During my time at JU I've seen repeated postings arguing against welfare, universal health care, and the role of the government in society proper. Obviously this is a real sticking point with many of the fine users here, and to be honest I've learned quite a bit from reading posts that come from the other side of the fence. To be fair, I do in fact agree with some of the main arguments against welfare. For example, it can definitely encourage complacency and some people will try to abuse the system rather than use it for its' intended purpose. Every system, whether public or private, will have its' flaws. But does that mean it should be abolished entirely? I do believe that welfare, social security (retirement) and government mandated healthcare are absolutely essential for any modern democratic nation to thrive. Why? There are many reasons. Please bear with me as I launch into another misguided rant.
First off, all developed countries in the modern world have these things in place, and the U.S sticks out like a sore thumb among them as one of the only nations that doesn't have universal healthcare. I'm sorry Americans, but I've visited your fine country quite frequently and Medicaid is a sorry, underfunded, over-stretched piss poor example of anything that could ever closely resemble universal care. Why do all these other countries have socialized medicine, welfare, etc? The answer has nothing to do with "left vs right" or democrat vs republican, liberal vs conservative or any such nonsense. There was no vast left wing conspiracy that gripped all these other countries and tricked the poor fools into adopting socialist policies. The answer is quite simple; they learned that we're all in this together. Other nations have learned that if they provide a social safety net that largely guarantees the average citizen a decent quality of life, people actually are happier and more willing to work. Yes, some people will always try to find ways to get on welfare and stay on welfare indefinitely, and unless they have some kind of ailment or disability that prevents them from working, those people are indeed a leech on the system and need to be dealt with. But that's a matter of finding and correcting an abuse of the system, not a problem with the fundamentals behind it.
All of the other developed nations at one point in time had no social safety net that people could turn to when they fell on hard times, and these were not nice places to live (unless you had money, in which case, who cares right?) Perhaps you are familiar with Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol" and "Oliver Twist"? While these are famous stories that have been hollywood-ized several times over, they were actually written as social commentary about life in 19th century industrial-revolution England. Child labour. No laws governing how employers could and couldn't treat their employees. Sixteen hour workdays with no guaranteed minimum wage? Now that's progress baby!! If you got sick from all the smog and ash that covered London then (and many people did die from respiratory ailments because of it) you were useless to your employer, and literally discarded onto the streets. Hope you get better on your own, because you sure as hell can't afford a real doctor! There were charities and hospices around at the time that were dependent on donations to operate, but they didn't have nearly the amount of funding and resources necessary to provide a true hand to all the needy (hey, that sounds like a good point for the government to step in!) The United States of today isn't 19th century England, so how can you compare the two? I'm using it as an example of how things were for other nations before, and still could be if the U.S continues on its' path of "privatize everything, and remove all government regulations!!"
Social safety nets are just like the army. When times are good and a nation is at peace, people start asking why all that money needs to be spent on those big ol' ships and tanks and planes. It's been proven time and again, no one likes a soldier until the enemy is on your doorstep, and then everyone loves a soldier and cries "hallelujah, kill the somna bitch!" The same goes for welfare. When you're doing good, have a decent job and paying the bills it can be hard to rationalize giving a big chunk of your pay to the government so that they can take care of "lazy poor people who don't wanna work like me!". What happens if you get sick and need care under a privatized system? The way that I see it, unless you're very well off you're still screwed even if you have health insurance. Unless you're Bill Gates and can pay the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars out of pocket, you use your health insurance policy. Assuming that someone from this private health insurance company, who is NOT a doctor, decides that your policy covers the care recommended by a real doctor, they pay for your care, and yay for you, you get to live another day. And to penalize you for living, your insurance company has decided that since you actually have now used medical services your risk (liability) has gone up and so now you have to pay a higher premium. Get sick again..... oooh, now your health insurance company might decline paying for your care. Could be that your need to live is starting to affect their profit margin, and we can't have that now!
So why haven't Americans seen the light as to the benefits of socialized care for all citizens? In my humble opinion there's a disturbing trend that I've noticed when I visit my American brothers and sisters- I call it the "I've got mine" mentality, and it bears no political affiliation- it's present in both liberal and conservatives (in my humble opinion). It's the attitude that everyone is on their own, the only rule of the game is to look out for #1, and if someone gets in the way of your goal or is going after the same thing you are, don't work together, stomp the fuck out of the guy and take the prize for yourself! Now please do not misunderstand me- this is not a rant against Americans, nor am I trying to attack your way of life. I am trying to understand it. What I see regularly is good hardworking people turned against each other by a system that encourages competition over cooperation and operates under a sink or swim mentality. If you make it that's great, if you don't too bad, hope you enjoy the pine box coffin and better luck next time, chump! In my opinion, running a country under the ideal that everyone is a rugged individual who has to fend for themself is not workable in the present day. Maybe back in the days of the wild west, when you had pioneers who were literally on their own did you see that, but that time is no more. Many nations in the world have moved on to universal programs that look after all citizens, that acknowledge that everyone is truly all in this together. When will this happen for the U.S? Or will it ever happen?