A SCATHING INDICTMENT AGAINST THE SLOTHFUL

Some people harbor a bitter vile disdain for TRUTH. Even when it is logical, truth is still sometimes pushed aside in lieu of the comforts of ignorance and stupidity. Unfortunately, this has become the order of the day for many people in this society. Furthermore, because I readily acknowledge the myriad of privileges and freedoms citizens here enjoy, the question I pose is should these rights afford people to be unconcerned for their own welfare? In other words, if a person matriculates through the grade school levels of the educational system without choosing to acquire any skills in any of the subjects taught, should this be a right? Now I can only imagine the answer most liberals would offer. However, since many of these people will have foregone actually attaining any college bound or workforce skills, society (you and I) will be forced to allow them to stand on borrowed shoulders, one way or another. How so you ask? It’s rather simple.

If one does not acquire actionable skills while attending school, by the time he or she exits the system of a tax payer funded education, the chances of being able to sustain his or herself become slim to none. Simply put, why should people who are responsible enough to do what is necessary to ensure they will be productive citizens and contributors to society be made to carry those who do not? What if there were measures in place to force those who choose to hang back and thrive on the generosity of hard working tax payers to actually contribute some how? The concept is simple. There could be a tax levied for being life long slackers. It could be called (for lack of a more palatable phrase) a “Sloth Tax”. Understand, so that no one’s “civil rights” are violated by forcing people to do what it takes to be productive and self-sustainable, just place a tax on them to pay for what they are receiving. Housing, food stamps, medical, childcare, cash money, and any other social benefits become taxable under the new “Sloth tax”. Now please know that some people should be exempt from the “Sloth tax”. Those who are “legitimately” mentally or physically disabled, the elderly, and those who have been productive contributors to society but have fallen victim to uncontrollable circumstances, should receive full benefits because after all they are who these social benefits were truly meant for in the first place.

Others seeking to rely on society should be made to pay up. Some of you may ask, “How would they be made to pay if they have no money?” A colleague (who wishes to remain nameless) and I had this conversation over lunch recently, and he had what I call a brilliant idea. Why not mandate all benefit seekers who are physically and mentally capable of doing an honest days work do some sort of community service during the week until they can either find real employment are job training in their area of volunteer work? At least they would be contributing to society somehow. Oh, and for those who would be in need of childcare, those who are on the system could sit for those who are out giving their services. That’s right one hand washes the other. Maybe this could produce two positive results. Perhaps people would see that it is more beneficial for them to acquire skills and get paid the way others do for a hard days work. Also, this could possibly serve as motivation to those who still have an opportunity to turn their lives around while in school.

Please know and understand that this article was not written in any spirit of malice or meanness. Like most, I have no problem with helping those who truly “need” help. I understand it is written that it is a kind gesture to help your neighbor. However, it is also written that if a man does not work he shall not eat. On the contrary, it is simply time for America to stop being a welfare nation. It is past time for individuals in this country to be held responsible for their own lives. Times are harder now for working middle class people than most can remember. To have these people carry the burden of others who choose to watch them go to work and get it everyday is beyond unfair. Everyone should pull his or her own weight where applicable. Furthermore, this philosophy has nothing to do with race, color, or creed. It simply applies to personal charge. Please know that this article is written in the spirit of fairness and something long since forgotten in this country, American values.

-The Hard Truth

Author Disclaimer: The views and expressed by this author do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the The Cypress Times, its staff or publisher.

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Added: April 24, 2010. 01:38 PM CST

I think that doing better at routing people toward trade schools would be awesome. God knows, the world needs competent electricians, mechanics and plumbers a whole lot more than it needs more bankers.

I respect very much the work that you do. I myself run a nonprofit that grants scholarships for bright girls from poor backgrounds. I don't think you can create a great environment for every kid; I just think that there's a lot of talk about being more punitive towards poor people instead of helping to create as good an environment as one can.

Nor am I laying this all on the teachers to do. Teachers already get forced to shoulder all the socialization of kids that no-one else is around to do. The community needs to get behind their schools and provide meaningful support, instead of turning up the pressure every day.

Zander

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Added: April 23, 2010. 01:37 PM CST

Answers and Solutions...

First of Welfare... Do you really think that when the Temperary Welfare ends, they no longer need help. If you want to see the success there, look at our overcrowded prisons... Better yet, let's look at the racial make up of those overcrowded prisons.

Second, Do I have a Source...Yes, I do... It's called the Front lines... I have been teaching in title 1 schools for 5 of my 8 years. I see it everyday. I am one of many Teachers out here evey day that work my tail off to give these students what they need and prepare them for the REAL WORLD not just the State Tests. I work with these kids and see the attitudes not just in them, but their parents!

Third, I agree with you... It is about Enviroment, but at some point the Free Meals and and good night sleep is not enough to make up for their surroundings and what they see. It's easy to say it's not their fault, but they get 2 of the 3 meals (Free Breakfast and Free Lunch) at these schools and they get WAY more than 20 minutes of care from an adult, and guess what, its still not happening.

