Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: LIBERTARIAN JOE
A fair enough post. I however subscribe to the social safety net, as do most voters. So while I respect your point of view, I can't subscribe to it.
65 posted on 07/27/2002 9:29:13 PM PDT by Torie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 64 | View Replies ]


To: Torie
A fair enough post. I however subscribe to the social safety net, as do most voters. So while I respect your point of view, I can't subscribe to it.

I don't understand how you came to feel that I don't support a social safety net, because I do. The problem is, the method of providing such a system is unworkable (long term) as it is currently being practised. You must have personal responsibility and accountability, as well as a strong, ingrained work ethic, for such a system to work. Gov't social programs at all levels, as practised today, discourages all these things.

Before all fedgov welfare programs and most state welfare programs came about, we had a little economic downturn called the "Great Depression". You may have heard of it. Nobody starved, few went homeless. The feds enacted many social programs in response to it, and just about all economists agree that those programs prolonged the depression right up to WWII. Churches, charity hospitals, well-to-do individuals and city and county welfare offices helped everyone in need who showed that their need was due to misfortune and that they were willing to help themselves. The lazy, shiftless bums content with living off others learned quick that there was no handout for them.

Before the "great society" social programs of the '60's destroyed the black family structure, the inner cities, and began the destruction of medical care in the US, nobody in genuine need, due to misfortune, was turned away from those charities or local welfare offices, nobody starved, went without shelter or health care. Because your 'social safety net' hadn't yet siphoned off so much of a paycheck's buying power, most households could have one adult working to financially support the family, while the other maintained the home and raised the children to become moral and responsible additions to the community. Routine health care was affordable out-of-pocket to just about anybody with a job (doctors even made house calls!) and affordable insurance, or the now-extinct charity hospitals covered major health problems.

That brings us to today. Thanks to the republicrat social safety net, getting pregnant means a pay raise for a welfare queen that's never had a job, getting a gov't handout is as simple as mailing off a form (no face-to-face meeting to show genuine need or effort to gain employment), nearly a million people a year pour over the border and most of them go straight to the gov't teat, gov't health programs have so-inflated demand for medical care to the point that even routine health care is not affordable without insurance, taxes have risen to the point that responsible couples put off having kids, or leave the kids moral development to others, so both can work, old people get 'warehoused' in cruel, heartless institutions because everbody responsible enough to care for them is off at work, and an entry-level job doesn't provide as good a living as your 'social safety net' and is frowned on by those job-seeker's peers, generations raised on the public dole.

I applaude your good intentions, your desire for a utopian world of "from each according to ability, to each according to need", But it doesn't work! Good intentions are responsible for as much pain and suffering as any evil inflicted on man. We're an imperfect species. If you shelter people from their bad choices, laziness and desire to get something for nothing, you do nothing but breed dependancy.

Yes, I too believe in the social safety net. Mine is multi-layered. There's me, and then my family, and then my friends. After that, my community. God help me if my needs go beyond that, because then I would be humbly asking strangers for help in competition with millions raised to believe that a handout is their right!

67 posted on 07/27/2002 11:08:48 PM PDT by LIBERTARIAN JOE
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 65 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson