This sink-hole thread will shortly become a contest between the
pompous right and the leftist pinkos. There's no doubting that
success breeds self esteem and that such is often followed by
sanctimony and a burning rage to stamp out any who don't qualify.
Strangely, there is the same relationship between those who consider
ownership of money to constitute success whether achieved through
political connections, luck, birthright or competence.
Then there are those who connect the will to succeed with the right
to money ownership making the assumption that if someone doesn't
succeed, he doesn't have the will. This circular reasoning leads to
the idea that giving money to those who apparently don't have the
will to work enures them to a life of luxury provided at the expense
of those who do have the will.
Never doubting their own dogma, and pushing aside the notion that
the will of the mentally retarded, disabled, ignorant, uneducated,
infantile and diseased burns as brightly as their own, they want to
complain about social welfare. Some political ass hasn't achieved
their level of clarity and doesn't see the connection- will:success.
Having achieved his self-respect, he tends it and admires it in the
lofty air above those in poverty and who struggle to survive. When
you are at this level of self admiration its hard to remember that
the range of affluence from abject poverty to Bill Gates wealth has
a mean that is not achieved by roughly 20% of the population.
Moreover, as the percapita income level increases, the 20% remains
the same- 1 to 2 standard deviations below "average". Like
prostitution, "poverty" will always exist for 1/5th of the
population.
That 20% is no different in the Philippines. Its true that those in
the "average" range live lives that by 1st world standards are
considered poor, but, these aren't the people who are begging. Its
also true that those who are 1 to 2 standard deviations above
average have the power and the intent to retain their advantage.
Noting the relationship between poverty and crime doesn't mitigate
against will power. In fact it testifies to the will to act.
Citing the stats between index crimess and expressing the obvious
relationship between poverty and robbery isn't surprising, if you
don't have it, get it.
If you have been lucky enough, inherited enough, earned enough, or
are politically connected enough, you may have found yourself in or
above the average range. If you are diseased, handicapped, unlucky,
had no rich relatives who cared for you, weren't politically
connected, or lacked the ability to obtain work that paid in the
average range, while you still have the will, you are in the below
average range and according to the posts below, you should learn
from this lesson in welfare.
MOreover, according to the post below, poor people lack will power
and hence self respect. It should be noted that the faux connection
between financial success and self respect has nothing to do with
will power. Poor people respect themselves as greatly as the rich.
Self respect is dependent on positive, functional value systems.
Abjectly poor people also have positive values.
So what are we to do with these mistakes in life? Referring to the
delightful 1750's article, maybe we should fatten them up as babies
and consume them- leaving aside the breeders of course. But, lets
make sure the ones we eat are in the below average category, no one
would want to make a mistake and consume an important, well to do,
self-respecting, willful soul, it may be too rich for the system.
Mike M.
--- In LivingInThePhilippi
<justonlybea@
>
> as uri88 so succintly put it, you want to destroy a group of
people,
> put them on the dole. from being grateful for it, they progress
to
> thinking they deserve it, until the day comes when the expectation
> is that it's as much a right as, say, the right to life, liberty,
> and property.
>
> --- In LivingInThePhilippi
> <andre_westbrook@
> >
> >
> > Last week, I spoke to a Filipino medic who had spent several
> months
> > in the UK. At first he was highly impressed by what he found; he
> > thought he had encountered a higher civilisation. No one went
> hungry,
> > no one was abandoned to his fate, everyone was treated to the
best
> of
> > the doctor's abilities. No distress, however caused, failed to
> evoke
> > any attemtpt to relieve it.
> >
> > 'If only we could have your welfare system,' he said.
> >
> > Some months later, his views had altered considerably. He had
> noticed
> > a strange indefinable malaise among many of the Brits he.
Although
> > fortunate by the standards of Manila slum-dwellers, they lacked
> life
> > and spirit. They were bored and malcontent, and yet apparently
> > unwilling to do anything to alleviate their situation. It did
not
> > take him long to make a connection between this state of
suspended
> > but disgruntled animation and the welfare system which,
initially,
> he
> > had thought so humane.
> >
> > The idea behind giving people welfare is noble. It was too
> alleviate
> > the dire social and economic conditions countries like America,
> > Britian and Germany found themselves in during the 1930s. And
who
> > would wish for a return to 1930s style unemployment and
> depression?
> > But the fact is welfare undermines notions of self-respect and
> over
> > time cultivates a social pathology which in America ultimately
> > required zero tolerance to even begin to turn back the tide of
> anti-
> > social behaviour on the streets of large American cities.
> >
> > Undoubtedly, there are those posters who will flick through
their
> > college books on liberal social studies courses and insist that
> there
> > is a statistical relationship between poverty and crime. In
fact,
> the
> > explosion of crime in countries as diverse as Brazil and the UK
is
> > soley down to a weakening of law and order and ineffective
courts
> > which give sentences that are too lenient.
> >
> > What the Filipnions do not need is yet more welfare and charity
> from
> > those who insist that all Westerners in the Philippines
> have "excess
> > finances". I am sure there are many here who go to the
Philippines
> > with no more than a pension and some savings to live on. If so,
do
> > not allow the liberals here to persuade you that you are
obligated
> to
> > give, give and give again. Do not let them persuade you that to
> judge
> > people as unworthy of your help is a sin - to give money to an
> idle
> > man is to encourage him in his idleness just as to give money to
> the
> > drunk is simply to prolong his dependence on alcohol. Above all,
> > insist that if you do give money it is spent on something useful
> or
> > worthwhile and that it is for the highest good of all concerned.
> >
>
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