on handouts, deadbeats and welfare recipients

It's a long, boring, tired and, frankly, ignorant rant of a society that feels it is entitled to determine who deserves assistance and who doesn't. So many excuses have been used to defend such gross prejudice and few of those excuses are ever based on hard cold facts and figures. They are utterances made by people who feel it is more important for them to be condescending in an effort to elevate themselves without any real consideration for the many other details they are too ignorant to consider.

What of those details?

How about the fact that more than 20% of people on assistance are unemployable children who are not to blame for their families' financials struggles. But aren't they? Aren't they the reason many families are in debt? Children cost money, to their guardians and the overall economy. We already know we are over-populated. So why don't we give the government control over our reproductive rights? In essence, let's allow the government to tell us who can and cannot be parents. Yeah. Right.

So how do we give money only to children without allowing their parents to benefit from it? We'd need enough social workers to permanently live in the houses of welfare recipients to constantly monitor spending to ensure that the money is only being spent on the children and not the guardians.

If not that, let's yank these kids away from their homes and deadbeat families. That's an increase of children being declared wards of the state, sent to group homes or placed in the foster system. Our social workers can barely handle the amount of cases they have, now. So we'll need to hire a lot more workers and create a lot more group homes to house and care for the thousands upon thousands of children receiving welfare whose parents aren't working hard enough to deserve assistance.

You only need to be slightly intelligent to see that such a move would not only be a completely inappropriate, violation of human rights but it would end up costing the government and tax-payers infinitely more money that what is already being spent on welfare.

In short, we really can't do anything to ensure that children get the need they deserve while denying their guardians.

Now it's only natural that people want to have some control over how their money is spent. I get it. We should know how our money is spent.

Except we don't know. I literally cannot think of a single person I've talked to about taxes and welfare who has ever taken the time to look up how our taxes are spent despite the fact this information is READILY AVAILABLE.

For instance, residents of Guam who complain about their hard-earned and begrudgingly-paid taxes and how it's not fair that those tax dollars help families on assistance seem to have overlooked one tiny, albeit important fact. Get ready bitchers and complainers:

VERY LITTLE OF YOUR TAXES COLLECTED ON GUAM CONTRIBUTE TO GOVERNMENT-PROVIDED WELFARE ASSISTANT PROGRAMS.

What the federal government spends on actual disbursements to people seeking aid mostly comes from tax-payers in the 50 states. Consider it a give and take. They get to vote for president and have more of a presence in congress, the actual people whose voices factor in these matters. So they get to pay for welfare for the three measly US territories that are eligible for assistance who don't get a voice in anything concerning our federal government.

So maybe it doesn't matter where the assistance is coming from. Maybe you really don't care if it's YOUR money housing deadbeats and what matters here is the principle of receiving a handout. Maybe all you're really concerned about is that it's "not fair".

As adults, you really should have learned by now that life isn't fair.

Are you driving a car that someone else paid for while there are others who can't afford their own vehicles? That's not fair.

Are you living in a free house while many others pay hefty mortgages and actual rent? That's not fair.

I went to private school. No tax-payers' dollars paid for my education. My parents still paid taxes that contributed to public school infrastructure and personnel. That's not fair.

It's not fair that some people have parents and some don't. It's not fair that some people have families that have money to spare while others don't.

Anytime anyone other than yourself has paid, in any amount, for anything you've benefited from, YOU ARE RECEIVING A HANDOUT. And I could easily say that all the deadbeats living charmed lives with parents who can afford to help them don't deserve their handouts. But that's none of my business. But when the government pays for it with our taxes, it is our business, right?

Are you a government worker? Then I'm paying for your salary. If you want to determine howdeserving other people are for welfare assistance, we should also determine how vital your government position is and if we are wasting taxes paying for an employee who doesn't deserve a job.

Are you in the military? There are a lot of citizens that don't agree with how the military spends money. Maybe we should be given the ability to deny paying taxes for military expenditures that we don't agree with.

And that is only the tip of the iceberg. Go ahead and look up the breakdown of tax expenditures. You tell me if you agree with how that money is spent. Then compare the figures of other government expenses to how much is spent on welfare. Is welfare still your primary concern?

But here's the thing: You can take out everything I've previously said and consider only one factor. Just one bit of information that, by now, EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN ADULT WITH FULL MENTAL CAPABILITIES SHOULD ALREADY KNOW.

Check it out, Einstein. We are in a really, really, really bad RECESSION. It's being compared to war-time recession. It's being compared to THE GREAT DEPRESSION. Isn't that the reason so many of you are bitching about welfare assistance? Because our economy can't afford it?

Guess what. The government can't afford it because PEOPLE can't afford it. Not deadbeats. Not drug addicts. Not welfare junkies out to mooch off of the system (you know, the ones who can't mooch off of their families).

Some of the people who can't afford basic necessities in this screwed up economy are educated. Some of them, in fact, have advanced degrees. They didn't stop as undergraduates. They've worked longer and harder and spent their own money or owe thousands of dollars in school loans for multiple degrees that they were told would help secure them a future.

Some of the people who can't afford it have worked for many years. Some have worked most of those years in managerial positions where they once could afford a comfortable life in a decent home, provide for their families and even have savings. And when the economy turned sour, they lost everything, having to dip into their savings only to have that money run out.

Educated people. Capable employees with marketable skills and years of experience. Nurses, teachers, civil service employees. Billions of dollars of tax-payers' dollars are spent on defense and many of our own soldiers are receiving assistance.

Look around you. Lay-offs. Foreclosures. Repossessions. These are not isolated to deadbeats.

This is all the information you are not considering when you make broad-sweeping, blanket statements about a group of people that you have clearly not made any effort to understand.

When you missed the "life isn't fair" lesson, you apparently also missed the lesson about stereotypes.

Keep that in mind the next time you decide to make comments about something you obviously do not understand. Educate yourself and do your research. Don't mimic or parrot misinformation. Take control of your thoughts and actions by thinking things out for yourself. And if you decide to perpetuate prejudice and ignorance, TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for the things you say without backtracking with bogus excuses that begin with, "But I didn't mean..." or "I'm not talking about..." When you offend people with your prejudices, never, ever expect them to treat you with the understanding that you failed to exhibit yourself. Oblivious ignorance is no excuse. If you are ignorant, expect people to call you ignorant.

And that's the last thing you should have learned: Do unto others as you would have them do to you.