This morning I was reading SomeGirl's Website, and she's talking up a storm about entitlements. She's been reading the book From Innocence to Entitlement: Today she posted this quotation, which I think is brilliant:
A sense of entitlement isn’t really about getting too much, it’s about giving too little.
Tomorrow is Canada Day up here in The Great White North, and of course my American friends will celebrate July 4 in a few short days as well. So I thought it might be worth reflecting on the nature of our countries and what this quote means.
I'm going to get a little American here, so please forgive me my fellow Canadians, but I think it applies to us as well. John Adams, the second President, wrote frequently to his wife Abigail about his vision for the United States. And one thing he said was that the nation couldn't survive if it were not, fundamentally, a Christian nation.
And I agree. Our democracies work not just because they enshrine our rights, but also because with our freedom comes responsibility. We feel a sense of community because we are free to pursue it, and the government doesn't interfere. And so you saw people caring for their neighbours, and creating a better life for their kids, and working hard.
But when these things go--when we stop concentrating on what we can do to make life better, and start waiting for others to make our lives better--the main problem, as the quotation says, is not that we are expecting people to do things for us. It's that we have stopped doing things altogether.
Do you know what makes our hospital work? Canada has socialized medicine, and it's a big fat mess in my particular neck of the woods. But the reason that our hospital continues to function is that doctors and nurses go out of their way to do double shifts sometimes, to fill in that call schedule, to call around and make sure someone has a follow-up appointment. They don't just do the minimum; if they did, it would fall apart. They do more, and so the hospital continues to limp along.
If my husband stopped filling in the gaps in the call schedule (he's a pediatrician), obstetrics would close. The Emergency Room would be in dire straits. And so my husband keeps plugging along.
Our society works because people go above and beyond. They care about others. They feel a sense of responsibility. When that sense goes--when people stop going above and beyond--our society falls apart.
The Founding Fathers got that. The society only works when people work hard and care for each other.
But we aren't doing that anymore. There is a rush to the bottom, a rush to do the minimum. The new god in our society isn't money; it's leisure. We're all trying to do the least possible. And that is why the entitlement society has hurt us so much; it is not just that people expect things from others; it is that we have stopped working and helping.
I think the anniversaries of the births of our countries is a good time to remind us of that: we will only fluorish not when the government gives us everything, but when we all work hard together.
Happy long weekend, everybody! Now go do something nice for someone.
Governments love to spend your money. They gain power to establish sweeping new programs that will Make Everything Better and create the perfect society!
All too often, though, their ideas conflict with reality. Dalton McGuinty, for instance, is launching full-day kindergarten, because it will better prepare kids for school. What he didn’t take into account is that Head Start in the United States has already spent billions—and any benefit evaporates by grade four. That’s a lot of money on an idea.
Or take the green job promise. Each green job in Spain cost $500,000, and eventually Spain had to pull the plug. Green jobs are lovely ideas, and I hope and pray that somebody figures out how to build a bigger battery so that solar power is feasible here in the Great White North. But until that day comes, let’s not kid ourselves. We can’t prop up an industry which could never be profitable on its own indefinitely. Government subsidy stops truly profitable—and sustainable—industries from developing. Ideology has trumped reality.
In another burst of ideological fervour, government has banned incandescent light bulbs. We’re now supposed to use environmentally friendly CFL bulbs, which are apparently wonderful even though they’re not nearly as bright, don’t last as long as promised, won’t turn on in cold weather, cost eight times as more, and can lead to migraines. Oh, and they also contain mercury, so they need to be disposed of at the hazardous waste dump. How many people do you think are going to drive to the dump to get rid of lightbulbs? All that mercury is going to end up in the landfill, but we’re all supposed to exalt that we’re saving the environment.
What government doesn’t seem to understand is that when they do something, they upset the balance, and so people are going to change as a result. In the United States, for instance, deducting mortgage insurance from your taxes seemed like an easy way to encourage home ownership. The only problem was that it also discouraged paying off that mortgage. So then when real estate prices fall, people’s mortgages are suddenly worth more than their homes. But how do you get rid of that tax loophole once it’s in place?
Or take our Canadian election. If government gives seniors more money, as Ignatieff is advocating the provinces do through the CPP (though how the provinces come up with that money is beyond me), then people will save less for retirement, and my generation will be absolutely and completely up a creek paying for our parents. We’ll end up with less for our own retirement because our higher CPP payments will have to pay for all the Baby Boomers. We won’t be able to save as much, and our parents won’t bother to save as much. It’s horribly inefficient.
I’m not saying government should never do anything. I just believe government should tread lightly. It’s like what Reagan said: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”
Just because a problem exists does not mean that government is in the best position to fix it. Usually those who can really fix problems are those who are closer to those problems. Give us the freedom to fix our communities and our families, and we’re more likely to do it. Try to do everything for us, and throw money at problems, and you distort what we would naturally choose to do. So please, don’t help so much. Reserve handouts for those who truly need it, and ask the rest of us to stand on our own. And then trust us to make the right decisions. We can’t do much worse than you.
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I heard a news article this week about how Michelle Obama's Healthy Kids Initiative (or whatever it's called) is aiming to feed 2,000,000 children three healthy meals a day, 365 days a year. No longer will it just be breakfast during the school year; they're going to feed kids all the time in a push to reduce childhood obesity.
The analyst was praising this initiative.
I have to ask, "are you nuts?!?"
Let's think this through for a moment. How many government bureaucrats is it going to take to feed 2,000,000 children three meals a day?
1. All the people who cook the food 2. All the people who serve the food 3. All the people who purchase the food
But it doesn't stop there. There's also:
4. The nutritionists hired to create menus. They'll have meetings, and conferences, and mega phone calls to discuss all the different things they should serve.
5. The consultants hired to study which green vegetables kids will actually eat.
6. The university graduate students hired to actually conduct these studies.
7. The professors hired to analyze the results and share them with the consultants.
Then let's not leave out the finance guys.
8. The commodities experts hired to give their opinion on which commodities will be relatively more expensive by the end of the year, so that menus can be altered to reflect the cheapest, healthiest food.
What about government bureaucrats?
9. The accountants hired to oversee the program. 10. The managers hired to oversee the accountants.
And let's not forget the states:
11. The bureaucrats each state hires to lobby the federal government for more share of the federal dollars for the state meal programs.
12. The federal bureaucrats hired to analyze the submissions by the state governments and decide how to divvy up the money.
And it goes on, and on, and on.
Let me be really radical here. I know food is expensive, but on a relative basis, it is cheaper today than it ever has been, as a proportion of one's income. If one is thrifty, and does not buy prepared food, cereal, or ice cream, one can feed a family of four on $125/week (in the U.S. anyway; up here in Canada dairy is way more expensive).
Food banks are available for those whose money is really stretched.
If you cannot feed your children, you should not have your children.
Isn't feeding your kids one of the most basic parenting responsibilities? If the state starts feeding the kids, then what are parents supposed to do? We're absolving them of the necessity of being parents. And then we wonder why kids misbehave.
I understand the rationale for breakfast feeding programs; kids who are hungry don't learn as well. That doesn't mean I agree with them necessarily, though. If a parent doesn't feed a child breakfast, that should be grounds for removing the child from the home.
So Ms. Obama, I agree kids need to eat more healthily. But this is not the way to do it. How about we get back to the idea that parents feed their kids? I know it's radical (actually expecting responsibility from parents), but it would do a lot of good.
About Me: I'm a Christian author of a bunch of books, and a frequent speaker to women's groups and marriage conferences. Best of all, I love homeschooling my daughters, Rebecca and Katie. And I love to knit. Preferably simultaneously.
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