Rethinking Entitlements

Personally, I don't get how anyone can think higher taxes to our problems is a solution. Higher taxes burden the wrong people - those in the middle.

Maybe once upon a time (higher) taxes worked but that's when the welfare state and economy (along wtih lower debts and higher GDP rates) were different. Today, it's simply an inefficient and insufficient answer to what we face in the West. At some point, higher taxes ceases to be for the good of society and transfers into immoral confiscation.

Then there's a serious social ill which stress any benefits taxes can offer: Entitlements. The sense of entitlement, and this is just my perception, is out of control. Any pragmatic progressive or liberal knows this is a problem. Talk to any teacher as I do on an almost daily basis and this observation is felt.

See, again only as I perceive it, when they spoke of their (liberal) agenda, it was a time when they could not foresee a fall from our financial grace. They spoke in a time when everyone pulled their weight; when a citizen said to their peers, "hey, you're not helping me by doing what you don't do." There was a sense of belonging, of belief, of country. It truly was a great experiment worth a try.

There was a sense of honor and dignity.

For those who chose to abstain from giving their best, well, a type of social banishment awaited them. End of story.

Today, we don't even pretend to care or believe in self-sacrifice. We don't feel a sense of duty to one another because there is a belief - conditioned over time during the Welfare Age - the government will take care of...well, us.

I fimrly believe the liberals of the past stand with our contemporaries who worry about the state of affairs and not with their modern philosophical brethren who seem to compute anything socialistic as a proper means to an end. In other words, it must be done. You'll see, you'll love it.

As people who read this blog know, I always reject this sort of argument or logic.

My point is government assistance is not (always) an evil. It becomes an evil when it enables incompetence and unacceptable behavior detrimental to the rest of society.

At this point, if we haven't succeeded in solving problems we set out to solve then a new strategy should be explored if not demanded.

At this point, those parts of the system that have failed but survive nonetheless - where vested interests nothing to do with aiding people persist - is all that keeps this wretched monstrosity alive while feeding off the productive.

Alas, it should no longer be viewed through a label prism - liberal, conservative, progressive etc. - but one of a sane, sensible attitude set to reinvigorate our moral, physical and intellectual existence.