Awhile back, you asked how I saw these various idealogies, and it is a fair question, so I thought I would give it a shot. I've got a little bit of free time this morning.<br />I can best portray them with some specific experiences.<br /><br />I was the manager of an operation in Northern Ontario, employing about 70 people, and a time not too long ago, Ontario had some of the most generous welfare system going.<br />One day, I was sitting in a restaurant and I overheard a conversation that a kid was having with a bunch of his high school buddies. It seems his girlfriend at one point wanted to move away from home, but in Northern Ontario that is kind of expensive. Ontario had a very generous mother's allowance program, however, so the obvious solution to her problem was to get pregnant. A job doesn't even exist in Northern Ontario that would pay a young girl what she could get off mother's allowance, and allow her to afford to move away from home. Ah, but that's not the end of it. This young guy said that he could also get on welfare by dropping out of high school, and attending alternative education, and he could live with his girlfriend, and if she was attending alternative schooling as well, the Province of Ontario would even pay him to babysit his own kid!!! He said it was great--they had a decent home, he had a pickup truck, and a brand new snow machine--what else could anyone want?<br /><br />His buddies were listening intently.<br /><br />Several years later, and finally, a new government was elected in Ontario, and they finally came to the conclusion that the government of Ontario could simply no afford this, and able bodied men, at least, were going to be kicked off welfare. I was the one responsible for doing the hiring, and after the new program took over, I got a ton of applications and resumes. One in particular caught my eye, and I had to bring the guy in for an interview. He was an apparently able bodied man in his mid 30's, and as near as I could tell, he had worked a total of 6 mos in his life, and never more than 2 months at any one job.<br />Who was possibly going to hire this guy? It is a workers comp case waiting to happen. Certainly not I, and of course I had no intention of hiring him ever. I just wanted to hear his story. If that sounds a bit cruel, well then I plead guilty.<br /><br />In some sort of perverse way, you had to feel sorry for him, though. He had been lulled into thinking he could get by without doing anything, and the government pulled the rug out from under him--What is he going to do now, and who is going to hire him? I don't know. It wasn't going to be me.<br /><br />But these are obviously flawed government plans.<br /><br />There is probably some climate reasons for some of Ontario's generousity, and it is hard to have much of a homeless population when it gets to 30 below on a frequent basis.<br /><br />On the other hand, despite what the declaration of independence says, all men are not created equal, and some have more ability than others. Some don't get the proper training to know how to function in the work world, for whatever reason. To simply tell them "fend for yourselves" is, in my view, equally cruel.<br /><br />Some time ago, I was reading of a private program in New York city sponsored by the Nordstrom corporation that was a voluntary no-nosense program teaching people how to be employable, down to the very basics, in how to dress and look presentable, how to show up on time to work every day, etc. They had a fair drop-out rate, but they also had a fair success rate, and the ones that did succeed really turned their lives around. They could not have done it without help.<br /><br />So somewhere in a civilized country there has to be some sort of balance between the two--you simply cannot discard people that for whatever reason cannot function in society, nor do you want to make it so they do not have to function in society to make it.<br />Everyone's circumstances and capabilities are different, and to just tell them "I made it, so you can too" seems harsh and simplistic to me. And while everyone can cite evidence of someone lifting themselves out of their circumstance to better their lives, to assume that if one can do it, all can, is wishful thinking.<br /><br />So, in my view, somehow somewhere in a society in the richest country in the world, there needs to be some balance between helping people out, giving them everything they could possibly need, or just throwing them out to "sink or swim".<br /><br />And I do think we were on track during the Clinton years, as with a greater than 96% employment rate, it is hard to imagine that welfare give-aways was America's number one concern.
<br /><br />Seiously though, I find it hard to reconcile this post with many of your others. Do you just enjoy playing Devil's advocate 99% of the time just to stir the pot or what? Have you been sandbagging us?
