Redefining kindness

Saturday I wrote Moral Imperatives and Freedom.  My point was that under the guise of "moral imperative" our government tries, and often succeeds, in convincing people to trade freedom for personal security.  Dan Riehl, wrote yesterday about a possible unintended consequence of government provided health care.

Dan correctly points out that many people have health insurance through their employer and that if you sever the relationship between health insurance and employment there is one less reason to work.  Does this mean that if ObamaCare becomes law that we will suddenly see a flood people leaving the job market?  No, social changes come over time.  Consider this from Dr. Helen's post "These women are not so much welfare queens as matriarchal dynasties..."  that discusses this article:

Are men surplus to requirements? The answer, after more than half a century of feminism and the welfare state, depends largely on class. Men from the employable and educated classes are still in strong demand among women. But much lower down the socioeconomic scale, among the least privileged, men have become — or have come to seem — entirely optional.

As many of these women become grandmothers, a new pattern has emerged of three generations of mothers without a man in the house — lone granny, lone mum and fatherless children, all expecting the state to stand in for daddy, as of right. These women are not so much welfare queens as matriarchal dynasties of welfare Amazons...

We currently have various social "safety net" programs, AFDC, WIC, Food Stamps, Medicaid, Section 8 housing, that at the time the programs were created we were told that each was a moral obligation.  But as a result, we have children for whom there is no relationship between employment and basic needs.  Education has no relevance in these young people's lives. The cycle of dependence expands because of the false notion that a "kind" nation takes care of its own.  From the comments on Dr. Helen's post:

 "People and governments who care about the poor will make them uncomfortable in their poverty. Countries who spend the most on their poor have the most poor to spend money on."

- Benjamin Franklin.

The more entitlement programs we enact the poorer our general welfare becomes.  Even worse than the debt that we are passing on to our children is the independence we are robbing them of.  It is time we redefine kindness.