Whatever you call it, there has to be a mechanism to teach people, who have never been taught, how to eat properly, how to take care of themselves and their children, how to take care of property, and how to do all the many tasks everyone who came from a functional family does more or less automatically.
I KNOW people would scream- children scream when you teach them to brush their teeth, and tell them that "No, you cannot have potato chips and ice cream for lunch and dinner."
Some screaming is probably necessary on the road to learning- and we, as a society, will just have to decide that it's worth it. After all it won't hurt anyone physically to make them eat healthy, and since it is really a Good Thing, it's not like forced sterilization (for example). There is no logical reason why being on the Dole should entitle you to junk food. The Dole should be designed to get you OFF the Dole, and perhaps a component of that means you don't get the same "luxuries" as people who are actually working for a living.
I am sure liberals would scream. And I am sure conservative would scream (at me) for the program I envision would have nutritionists and child care workers of the highest calibre working in the inner cities (and middle class people would inevitably ask why THEY don't get these super qualified free child care workers, and the obvious answer is, because you don't need them as much- and if you, Mr and Mrs Middle Class, really want to break the cycle of poverty, then the children of the poor are going to need some pretty good benefits to make up for the deficits of their parents, and their parents' parents, and so on. ) As I said, I don't think we have the will to do it, as a society. But it's too bad we don't- the country would be a safer and nicer place to live if we did have some sort of plan. |
