On the indignity of welfare and the beneficence of charity

Another night of insomnia but the timing couldn't be more apt. I find that all I am doing is laying awake at night and thinking about the world around me. It's been weeks since I've really had a good nights sleep. I've even recently, and reluctantly, gotten back on Ambien. Something I have not done in years. I'll post a great story on the reason why as my mind is racing for 1,000 things to write.

To any effect, after great failure in trying to make myself absolutely comatose on 60mg of Ambien (12x what I'm prescribed to take nightly), I've given up on sleep for now. Good thing I recently discovered Steemit. I not only have a place to put these thoughts to rest but also use this time to generate some good content while I can't rest.

Currently racing through my mind is this post a friend of mine, an ardent and immutable acolyte of Bernie Sanders, made on Facebook a couple of days ago:

So, what has me feeling so roughshod that not only have I been suffering from insomnia but also a serious case of "near fatal" depression? The welfare state.

About five months ago I was terminated from my last job because my immediate supervisor demanded we falsify our time sheets and I resisted. My wife had recently had our third child in December and on the same day had a tubal ligation. Suffice to say I decided to try and avoid forced fraud and asked for time off so I could tend to her as she had some lingering issues following the childbirth and surgery. I was approved time off.

All cool, right? Wrong. Upon returning to work I was immediately terminated for "missing too many days." That's right. I missed too many days that my manager gave approval for. Conveniently, this termination occurred just a few days before a Federal audit of the company which included, you guessed it, discussing time cards with employees.

This is the second time I have been terminated in two years and the third job I've lost in the same time frame. I had a great run as a business consultant and government contractor with a Fortune 500 consulting firm. Government budget cuts resulted in company budget cuts that ultimately resulted in my inability to find another contract within the firm. No big as I managed to pick up another contract with another company for an even bigger payout, only working six months a year, and spending that time in Africa.

This is where the first termination came in and, to be honest, I mostly considered it a good thing. For one, I'm a seven time deployed combat veteran and wholly burned out on the whole deal. For another, my marriage was beginning to falter and I don't think we would have weathered such a difficult time under that kind of work schedule. Additionally, it was around this time period that I had an ideological shift toward anarchism and wanted to get out of government work anyway. Bonus.

Fortunately for me I had a hefty amount of savings, a heck of a mounting career built over a span of six years, had recently (finally!) finished a degree in business management, and all of the confidence in the world I was going to land a great job in corporationland. Unfortunately, it's been a sluggish economy and the best I came up with was a vastly underpaying job installing satellite TV services.

I had a lot of overhead during this period. With a meager salary, my savings disappeared relatively quick and even more quickly I found myself falling behind financially. In order to stop the bleed and get myself right, I, like a domestic abuse victim, returned to the world of government contracting in the form of a company I had worked with before el Fortune 500-o and later found myself getting terminated from.

Savings toasted.

The timing could not have been worse. I had just started to get all of my finances caught up. I also had to swallow a hard pill by selling one of my two homes. Poor me, right? Well, this home had a lot of sentimental value as it was where my wife and I began to raise our first daughter and we had hopes that after a period of using it as a rental to keep up with payments that we would be able to move back. The mortgage was eight months behind and we had to sell it quick so I also had to take a $30,000 bath. So long equity!

I, being the ever optimist, once again set out confidently that I would gain some meaningful and well-paying work. After all, I learned my lesson the first time. Surely I would quickly sail into another job and not have to empty my bank of what savings we managed to put away. Wrong.

Captain's log: our ship was disabled by an Obama economic recovery and it has been five months since we have seen anything remotely resembling a job. Crew morale is low as we drift helplessly toward the black hole of homelessness.

Wait...homelessness? Didn't you say you sold ONE of your houses? Damn, now I have to take that off the pop quiz because you were paying attention. We only had one other, also using it as a rental for income, and are now about three months behind on it. I can almost hear the familiar sound of equity about to splash down in porcelain town.

Morgan Freeman narrates As a man who has long prided himself on a solid history of providing for his family, he emerged from the first unemployment/underemployment strong. Not only did he right the economic ship, he also did so without any government assistance. As a budding anarchist, he made note of the fact that a down period can be weathered when one seeks the goodwill of his neighbors. Having done so, he was able to not only generate kind donations from friends and family but also generate some very kind donations from perfect strangers on crowd funding sites like GoFundMe. He managed to keep a stable home for his wife and kids and even managed subsistence through local churches and charities. But still, the place you live in is that much more gray and empty that they’re gone. I guess I just miss my friend.

record screeches Scratch that last part.

The great thing about all of that is the love you feel from those around you and from those afar when you ask for help and you receive it. Better yet, is the confidence you gain when you know there are generous people who give within their means during a period when they are able to get it. Best of all, I received that help without the employ of a third party to coerce it from anyone. This is the beneficence of charity.

