Since when did charity become a birthright?

Growing up, nobody wanted to be dependent on charity.  Apparently a lot of Americans have no problem with accepting charity today.  Of course, it's not called "charity" anymore -- that would hurt someone's feelings.  But it's still charity, nonetheless.    

Food stamps are charity.  Payments through WIC are charity.  Welfare is charity.  Free cell phones and service are charity.  Subsidized insurance is charity. 

The list could go on and on, but in simplest terms when the government gives money or goods to anyone who hasn’t earned them it’s charity.  And by “earned” I mean actually doing something valuable in exchange for the money or goods.  Breathing and reproducing don't count.  

Sitting on your ass and popping out kids like Pez candies is not something valuable.  Training to be a “nail technician” at the community college isn’t either.  Nor is filling out job applications just to keep your benefits flowing.  Any money you get is charity; you haven’t earned a dime of it.    

On the other hand, Social Security benefits and UC are not charity.  That’s because we and our employers pay into these via payroll deductions from our paychecks for – wait for it – real jobs where we work to earn real money.  We contribute toward the benefits we ultimately receive.  

Now there’s nothing wrong with providing charity; it’s an entirely noble thing to do with your own money. There’s nothing wrong with accepting charity, either, if you really need the help. However, when the government takes money from you to provide charity, it’s different.  And when recipients of charity abandon any façade of striving for self-reliance and turn the charity they receive into a lifestyle, it’s just wrong.  Unfortunately, when government hands out charity that often happens. 

Honestly, we should always take care of the sick and disabled among us.  But we have no moral obligation to support those who aren’t.   Why government continues to do so is maddening. 

It does no good to feed people and give them money just because they aren’t willing to get off their butts to support themselves.  We’re not giving them “dignity” or ‘respect” by telling them it’s okay to be wholly dependent on government charity.  We’re not giving them a means to better themselves.  Government is just buying them off, postponing the inevitable realization that a lot of those people are just sponging off the system until they get caught and kicked off.  If ever. 

In short, we’re not improving anyone through handouts.  In national parks they have signs about feeding the animals.  The reason is that the animals can become conditioned to expect you to feed them.  If you don’t, they can become aggressive and hurt you. 

Here’s how that scenario plays out with humans.  Last weekend the EBT system was shut down for a day.  That’s the “debit card” those on the dole now use instead of the physical food stamps of yesteryear to buy things; the idea being that this allows the user to maintain their dignity. 

Now remember that the EBT program is about helping the working poor and the destitute get the food they need to survive.   So on Saturday the system went down and the cards either didn’t function or retailers couldn’t verify balances.  Walmart in one town decided to continue to allow EBT users to purchase stuff even though Walmart couldn’t verify the balances.

A near riot ensued as EBT card holders stripped the shelves of as much as they could carry to take advantage of the verification gap.  When Walmart announced that the EBT system was back online, people abandoned carts piled high with food in the aisles.  One woman tried to buy $700 worth of food before the system came back – she had 49 cents in her EBT account.  Others simply walked out the store with loaded carts full of stuff they never paid for.  

This wasn’t an isolated event.

Furious EBT card holders took to social media to flame Xerox for the hiccup in transactions.  Twitter was alive with hateful invectives and threats of riots and insurrections if service was not restored immediately. 

A couple of things …

First, if these people are so poor and destitute they need help to buy food, how can they afford devices and services to send Tweets, post on Facebook and the like?

Second, these people should be so damned glad they are getting something for nothing.  Instead of bitching about a minor inconvenience, they should be thanking everyone for their generosity.

But no.  These people acted like someone had arbitrarily decided to withhold their paycheck.  That’s because this is what all those benefits have become to them – a regular paycheck.  They’ve been conditioned to expect these benefits as their “rights.”  In their minds, they aren’t getting charity; they’re just getting what is owed them.

For what … I have no idea. I suspect they don’t either.   Except once they start getting these benefits, no one apparently has any right to limit or end them.  Certainly not the government.  

No one expects them to beg for benefits.  But for once it would be nice to know that we’re taking steps to assure that we’re spending our money on people who really need assistance on a temporary basis and – as sappy as this sounds – people who appreciate what they’re getting. 

Don’t expect that to happen anytime soon.  If anything, “the end of welfare as we know it” has morphed into a richer and more robust plethora of payments and subsidies designed to insure abject dependency for generations.  It's not “welfare as we know it” anymore, that’s true; it’s much better, more rewarding, and more inclusive than ever before. 

That may thrill the takers and the politicians dependent on them to maintain power, but a large part of the public is getting fed up with these leeches.  I don’t think I’m alone in this. 

If someone can work and they don’t, if they can feed their family but won’t, if they can afford things they want but won’t use their own money to buy the things they need, then that person is a worthless piece of crap.  He or she is a drain on society and contributes nothing of value.  They have no dignity, and are not deserving of respect.  They are a parasite. 

To all of you scamming the system:  I’m tired of hearing about you and your “needs.”  I, for one, couldn’t care less about you.  Piss off.  While you’re at it, STFU.  And stop reproducing – we don’t need any more of you; we’re all full up on generations of perpetual leeches and future criminals.

 

So let’s stop the bullshit about “human dignity” and “respect” for those laughing at the working stiffs supporting them.  Let’s help those who truly need help and cut off those who don’t.

Instead of constantly trying to find new ways to raise more money to squander on the same people, generation after generation, let’s stop the cycle of rewarding irresponsibility and bad behavior.  Certainly there will be blowback, as there was when welfare reform was enacted under Clinton.

But for a short time, it actually worked.  People moved off the dole and into jobs because they were forced to.  They had fewer "babies for benefits," too.  Then over time we got all warm and fuzzy again and made it more attractive to take money from the government than make money from a real job. 

That’s upside down and crazy.  We need to start paring back now.      

This isn’t selfish.  It’s just commonsense.  And it’s high time for us to start cutting our losses on a broad spectrum of the population that believe they are “owed” something simply by existing.