My Sunday Thought for 082717: Laziness Equals Poverty?

“Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed.”

-- Herman Melville (1819-1891), author, novelist, poet

Note to the reader: You might find it interesting to read the impetus for this post, the article which made me shake my head in disappointment, Study: Christians twice as likely to blame poverty on laziness, recently published by the monastery's periodical The Visionary.

We seem to enjoy painting everyone with the same wide brush.  If you're a Republican you're a Nazi, if you're a Democrat you're a communist, and if you're poor you must be just plain lazy; judgement is black and white, there are no shades of gray.  A family of four or five chooses to live out of their small car as a lifestyle statement, women and teenagers risk their safety and their lives as they choose a life of homelessness on the streets of some large city where drugs and prostitution become their own twisted statement of freedom and, not related, four year old children choose to be homosexual or gender dysphoric due to their vast life experiences.  Really?

These are the small minded bullshit assumptions and criticisms made by folks Herman Melville called "the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed."  Melville was being so much kinder in his assessment than I, but I have always fallen short when it comes to not judging the judgmental, primarily because I am constantly my own critic, and cut my own self such little slack.  Unlike most of these well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed folks, I have no qualms about getting out there among the "lesser of us" as I search for the best of us.  I am rarely left wanting.

I have spent many a morning feeding these homeless, talking to them, and learning of their stories, their fears, and their hopes for better times.  No, there are so many more shades of poverty than those which have much would lead us to believe.

“You can’t save others from themselves because those who make a perpetual muddle of their lives don’t appreciate your interfering with the drama they’ve created. They want your poor-sweet-baby sympathy, but they don’t want to change.”

-- Sue Grafton, author, T is for Trespass

There are, for sure, a good many homeless who have no desire, or no ability, to be more than they are.  Many suffering from mental and physical maladies have been abandoned by society and thrown to the curb to fend for themselves as best they can; what programs are available, many would rather not utilize the services, or are prevented from taking advantage of them for one reason or another.  Others have lost everything from their own bad decisions and are having much difficulty learning how to make good decisions so they can change their situation.  And then there are a struggling few who have lost good jobs, their source of income, and found themselves in a tough job market offering little recourse but to lose everything.  During my short time around the homeless and hungry, I was appalled to learn that there are employers who won't hire someone without an address to put on the job application.  In such cases it would seem the desire for employment would depend on finding an employer willing to take a chance, an employer empathetic to their plight, an employer with a heart.  Yeah, well, good luck with that. 

Surely you're not saying

We have the resources

To save the poor from their lot?

There will be poor always

Pathetically struggling

Look at the good things you've got!

-- Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), "Everything's Alright" lyrics

Whether we agree or not, like it or not, as with everything else in life it is up to the individual to change their lot, their circumstances.  We cannot save the poor from their lot in life, only they can, and many don't seem the least interested in putting forth effort enough to even be considered as "pathetically struggling" to become more.  

In the latter part of the 19th century, Anne Isabella Richie wrote, "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; show him how to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime."   There will be poor with us always, because there will always be those who can't help themselves just as there will also be those who won't help themselves as rules make it is easier to leech off society instead of pulling their weight and sharing the burden of their own life all because a selfishly thoughtless society allows them to wallow in poverty instead of making these poor become more than they are, all that they must and can be,  Unfortunately, caught up in this forced welfare bureaucracy, there are also those that suffer from society's selfish thoughtlessness even though they seriously wish to be productive members of their society, but societal rules hold them back.  Instead of getting a helping hand up, they become victims of the very bureaucracy many would say is meant to help - they end up being forced to take an unwanted handout.  They are constantly beaten down until it is just easier to give up and accept that they are simply statistics instead of human beings deserving of the respect they desire so much to earn.

You say, "There are men who have no money," and you apply the law. But the law is not a self-supplied fountain, whence every stream may obtain supplies independently of society. Nothing can enter the public treasury, in favor of one citizen or one class, but what other citizens and other classes have been forced to send to it.

-- Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850), liberal theorist, political economist

Who would want to live in poverty?  Well, I suppose lazy citizens would find this lifestyle to their liking, even though it means they take advantage of those who work hard to get ahead.  They wish to share in what they don't earn, take that which they don't pay for with the sweat of their own brow.  These would seem to be people without a conscience, without a sense of moral and/or ethical responsibility toward their fellow man - you know... sociopaths.  It might follow, then, that any government which allows this behavior to the extreme of supporting it with tax dollars, welfare, and programs which do nothing to assist the poor in escaping their cycle of poverty, also shows no moral or ethical responsibility toward their own society and, therefore, their own citizens, which would seem to make that government sociopathic unto themselves and a system of bad government doomed to ultimate failure at their own hand.

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the people discover they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy--to be followed by a dictatorship.”

