The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum Child Poverty

Oh, to be sure LOTS more could be said because poverty in general exists for myriad reasons. However, the fact that "child poverty" is the focus, which is a rather dubious subject, IMHO, because it usually is an attempt to paint a picture of little waifs running around the streets who have no parents, no home, no money, no food nor clothing.

To be more realistic, children suffer FROM the poverty of others, but hardly can it be said THEY are poor. Now, what about the poverty of children's parents? In many cases the poverty is self-made due to their lifestyle; the spending of money on non-essential and often self-gratifying things. Again, humans in general are very much hedonistic and think it is their RIGHT to have recreation and constant pleasurable stimulation, whether it is from junk food, to tobacco/alcohol, movies, big screen TVs, iPhones/iPads/Smart phones, new cars, the latest Nike shoes or designer clothes, etc., etc., ad nauseam.

There surely are 'legitimate' instances of poverty, e.g., getting laid off or fired from a job that didn't pay that much to begin with. A serious accident or illness can drain one's savings, if there even was any, quickly. But with all the social programs taxes are extracted for, it is rarely the case where a child needs to go without food, clothing or shelter. And since the government is 'stealing' so much money from its citizens to allegedly provide 'services' and to fund all these necessary programs to help those less fortunate, people are less motivated to help the needy directly. If the government is allegedly taking care of the poor and so many other 'needs' since it has more compassion than the average citizen and it has an endless supply of cash that comes out of every else's pocket, why would anyone really want to spend what little money they have left to remedy a problem which the government claims it has control over?

Oh, one last thing for you to think about, which doubtless you have pondered already... Since the majority of people think that living a 'good life' is a RIGHT (what isn't a right in most people's mind these days?) and that the government 'knows best' how to control their lives, where is the incentive for self-help? The response to personal problems becomes an outstretched hand because Big Brother surely has the solution and the money to take care of it for me. Got a drug addiction problem? No problem... just go down to one of the local dispensaries and get a dose of your preferred drug which is said to be the way to get you off your addiction. In short, why try to do something for yourself when the government has taken so much of your hard-earned money to create 'solutions' to poverty and has a plethora of programs which will meet your particular need? That's one of the main tenets of Socialism... make the populace DEPENDENT upon the government which means it controls you.