I don't know where you live in Texas --- but I strongly suggest you go down to your local inner city Saturday soup kitchen, sit down and really talk with some of these people you so casually "dis" as lazy, good-for-nothings (and think our jails would be a good place for them!) When I left Philadelphia in 1989 there were 10,000 homeless on the streets -- MOST of them were mentally ill. Some had been CEO's of companies who just "snapped" one day! Reagan's de-funding of lots of institutions got those people thrown out of those places onto the streets. Jesus, Mary & Joseph pal -- these are REAL people we're talking about and EACH ONE has a different story! EACH ONE is a human being "entitled" to the same pursuits of life, liberty and a pursuit of happiness. Personally, I believe that the CHARACTER of a nation should be judged by how they treat their MOST vulnerable! The rest of the world thinks we are just a little "high handed" in accusing THEM of human rights violations when they start calculating the people in each of our states that lives below the poverty level!
I am from a large urban area with a population that was heavily on welfare during the Reagan era--which, it so happens, coincided with the beginning of my formative years. Thus, I watched as my mother worked hard to feed us spaghetti whilst the neighbors used their food stamps to buy steak, as my mother made a decent living but struggled to afford our necessities whilst the neighbors on welfare relaxed as their welfare checks paid their living costs. I even recall feeling the base, icy fingers of resentment tickle their way down my spine on the 4th of July as I stuck my 13-year-old head out of my bedroom window and smelled the aromas from neighbors barbecued, food stamp purchased feast of steak, pork chops, and chicken on the grill--all the while knowing that we couldn't have afforded hot dogs and hamburgers, much less the grill and charcoal upon to cook them. All that having been said, I grew up bitter at welfare recipients. And resentful. And doggedly determined to never become like
those people, those
thieves, those leeches on the good, hard-working people of society who worked like madmen to put food on someone else's table and money in someone else's pockets.
Then I met someone who was a child of one of the "Welfare Queens" that Ronald Reagan so eloquently crowned in the '80's.
He did not have an absentee father who ran out; he had a father who was absentee because he died at a young age from cancer. That same father graduated from an Ivy League university and worked for a large corporation. So his family lived a very nice life (deservedly so) until his father passed. Then, his mother--who did not have a college education or much work experience--lost the house (medical bills and legal fees took the majority of the life insurance), found herself having to move her remaining family to a lower cost area (she lost the house), and turn to welfare when her attempts to find work were fruitless or not adequate enough to provide for a family of 4 solo.
I could go on and wax poetic about how his mother wanted to provide her children with as similar a life as possible so they still ate fine foods and wore chic clothing, but I won't. The point is, I got to to firsthand look in the face of what I
thought I saw and what I
actually saw. Maturity does that to you. And this occurred recently, mind you--I'm talking last 4 months.
Are there/were there people who abused the welfare system? Of course. But some people fail to realize that one cannot simply walk into an Assistance Office with a baby on their hip and/or a sob story on their lips and walk out with a phat packet of food stamps and a super-dope welfare check of grand proportions. Backgrounds are extensively checked. Requirements must be met. So if anyone "falls through the cracks" it is the fault of the system, not the recipients. And it makes no sense (moral or practical) to punish thousands of truly
needy people in the name of idealism--but that is what I did for years and years and years by assuming that welfare recipients are lazy thieves who steal the worms out of the working mama bird's mouth to feed her own chicks.
If one really believes in Reagan's "endearing" picture of a "Welfare Queen", well...I would have to surmise that he/she had about as much firsthand, face-to-face knowledge with someone on welfare than Mr. Reagan did himself. And every knows that Mr. Reagan made a regular practice of driving through urban and rural areas to speak with welfare recipients before he made such a grand, sweeping summation...
Sage, sage advice, Mensch1351.