2017.11.06 Poverty and Government

Much needs to be said on government, handouts and poverty. People who have access to flat screens and smart phones are not actually destitute, or in 'poverty', they have food and shelter.

SNAP program is not a failure because people abuse it. Many pharmaceuticals are abused but are still useful.

The cyclical reliance on handouts is not 'poverty across the generations," it is, rather, the same mentality that corporate and the very rich have, entitlement and willingness to exploit loopholes. They are winners in the sense of being successful in competition for resources. We are not talking morality, only raw competition.

The real poor are those who are disabled in some way and unable to compete. Here the government (that is, society at large) has the moral obligation to help.

Conflation of poverty and those who exploit the system does not clarify the issue of helping those who cannot help themselves in the maintenance of shelter and decent meals.

We need to approach real poverty as a medical, legal and social problem, given the fact that fixing poverty in one generation may be detrimental to the next generation. What comes to mind is the analogy of antibiotics: This generation and the previous generation have been saved from dying because of antibiotics, but their descendants face superbugs. And, so it evolves.

I think America is a giant smorgasbord of which everyone is either in awe or plans to get their fill. Some people are greedier than others. But all of us keep trying to make the world a better place, well, maybe 61% try to make it a better place. Some don't try and some want to dominate at any cost.

TL;DR Poverty and government are deeply misunderstood. Poverty is different from getting welfare. And Government is different from the will of the people.