my opinion is forged through working with them. People are so proud when they have a job saving them from the ignominy of being on the dole.
You haven’t convinced me with your hunches of how government affects things. The social programs are probably one of the few things that are helpful. The agencies, foreign aid, corporate subsidies, health care deform are the problem
“You haven’t convinced me with your hunches of how government affects things. The social programs are probably one of the few things that are helpful. The agencies, foreign aid, corporate subsidies, health care deform are the problem.”
I am one of the folks you think you are ‘helping’.
Just go away and leave us alone. Thank you very much. Stop speaking for people like me, because you don’t speak for us.
Cut it off, and let the private charities take it over. Thank you. Then we can fire people like you who prey on us.
I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.
True, some are. There are also those who pride themselves in 'getting over' on 'the system'.
For the former, I'd wager few of their parents were ever on 'assistance', and in the latter group, I'd wager most of their parents were on welfare at one point or another, or perhaps consistently.
There was a time when self sufficiency, when supporting a family, was the general goal of most Americans, and in some quarters, that ethic survives.
In others, sadly, the destruction of the nuclear family (Mom, Dad, and kids) is virtually complete, and the stripping of religious reference from public exposure has not helped those who are seeking guidance despite the clause "...nor prohibit the free exercise thereof" in the First Amendment.
The influences of television and pop culture are generally in the wrong direction as well.
For those who want better, there is better, but they cannot stay in the inner city and expect it to come to them. They either have to make it happen (tough to do with all the regulation out there favoring the status quo, not to mention cultural inertia), or they have to relocate and build a life for themselves. The latter is not easy, but it can be done. Productive people are sympathetic toward those who genuinely want to be productive people, too, and would much rather give a hand up than a handout.
I have met people from all over the US who have come here in search of work and found it. It isn't easy, but they are doing it, not just here, but in other areas where the oil and gas industry are going strong.
The biggest obstacles I have seen people run into are not being able to pass a drug test, wanting a paycheck but not work, and feeling entitled to a corner office on day one.
Here, for the next few months, the winter weather is an obstacle as well (you can't sleep in your car until the first couple of paychecks come in).