Innocent Bystanders: The Poverty Brand™

Are people really OK and unashamed of their poverty and whatever claiming poverty would get them? Here's what Innocent Bystanders blog says about that idea:

During the Great Depression, my Grandpa Dave worked for the Works Progress Administration building roads. (This was FDR’s failed “stimulus” plan.) I heard about how he would come home exhausted and drenched in sweat. He worked himself half to death, because he was ashamed to be receiving public assistance and wanted to prove to himself that he had earned his pay. That is the attitude we need today. Instead, we have created a culture where women think it is perfectly OK to make a career out of being sluts, pumping out babies, and expecting the public to take care of them and their bastards.

I have the solution. Let’s make poverty shameful again. Let’s expurgate the entire concept of “entitlement” from our public discourse, and go back to the concept of charity. Poor people should feel pitied. Instead, they feel oppressed if they don’t think the government is doing “enough.”

See, I have no issue with a social safety net. I just think the beneficiaries of this net should be grateful and embarrassed. Instead, we have a growing population who thinks they are “entitled” to food stamps, AFDC, Section 8 housing, a free cell phone, health care, a nice hot lunch for the kids instead of Mom packing a lunch box (even in the summer), and on and on.

The “entitlement” mentality perfectly suits the massive bureaucracies that support their dependencies and are very well paid to do so, and the fraudsters who prey on the system. So, in America we have “poor” people who, by any global standard, are living large with cable TV, air conditioning and internet access. Meanwhile, the average taxpayer is getting raped.

Via Instapundit!