The confusion of freedom with provision may have been inevitable once the Declaration made the pursuit of happiness a self-evident universal right. Franklin Roosevelt built on the tendency to confuse freedom with provision in his 1944 State of the Union address when he justified what he called a “second Bill of Rights” on the grounds that “Necessitous men are not free men”. The state, he went on to argue, must provide a “new basis of security and prosperity” which included “The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health.”Of course, the corollary of believing that “necessitous men are not free” is that any measure of government control, provided it relieves necessity, is a sacrifice we should be willing to make for the sake of “freedom” or, as Rousseau would say, for the sake of the general will.
When freedom is confused with provision and when intervention is necessary in order for that provision to be delivered (as it inevitably must be, since the government can only give what it first takes away), those individuals who resist intervention become the enemies of freedom. Like those in Rousseau’s utopia, they must “be forced to be free.” Put another way, the state must force citizens to surrender those liberties which hinder government from optimizing its provision potential.
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In talking to people about the system that provides such welfare it is good to ask question. To people who think Minimum Wage laws are a good thing, ask, "Can you live on it if you got paid that for 40 hours? If $7.00/hr is good wouldn't $10/hr be better? Wouldn't our welfare be better at $20/hr? Let's get real - if the government were serious about poverty why don't they make a minimum wage $50/hr?"
ReplyDeleteThe sad fact that if you analyze all the money spend in "providing" for the poor, just since the "Great Society" programs, in 1965 dollars when $1000 was quite a bit of money, each poor person, not just family, could have been paid $30,000 per year. In 1965 that would have been quite rich - it's not even bad in 2011 money. Yet we have more poor than ever before. Read the works of Charles Murray - he documents a basic fact of economics - you always get what you pay for. If you pay for poor people you will increase the supply of poor people. This is why ONLY private and church based charity can do anything about poverty. They are committed to Transform the deserving poor and have the ethical mandate to transform lives making what was not productive into producing members of society.
"Transform the deserving poor"?
ReplyDeleteAnd just whom might they be?
I don't recall Ioesus Christos, the Apostles, or Church Fathers distinguishing between the "deserving" poor who can be transformed and the undeserving poor who cannot.
But I do understand prosperity "gospel" when I hear it.
Instead of this "Charles Murray", I suggest that you read Ruby Payne's Understanding the Framework of Poverty, and that you go live in a ghetto/barrio like an "undercover boss" to better understand that which you don't seem to know about which you talk.
And also that you try just for one month to live in an urban area on $1213 which is to what $7/hr equates.
Also read Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol, especially the parts about "decreasing the surplus population", when said by Scrooge and by the Spirit of Christmas past.
I presume you meant to say that we have a higher percentage of people living in poverty despite social programs, not simply that there are "more poor" today than before. Population increase alone would account for that.
But you have no statistics to support that this is te fault of social programs. Are government programs the reason that in all these past decades of reduced taxation on the rich which fosters their "job creation", that their job creation has not been enough to eliminate poverty?
I seem to remember that Ioesus Christos said "the poor will always be with you", not that there will always be poverty because of socialism.
The belief that social welfare programs are breeding poverty is convenient propaganda for winning the vote of disgruntled racist white middle aged people who think the only thing standing between them and preserving their Camelot lives of global luxury and comfort which they are fearful of losing - that those greedy lazy good for nothing undeserving poor are what is standing between them and their own riches, between them and their winning the lottery.
So the real issue is mammon, and lack of love for God that must translate into love of mankind.
That's what the Church(es) should be "taking care of" but when's the last time (if any) you've heard a church leader castigate the American rich monied elitist ruling class for shirking their duty? Of being blessed with money solely in order to show the image of God in helping others, but hoarding money instead for self like a demon?
Yeah, let's talk "job creation" but lets talk comprehensively not emotional propaganda, let's talk in relation to minimum wages and cost of living, wage slavery, managerial/CEO salaries, golden parachutes, net worth, etc. etc. etc.