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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (54786)	8/17/2000 3:04:17 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71178

I accept that the Reagan example is an aberration. However I share with Cobe the suspicion (no way to prove it from my entrenched yuppie perspective) that entitlement programs of any sort breed a group or class of people who expect that entitlement and gear their days toward working the udder. I think Cobe's example of the woman shoplifting a medication out of sheer convenience/sense of entitlement is the norm and not the exception. This does not mean that I am proposing to do away with entitlements or to establish an artificially punitive way of dealing with those whom we do catch milking the system. I have no easy answers, for myself or for my friends. But I DO believe that it is basic human nature for the majority to choose the certainty of subsidized semipoverty over the chance at great wealth through hard work. People are mostly damn lazy. This is (in my current but mutable opinion) a serious impediment to any safety net or social provision program I can imagine - at least one operated by disbursement of MONEY. Things like education or healthcare or food distribution networks - valuable programs that are aimed efficiently at all of society and do not cut lots of checks - seem to be more proof against casual abuse. Is there no way to build a more socially-aware community and state without either promoting or demonizing the whole thing about GUNS?