Posted on 09/07/2012 10:14:47 AM PDT by SmithL
"Please don't feed the animals."
That phrase makes sense when talking about bears and deer, turkeys and elk in the Great Smoky Mountains.
It's quite another matter when discussing whether to give food to human beings who need help because circumstances have left them wanting for one the most basic of aspects of life.
That is unless you are David Fowler, president of the Family Action Council of Tennessee — ironic, that name.
Fowler, a former Tennessee state legislator, posted on his personal Facebook page recently that the National Park Service's "stated reason for the policy is because the animals will grow dependent on handouts and will not learn to take care of themselves," Fowler wrote in the post. "This ends today's lesson."
Fowler apparently thinks that the 1,341,520 Tennesseans who received food stamps in July, the last month for which statistics are available, are less than human.
He says that's not what he meant. That what he meant was that "Government creating human dependence on government demeans human dignity and is antithetical to human freedom government is intended to protect."
(Excerpt) Read more at knoxnews.com ...
Feeding the hungry is church work, not government work.
Just imagine how united our local communities would be if we took care of each other.
Young women asking for cash don't approach me, ever. I look like I'll suggest a free-market transaction to help them obtain their cash. ;)
/johnny
And for many they just pop out another child to get a pay raise.
“Seems there is an abundance of Food Stamps floating around which can be used to barter for drug money.”
Food Stamps and Unemployment and other government bennies are supplemental income.
Several time in the past year I’ve looked for project labor, and found that folks are available under-the-table but will not work above-board because “they’ll lose their benefits”.
One can make a good living equivalent to a much much higher earning regular tax-paying American - without the need to file tax paperwork and the pitfalls that follow any IRS scrutiny.
Besides it building community relationships, locals are less likely to fall for a line of BS from a supplicant.
/johnny
I am so @#$& tired of this.
You are advocating theft.
I've had it with the attitude around here from 'I gots mine' people who are exactly the vile, callous, hateful types Democrats paint conservatives as being. It's sick, it's dehumanizing, it's unproductive.
How can the same people look at the Obama economic record, the drop in labor participation, the lack of job opportunities, the drop in take home pay, the flat-out MISERY in his America and attack once productive fellow Americans, taxpayers, who have be forced into taking food stamps or other assistance just so they can survive so maybe they can get a job and back to productivity.
If you want to do something, if you want to fix this, HIRE or just SHUT UP!
There will always be a tiny group that will take advantage of a system. You and other vicious, angry people are so desperate for your two-minutes hate, you exaggerate that group into some gargantuan menace, a sick, sad fantasy.
Those are not the people who hear you, those are not the people who read your words and feel ashamed they're not earning a paycheck. Those are not the people who've burned through their savings trying to survive the Obama recovery and come up snake eyes looking for work.
It's not at all surprising disability is up. Once you exhausted all savings, once you've sold off your assets, once you've become long term jobless, once you've lost your home once and are choosing between food and shelter, once you've cut back until there is nothing left to cut, you may well be ready to break particularly when jackasses like the many holier-than-thou commenters on this thread have run you down and you look at the news and see no sign of things getting better, as you fruitlessly fill-out job applications you look at your silent emergency phone wondering why no one calls for an interview, you look at politics and see no hope for rebound before you're out of time, out of money, out of patience.
Whatever happened to humility, what happened to, "There but for the grace of God, go I?"
The nastiness I see here says more about those posters' character than it does about those on public assistance under Obama.
True. But they're a luxury for many more who have decided that it's easier to milk the system than to actually earn their keep. Coupled with fraudulent disability claims, HUD assistance, and all the other freebie welfare programs, unemployment has become a lucrative alternative to working.
Huh?
So true.
So, do you think that 75-90% of the recipients of government handouts represents a "tiny" group? Fraud is rampant in all of our welfare programs because there's absolutely NO accountability. Nobody's minding the store. Nobody running these programs gives a fat rat's backside because, after all, it's not THEIR money that's being stolen and redistributed.
There are 76 federal assistance programs
You have succinctly summed up the difference between pre- and post-Progressive Era America. And the change was deliberate.
A friend of mine who had a knack for getting herself into hard situations once applied for assistance. She had two kids at the time, and had never NOT worked a day in her life (since she was 13 years old). She wanted to go to school to become a surgical tech, so she had to quit her job, and temporarily move to Arizona. She was denied assistance because she had a car. She got it all worked out in the end, had her ex take care of the kids for a year back home, and got herself a part time at the school. Luckily, we had a friend living in the area that could help her. She graduated a year later, and was immediately hired at a local hospital, and is now doing quite well for herself.
But she is still dumbfounded, at the time, she had a legit need for temporary assistance, that would be temporary, as she was working toward a goal, but the powers that be denied her because she had a car, with the theory I suppose that if she can afford a car (a beater that was paid for), she didn’t need assistance.
Typical of any “program” that the left administers.
It will not be available to those who really need it, those they purport to want to help, but will be abused by freeloaders and scammers.
I endorse what you said. Nothing more to add.
No. But that’s all I can afford after the lazy arse whores keep haveing babies by sorry lazy arse turds and send me their bills to pay. Then these sorry males walk around telling how they are such good men. Just don’t ask them to support those brats.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.