Posted on 10/24/2004 6:54:31 AM PDT by finnigan2
Great Depressions don't happen very often. I only used that to illustrate a point; our powers are limited. we can all be overwhelmed by larger forces. The story of Job.
they didn't find it nearly as bad as its hype
Many didn't. Only 25% were unemployed. 75% were employed. If you owned a farm and weren't indebted to banks you might not even have noticed it. It was much less severe on the West coast than on the East coast. Among many there was a great feeling of camraderie and a great willingness to help. And so on.
But great numbers did suffer. Enough so that the stability of the society was endangered. In fact WWII was a direct result of a world-wide inability to relieve that suffering.
The really telling thing is the fact that the people you champion are miserable no matter how good the economy is. The problem is with them, not the rest of us.
No question there are people who are miserable no matter their station in life, people who cannot benefit from opportunity, people who are beyond help. But it's outlandish to say that programs like the GI bill or the Marshall plan didn't make a great difference, that they didn't have positive effects on the lives of great numbers of people and the societies in which they lived.
What a joke. If our government programs were actually helping people overwhelmed by events, the amount spent would hardly be worth noticing. But we aren't. We are helping people who are chronically lazy and stupid because they know society will never let them feel chilly or hungry. I know people like this. While able-bodied, they never leave government assistance and travel around looking for well-meaning souls to listen to their sob story about no work, no money, etc.
They make their way in the world by scamming other people's compassion and the programs set up by utopians like yourself. Strangely, beer and cigarettes are never in short supply, though.
The poor, the weak, the stupid, the ugly, the criminal, the failed are always with us...unless we decide to kill them en masse.
You just had to go there didn't you? Anyone who doesn't want to empty their pockets to fund your unlimited "compassion" (really it's just unhinged self-righteousness) is a mass murderer?
The GI bill worked. The Marshall plan worked. An end to legal segregation worked. Affirmative action is failing. Forced busing is failing. Public school education is a mixed bag. Free vaccinations have kept down infectious diseases. Access to basic health care has improved public health. Free, unlimited access to all possible health care is impossible.
On and on like that. Unlike you I don't think this is the best of all possible worlds and I don't look upon democratic capitalism as a panacea for all the world's evils.
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