A new kind of slavery

As we begin the new year, we are marching inexorably into a new kind of slavery. It’s a kind of slavery that is nearly invisible, unless you know how to look, and how to interpret it’s guise. If slavery can be described as one being forced against his will to work for someone else, then our government, and those who refuse to work for their own living, but instead live upon the taxes of others, are guilty of enslaving millions of Americans.

Millions of people voted for Barack Obama because he seemed most likely to give them stuff. It seemed like a good idea to them. Perhaps they only think of themselves and never think of where the stuff they get actually comes from, but someone somewhere actually has to work to provide that stuff to them. Joe Citizen in Topeka, Kansas works every week for five days, eight hours, and part of his paycheck goes to paying taxes. Part of those taxes go to people who freeload and intend to freeload their entire lives. (Let me state categorically that there are many people using entitlement programs whose intent is not to abuse, but to get by with it until they can improve their situation. With these folks I have no beef.)

This is forcing someone else to work for you, and to do for you what you are unwilling to do for yourselves. And, as described above, if they do it against their will, you are in fact enslaving them. While not as visible as plantations in the 18th and 19th centuries, and while the workers are not routinely shackled and whipped, they are still slaves to an ever-increasing degree. And the further in debt we go as a nation, the more the slavery will increase and continue.

What to do about it? Well, for one, I think ridicule of those who abuse those programs designed for welfare is a good thing. Decades ago, it used to be shameful for people to milk the system and try and stay on welfare indefinitely. Families used to struggle to find work, but they would struggle and they would find work eventually. Now, they just let the government take care of them, with no intentions of ever finding work. Instead of shaming these kinds of freeloaders, the American public has been cajoled into saying nothing. It’s no longer considered politically correct to use shame as a way of encouraging people to work their way off these programs that drain away resources and make us a weaker nation. That there are legitimate reasons for people being on welfare is true, but all who are in that situation should have the desire to improve their lot in life and get out of that situation. Welfare is a fallback, not a lifestyle–or at least, it should be.

Thus, the slavery continues, and will until this country finally goes so broke that there will be no way that it can. Better to wean people off of the welfare now, instead of waiting that day.