Taking care of people so they won't start a revolution is practical, it is NOT liberal guilt. It is probably the antithesis of liberal guilt. Unless you mean merely "saying" that we take care of people so they won't start a revolution is liberal guilt. To which I say, hogwash.
I mention Reagan specifically because he had one example, of a welfare fraud case, and bruited it everywhere as if THAT was what was wrong with the system. That doesn't seem like a red herring to me. If you are using this woman as a paradigm you are using her to show a pattern which IS generalizing. You can say it isn't generalizing- but the MEANING of the word you use is archetype- which IS a generalization. You are fighting against your own language if you want to argue that you are not generalizing from your own "paradigm".
To say that the people who aren't working are "capable" of working is just wrong (imo). These people have no skills AND they have no "moral compass" as you put it. I would call it a more general lack of any common moral understanding- and WHY? Because they were raised that way. They aren't going to develop into "good" upstanding working people overnight just because the government gets punitive. The only way to get someone to be good and hardworking is to RAISE them that way- and where parents have failed, the state must step in- since no one else seems to want the job. The grasshopper and the ant are MEANINGLESS if you want to exclude the people "not capable" of working- because you are begging the question- are not the people not capable of working NOT working? If they WERE capable (morally, educationally, emotionally) they WOULD be working- assuming there are jobs (and let's face it, there is a shortage of jobs in the inner cities, and folks in the suburbs don't want inner city folks in their neighborhoods- NIMBY).
The point is, that people like US- raised in relative affluence, criticizing people who are raised in conditions we really do NOT understand- you may think you understand them, but I think it is fairly clear you do not, is rather disgusting (imo). The unemployment rate is at an extreme low here- the people not working at this juncture are people who really need help. You can tell me, or them, they should pull themselves up by their bootstraps- but I don't think it will do any good. What does it do for you? Does it make you feel virtuous? It merely makes me feel lucky, and generous. |