Answer to your 1st question. Don't make every kid believe the only way to succeed is college, when at some point, they are not educated enough(by their own fault or someone elses) to be successful going down that path. Teach them a trade. The kid who HATES academics may be a whiz at fixing cars, but may never get that chance because he was hounded about Math and Science until he failed enough he flunked out. Give other options... If the parents don't like that their kid is on the Janitor Track, then THEY can make the decision to work with the kid at home (Improve the academic environment) Teachers can only do so much. We need options for the kids that aren't college material... And Hey, NOT EVERY KID IS... I said it... Did ya'll here it!

Answer to your second question. You can't influence that. We do our best by feeding these kids 2 times a day and giving them encouragement in various forms, but you can't be that idealistic to think you can create that for every kid or think that equates directly to improved grades or a Collegiate Success story. It doesn't... But I would also like to talk about solutions and not just try to point out flaws in each others arguments...

Do you have a plan you can suggest? What do you think of teaching these kids a Trade before they drop out and suck on society through welfare or the criminal system?

The Colleague

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Added: April 23, 2010. 10:01 AM CST

It's not actually possible to stay on welfare for life, and it hasn't been since welfare reform instituted a lifetime maximum number of years one could receive welfare benefits. That's why the name of the main welfare program changed to "Temporary Assistance for Needy Families". It's possible to stay on Social Security for life, but that applies to the disabled and to the elderly only, not the able-bodied people of working age.

Do you have any source for the idea that there is an "entire army" of people coming up who are "on welfare as a career track"?

Problems in education may not actually arise from "unworthy" people receiving welfare, but from poverty itself. It's not surprising if some poor kid is reading below grade level if her parents are in prison and she's living in a care home. It's hardly her fault if they are.

If every student actually got three good meals, a decent night's sleep, and twenty minutes of caring attention from an adult every day, you wouldn't see half the number of students reading below grade level. Low wages and family breakdown cause that, not welfare.

Temporary welfare assistance is a blunt, bureaucratic, inadequate response to the problem, and nobody has come up with anything better; but don't confuse the attempted solution with the problem itself.

So my questions are:

How do we create a situation where people can find jobs that pay well enough that they can support their families without having to work three jobs and be permanently away from them?

How do we help families stay together wherever possible, help students get enough to eat and get enough sleep, and have a calm home environment that helps them learn?

Zander

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Added: April 23, 2010. 09:05 AM CST

Clarifying

I would like to state here that I believe the author is not targeting those on welfare who are hard working employees that have come across hard times. No no no! He is talking about those that Don't try, Don't Care, and come from a line, most likely a LONG LINE that don't care, don't try, and then suck money off of welfare. Just walk inside a Title 1 school and you will see plenty of students that don't try and are reading 4 grade levels below where they should be and have parents that don't CARE, are in PRISON, or blame the Teachers while at the same time as they are attacking the teacher show their lack of education.

There are those that try their best and do work as model students at these same schools, and here again these are not the ones we are talking about. We do need some alternative plans for those at these schools that are college bound and those that are not. Even in late middle school we have 90% of these kids thinking they are going to college and 50% of them spell college... Collage! Not to mention basic subject verb agreement...don't get me started on that one...

The education gap is growing larger and yet nothing is changing... But at the very least, I wanted to clarify with the last comment that Hey, there are plenty that need the help welfare provides and then they get off of it. But there is an entire army of people coming up that will be on Welfare as a career track! Let's do something about them... Let's at least talk about it and stop ignoring it!

The Colleague

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Added: April 23, 2010. 07:29 AM CST

You don't have to "imagine what a liberal would say."

This is what a liberal would say.

You appear to argue that the penalties for learning nothing in school in our society and becoming unemployable are not punitive enough, and that therefore we should require anyone receiving benefits to perform community service in return for those benefits.

As someone who has worked a lot with poor people, I can tell you that community service requirements and work requirements in exchange for continued benefits are very common. Many of them were introduced or beefed up with welfare reform in the mid-1990s. No liberal I know of is proposing to remove them. So, in many ways, we're already there with what you suggest.

It seems to me that conservatives are always so anxious to divide the world into "worthy" and "unworthy" people, and to remove every possible support from those whom conservatives judge to be "unworthy."

Democrats are much more likely to see themselves in people who are experiencing hard times, and to want a universal safety net to be in place in case one day we become one of them.

I don't have any real objection to wanting able-bodied adults receiving benefits to do some sort of community service, provided that the requirement is not so heavy that it prevents them from searching for a job that will actually enable them to afford to come off benefits, or puts their children in danger. Neither conservatives nor liberals want a system that has work requirements so onerous that people are effectively trapped performing work for no pay when they could be finding work that pays them enough to support their families.

There is always an argument that providing any sort of benefit discourages work. However, I would rather have some safety net in place, through Social Security, Medicare, food stamps and temporary assistance to needy families, than to have none, even if to a small degree it discourages people from finding work. This is because I see through my work societies that have no safety net in Africa, and I do not want to see replicated here the enormous sufferings of the poor that I see there. I say this even though I pay higher taxes in consequence, and even though I work very hard myself in my own life.

Does that make sense?

Zander

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