I felt sure that Fox News would be all over this story, but when I went to their website, I couldn't find it anywhere. One of the things I dislike about Fox News the most, and most major news outlets, for that mater, is that they often take an isolated or very rare event and extrapolate it and make broad, general statements. You could say that MSNBC did this with the Gabrielle Giffords shooting, and I would say you are correct.
So, when I didn't see a story as being an example of the moral decay of the welfare system, I was pleasantly surprised - maybe I'm just too jaded.
I think we can all agree that this woman had serious issues, and to extrapolate anything from it is essentially pointless. With that being said, I will now extrapolate some meaning from it. I think that people in extreme financial difficulty can feel extremely hopeless and desperate - this is obviously the extreme of extremes, but just thinking about it, I would like to propose a theoretical questions...
A 28 year old woman with 3 children, ages 8, 5, and 2 is suddenly in a dire financial situation. Her husband, who was the breadwinner of the family leaves, and now she has no income of money.
What does she do?
I understand that life is hard. I have made sure that my family doesn't have to deal with poverty or hunger, but I have a question. Being poor is not new, so what did people do before all these programs? If these programs basically started in the '60's, then what did people do for hundreds of years before then? Everything is easier, getting a job, finding a place to stay, getting food. Easier does not mean not hard. It doesn't mean fun either. We cannot create a system that makes people do the right thing. Unfortunately, there are people who mentally can't handle life. That may be a temporarily or permanently. The are not enough social workers or programs to help people that don't want to do what it takes to be helped.
ReplyDeleteI promise you that if my kids were hungry I would go and do what it takes to correct that. None of it would involve anything illegal. We have to start holding people accountable and understand that some people will not be successful in society. I hate it and I hate it for the kids, but that is what it is. Its my job to do what I can for whom I can.
I know I'm really late jumping in on this, but here goes. I'm mostly gonna comment on JColeman's post. I think that the problem lies in the move towards almost complete dependence on others for your needs. Even if you have a job and provide all of your families needs, if you depend on the grocery store for food, the clothing store for clothes, the utilities for your power, gas, water, etc., then you are not actually providing anything to your family but the means to fulfill their needs (I'm not speaking to you particularly, but you in the sense of anyone reading this, including myself). A failure in any of these systems and your family goes without. Before social programs, people fended for themselves. Subsistence farming was the norm. Making your own clothes was the norm. Now if you do these things for yourself you are seen as a bit weird. Anyway, just my two cents.
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