Vin Suprynowicz: Self-sufficiency vs. the Welfare State
Tags: libertarian, welfare stateFrom libertarian - but don' t hold that against him - Vin Suprynowicz:
What cameramen found at and near the Superdome the next day, as the floodwaters rose, were members of a mostly black underclass with no resources of their own, a people who over a period of generations have come to expect someone else — through the cash redistribution agency known as "government" — to provide them with or heavily subsidize their housing, their transportation, their health care, even their children's schooling…
…And those who were not busy looting were not merely pleading for help. They were angry. They were shouting into the cameras, addressing someone out there — the government? Us? — who they believed owed them an obligation to "get on down here" and bring them some stuff. Food, water, whatever they needed. Bring it to us — the message seemed clear — or we're just going to take it.
Americans were once a people proud of their relative self-sufficiency. Yes, we lend our neighbors a helping hand. But my family and the families of most Americans were essentially penniless 70 years ago. Since the Great Depression, we have worked and saved until we have some assets. We set aside for the future…
…Self-sufficiency has survival value. Applied over a period of generations, the welfare state can breed self-sufficiency out of a people.
Look at the fate of the mendicant classes in New Orleans — the ones who trusted government to "provide." Look at what happened to the property of the merchants who trusted their taxes were buying them "police protection." And beware.
September 12th, 2005 at 9:43 pm
One of my first reactions to the plight of the poor in New Orleans was pity, however this was leavened with a dash of revulsion at the parlous state these people live within. How can one fall so far? Weee..ll, it's the gummint, stoopid! Look at what generations of public schools have created! Hopeless people in a hopeless world. Has anyone read Linda Schrock Taylor on the public school system? One amazing article, through lewrockwell.com, showed an exam paper for 12 year olds in 1890. I struggled with some of the questions and I have been to university! Stuff? Get your own, I work 6 days a week to keep mine. You want a cigarette? That will be 50 cents, please. Good article Vin, hope the book is going well.