask yourself this simple question. Do you take responsibility for yourself, your well being, your health, your children?
If you are responsible then how did you become responsible- you are not born that way, it is a learned behavior.
I have seen the poor, I have been in a food line with the needy. They are not a bunch of lazy people seeking entitlement. They are all of us, often there by circumstance than by a lack of involvement. The food lines (waiting for free or low cost foods) are not for the faint of heart or spirit and often take hours of standing and waiting in order to take home food that most of the biggest complainers about the Poverty/Welfare state would never pay for or eat.
These people who find themselves there take what they get, are mostly grateful for what little they can get/afford.
These people often look defeated, you hear them talking about standing on street corners with "those other people" (that everyone complains about- Immigrants/illegals) hoping that the guy who comes by looking for workers will choose them. if they are lucky, they get chosen and work all day for next to nothing like $20-40 bucks (a good day's pay in those circumstances) mind you it won't buy more than 2 bags of groceries from just about any grocery store UNLESS you buy the absolute cheapest processed food you can get in your cart.
So don't tell me about the Welfare State. Most people don't get enough help to last 1 month never mind a year WITHOUT cheating the system.
I suspect many try and only a handful are successful at it. They get caught and made examples of- so that they CRITICS can point their little finely manicured fingers at them and declare "See that is why we can't have a WELFARE STATE!"
It's crap. It's junk. It is ironically the opposite of what Christianity and about every other major religion states in their respective Holy Books.
Any Society or Civilization has a duty to take care of its own.
I find it ironic that proponents for "Right to life" are often also against the welfare state.
If you don't get the irony there then go find a wall and beat your head against it- then you will know how I feel about this.
And that is life according to Mike.
Now I have to go find a nice dumpster to forage for lunch!
