Loading ...Unfortunately, as this is rather akin to a newspaper, I have no way to know if you did read the reference first. Many of you will not, and will read the rest of this article instead.
But if you do that, you’re doing it wrong, so I’m going to leave you a nice long break here so you can do it right.
Ok, now we’ll continue — and if you decided to cheat, it’s on you.
The referenced article speaks of a hermit, I suppose. A man who decided, shortly after becoming an adult, that he didn’t want to be with the rest of society any more. There are those who argue that this is a per-se demonstration of some mental disorder, such as Aspergers. I disagree — there are plenty of objective reasons to decide that what mankind has become, especially today in the United States, just plain sucks and it isn’t worth it.
But for whatever reason, this man made that decision.
Then he spent nearly 30 years practicing what he decided. And let’s be clear: He did it via, according to the law and custom along with his own admission, theft.
That is, he stole the necessities of life. Food, clothing, the rudiments of shelter and heat.
But we’re talking about rudiments here, for real — a tent, literally. No hard walls. Some clothes, but not really anything extra — just something to wear. He had no running water, no indoor plumbing, nothing of the sort. And he nearly died most of the winters from exposure, as one would expect.
Now contemplate Ferguson, or for that matter, virtually any other city — big or not — in America. Contemplate Section 8, AFDC, EITC, Food Stamps, Heating Assistance and much more. Indeed, contemplate the following from last Fiscal Year’s Treasury Statement:
I count the following:
$265 billion for Medicaid (all gift, no taxes paid.)
$9.3 billion more for SCHIP (same thing, for kids)
$17 billion for TANF
$108 billion in food handouts
$3.5 billion for heat welfare
$5 billion to babysit someone else’s kid
$18 billion for rent
$9 billion more for “project based” rent
$6.1 billion to buy housing that is then given away
$10 billion more for various “opportunity” and “development” funds (for housing)
$5 billion to “train” people to work
$57 billion for EITC (paying people not to work as hard as they could, beyond tax liability)
$21 billion more for child tax credits (refundable, that is, beyond tax liability as well)
$140 billion (net of tax) in handouts (including admin costs) for disabled people (not based on their FICA payments previously)
I’m sure I missed some too — but that’s $674 billion a year, approximately.
And every penny of it was stolen.
It was stolen from those who have a net federal tax liability other than Medicare and Social Security.
I’m willing to wager that essentially all of the people who stole those funds (yes, every one of the recipients stole them — that they employed a proxy to do it doesn’t change the character of what happened) are and were in far better shape than our hermit.
In other words, our hermit may have broken the law, but in terms of the character of what he did it was vastly less egregious than the acts and relative comfort (due to the theft they enjoy) of any of the recipients of these programs.
Contemplate that for a while, then figure out what, if anything, you intend to do about it.
My guess: You will do exactly nothing about it but you sure will bitch that this “hermit” stole some food and a few propane tanks.