Monday, July 04, 2011

Welfare Encourages Dependency and Preference

"If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy." -- Thomas Jefferson

“When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” -- Benjamin Franklin

“To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.” -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816


By Douglas V. Gibbs

Capitalism, the free market, and the profit motive are the keys to a stable society. Liberalism will tell you that these principles of freedom condones and promotes selfishness, and creates a divide between economic classes.

The opposite is true.

Charity by government is not the role of government. The intentions may seem reasonable, but in the end when government tries to take on the role of charities, it ends up producing people that believe they are entitled to the government programs - in the end producing what liberals claim profit produces - more selfish people.

The selfish society produced by entitlement programs has become one dependent upon the government, expecting more from the government, and one that has the entitlement class looking upon the achievers as the enemy.

This is why it is so easy for progressive politicians to get the people angry at the big bad oil companies, or the bonuses that successful producers receive. The entitlement program has produced enmity between the takers and the producers. Progressives are creating a dangerous world where class warfare is becoming the norm.

Those that have been conditioned, those who believe the lie, want to try to get what they can out of a government that can't afford to do it anymore. They want preferential treatment, to be given gifts from the treasury despite their level of production - despite not being achievers.

And with each passing moment they believe they are more and more entitled to what was never supposed to be theirs in the first place. In the end, the entitlement programs have produced a society of free loaders.

Sure, there are those that genuinely need help, and for that the Constitution allows the States to have these kinds of programs if the States so desire. I don't believe they are good ideas, but the States are authorized to have these programs if they so desire - the federal government is not.

The dependency upon the government then leads to a populace that begins to lose sight of what it takes to succeed, and what we have here in this country to be grateful for... opportunity. No longer is the pride of accomplishment something that permeates through society - achievement has now become the enemy, and the Democrats actively campaign against the private sector, and for giving more and more freebies to the free loaders.

The Democrats do this to secure votes - vote buying 101.

Moral decent has become the norm. Children have lost the drive for success, knowing that if they fail they won't need to pull themselves up by the bootstraps - they can just give up and be taken care of by the government.

Government has killed opportunity and the drive for success, teaching the next generation that they should really be asking, "What more can I get out of the government?"

And while these selfish people receive their government handouts from the taxpayers, they criticize the achievers for being rich, they criticize the producers for reaping the benefits of their hard work - and the leftist progressive liberals preach that it is unfair that the producers have anything, and that the wealth must be redistributed so that all Americans are nothing more than selfish, free loading dependents upon the government.

Entitlements make people expect handouts. The drive for personal prosperity becomes lost, and the American Way is damaged as a result.

Success comes from capitalism and the free market. Achievement produces less selfish people, and fosters independence.

Self-reliance makes one appreciate the fruits of one's labor, making the achiever freer, less selfish, and not one to expect preferential treatment from the government.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

No comments: