An excellent speech from a long forgotten SAE meeting is appropriate to today's events as it was then:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/ ... socia.html
Considering the Obama Administration's and the current congress' amateur approach to social engineering even more so.
Social Engineering vs the kind that makes stuff
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kunkmiester
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alexjrgreen
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I ponder this question from time to time. I am of the opinion that the Majority should not let the poor starve and die. But neither should they allow their weakness to give them a pass on slothfulness.alexjrgreen wrote:Although this analysis works well for the majority, it ignores the minority who are unable to be independent and self-supporting.
Who should provide for them?
I have proposed a few ideas to deal with the problem of people needing public support. The one point I am emphatic about is that you CANNOT GIVE THEM MONEY!
Give them Food, give them housing, give them opportunity, but don't allow them to make any decisions with public money. Require them to make decisions with their OWN efforts and money.
Be as a parent, not a caretaker. Urge them to make a better life for themselves, and don't make it comfortable for them to remain on the dole.
It is not compassionate to make people feel good about being poor. It is compassionate to help people succeed in making a better life for themselves, by doing it themselves.
Jccarlton wrote:You, but not with my money.alexjrgreen wrote:Although this analysis works well for the majority, it ignores the minority who are unable to be independent and self-supporting.
Who should provide for them?
I do not object to giving a baby a bottle. But when you have to part the whiskers to get the nipple in, you've waited too long.
I think that this is pertinent:
http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essay ... gotten.htm
Quote:
The type and formula of most schemes of philanthropy or humanitarianism is this: A and B put their heads together to decide what C shall be made to do for D. The radical vice of all these schemes, from a sociological point of view, is that C is not allowed a voice in the matter, and his position, character, and interests, as well as the ultimate effects on society through C's interests, are entirely overlooked. I call C the Forgotten Man. For once let us look him up and consider his case, for the characteristic of all social doctors is, that they fix their minds on some man or group of men whose case appeals to the sympathies and the imagination, and they plan remedies addressed to the particular trouble; they do not understand that all the parts of society hold together, and that forces which are set in action act and react throughout the whole organism, until an equilibrium is produced by a re-adjustment of all interests and rights. They therefore ignore entirely the source from which they must draw all the energy which they employ in their remedies, and they ignore all the effects on other members of society than the ones they have in view. They are always under the dominion of the superstition of government, and, forgetting that a government produces nothing at all, they leave out of sight the first fact to be remembered in all social discussion - that the State cannot get a cent for any man without taking it from some other man, and this latter must be a man who has produced and saved it. This latter is the Forgotten Man
http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essay ... gotten.htm
Quote:
The type and formula of most schemes of philanthropy or humanitarianism is this: A and B put their heads together to decide what C shall be made to do for D. The radical vice of all these schemes, from a sociological point of view, is that C is not allowed a voice in the matter, and his position, character, and interests, as well as the ultimate effects on society through C's interests, are entirely overlooked. I call C the Forgotten Man. For once let us look him up and consider his case, for the characteristic of all social doctors is, that they fix their minds on some man or group of men whose case appeals to the sympathies and the imagination, and they plan remedies addressed to the particular trouble; they do not understand that all the parts of society hold together, and that forces which are set in action act and react throughout the whole organism, until an equilibrium is produced by a re-adjustment of all interests and rights. They therefore ignore entirely the source from which they must draw all the energy which they employ in their remedies, and they ignore all the effects on other members of society than the ones they have in view. They are always under the dominion of the superstition of government, and, forgetting that a government produces nothing at all, they leave out of sight the first fact to be remembered in all social discussion - that the State cannot get a cent for any man without taking it from some other man, and this latter must be a man who has produced and saved it. This latter is the Forgotten Man