Name:	MAJ USA RET -	Reply
Subject:	Darwin and the Republic
Date:	7/3/2012 10:09:22 AM

The flaw in the Republic lies in the enfranchisement of the entitlement class.  Those who do not work are allowed to vote.  Of course they vote not only to entrench, but to increase, their forced largess… derived from the fruits of the labor and entrepreneur class(es).

A successful species breeds exponentially.  And so is the representation of the indigent in the pool of voters. 

Eventually the non-producers overwhelm the ability… and willingness… of the producers. The producers, being deprived of reward for their industry, either slow production… or depart for more favorable venues.  The non-producers find that the teats have begun to dry up.  They are being forcefully weaned… a trickle down consequence of their own indiscriminant behavior.  Lacking industry and resourcefulness, they do not understand.  They begin to fight (riot) around the common bowl.  They demand that the producers come back… go back to work… turn the tap back on.

It is too late.  The system is already crippled beyond healing. 

As Charles Darwin observed, “Many species develop bizarre traits, just before they go extinct.”

Witness what is happening in California and Illinois.

Our Republic, exactly like that of Greece, is developing bizarre traits.  WE THE PEOPLE have ignored history… past and present… and unless WE THE PEOPLE act like we are educated and connected with history… so shall befall us… THE LESSON OF GREECE.

Name:	copperline -	Reply
Subject:	Darwin and the Republic
Date:	7/3/2012 2:15:07 PM

OK, let me see if i can take this & add something worthwhile.   First, a qualifier.   i’ve been a social worker all my life and have worked extensively with people here in Alabama.     Some of them were born poor, some were well-to-do before coming into hard times for one reason or another.   They aren’t all the same.    Thinking back to your Milton Friedman quote about judging programs by their outcome, not just by their intentions…. i’ve spend a lot of my time pondering why our best intentions could create lousy outcomes.   it’s true.   in a military operation, you would call it collateral damage, unavoidable side-effects of a larger but necessary action.        Public assistance does seem to encourage dependence followed by an upward spiral of costs.   But what choice do we have?  Really, you can’t let people starve or die from lack of medical care… and you are surely right that people will not quietly accept that they are on the losing end of some evolutionary process…  i sure wouldn’t.

if you believe that the Fog of War makes it hard to distinguish between friendlies and the bad guys, you should try making the distinction between the Deserving and the Free-loading in an Emergency Room, or a school lunch program, or a Food Stamp office.   i never was able to tell the difference.  They’re people, not statistics, when you meet them face to face.

Opponents of public assistance programs refer to the notion that if these programs were not available, the recipients would simply get jobs.   That sounds pretty simple, and if it were true would be  a great idea.   But what happens when there are no jobs, or if a social problem like too many children, too little education, lack of transportation, mental illness or medical disability plagues your life?   The idea that by disassembling assistance programs, we somehow simply & painlessly convert large numbers of people into ‘productive citizens’ completely overlooks the suffering and social instability that would follow.   And i don’t have confidence that the Free Market will graciously provide for widows and orphans, the job of providing a social safety net... that job will always have to be provided by us collectively thru the government.

Name:	MAJ USA RET -	Reply
Subject:	Feed them and they will come
Date:	7/3/2012 3:18:23 PM

I am NOT an opponent of public assistance programs. These programs should not be available to people who CAN work but don’t. 

There ARE jobs… some of them VERY hard work.  But folks should be made to sweat before they grovel.

I don’t think “too many children” is a social problem.  The children need our help… the mammas and daddies of this children don’t deserve our help – they need to a) quit indiscriminate breeding, b) take responsibility for the raising of their scion, and c) go to work.  Why is there a campaign to neuter pets?

I believe in welfare and food stamps.  I do not believe in providing cell phones, cigarettes, and fast food.

Welfare needs to end at six months.  From then on it only continues with the presentation of a paystub.  “Either mop floors, fling burgers, pick cotton, or toss hay… but, you WILL work if you are physically able.”

Mental illness… do you mean “incapacitating” mental illness?  What do they do with the mentally incompetent in countries where there is socialized medical care?

Widows and orphans?  There are two kinds of those:  The kind that dig out... and the kind that dig in.  I want to give them a hand… not a lifetime supply of handouts.

The Free Market capitalist system will graciously provide a social safety net.  It certainly did better in the past when it wasn't crammed down our throats.  We now provide an unlimited safety net... and we are up to our armpits in stray dogs and cats.  Do you know how that happened?  Tell us!

