Obviously, the liberal policies aimed at "Winning the War on Poverty" for decades have been unsuccessful. We need programs with objectives to get the less fortunate out of the poverty cycle, not entrench them there. We started our big government solution to the problems of poverty, ignorance and unemployment perhaps 20 years after the socialist democracies of Europe. Those ideas have offered many generations short term fulfillment in exchange for a lifetime of enslavement, misery, poverty and ignorance. It's time for us to chart a different course that relies on the energy, resourcefulness, and ingenuity of Americans rather than one which appeals to hoping to get something for nothing. That course of action has failed in Europe and it's not working for us.
We should be developing programs whose purpose is to provide dependent citizens the means by which they can make themselves independent, productive, self-reliant and proud members of society, rather than fashioning programs that encourage and perpetuate dependence on government welfare. Today, the alphabet soup of altruistic sounding programs have created multiple generations of Americans people whose only real skill is confined to expertly navigating the social welfare maze to maximize their access to the wealth some other American has earned.
When liberal democracies finally exhaust the supply of other people's money, those whose existence is based on government dependence will become angry and violent. And who can blame them? Liberal politicians discovered that dependent citizens are dependable voters and for generations assured them that a life of dependency is simple and satisfying and a proper entitlement. The entitlement mindset and financial tragedy now unfolding in Europe could predict America’s future unless we change who we elect and the policies they implement.
Americans should no longer accept the premise continually emulating from media questions that Republicans are hateful, greedy, mean spirited people whose ideas are therefore unworthy. It is time to end the divisive partisan political rhetoric that has foreclosed appropriate dialog on the legitimate alternatives to big government solutions and focus on the real problems facing us. Let's try Robert Frost's admonition and take the path that is "least taken". We already know where the other one leads. We've been on that one far too long.
