For what it's worth...the name of my blog...means just that. This blog and a dollar will get you an ice cream cone at McDonald's (if their machine isn't down). But it's my opinion, and it's worth it to me to think and stew and vent and organize my thoughts, regardless:
In his September 17 op-ed piece for
the New York Times, columnist David
Brooks points the finger at Republican nominee Mitt Romney for being out of
touch with the true conditions of the nation. Forty-seven percent of the
country, he quotes Romney as saying, are people “who are dependent upon
government, who believe they are victims, who believe the government has a
responsibility to take care of them, who believe they are entitled to health
care, to food, to housing, to you name it.”
He goes on with this comment:
Romney knows nothing about ambition and motivation. The formula he sketches is this: People who are forced to make it on their own have drive. People who receive benefits have dependency. But, of course, no middle-class parent acts as if this is true. Middle-class parents don’t deprive their children of benefits so they can learn to struggle on their own. They shower benefits on their children to give them more opportunities — so they can play travel sports, go on foreign trips and develop more skills. People are motivated when they feel competent. They are motivated when they have more opportunities. Ambition is fired by possibility, not by deprivation, as a tour through the world’s poorest regions makes clear.
Therein lies the problem. Romney
thinks that forty-seven percent of the country believed they are entitled.
Brooks thinks that entitlements are a necessity. I disagree with both.
I would estimate closer to 100% of Americans feel entitled in some
form or another. Other people have things; so should we. Other people get the
best medical care available; so should we. Why shouldn’t I have my own home – I
can’t afford it, but that’s not really fair! I pay taxes! I demand my road get
fixed today, or the cops come whenever I snap my fingers (whether or not my
taxes pay them well or not).
I don’t like Romney. I may not vote
for him. I don’t trust him, and there has been an epidemic of really stupid
comments by Republicans going viral. (I don’t trust President Obama either,
however.) But Romney is correct, I believe, that people who receive benefits
have, by way of human nature (not by way of being Americans or on welfare or
for any other reason), a tendency toward dependency, or at least codependency.
Let’s say that someone shows up at the
door every morning and hands you $100. Not as a payment for anything you’ve
done, it’s just what he wants to do. At first you’re surprised, excited,
grateful. After awhile, however, you start expecting it. You did nothing to
earn it, but hey, if the guy wants to pay you $100 every morning, who are you
to complain? You notice that everyone else on the street is getting the same
benefit. Good for them!
Then one day the guy doesn’t come.
WTF? You haven’t earned it, but now you feel entitled, especially when you see
him at the next-door neighbor’s. If the guy suddenly starts going only to
certain houses…or no houses…he’d better stop showing his face anywhere near the
neighborhood!
You became, quite gradually and
through no real fault of your own, dependent. You started spending the next day’s
Ben Franklin before it actually arrived. Your expectations drove your plans. No, can’t afford it today, but tomorrow, I’ll
get paid and…
You overspend. You don’t save. You don’t
question why you’re getting it or how long it will last. You depend on the
kindness of a stranger, and you are trapped. He now controls your emotions and
behavior. The only way you’ll stop
depending on him, in truth, is if he stops coming around. Eventually you
realize you’ll need to adjust your lifestyle, your way of thinking.
It’s a poor, limited analogy. But as a
family counselor has mentioned to me, he’s never seen such an entitled
generation as he sees in today’s young adult population. They were raised—the ones
he has observed, anyway –by those middle class parents Brooks celebrates. They
just wanted to give their kids as much as they could, give them more than they
had growing up. And it has come back to bite them, big time.
There are millions of grandparents
raising grandchildren, for example, and the initial response by most people,
myself included, is Thank God for the
grandparents! Where would those poor kids be without them? Unfortunately,
the cycle, once set in motion, replicates itself. Unless steps are taken to
prevent it, children are raised thinking this is the norm, becoming
irresponsible parents one day themselves, because that is what parents do.
As a nation, I fear that we have
become those children, coddled and protected, benefitted en masse when times were good, and now demanding the same benefits
during tough times. Those who lived through the Great Depression learned much
more from their suffering, I hate to say, than we who have had so very much.
I have seen firsthand, in our own
family, what “helping” someone financially can do, and it isn’t pretty. Rather
than see a loved one “do without” we have jumped in, only to have the help backfire
to a devastating degree. I have tried to “help” someone with visible, valid
needs only to realize—hopefully not too late!—that I had actually prevented
that person from truly growing up, stepping up to the plate, learning the
important lessons of life.
It’s natural for parents and
grandparents and governments to want their “dependents” (and there’s a reason
we call them that!) to be happy, well-fed, nicely clothed. But the writers of
the Declaration of Independence were on to something: We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created, that
they are endowed BY THEIR CREATOR with certain inalienable rights, that among
these rights are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness.
Pursuit implies work. Diligence.
Self-motivation. Unfortunately, many Americans seem to think that happiness is
owed them. That government, by supplying their everyday needs, will press a
button or wave a magic wand at some point and happiness will knock on their
door. It just doesn’t happen that way. Romney doesn’t get it, but neither does
Brooks.
For what it's worth.
(C) Ellen Gillette, 2012
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