It figures

I always figured that 10% of the population just doesn't get it. "It" can be there inability to conform to societal standards of respectability, alcohol/drug consumption, criminal activity- just about anything. It also includes people who grow up under varying degrees of priviledge, the same as the majority, but just don't advance along the same path as the rest of us. That same 10% figure might also speak for those that succeed in life despite the supposed handicap of poverty or race. Some will, despite the long odds, overcome adversity and some will, despite the good odds, stumble through life. There are alcoholics and criminals from the best and worst homes and from the best and worst families, regardless of race, income or gender.

It is what it is and on an individual basis we deal with it as best we can. Society too has a vested interest in this and it's why we set aside money to, for example, make sure poor children at least begin their day with food in their stomachs that their parents cannot always provide. You might say it's the Christian thing to do. You might not because other religions also provide and promote such benevolence. Suffice to say, it's the humane thing to do.

It's also thought that 10% of the population is left-handed. About the same number is gay. Again, that's just the way it is. Nuns can whack lefties on the knuckles to try to change them and Marcus Bachmann can try to pray away the gay of that 10% but, these things don't alter the natural course of people's being.

We're supposed to be the greatest country in the history of the world. We might be. We invented baseball and the '57 Chevy. Say what you will about Rome but, they didn't begin to do anything that cool.

So, why all of a sudden can we not feed our poor? How is *cost effective* now important in that equation? There were always redneck whiners who resented welfare- maybe 10% of the population- but, now there seem to be far more. In good economies these people resented giving handouts to others. If I can sorta *get* that during good times, they completely lose me during bad times. "GET A GODDAMNED JOB!"  doesn't sound very helpful in the midst of a recession or a depression. Is it somehow easier now? How so? How does eliminating the safety nets of welfare, unemployment benefits and school lunch programs promote society or encourage people to be more productive?

What you get is starving, angry poor people. It's like the tough love of the dads who, to teach the child to swim, chunk them in the lake. Sink or swim. I hate hearing those childhood stories from well-meaning, successful people. They never end with "...and that's why I won ten medals at the Olympics!"  They are as much bullshit as the knuckleheads I've known who bragged- and thanked- their dad's for beating the hell out of them, every day of their young lives to create the twice-jailed, alcoholic scumbag holding the paintbrush before you today. IF I had a dollar for everytime I heard that on a paint crew.... And not to pick on painters, because I am one but, only about 10% of us can really bring it on the job....

These republican ideals and values they are promoting disgust me. Perhaps you could tell? You cannot call America The Greatest Nation EVER, while turning it's back on its poor citizens. I think other countries are beginning to talk about us. Our enemies know that we can be had. If you sit by the river long enough you will see the body of your enemy float by.