The Common Good

One of the biggest political buzzwords I hear is entitlement. When people say this, they usually refer to other people whom they believe to be taking things from the government that they shouldn't have. Or think they shouldn't have. Most of the time, it's about poor people or old people.

From my perspective, the problem is that people look at issues like welfare or public education or funds for higher education ONLY from the perspective of the person who would be getting the help. They get angry because they're helping to pay for health costs and job training.

But should they?

I started thinking about this after I read that some speaker at a Trump rally was talking about how we should do away 911 calls because people should solve their own problems and not be dependent on the government.  It's a nice idea, that we're all plucky and super resilient. It's also unrealistic.

For instance, if your house catches on fire, it's highly unlikely you'll put it out yourself, which means that that house next to you will probably catch on fire too.  Back before we have things like city fire departments, whole sections of cities would burn this way.

See, even though the people who directly get the money directly benefit from it, doesn't the rest of society benefit too? Aren't we all better off with people who are educated and healthy? Aren't we all better off when people have enough food to eat? When my grandparents were first married, the people with way too many kids and not enough money to feed them used to steal from all the neighbors. They'd use intimidation tactics to keep anyone from trying to stop them. There were no police to help anyone  either.

Look, I get that people who have to pay a lot of taxes get really annoyed when they see the propaganda about the entitlement people. And I will be the first to admit that some of those people ARE scamming the system. But not all of them, not even most of them. And if these people aren't spreading viruses to you or stealing your guns or grinning at you with their rotted out mouths, aren't you somewhat better off?