Being Poor?

Yeah. All I’m saying is, it CAN be done. (Getting through life without having children you can’t feed, that is.) Especially in this day and age.

(mndude clicks “like”)

Fairly obvious that Mr. Scalzi has never been poor in his life ...

Poor is a mind set.

He sounds affluent compared to what we had.

If being poor didn’t suck it wouldn’t inspire people to better themselves.

Being poor is having only one half of a pair of pants.

Being poor is having to wear the hand me downs of your sister.....when you're a boy!

Being poor is having to watch an old t.v. but not having electricity.

Being poor is following homeless people down the street asking them for money.

Being really poor is not having anything else to do but this!

There is a difference between being poor and being broke.

I have been so broke I would quite literally sit by the phone hoping it would ring so my business would get a job and I could buy something for my kids to eat that night.

Being poor is a state of mind in which you expect to be broke tomorrow, next week and next year.

I’ve been totally broke, but I was never poor.

Somebody signed up today to waste bandwidth on FR.

How original.

Expect more of this tonight and most likely tomorrow.

Is this your idea of an counter argument? Instead of snide comments, perhaps you’d like to try adding to a rational discussion. Do YOU think being poor in America is remotely comparable to being poor is, say, a refugee camp in Darfur? Or even being poor in Tijuana, Mexico?

Scalzi’s “Old Man’s War” series was excellent - the movie rights were recently bought and I look forward to seeing it. He was also creative consultant on SGU - StarGate Universe. I would have liked to have seen a third season.

I wouldn’t characterize Scalzi as a “minor sci-fi writer”. I think he is becoming a major one. None of that speaks to his politics, however.

HERE is MY rebuttal:

“A Matter of Choice”

Here are a few hard truths. First, poverty is a choice. Second, the government’s attempt to address poverty has only made it worse; it would be better, more compassionate, if the government curbed its domestic aid then it would be to continue or expand upon our fifty year legacy of entitlement failure.

There is a concerted notion afoot to declare poverty as a value neutral station. It is a simple matter of fortune, of being ‘more fortunate’ or ‘less fortunate’. There but by the grace of God go I. Except. It’s not true. Poverty is a state of mind, and a choice. Hard work and just a smattering of ethics do lead the way out of poverty.

The two most reliable indicators of rising above poverty are full-time employment, and marriage. In the poorest twenty percent of households, the average number of wage earners is one and the average number of hours worked per week is part-time. Even one full-time wage earner is enough, in most cases, to raise a household out of poverty. When two parents work, hard, and together to provide for their children, poverty is defeated. According to the Proverbs, “All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.”

Hard work and marriage, as a vehicle for raising children, are both strong Christian values. Why would that be? Perhaps because both are actions, separately and in tandem, that go far to abate poverty. They are choices.
More to the point, they are ethical choices. We used to teach these values. We used to treat, not poverty itself, but acts that LEAD to poverty, as shameful. Now, being a single parent is a valid, alternative life choice. Now, we dismiss the choice of laziness as a state of being ‘less fortunate’. In truth, these SHOULD BE shameful choices. Why? Because they are actions that lead to poverty. Because shame is a powerful motivator to discourage unhealthy choices.

Instead of stigmatizing poverty-inducing behaviors, we have created an entire government bureaucracy to validate such choices. The problem with government-sponsored charity is that values have been declared persona non grata by government; if the government is given the responsibility to care for everyone, then values can have no place in responsibility.

The results of attempting government branded ‘value-free charity’ are and should be all too foreseeable. In the name of defeating poverty, we have validated the pathways TO poverty. Knowing that having or raising a child out of wedlock is a consistent shackle to poverty, how is removing the penalties for such behavior corrective to address poverty? Knowing that hard work leads the way out of poverty, how does penalizing work aid in reducing poverty? In the name of helping the children, we have fostered environments that allow ever more children to be born into poverty. This is what we call progress?

For the entirety of human history, families and communities have bent to the task of raising healthy children. As should be. Poverty is unhealthy. In tandem with admonitions against poverty-inducing behaviors, the Bible is a strong advocate of charity to aid in defeating poverty. It is a symmetrical relationship in which poverty is simultaneously discouraged and its victims are aided with both community sufferance and moral correction in order to rise above. Reducing poverty is not just about giving; it’s about encouraging pathways proven to lead OUT of poverty. Unfortunately, that involves a morality our government cannot or will not endorse.

While poverty is a choice, so is giving. The essential element of giving is the nature of a gift as a non-compulsory act.

2 Corinthians Chapter 9: “Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each man should give what he had decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. . . men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else.”

To believe that it is possible to satisfy a creed of Christian giving within the structure of compulsory taxation completely misses the point of giving. More important, to create an expectation of entitlement completely misses the point of incurring the gratitude – and goodwill, that results in giving. The benefit, on both ends of the equation, is utterly lost. As a result, government induced giving simply cannot be focused in poverty-reducing ways. It cannot be thusly focused because it lacks the moral clarity, wisdom, and forbearance that come with such an act. “Of what use is money in the hand of a fool, since he has no desire to get wisdom?” THAT is why government aid is a failure. It misses the fundamental morality of charity, and does so entirely.

At issue are the real ideals of charity and community. Government simply cannot be a proxy for such things. The result of a prolonged effort to do so is that we have lost our sense of community, and of family. Our nation is not a better place for the effort. The poor are not better off by systematically devastating the values that accompany family and community supports that can weather difficult times. “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.” Government money, absent morality, is just such an evil in our poor communities.

Make no mistake. Government ‘aid’ is neither charity nor compassion. Poverty is a matter of choice. Lost to a deaf crowd that advocates defining community and charity through government is the fundamental observation that community and charity are choices that cannot be compelled, as well. The government has never been moral enough or charitable enough to make up the difference for what it has traded in the name of so-called compassion. And never will be.

Being poor is what you are after voting for Obama, and “cash for clunkers” destroying perfectly good used cars, and “electricity prices must necessarily skyrocket”, and “the evening call to [muslim] prayers is one of the loveliest sounds on earth” - and it is more than financial poverty, it is a poverty of the soul.