Mismanaging our compassion
Americans are a compassionate people. It is ingrained in our collective being and can be discerned in much that we do. Americans give freely and give often to those in need — both at home and abroad — and do so more than any other nation on Earth. But is there a point at which even compassion-driven giving brings about more harm than good?
Before continuing, it is important to note that the following is no fact-choked treatise on the condition of today's burgeoning welfare state. Rather, what follows are mullings stemming from observation, not only witnessed on the streets of life but gleaned from the casual intake of events and changes in social attitudes over time. However, even an abstract view may contain a degree of objectivity.
Aid without accountability
A review of our historical support programs coupled with an honest assessment of modern assistance methods reveal disturbing trends. It appears that our compassion, the innate engine powering our willingness to help those who truly need, has gradually been transmuted to impersonal dispensation without the challenges of human interaction, guidance toward self-help, or a rekindling of self-respect.
It is the human-driven elements, the most important components of meaningful welfare that are slowly being canceled from the equation as the nation surreptitiously yet inexorably slides toward becoming an authoritarian hospice state. Those same crucial elements are also the most difficult and demanding to provide when administered by a detached central authority.
Can any person be content or self-respecting when he or she is routinely rationed a meal or is handed a dollar from a stranger? Certainly there is a minute segment of any population that is satisfied, sometimes calculatingly so, with such handouts. But by and large, we Americans prefer to think that most people in need are upset with their plight and wish to do something about it, especially by their own efforts.
But it appears likely that today's administrators and avid supporters of our modern welfare state expect that people can indeed be satisfied with subsisting on handouts. Those who control the money in big government and within our society believe that giving pocket change at the bus depot or appropriating a few billion dollars for federally-subsidized housing can cure all that ails the poor and the homeless.
And based upon recent results, it may be that many of the social statists who hold the reins of control believe that generally, such people in need really do not wish to take personal responsibility for bettering their lives — or even have the capacity to do so. This is not only condescending, it is demeaning.
The manner in which we have developed our monolithic welfare assistance programs not only is a crisis with its roots in a centralized government authority, but one with less obvious facets as well. No good can arise from private secular charities that indiscriminately distribute aid as though dispensing penny candy, all the while ignoring the moral and spiritual needs of those facing difficulties.
Those who truly need must not be given a block of cheese or a subsistence allowance without the tough love and support required for them to "learn to earn" — to learn to respect themselves, develop the strength to acknowledge and master personal responsibility, to cultivate pride in personal accomplishment, and strive toward meaningful societal contribution.
To do less is dehumanizing, and there is little doubt that some of those same bureaucrats who derive satisfaction from such actions afford their house pets more dignity, respect, and personal interaction.
The Deprecation of faith and morality
Before the strengthening of America's pervasive, secular socialist movement and its permanent entrenchment in the machinations of federal and state governments, social welfare was primarily administered at the local level. It always began with family but unlike today, the family unit was cherished, protected, and elemental to American life. There was not a village, town, or city that did not have its own private-sector and volunteer organizations that willingly dispensed assistance to the needy — but with a stark difference from the impersonal, institutional programs of today.
Such organizations, most always with community churches and synagogues in the vanguard, all incorporated the key components of personal attention, spirituality, self-worth, and of course aid but only in return for an acknowledgement of responsibility and a willingness to better oneself.
In the not-too-distant past, those individuals and organizations who battled poverty were by and large driven by a degree of empathy, compassionate in the literal understanding that means "suffering with." They opened their own homes to deserted women and children in return for household help. They offered employment to men who had abandoned hope and human contact. They clothed, fed, sheltered, and trained. But most importantly, they made moral demands on recipients of aid.
Sadly, that last statement is anathema to America's socialists. The harsh reality is that spirituality and religious affectations of any kind have been bludgeoned and impugned so completely by the radical Left in the last 30 years that the moral and ethical teachings integral to Judeo-Christian doctrine have been largely denied to at least two generations. The significations directly imparted from trivializing personal responsibility and the practice of religious prejudice are Orwellian and should not be taken lightly.
Once upon a time, family, work, freedom, and faith were central to our existence and our national health, and not merely seen as life-style options or peculiar cultish beliefs. Everyone, including the needy, were not allowed to take without giving some kind of honest labor or service in return.
But that was then and this is now. We would be fortunate indeed if just one of today's social workers could be located who administers his or her "client" cases with a foundation that includes spiritual or moral components. Good luck with that.
If we truly cared, what should be could be
Modern welfare as practiced in America today has abandoned those integral components necessary to break the bonds of apathy and hopelessness. Today, those who have been and are being schooled to believe that they cannot cope with or battle free from adversity without the administration of bureaucratic guidance will remain lost and dependent. Nothing of value or substance will ever be accomplished without accenting the importance of richness of spirit and belief in oneself.
Those who benefited from caring parents, or simply competent parents, understand that a sound moral bearing and spiritual awareness are the keys to unleashing the potential that is found within us all. This is particularly true in the United States, where the opportunity exists under our rule of law for literally anything to be possible and any dream to be attained.
There is only so much that public policy can do, even with the structural side of poverty that is endemic in every nation. There is no better example than Lyndon Johnson's failed War On Poverty to illustrate the absurdity of throwing uncountable amounts of money at a problem and expecting it to go away. There must be more; There once was, it worked, and it was predicated from within and not tangibly countable. I know this to be true because it worked for me.
We must learn and implement the fact that compassion means tough love, tough in the sense that those who give must demand self-help from those who receive.