In response to my post on Michael Demmons' welfare remarks, I received a thoughtful email. I just replied to it, and it seems fair to share this with other readers.
(The following is somewhat abbreviated.)
EMAIL TO ME:
Been looking at your blogs here and there. Re: the poor and stupid drain us all - I have a lot of sympathy with the get-off-your-ass-and-work philosophy, but I really believe that some people are not nearly as bright as others. People Can help themselves if they're merely ignorant, but Stupid people are Stupid, they can't help that any more than you can help the color of your skin. I agree that even most Stupid people can be trained to do Something, but someone has to be there to get them going in the right direction - just like a child - and watch over them, just like a child. Do we as a society let them live in misery simply because their parents abandon them? Do we sterilize everyone with an IQ of less than 100?
MY REPLY:
I do worry about the lowest common denominator (of the stupid) becoming the standard to which we are all reduced. Sterilization strikes me as a grotesque violation of human rights, but so does forcing person A to subsidize person B. Where does it end? Charity ought to be voluntary, but then, I don't think anyone should be allowed to starve. The truly stupid-to-the-point-of-helpless need to be cared for, but the fact that some people are more stupid than others should not obligate the smarter to take care of the dumber.
Theologically, I guess it boils down to whether we are our brother's keeper. Ayn Rand would call this altruism, and condemn it. What I don't like is the utilization of force to promote altruism -- so I am not a true Randian (and thus I get in lots of arguments with them).
I suppose I should also add that because the welfare system has been in place for many decades, it cannot simply be terminated abruptly without provoking horrors possibly worse than the welfare system itself. Slavery was an evil far worse than welfare, but the country exploded over the suggestion that it be terminated, because there was a vast status quo invested in the institution. So, as a pragmatist, I hesitate to base my thinking solely on whether something is right or wrong. It is possible to recognize the wrongness of something yet acknowledge that starting a civil war over it compounds the wrongness.
Once again, this returns to the distinction between the good and the right, and (as is so often the case where ways of thinking collide) there are no easy answers.
BY THE WAY: Michael Demmons' piece seems destined to become a blogdom classic. Ask Dean Esmay.
For me, it stood out like a piece of rare art, and so I had to quote it. Many people agree with Michael, but would never dare say so.
posted by Eric on 01.05.04 at 05:35 PM
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Comments
Eric,
I haven't yet heard the end of it!!!
And to your email correspondent:
The "stupid" can work on a road crew, spreading asphalt and digging holes. That's who those jobs are for.
(No offense to the smart people who take those jobs because they pay well.)
Ayn Rand wasn't against charity to the poor, the sick, the handicapped. She was against the idea that that is the primary virtue, superceding all others. She was against the idea that it is somehow _better_, more virtuous, to be poor, sick, helpless, than to be rich, healthy, strong, able. She was against the idea that beauty, glamor, and achievement are to be renounced in the name of pity. She was against the idea that, if you see a blind man, you should poke your own eyes out in order to be "equal" to him. She was against the idea that if you do something for your own profit, material or spiritual, if you have a selfish motive of any kind, then your act is somehow morally less worthy than if you do it out of guilt.
Selfish capitalists like Bill Gates or the "Robber Barons" of the 19th century did far more to create wealth and jobs for the poor than have all the Mother Teresas ever have. They did not merely alleviate poverty, they abolished it for millions of people. America is mostly middle-class, and even our lower class is better off than most of the rest of the world. _I'm_ pretty lower class myself, or so I've been told, yet I live better than the people in Africa because of the selfish profit motive of the capitalists who built this country.
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Don?t bang your head!
Eric,
I haven't yet heard the end of it!!!
And to your email correspondent:
The "stupid" can work on a road crew, spreading asphalt and digging holes. That's who those jobs are for.
(No offense to the smart people who take those jobs because they pay well.)