Name:	copperline -	Reply
Subject:	Feed them and they will come
Date:	7/3/2012 4:46:36 PM

This isn’t stray dogs and cats.  i wouldn’t know how to operationalize & implement the ideas you have.  That’s the problem i’m having.  For instance, if children are deserving of our help… you can’t really give it to them without somehow aiding the parents who bore them.  And just telling people to stop having children isn’t working, that’s why we try sex education and fund planned parenthood.  if people were always practical and rational, generous and self-disciplined this wouldn’t be such a problem.  

i’d be the first to admit that social programs have more in common with blunt instruments than scalpels though.   

An idea like ending assistance at some arbitrary point sounds good, but isn’t simple to apply.   Cutting people off comes with an immediate cost in human terms, cutting an adult off means their children go, too.     When you look at the food stamp program and see some people buy junk food, i don’t like it.     Same with cigarettes.   But you can’t throw the entire baby out with the bathwater.   And when it comes right down to it, you can’t easily make distinctions between those that need and those that don’t, those who will use the program to pull themselves out of a hole and those who just stay stuck.    A 6 month window of assistance won’t do that.     Over the years, i just comforted myself with the notion that most people won’t choose to be poor if they can help it, nor would they put up with the humiliations and hassles of the welfare system if they can get to a better alternative. 

The safety net isn’t unlimited, i assure you.   i’ve sent many a person out of my office having no idea how they were going to make it because there was no program, no funds, & little to no personal capacity to solve their predicament.   i once sent a fellow out of the ER who was completely delusional but had no insurance, and the next day he wrestled a gun away from a policeman and caused the local elementary school to have to be shut down.   Other people wanted to work couldn’t walk the distance to the job that was available.  it gets complicated quickly and there are no easy answers that i can see.  

i’m concerned too that we are in for a more difficult future….. and i vacillate between thinking about the suffering of individuals & a dispassionate macro-economic view sometimes.   But in the end, we talking about real people, not theory. 

Name:	MAJ USA RET -	Reply
Subject:	Don't feed them and they will still come
Date:	7/3/2012 5:21:29 PM

And, if new solutions… somewhere outside of the current box… maybe “tough love” solutions… are not found, the entire system will collapse. The truly needy, the indigent, the producers, and the entrepreneurs… will all go down. 

If you think that’s Draconian.  Then you aren’t watching what’s happening in Greece.  And we will watch that get even worse.  We have people in this country buying ammo because they apprehend that the “have nots” will come to their house and take their hoards of food by force.

Far fetched? Please, tell me the definition of looting.

Name:	copperline -	Reply
Subject:	Darwin and the Republic
Date:	7/3/2012 7:44:50 PM

i really agree with you that people should have to live with the consequences of their choices.   As a general principle, it’s spot on.   But the devil is in the details & consequences of how you make that happen.   Some of the choices we are talking about are mistakes that have lasting consequences not just on the individual but on people in the social network around them.    Most people would agree that we have to have safety net protection for innocent bystanders (like unwanted children).     A grandparent who has to quit their job to provide care for the grands is a fair example.  if we provide daycare so grandma can keep working, are we just encouraging her dead-beat kids to keep churning out babies?

And what about the reasons that people make the choices that they do?  Doesn’t education, imagination, opportunity, culture, values and religious belief create the choices we see?    Seems to me that people don’t respond to crisis the way we want them to… they respond with choosing the path least threatening & most familiar.  

For instance, a guy loses his factory job because of changes in the industry.  We might think it’s a good idea for him to assess his future employment prospects, & get retrained quickly with new skills so he can move his family to the next state where a different job can be found.   in practice, he is more likely to try to refrain from changing too much, uprooting his family too much.  His choice to stay in place after the jobs have left is illogical and full of risk….if his choice leads to poverty, do we want to just ignore him & hope that he figures it out? 

in the 1920’s, my (ex)wife’s grandfather lost his leg while working on the railroad.  He succumbed a few years later, but a one-legged man couldn’t do farm work.  There was no social security, no social safety net…. His wife and two young sons eked by in disparate poverty for many years.  Eventually, the sons got an education and good job skills, went to work and pulled out of poverty completely.   They were industrious, but also very lucky.    When i was young, a friend’s Dad committed suicide leaving his wife, two sons and a daughter behind.   Social Security made it possible for all of them to go to right on to college where they got advanced degrees, but without suffering the grueling effects of poverty.    They were industrious, but also very lucky.   The welfare system made choices available to them that otherwise may not have existed, but they had to carry their own water.   

So, both examples have pretty good outcomes, but which one would you bet to have the better chances of keeping that next generation out of poverty?   With safety net, or without?