Personal responsibility is all well and good and I wouldn’t take away from your comments above as I do share them to a degree. But what about situations beyond your control? Let’s say you are hit by car tomorrow that leaves you in a state where you are no longer able to work. In your view, what should happen?
If you are in the US and you have diligently paid your medical insurance for x years you would expect that you would receive medical treatment for your condition and some financial help from that insurance to live on. Does that insurance last throughout the rest of your life? If not, what should happen when it runs out?
As I mentioned above I do share the viewpoint from your arguement to a degree, but I also believe that everyone deserves a second chance. I consider government help as a seeing someone in trouble and lending them a hand and a shoulder to lean on until they can help themselves. Everyone can fail, everyone can have problems…I don’t think someone should be thrown to the wolves because of it.
Simply put, what good is wealth if you can’t use it to help your family? The average inheritance left to children isn’t going to sustain anyone for that long, it just helps them pay off a house or go to college or whatever.
Oh I’m not arguing that particularly, just the viewpoint expressed that “all you need to make it big is work hard and take some risks”…of course it helps if Mum and Dad left you $50,000 to pay off your mortgage. Or alternatively if Mum and Dad could buy the whole house for you.
Do you see what I mean? If we are going to say that conservatism believes in ultimate personal responsibility then you would need to take into account what the person’s starting point was. Maybe the guy who’s working a standard office job now and enjoying an “average” life has improved on his original lot by 200% but the person who started life with lots of privileges has only improved by 50%.
A little off topic, but I hope you see where I’m going.
Seriously, though, according to my very conservative brothers, having parents who paid for every cent of education and who willingly supplement income up to and including paying all household bills during any unemployment doesn’t mean that they are lucky or not self-sufficient. Essentially, my parents’ successes are my brothers’ successes, while my brothers’ successes are only my brothers’ successes. One brother sends letters to the editor constantly railing against people who don’t “take personal responsibility” for their fates. This brother, his wife, and their two children are living off my mom while he tries to get a start-up off the ground. It’s easy to take risks when you aren’t risking anything.
I and one of my sisters, on the other hand, view my parents’ successes as wonderfully lucky for me and view our own successes as having built on that good fortune. I wouldn’t be where I am without the advantages given me by my parents. I have less stress in my life because of the support and safety of my parents. I did nothing to earn my parents, did nothing to earn the sizeable inheritance I will come into upon the death of my mom (I hope it’s a hundred years away), and consider myself lucky every day that they could afford to send me to college, could afford to give me a down payment on my house, and have always been willing to rescue their children when they get in over their heads.
I used to think like they do. I remember what it was like.
A child was separated from his family during genocidal attacks in Sudan. He walked 1000 km (this article claims 100 miles a day, but I really doubt that) with no food or water, surviving on what he could find every day. He made it out, got to Canada and is well on his way towards improving life for others back in Sudan, and for himself.
If you tell someone they’re too poor or ignorant to make anything of themselves, they will most likely prove you right.
I never said we had to throw them to the wolves. In the example I gave I stated that there are lots of programs available for those who wish to overcome their addictions and improve their lives. Help is there. But they have to acknowledge that it was their choices that got them where they are, and they have to decide to do something about it. Make a choice to change. Being able to make your own decisions is very empowering, and that agency to choose for ourselves can never be taken away.
As for the possibility of medical insurance running out, it happens. We have social systems set up to help those who need it, but it is so open to abuse that it hardly seems worth maintaining. I have a friend who worked in a social assistance program and the abuses she saw just made her blood boil and she had to quit her job or risk having a stroke. It infuriated her that people were so able, and too willing, to unfairly take the assistance so desperately needed by others.
I know disability insurance is expensive but if the situation ever arises that you can’t work again, it is worth every single penny and then some. We have to prepare for the worst but hope for the best. And we can hope that our social networks of family, friends, and religious communities will be there to offer some assistance as well.
They earned that money by being a part of society that includes workers, managers, suppliers, bankers, investors, customers, and a whole web of interconnected businesses.
It’s very telling that a conservative says “I earned that money.” Very probably, thousands of people helped him earn that money.
To me, a person should first and foremost think of the factors that went into his success: he succeeded because there were customers with money to spend, educated and healthy workers, favorable conditions for trade, willing suppliers, sufficient resources, and a stable economy for all. When you have poor customers struggling to make ends meet, incompetent and ailing workers, trade imbalances, bankrupt suppliers, and so forth, the atmosphere for business is less good. Why more businesses don’t take an interest in factors like education and healthcare is beyond me.
Whilst all systems are open to abuse, personally I think there are bigger abuses to tackle (see above comments on the US investment bank issues), my personal opinion is that I would rather a few people abuse the system than someone who has worked hard all their life but not earnt riches is left behind by society.
Your comment of “We have to prepare for the worst but hope for the best.” is a slight twist on the one I use at work “Plan for the worst, Work for the best”. I think it’s preferable to have a system in place to catch people when they fall rather than a system that depends on friends and family to help them. Depending on friends and family could just lead to ending up crippling them with financial burdens as well…which just develops a spiral of debt.
Not specifically directed at you Myrrajh but you control-z and Starving Artist have expressed similar ideas, in an ‘idea conservative world’ (please bear with me, it’s about the best expression I could come up with) where anyone can and does raise themselves up and become a millionaire or at least very wealthy…who does the menial work? Who sweeps the streets, cleans the toilets, serves burgers, etc? If everyone is capable of becoming a millionaire and choses to do so, who does the rest of the work? Is there a lottery to decide or is it just that since no one wants to do that work the people who chose to do so are very well rewarded for it?
Don’t you see that this is exactly the difference between you and him: between liberals and conservatives?
He think that people are successful because they’re better or work harder. You think they’re successful because of circumstances and assistance from others.
Also, on the issue of inheritance, conservatives support it because they view the right to make life better for one’s children as part of personal freedom. To them, if the government took that away, it would be just like stealing their cars. Liberals value equality more, and so they think that it’s unfair for someone to benefit from money someone else earned, if no one else gets the opportunity for this money. Conservatives focus on the viewpoint of the parent, and liberals on the viewpoint of the inheritor.
After all the point of this thread is to find the difference between liberals and conservatives, not to be a catch-all debating spot.
Valete,
Vox Imperatoris
ETA: grey_ideas, in a pure conservative mindset, the people who would do the menial jobs would be those who are lazy, lack the will to apply themselves, or who just have no ability would do the menial tasks.
