Today I was reading through the various blogs and feeds that I subscribe to and I came across one entry that was particularly interesting. The author describes his return to the United States from Japan as a “failed” missionary. What struck me as odd was how he and his family were treated once they got back. Despite being a missionary and being downtrodden himself at the time, the church goers in his area basically refused to help him. His family survived on welfare and lived in his parent’s house. Eventually, he was forced to go back to Japan to find work, of all places.
What was disturbing about this story to me was the fact that many church-goers did not lift a finger to help this person and his family. They were all happy about him going to Japan, which is a traditionally closed country when it comes to culture and religion, and spreading the Word of God, but when it came time for his own family to deal with a crisis, he was ignored and shunned. And while I cannot hammer down the specific reasons for every person who could’ve helped, but didn’t, I can give a few broad generalizations.
The biggest one that came to mind was the mentality that is created when you live in a welfare state. A welfare state is a country whose government provides charitable services to its citizens without strings or expectation of a return in payment. Granted, that usually is the generally accepted definition of charity, but when the government is involved, it never involves their money, but the money they’ve taken, by force, from the productive class. In a democracy, this form of ‘charity’ has disastrous long-term effects, the beginnings of which are being felt right now.
Anyway, the mentality created by such a system is far worse than the actual cost on society it brings and the inevitable collapse that will follow. The mentality it creates, even among Christian organizations, is that you don’t have to take care of others because the government will do it for you. Another argument might be that because the government takes so much money, why should we give to other organizations when they receive some of that money from the government. Unfortunately, I’ve found myself sympathetic to the latter argument at times.
When this mentality sets in throughout the masses, not only do they become complicit with the welfare state, they also hold back on their giving and become more selfish individuals. The welfare-mongers then point to this behavior and demand more taxes and programs to help the needy. The cycle repeats itself again and again until you find that the politicians are lying about the true budget shortfalls every year all the while attacking anyone who even mentions slight changes to their vote-buying schemes.
This is how parasitic behavior perpetuates itself. And this isn’t a parasite that can easily be removed. The whole of the mainstream press supports welfare programs whole-heartedly, views the opponents as crackpots and oligarchs, and will attack any politician or pundit with a reasonable solution. Remember how George W. Bush couldn’t reform Social Security, even though it was the exact plan Democrats were toying with back in the late 1990s? That’s because the welfare state has created this selfish, lazy mentality among the majority of Americans that people shouldn’t be helped because the government will help them.
In the end, the economic laws will take hold. They aren’t instantaneous like the laws of natural science, but rather gradual. But when they hit the marketplace, they can deliver a pretty devastating blow. As long as the welfare state remains at all levels of government, I can see nothing but total and utter economic collapse and it will probably come a lot sooner than everyone seems to think.