Building a Culture of Dependency

Entitlement Syndrome ^ | 08/21/2009 | Scott Michaels

[BigKahuna]

Combined with the overall lack of adult supervision in the Congress, I can pretty much say with a great deal of confidence (at least as much as Barack Obama has when he says he can deliver health care at lower cost, and with greater access and no change in your doctor) that what we’ve been seeing since last January is a concerted effort to yoke Americans even more to a dependency on their government that is not only ill-advised but also ultimately tragic.

I say ”tragic” because programs like Cash for Clunkers and ObamaCare — both of which are nothing more than the giving out of what is in effect free government cheese — don’t do much good other than to create not only a sense of entitlement (hence, why current government programs like Medicare and Medicaid are called “entitlements”) but also a “gimme society.”

In the main, most people on the right and the left would say that it is of course a good thing for those more fortunate to help those less fortunate. However, we on the right believe in a hand up, not a hand out. That’s a crucial difference. Giving somebody a hand UP means teaching them how to make the net and then to fish with it. Giving them free fish teaches them nothing about net making or fishing. Let’s call what the right believes in a desire to help the helpless, and NOT the clueless. The left? Hard to say, other than that it wants slavish dependence.

… In the end, government cannot create wealth or independence. It can only give to people what it has previously taken away from others, and it can make them completely dependent on that action. How very sad.

[nmh]

Yes, they want people enslaved to the government.

the COLLECTIVE, rather than the INDIVIDUAL paid for by GOVERNMENT Is what is TAUGHT IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS and leftist private schools. “comparative learning” is a specific way educrats promote this - group projects.

[Howie]

[BigKahuna]

That’s funny!

[Howie]

Thanks.
In a previous time he would have been riding around in a wagon with a mule selling snake oil! He would have been good at it too because that profession didn’t rely on repeat customers!

[palmer]

However, we on the right believe in a hand up, not a hand out. That's a crucial difference.

There's not going to be much of a difference when someone gets (genuinely and unexpectedly) sick. That's the main reason I give to the Shenandoah Free Clinic, although doctors and dentists give their much more valuable time there. The treatment there is not a hand up or a hand out, but simply a necessity unavailable elsewhere. The clinic keeps people out of emergency rooms and from getting sicker (e.g. by pulling infected teeth).

The problem right now is this works out in the Valley but in the crowded cities it competes with expensive government care. Government doesn't like the competition either so they will limit the tax deductions that the doctors and dentists can take and load them up with legal liability (through lack of tort reform) so they are forced to work for full pay all the time to pay for malpractice insurance.

[nascarnation]

Community Organizer definition:

making people more dependent on taxpayers

[BigKahuna]

Wouldn’t you say you given the sick and ailing a hand up. I’m a PA (retired Navy...started as a recon Corpsman and worked my way up until I went over the side as an O4) and my wife is an oral surgeon (Navy reserve).

We both help at free clinics down in Detroit (we live in a suburb)and the organization we work with tries to sign up as many of those folks as possible for job training, community education, nutrition and other bootstrap-type classes.

You wouldn’t believe how many dull-eyed looks of “What the hell for?” we get. Very discouraging, I have to tell you.

[palmer]

You can call it a hand up like helping out a neighbor. I guess the problem comes when the help becomes so expensive that the institutions create bureaucrats and those create a hand-out mentality. The ultimate case is the government, and the government creates a lot of the unnecessary expense in the first place. BTW, thanks for all your past and present service.