The welfare state (or who's got your back?)

I'm all for the welfare state. While I like to see people take personal responsibility in their lives, not everyone can do that. Some people are incompetent, mentally disturbed, down on their luck, or for one reason or another, incapable of working. And some people, like my own brother would love to work but have had their jobs, and all of the ones like them, sent offshore so companies can make ever more profit through virtual slave labor.

And in the meantime people like my brother are told to find new jobs or get re-educated. Yeah, right. My brother got more education and there are still no jobs. And so now he has lost everything, his home, his car, his savings, everything. Gone. He has been reduced to zero. And after 5 years of looking and schooling and looking some more, out of desperation he took a job as a hotel clerk for $8 bucks an hour. How is he supposed to live off that? And he still doesn’t have a car.

Where my brother once had a good middleclass job and the American dream, it has been turned into a nightmare. And rather than caring for it’s citizens, especially its poor, America cares nothing unless you are a celebrity or rich or both.

America does not have my brother’s back. He is a Vietnam Vet who still carries shrapnel in his head from battlefield injuries and who has won the Purple Heart and Bronze Star for his battlefield experience. He answered the call and put his life on the line for this country and America does not have his back.

If America cares nothing for my brother, I guess I should not be surprised that America does not have the backs of the incompetent, mentally disturbed, or other people incapable of working or down on their luck either. You want them to work? Are you going to hire them? If not, what are they supposed to do? Die? That was the Nazi solution. Is that what America wants? Is that the kind of society we are? What does that say about us?

For me, I would rather have the type of society that cares for the least of us, giving help to those who need it, the poor, not those who don’t, the rich. And I will gladly pay my taxes to support welfare rather than supporting war, especially illegal, immoral wars based on lies! Yes, I am all for the welfare state and I see it as something to be god damn proud of! Thanks for reading my rant.

Stumble It!