My honest response to this....
It further degrades my hope for people and for this country in general. It greatly makes me question the principles and views I hold dear. It causes emotion to smack into logic and cold hard reality. It furthers my thought that the continual move away from a Freedom rsetricting society wrongfully crushing individualism and personal choice has created a soceity of nacissists and irresponsible people. That we are moving every day further and further to a situation where we devour ourselves out of the notion of "Kindness" and "caring" or we descend into a realm of authoritarianism in a backwards effort to save society; essentially, two horrible options. Why do I feel we're stuck with those options? Because the third option...SOCIETY correcting itself as a whole...seems to be an impossability.
I understand Dana's point in terms of the "savagery" of letting people, including children, starve. At the same time, so often we must avoid such "savageries" because of actions and choices made by people that are given less and less negative reenforcement every year. The welfare state will always grow, the costs will always sore, and this just keeps recycling as we see with this woman's mother and now herself.
The scary thing is that this makes me think that one way or another we're going to end up eventually moving into an athoratative situation...the question simply comes down to whether or not it's done in the name of "Kindness" or in the name of correction. The only way to continue to prevent being "savages" is to take more and more money, to put more and more regulation, to use the force of government more and more to redistribute the wealth in the country. In the name of "kindness" we will bleed our wealth dry, we'll bleed our economy dry, and we'll bleed our freedoms dry bringing us more and more equal as more and more people fall into the "safety net" that is more apt to be called a safety prison. On the flip side, to try and actually fix what ailes society would require savagery and wrongful removal of freedoms on the part of the government....pushing back throug the power of state against the poor habits and choices within society. However, at least in this case, there is a CHANCE that the illness is cured and forward movement can be made again. But the question at that point would be is it worth moving forward.
What does stories like this make me think? What do responses from even self proclaimed "conservatives" calling for more nad more welfare make me feel? Simple.
I feel like we're ready to follow Rome.
We're eating ourselves from the inside and will continue. Stories like these, despite my attempts for optimism and measured thoughts, makes me feel like we're not going to have a United States in the same spirit of what I've known it to be while growing up. That, at best, it will still exist in name. But ultimately I beleve we are going to eat ourselves from the inside in the name of "kindness", "individualism", and a sense of "Whatever, I'll do what I want".
We have created a society and culture destined to fail.
Sadly, I fear you're correct, Zyphlin. I also think that if not already there, we are really close to a point of no return. When I was growing up, failure was never in the lexicon in our home. I never knew that I could coast or underachieve the very idea was foreign to me. I paid myself through college working 40 hours a week and still going to school. (I'm still catching up on sleep 15 years later) My Father was a habitual gambler (played the ponies) and it broke our family up. My Mom moved us back to Canada from England with $16 in her pocket, we left my Dad there but he followed a few months later. We stayed with family until my Mom working three jobs got us out of having to depend on family, and we moved into a low rent home three bedrooms with 4 kids. I never saw my Mom and it was left to me and my older brother to raise us, or at least make sure that we didn't die..
I remember having to wear second hand clothes, unisex pants, used boots and coats in winter for the first few years, I hated my parents for that, as school kids are so unforgiving, but I endured it all. All through it, it never occurred to me to give up, or to join the ranks of welfare. Luckily my Mom avoided it because back then there was this thing about welfare, we called it
shame, and being on it was considered taboo, not celebrated like it is today. It was very uncommon to know someone on welfare, even in the poor neighborhood we lived in, it really was rare. I'm not entirely sure how the shame went away, or when but it clearly has, and this goes to the point I believe you're making. There is no shame in taking when you KNOW you're capable of doing more for yourself. There really isn't. I see it all the time in the grocery store, at the beginning of the month, all those two grocery carts full of goodies.. I am lucky (and ambitious) and I taught myself about computers, and have become very successful as a data center systems integrator, but it was all self taught. Funny that what I went to school for and slaved over for 4 years has absolutely nothing to do with my present career.. Look nice on the wall though..
The point I'm trying to make is that ultimately we create our own situations, and our own brand of luck in life, and even when things look bleak, as long as you're willing to keep trying, and keep digging, you'll find some of that luck, or develop a skillset that employers are looking for. Intelligence, and education can only take you so far, and for me if I were to try and pick a single attribute for my success, I go back to my Mom's courage and sacrifice, and call it... Desire! I desired a better life for my kids, and I took no prisoners, and went after it. The idea that someone else needs to pay for my failure is ludicrous to me. If I'm not out every day trying to get better, and up every morning at the crack of dawn trying to pin-point opportunities, I'm failing.. If I'm not moving forward, I'm failing, and it's not anyone else's fault but my own.
I get the poor kids aspect of why it is politically difficult to reform welfare, and to me the only solution that addresses all of the difficultness of reform is work for welfare. It shows kids that there is no free lunch, and it empowers those on welfare to improve themselves, or at the very least to build up a resume of strong work ethic, and motivation.
I see no other politically bi-partisan approach that would work.
Tim-