Saturday, November 9, 2013

Welfare - Hand up or Oppression from the Top Down - Entitlement vs Welfare

I read a lot of different blogs. I have many interests, that is for sure, and being self-sufficient and living a sustainable life is important to me. I follow a particular blog, Paratus Familia Blog (www.paratusfamiliablog.com) because I find the author, Enola Gay (yes a psuedonym for those of you who are history savy), to be a great teacher of sustainable living. Enola and her family live in a very small "shouse" (a shop they have made a house) and she blogs about their life, a good portion of which focuses on Prepping.

I am in awe of her. She cooks almost exclusively on a traditional wood burning stove, grows her food, preserves her harvest, home educates her children, and writes about her adventures while living the life she and her husband dreamed of. Recently she produced a cookbook, The Prepared Family Cookbook, for those who wish to learn to cook using a traditional wood burning stove and ingredients that you would preserve as a "prepper." Sometimes she has a magical way of putting her feelings down and I found her blogpost of October 22 of this year to be PERFECT. She expresses EXACTLY how I feel about welfare and personal dignity. While she and I are not of the same religion, we are of the same value system. I encourage you to read her entire post about Accountability in Charity. I could not agree more with her assessment:

And really, why would we expect anything different.  Every day, millions of people in our country take money they didn't earn and consume services they didn't pay for.  Our government, in their misguided attempt to provide a social safety net, has encouraged generations of Americans to become thieves.  We have taught people to freely take - no, demand - what they didn't earn.  We have taught them that they are incapable of providing for themselves short of voting for the politician that will provide them with the biggest "paycheck".  Our government has encouraged promiscuity, slothfulness and lying.  They have invested billions to ensure a compliant, dependent citizenry, all under the guise of helping the "underprivileged".

I normally try to stay away from very controversial topics simply due to the passionate nature of them, but in this case I could not agree more with the author. She succinctly sums up my thoughts on the current entitlement vs welfare conflict which worries me so.

What do you think? Do you agree or disagree? Share your opinion in the comments.