What have you really said when you say that the intentions are good? Everyone knows that. But we've fallen into the trap of unintended consequences. I see it as a type of ecological issue. We thought we were creating a safety net but what we created was an ecological niche to be exploited. By providing poor families with food, clothing, shelter and medical care, in perpetuity, we triggered the Tragedy of the Commons.
>>The theory of the Tragedy of the Commons states that when a resource is
collectively owned by a group of people, each will exploit the resource,
overusing it, and thus ultimately destroying the resource. In other words,
everyone acts as a free rider, ignoring the group's collective interests in favor of
their own.
The idea dates to an 1833 essay by William Forster Lloyd. He noticed that in
a common pasture owned by all of the villagers, each villager overgrazed the
pasture, ruining it for everyone.
In 1968, Garret Hardin applied the Tragedy of the Commons theory to
population growth. The idea is that having children is beneficial to individuals,
who will therefore have many kids, but leads to overpopulation in society,
which has numerous negative effects.<<
library.thinkquest.org
The very best description of the social problems thus created was a Pulitizer Prize winning series of essays by Leon Dash, printed in the Washington Post in 1994. He wrote about a woman named Rosa Lee, a heroin addict on welfare, most of whose children wound up welfare, too.
washingtonpost.com
The intention was to provide a safety net, not a way of life. You can say all you want about welfare reform - I am working right now on a custody and visitation matter between an unmarried couple - the man has five other children he doesn't see, the woman has two children by different men, and is living in government subsidized housing, has government subsidized day care, and government subsidized health care - but she does have a job! So you could say that's an improvement.
The way out of poverty is internalizing a lot of rules that aren't a lot of fun. Suppress your libido, or use birth control, or get married. Finish high school, go to college or learn a trade. Get a job, go to work on time every day, and do your best. Get a bank account, balance your checkbook, pay your bills on time, pay your taxes on time.
The people I feel compassion for are the mentally ill, physically disabled, and the aged and infirm. I don't feel compassion for the woman I described, and I am not very impressed by the man, either. They're sucking resources from the people I do feel compassion for because they are selfish, short-sighted, and think it is their right. |