On this current round of unemployment, my family has been able to manage again on charity for the most part. At least sufficiently enough to pay rent, utilities, and provide sustenance for my family. The jury is still out on whether or not we can prevent repossession of our two cars, another equity turd, or stall overdue debts (doctors bills, credit cards, and the like) trickling into collections agencies. Did you just hear that squishy sound? That was my credit score committing hari kari.

At least it has a sense of humor.

Unfortunately, savings this time around were slim and, despite best efforts, we had to enroll in the SNAP program. I would like to first start by apologizing to all of you unfortunate tax payers for having to forcefully pick up my end. I do so with an enduring sense of shame. As times have grown harder and harder, the very real possibility that this may actually have to be a choice weighed very heavy on my heart.

Such was my shame to even consider government assistance a possibility that I, at times, would sink into such a state of depression that suicide crossed my mind. I mean, what a deep sense of failure it is to feel helpless to provide for one's own family. Worse yet is to provide for one's family behind the barrel of the gun of government. Honestly, I think I would feel more dignified if I had at least met the discharge from the south end of a north facing .45 while attempting to rob my neighbor directly. Such is the indignity of welfare.

I'm in sweet home Alabama so this would probably be more accurate.

But, you say, you paid into the system! You're just getting your money back. No...NO!!! Let's just put aside the fact that much of government spending is based on a monetary system that is structured on debt. Let's, just for a moment, ignore the fact that this debt will be strapped onto the backs of our children and their children's children for who knows how many generations. Let's just take that statement in it's current form and examine it in the limited perspective for which such logic is derived.

Prior to our exodus from the glory days of working for the F500, we lived in California. Accounting for local, state, and federal taxes, I paid annually an amount close to the MEDIAN INCOME of households in the United States. With the income that was stolen just from me alone, I could have gone several years kicking funemployment on some beach in Hawaii on. my. own. dime.

After considering that, take a moment to ponder what I got "back" in light of what was taken. Now, take your dominant hand and hold it as far away from your face as you can. Immediately light speed that bitch right across your face as many times as is necessary to stimulate brain activity. I will wait.

Stop. Don't stop.

OK. For those of you who managed to not cave your face in, by now you're probably saying something on the order of, "Dude, what the hell does this have to do with religion and poverty? You, like, left that FB post, like, an hour ago."

You've a keen eye, my friend, even if it is black and swollen!

"If we so eagerly gave to the poor as we have given to the Church, the poor would not exist."

This has probably got to be one of the most absurd statements I have read in quite a while. In 2014, the Federal government spent about 404 billion dollars on welfare. In that same year, an estimated 216 billion was donated to churches. These two numbers pretty much make the argument for me. For the slow, I shall elaborate.

Let's start by checking the census data for the same year. "In 2014, the official poverty rate was 14.8 percent. There were 46.7 million people in poverty. Neither the poverty rate nor the number of people in poverty were statistically different from the 2013 estimates."

http://www.census.gov/library/publications/2015/demo/p60-252.html

Wait, what? All that cheerful giving to the government and poverty is not statistically different? Pull the other one!

That is just one line pulled from the data. Read them all and you will see either "no statistical difference" or "poverty increased." 404 billion dollars confiscated from the public and the poor are no better off, or worse, than they were the year before. Somehow, by some miracle, if people would just stop donating to the churches and gleefully hand that 216 billion over, poverty would be vanquished!

Only in the mind of a Socialist, free of anything remotely resembling logic, would cheerful giving to a mostly charitable institution < redistributionist schemes. No wonder they all got a free education from Bernie Sanders when he endorsed Hillary Clinton. Not only is this idea devoid of logic, but so is their glee when they praise these programs thinking they are actually doing the poor a favor!

Why not Powerball?

NO!!! You are keeping them in a miserable state by reducing the job creating potential of the free market. As you have seen, I can personally attest to this state of misery. Welfare, even just being on one program, is robbing us of our dignity. There is no sense of community to it. There is no sense of love. There is rarely a sense of gratitude (BTW, thank you for your sacrifice. I personally aim to ditch this program ASAP). And, to top it off, it never seems to be enough! The more that is forced out of the hands of others, the more that is demanded. Where is the benevolence in any of that?

It's simply not there.

If we don't stop with this foolishness, along with all other government tax and spend schemes, charitable contributions will steadily dwindle as less and less people have disposable income to give and more people are sucked into poverty as taxes rise.

Poverty will not end via government programs. Poverty honestly won't end without them. Poverty is the natural state and that is not necessarily a bad thing. There is dignity in pulling oneself up by the bootstrap, even if you don't have one and have to instead tug on a metaphor. There is humility in having to verbally ask your neighbor for help. There is nothing short of a beneficence when a neighbor has the means and helps you.

Now, ask yourself, would you rather steal the dignity from your neighbor or would you actually like to do something meaningful with a true sense of charity?

If you still think government theft is a good idea, please resume slapping yourself.