Earlier today, President-Elect Obama spoke of our need to return to the idea of responsibility. He criticized, "an era of profound irresponsibility that stretched from corporate boardrooms to the halls of power in Washington.”
The question we need to ask is whether it is possible, in the course of human events, to teach people to be responsible when we seek to minimize the consequences of failure or even of bad luck. Might it be that the more hand-outs we have the less reasonable it is to be responsible?
I don't think the government doing something will ever teach anyone any lesson anytime. I like where this is headen though because it is getting to the old idea of not helping the guy in the gutter because he won't learn anything. If I remember correctly that was an offshoot of eugenics and social darwinism. It is an interesting argument. I don't really know where I come down on this one because its entirely possible that soon the man in the gutter won't be a drunkard but simply a college grad with no available way to make a living. Somehow this will end with the government siezing pension funds in the name of protecting them and if you don't like it then you will be called a racist. Its one of the ways the world bank ruined argentina and it will happen here. The national debt is already over 70k per family. Another 800 billion...yikes, How much of that will go straight to the cayman islands?