The amount of Americans that receive government benefits continues to increase at such an astonishing rate, that soon, if not already now, more than 50% of all Americans will receive at least one government benefit. The wsj.com reports that: “The 49.1% of the population in a household that gets benefits is up from 30% in the early 1980s and 44.4% as recently as the third quarter of 2008.” This effectively means that a significant portion of Americans have abandoned or don’t consciously recognize our Puritan work ethic heritage, but instead have replaced this mindset with an “entitlement” mentality and an innate dependency upon the generosity of the State.
The fact that such a huge percentage of our population is dependent in one form or another upon their Government to sustain their way of living creates an incredible amount of problems. For instance, once any person is dependent upon another, or is counting upon another to continue to do things that they have been doing for them, especially have done so for a long period of time, the taking away of such will have enormous consequences, especially if this aid is taken away in a blink of an eye. That is to say, if you have not taught a man how to fish, and you thereby take away his daily supply of fish, you have created a monstrous type of problem, because when people are in a situation to which the answer is to sink or to swim, most of them ultimately will do what they need to do in order to survive.
This means, in effect, what our government has done in creating such a huge underclass which is so dependent upon receiving the same benefits that they have been receiving, day by day, and year by year, is that this dependency cycle cannot be suddenly stopped for any reason, for absolute chaos, civil unrest, and all other attendant problems would for a certainty rear its ugly head. On the other hand, as a greater and greater percentage of Americans become wards of the State, the good American ship, is in danger itself, of not being able to steer itself into safer harbors.
While the government, has its reasons, both good and bad, for allowing or having such a high percentage of people that are dependent upon the liberal hand of Government, Government itself, must take or tax or steal or rob social welfare from its productive citizens in order to accomplish this re-distribution of income and property. Additionally and very importantly if government does not compel its citizens to earn their own keep through their own labor, except in cases of infirmity or other debilitating diseases or circumstances, but instead misguidedly eases certain classes and categories of citizens into states of indolence and slothfulness, than that potential and that labor from these people is lost forever, and the government is an accessory to this malfeasance to its own people.
While it is one thing to be charitable to those that are less fortunate than ourselves, it is another thing entirely to encourage one’s own citizens that a life of ease is what we are entitled to upon our birth. In Proverbs 22:6, we read: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” America must ask itself, what indeed, have they wrought when asking so little from its citizens, and should not be surprised, when they find out, as they will, that dependency breeds contempt, and instead of love and admiration directed towards our government, there will be hatred and much bloodshed.