It’s only a myth because half of the country (the lib half) is completely devoid of any charity.
Where to start?
Way back then, in the straw man day the author kicks over, people worked. And if they chose not to work, they got hungry. And if working people needed a little help for any reason, there was the family, and the neighbors, and the church. And the government didn’t take half of every working man’s paycheck.
Blah blah blah.
Some conservatives may be too rosy in their predictions about what private charity can achieve, but what liberals like the author fail to address is that WE ARE BROKE! All that government “help” is on borrowed money.
Safety net? A warm comfy home, utilities, reliable car, a tv, a phone, an internet account, clothing, medical care and plentiful food are all basic human rights. All Americans and undocumented residents are entitled to them whether they educate themselves, work for a living, steal for a living or just decide to sponge off the work of others. It’s guaranteed by the constitution. Right?
Yeah, these people need a “safety net”:
Congress will soon begin consideration of the renewal of the Farm Bill, which has been portrayed by big government politicians and lobbyists as a critical “safety net” for struggling small farmers.
According to the Heritage Foundation, however, much of the legislation’s massive taxpayer-funded agricultural subsidies will be pocketed by wealthy farm owners, including former President Jimmy Carter, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack, and the families of members of Congress currently serving on the House and Senate Agriculture Committees.
Unlike many other industries during the Obama presidency, farming has shown record-high income levels and record-low debt. Yet politicians in largely agricultural states, as well as big agriculture lobbyists, insist that taxpayers struggling in other private sectors fork over their earnings to extremely successful agribusinesses such as Carter’s Farms, Inc. of Plains, Georgia. Data collected by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) shows that the farm owned by former President Jimmy Carter and his family collected $272,288 in subsidy payments from 1995 through 2012.
So do these:
A couple who collected food stamps and other public assistance from Minnesota while living on a yacht in Florida were being sought on fraud charges, prosecutors said on Friday.
Colin Chisholm III and his wife, Andrea Chisholm, got more than $165,000 in public assistance between 2005 and 2012 before benefits were terminated, according to prosecutor Mike Freeman in Hennepin County, Minn.
The Chisholms bought a $1.2 million yacht, The Andrea Aras, in 2005 shortly after applying for welfare benefits, according to complaints against them. They have been accused of living on the yacht in the area of Palm Beach, Fla., for 28 months while lying about living in Minnesota.
Read more: http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/5811698-74/yacht-according-benefits#ixzz2ww1YBWfP
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Yeah - problem is that charitable people are more than happy to give a hand up to people that need it. However, they are not as kind to those who just want a handout (a k a the rat base).
The elephant in the room (and not Republicans) is the fact that about ten percent of the population is a huge drag on everybody else. The black underclass by itself costs anywhere from half a trillion to one trillion dollars through welfare dependency and their staggering amount of crime. That segment, the black underclass, is about five percent of the population and growing. Charity could handle most of the destitute without the gigantic, money-sucking segment of the population that can’t do for themselves and expects to be gratified by the American tax-payer.
Are they forgetting about the family? That was the real social safety net for most of human history; private charities and state assistance were secondary.
I just need a net, not a social net, to catch these loony socialists with.
The fundamental problem is that charity strengthens a society, while welfare weakens it.
Government is the greediest, most corrupt and murderous force on Earth, but government loves you.
The best social program is a job.
I always find it comical when a leftie tells me, a conservative, what I believe
You help people who can’t help themselves, not people who won’t help themselves. My Late Mother’s favorite saying.
My Father, who just turned 91, told me something when I was a whining 13 Year Old that I never forgot. That something he told me is my Tagline. Served me well for the last 47 Years.
I don’t know how effective private charity has been (or would be in the future), but I do know one thing - it did not lead to the creation of a permanent underclass.
Yeah. I’ll go straight to The Atlantic for information about what conservatism is and whom conservatives are. Right after that, I’ll go to McDonald’s to learn about raising cattle. And then I’ll go to Staples to learn about how paper is made.
The left’s ability to delude themselves is remarkably infinite.
Does it still propose that 10 year delayed medicare reform scam?
No one bought that con. A few made believe they did though.
The ‘make believe’ loyalty test.
Back in those good ‘ol days the family and the church did a lot to help people in trouble over the rough spots - a major reason why those wanting big, intrusive government are so hostile to both the family and religion, and do so much to try to weaken both (abortion, same-sex marriage, denial of prayer in schools and crosses in public places, and on and on) - sadly, their destructiveness is working, and so they have an excuse to increase the reach of government at every turn to step in for what’s been lost......
Applying modern liberal standards to history is unconvincing. The gist of the argument is that charity did not work because it was not welfare. I would counter that welfare does not work because it is not charity. Not only do handouts create an underclass of exploiters, it creates hostility between them and the producers, and that hostility spills over to those who really need charitable help. God loves a cheerful giver, and nobody in their right mind is cheerful when they have to pay taxes to support welfare that sends less than one third of its budget to the poor, and wastes much of that on fraud and waste, over more direct charitable giving.