The various “wars on poverty,” which have gone by various names, but started with FDR, and have continued ever since, are a disgrace, and a blight on our once free nation. John 12:8 has Jesus saying that “The poor will always be with you,” and that is absolutely true. Throughout history, and not just ours, but every nation in history, there have always been the poor. A famous Jewish proverb states that, ’poverty is half laziness.’ It is impossible to eliminate poverty, because every human that ever lived, has different characteristics, brain power, social levels, birth situations, heredity, race, and all live under various governments, and historical situations. POVERTY CANNOT BE ELIMINATED! FDR, in his second inaugural address said, “I see one-third of nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.” That was over 75 years ago, and in spite of hundreds of billions spent, it’s still that way. Welfare and government handouts, has destroyed the moral fabric of America, and bankrupted us. Forty four years ago, Kentucky journalist John Pearce wrote, ” I don’t think it ever occurred to any of us, that the New Deal legacy would be a welfare system that today supports millions who have neither prospect nor intention of earning their own living.”
All the wars on poverty, are merely handouts by governments to garner votes for the party who gives largess, and it’s usually Democrats, but not always. All the government welfare ’programs,’ (is there a more horrid word than ’programs?’), are merely taking from the haves, without their permission, and bestowing unearned largess on those who are deemed to be poor, by ridiculous standards. The more money they print, the less it is worth, thanks to deficit spending, wars, and what seems to be hundreds or thousands of ’programs,’ which steal from us all, by reducing the value of our dollars. When government gives to some, it has to take away from others. As a current bumper strip reads, “Fairness isn’t giving my money to lazy people.” Or: “Don’t spread my wealth; spread my work ethic.” Or: “Government doesn’t work. Please return my taxes.” Or: “Republicans work hard so you don’t have to.” Or: “I’m Republican, because we can’t all be on welfare.”
Wars on poverty, merely ruin the recipients, be it 2 years of unemployment handouts, public housing, food stamps, Medicare Medicaid, or hundreds of handouts too numerous to even count. Statistics show that unemployed people begin to look for work, when the two years of benefits are up. They’d look immediately, if they lost their jobs and had no handouts. Why look for work, if you get more money by not working, than if you work? Why work to feed yourself, if government gives you food stamps? Why work for housing, if you get free housing at public housing projects? Why worry about feeding your kids, if you can make a career out of having many illegitimate kids, and getting a handout for each one? There are thousands of usually fat, worthless, lazy, female, public housing residents, who have made a career of raising a dozen or more fatherless kids, and being supported by government. The kids will turn out as their mother turned out, and that is criminal, lazy, gang members, usually.
Temple University in Philadelphia, is in a bad neighborhood, surrounded by public housing. Attendance is withering, because of the rapes, robberies, muggings and violence committed by the public housing residents in the neighborhood. When Temple was founded in 1884 by Russell Conwell, the neighborhood was fine. Conwell was a pastor whose best known speech and pamphlet was titled “Acres of Diamonds.” Temple has over 600 security cameras, and over 130 full time campus police who are as fully trained as Philadelphia police, but the violence continues. America’s first public housing, (1937, under FDR), was not far from Temple, and is still there, although it has been demolished and rebuilt many times, due to violence of its residents. When I lived in Philly, I had a chain of ten ice cream parlors. Store # 7 was in a white neighborhood, but a high rise public housing project was a few blocks up Ridge Ave, and the violence created by those scum, was unbelievable.
Yeah, I know, “You’re old, and this is 2013. You’ve got to get rid of all those ancient prejudices.” Oh yeah? Sorry, I am a lover of America before FDR, before welfare, public housing, gangs, heinous crime, and millions of worthless vagrants destroying the major cities. My ancient prejudices remember American history, when poverty ridden Jews occupied the lower east side of New York. They worked for slave wages, raised their kids to obey, work, and be responsible. They kept themselves clean, and their hovels clean also. They worked, slaved, and made it. San Levensen (google the name) was a wonderful comedian, who was born in 1911, in abject poverty in the lower east side, and one of his best quotes, is, “It was on my fifth birthday, that my poppa put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Remember my son, if you ever need a helping hand, you’ll find one at the end of your arm.” Like that? Here’s another Levensen quote: “Any kid who has two parents who are interested in him, and has a houseful of books, isn’t poor.” Or another, which also applies to those who are in poverty: “Don’t watch the clock. Do what it does, keep going.” How about Ben Franklin, who once wrote in Poor Richard’s Almanac, “Laziness travels so slowly, that poverty soon overtakes him.”
I am certainly not against volunteerism, meaning voluntarily helping those who need it, if that person deserves it. I won’t help someone I don’t know. Why should I? I know plenty of people who need help, and I help them. Taxing everyone, and giving it to some bureaucrat who decides who gets my money, is utterly WRONG. It creates ever more poverty and laziness. If I were President, I’d eliminate all handouts on a ten year, gradual basis. Ten percent a year in all fields. Tear down ten percent of public housing each year, and cut out ten percent of food stamps and other handouts each year, and no new entrants. At the end of ten years, the crime rate would be cut ten percent a year, deficits by ten percent a year (if we were neutral anyway), and by the end of the ten year period, we might be a wonderful nation once again.
P.S. Like funny bumper strips? Try these, which were forwarded to me by a friend. “How long before you will admit that Obama was a mistake?” Or: “Obama and God have only one thing in common: No birth certificate. The difference is, God doesn’t think he’s Obama!”