Category Archives: Welfare

There is an interesting discussion about Perry and Gardasil at Legal Insurrection. Two of the regular contributors disagree. Personally, I’m with Jacobson.

http://legalinsurrection.com/2011/09/its-not-about-the-gardasil/

It reminds me of the debate that Dearest and I had. He is usually more conservative than I am, but he was so incensed about the mosque at Ground Zero that he supported whichever GOP gubernatorial candidate it was who said he’d force the issue if he got elected by using eminent domain or something to ban the building.

I hate the mosque too, but I utterly oppose the government swooping in to make it all better. That solution is tempting, I’ll grant you. It’s fast and easy. Gets the job done all at once. BUT … it also opens the door for lots and lots of other, less righteous intrusions into our lives.

How many times have we seen this happen?

It’s been the Democrat’s modus operandi for decades to use individual sob stories to guilt people into voting for policy changes that end up wreaking  havoc on society, causing more sob stories and harming far more individuals than if the government had left well enough alone.

Just one case in point … poor, unwed mothers. Yes, they need food and shelter. BUT rather than seeing this as a job for charity, Democrats turned it into a job for government. And before very long, rather than help the small number of sob story moms, we had a family-destroying welfare system that rewarded women for procreating without getting married.

And from there, we got a whole lot of fatherless boys who grew into manhood without becoming men, who joined gangs instead of marrying, getting jobs and raising their kids to be responsible citizens and parents themselves. The single biggest predictor of criminal behavior is fatherlessness. And we created that with welfare because we couldn’t see that charity and government are supposed to BOTH function in society.

CHARITY should be LIBERAL: Concerned with the individual sob stories. Person to person.

GOVERNMENT should be CONSERVATIVE: Concerned with what is best for most. Looking at the big picture and future consequences.

I think the LOCAL community should work out the mosque issue. E.g., if union workers refuse to work, it’s gonna be tough to build anything in NYC.

Pro-Lifers are getting good results with this grassroots method. They’ve stopped many abortion clinics from ever opening simply by informing the landlord, neighbors and contractors of what the “women’s health clinic” was really going to be doing.  I saw an interview with one Hispanic carpenter who said he thought they were working on a good thing, building a place that would help women. The instant he learned it was for abortions, he walked off the job.

This kind of thing takes longer and is a lot more work than passing a law, but it has untold benefits beyond preventing future government abuses. It builds community. The people who work together to stop something bad happening in their own community get to know one another. They form bonds amongst themselves and with the people and the place they live in. From there, it’s a short step to neighbors keeping an eye on one another and on neighborhood property. E.g., more charity, less violence and vandalism.

These are the issues that made me not just hold my nose and register Republican because the Right to Life party folded, but really embrace Conservative ideals and become a proud Right Wingnut. MY VALUES NEVER CHANGED. I still care about people who are hurting and needy. I just have a much more informed view about how we, as a society, should go about helping them.