“ENTITLEMENTS ARE A TRAP!”

2 PARAGRAPHS 4 LIBERTY: #282

Once again I cite Dr. Milton Friedman’s pivotal and timeless comment that “We should judge our programs by their results, not their good intentions.” And this could not be more true than its application to the entire issue of entitlements. Fundamentally, just become I am alive does not mean that you owe me anything. But we are a compassionate people, so most of us believe that there is a level below which we should not allow people in our country to fall. Thus we will voluntarily provide assistance to those in need. But that is a moral obligation, not a legal one! So maybe the recipients will be appreciative instead of continually thinking and saying that they are entitled to more. And who gets punished the most for this entitlements approach? Those very perpetuatedople who focus upon their own entitlements, and they are often encouraged in those thoughts by political liberals. And this is a tragedy. A quote from none other than Malcolm X brings home this fact. He said:

“The worst enemy that the Negro (has) is this white man that runs around here drooling at the mouth professing to love Negros and calling himself a liberal. It is following these white liberals that has perpetuated problems that Negros have. If the Negro wasn’t taken, tricked or deceived by the white liberal, then Negros would get together and solve our own problems. I only cite these things to show you that in America, the history of the white liberal has been nothing but a series of trickery designed to make Negros think that the white liberal was going to solve our problems.”

The antidote to that failed approach comes from Walter Williams, who is an African-American George Mason University Economics Professor who wrote in his September 13, 2020 Orange County Register column that most of the poverty for Black people today is generated by out-of-wedlock births. Today a full 70 percent of Black babies are born to single mothers, and this is actually encouraged by the welfare system. But the poverty rate among Black husband-and-wife families has been in the single digits for more than two decades. He continued by saying that “Black people have made tremendous gains over the years that came as a result of hard work, sacrifice and a no-nonsense approach to life. Recovering those virtues can provide solutions to many of today’s problems.” In other words, employing Libertarian values of responsibility and hard work is what brings success, and the ostensible “good intentions” of the welfare system do not. Libertarians understand that this harder approach brings with it some political risks, but we pursue them anyway. Why? Because we care about people, and this is the approach that works.

Sign at a pond: “Frog Parking Only! All Others Will Be Toad!”