-- Alexander Fraser Tytler (1747-1813), judge, historian, writer

A society is judged by how they treat the least of their citizens, but this does not mean a society should throw money at the problem instead of throwing respect at the least of them by enabling those struggling masses to become all they can be - responsible and productive citizens supporting the society of which they are members.  Laziness does not equate to poverty, allowing the laziness, however, would seem to define a society which allows poverty, by design, to grow and spread like a cancer without necessary and reasonable treatment to cure the issue.  Welfare should be a short term assist for the able bodied, not a sought after lifestyle. 

We should measure welfare's success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added.

-- Ronald Reagan (1911-2004), 40th U.S. President

And on top of this cancer, in spite of it, we inject thousands more immigrants, legal and not so much, giving them significantly more assistance than we give our struggling own. How equitable is forgetting our own out of control poverty in favor of the crap shoot of better supporting people who have contributed less than nothing? Well, maybe a crapshoot provides better odds of success than the nothing we seem so capable of. Who would want to live in poverty? Come to America, and we'll show you or, better yet, we'll pay you. We have an app for that, a free program, and you don't have to lift a finger. However, if for some silly reason you'd like to work your ass off to help support the other half of our country that doesn't, you'll also be given a place to live so you at least have an address to put on the employment applications. I suppose you can feel some comfort in that it seems to be more than we offer our own struggling homeless.

We have truly lost our minds.

The black family survived centuries of slavery and generations of Jim Crow, but it has disintegrated in the wake of the liberals' expansion of the welfare state.

-- Thomas Sowell, economist, philosopher, social theorist

When I published the first draft of this post, a dear friend reminded me of something I neglected to mention - Congress taking what few of us can afford.  I thought it best if I sated it in my friend's own words, not mine:

"You hit the nail on the head except you didn't say our government is in the business of making some of us homeless by taking what we worked for, and that makes everything we did for nothing! That's a lot of reasons why people give up.  I'm getting to that point now myself, and it sucks big time!"

Before you go opening your pie hole about things you only read about in tabloids or on the mind controlling media, go out there amongst those poor, homeless, and hungry of our own countrymen.  Find out for your own damned selves what the real hopes, fears, wants and desires are of this oft time forgotten segment of our society.  The information you return with just might surprise you.  It rattled me... just before it pissed me off.  I'm not sure why I was surprised.

We've all forgotten our history and the reason why welfare came into existence.  If we were taught the history of it perhaps we wouldn't still be suffering under the yoke of it.  Then again, the purpose we were given probably wasn't the ultimate political reason for it.  It doesn't seem so, at any rate, but how would we know?  We always forget our history, or try to erase it, or rewrite it.  We doom ourselves to repetition.  I always like to note the dates surrounding the quotes I use in my posts.  Sad that so many seem to be timeless...

"Poverty, we are assured, is an 'error,' like ill-health and crime. It is an anachronism in civilization, a stain upon a wisely governed land. But into our country which, after a human fashion, is both wise and foolish, pours the poverty of Europe. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants with but a few dollars between them and want; with scant equipment, physical or mental, for the struggle of life; with an inheritance of feebleness from ill-nourished generations before them -- this is the problem which the United States faces courageously, and solves as best she can. What she cannot do is miraculously to convert poverty into plenty -- certainly not before the next year doubles, and the third year trebles the miracle-seeking multitude. She cannot properly house or profitably employ a million of immigrants before the next million is clamoring at her doors."

-- Agnes Repplier (1855-1950), American essayist

And the beat goes on.

Editor's Note 

(re: disclaimer cum "get out of jail free" card) 

Before you go getting your panties in a bunch, it is essential to understand that this is just an opinion site and, as such, can be subjected to scrutiny by anyone with a differing opinion. It doesn't make either opinion any more right or wrong than the other. An opinion, presented in this context, is a way of inciting others to think and, hopefully, to form opinions of their own, if they haven't already done so. This is also why, occasionally, I will present an "opinion" just to stir an emotional pot. Where it may sound like I agree with the statements made, I'm more interested in getting others to consider another viewpoint.

It is my fervent hope that we keep open and active minds when reading opinions and while engaging in peaceful, constructive, discussion in an arena of mutual respect concerning the opinions put forth. After over twenty years with military intelligence, I have come to believe engaging each other in this manner and in this arena is the way we will learn tolerance and respect for differing beliefs, cultures, and viewpoints.

We all fall from grace, some more often than others; it is part of being human. God's test for us is what we learn from the experience, and what we do afterward.

Pastor Tony spent 23 years with United States Air Force Intelligence as a planner, analyst, briefer, instructor, and senior manager. He spent 17 years, following his service career, working with an Institutional Review Board helping to protect the rights of human subjects in pharmaceutical research. Ordained 1n 2013 as an "interfaith" minister, he founded the Congregation for Religious Tolerance in response to intolerance shown by Christians toward peaceful Islam. As the weapon for his war on intolerance he chose the pen, to wage his "battle" in the guise of the Congregation's official online blog, The Path, of which he is both author and editor. "The Path" offers a vehicle for commentary and guidance concerning one's own personal, spiritual, path toward peace and the final destination for us all. He currently resides in Pass Christian, Mississippi, where he volunteers as Chaplain Program Liaison, at a regional medical center.