Paternalism Robs The Poor Of Their Freedom And Opportunities

by Pup on June 1, 2010

I’ve been reading Star Parker’s book Uncle Sam’s Plantation, and highly recommend it. Ms. Parker is a woman who has literally ‘been there, done that,’ and bravely shares how she once lived, how she changed, and what she learned from her life experiences. Once a welfare recipient herself, she found a new life embracing the eternal truths of faith, family, love, and responsibility. Her book is facinating; I haven’t finished it yet, but yesterday I read a section that I’d like to share with you here.

This is such a great mental image of exactly what goes on whenever government and ‘well-meaning’ people who love to direct other people’s lives decide to get involved in a situation. And, if a situation doesn’t really exist, they happily create one.

[excerpted from Uncle Sam's Plantation by Star Parker]

Common sense runs counter to welfare protectionism. Take the analogy of the swimming pool.

We have swimming pools so people can swim. There is a shallow end and a deep end of the swimming pool. This allows all people regardless of their training to go into the water at their individual comfort level. Some will go into the shallow end and learn to swim. Some will go into the deep end because they already know how to swim. People choose to go into the area that reflects their personal desires and abilities.

One day, an advocate against drowning decided that the pool offers too much risk of drowning because it has a deep end. He calls on an advocate for swimming pool rights who in turn expresses that it is not fair some people must stay in the shallow end because they do not know how to swim while others have greater swimming privileges.

They hold a press conference and call on government to intervene for the shallow-enders. The public is alarmed as the media shows person after person being discriminated against because they do not know how to swim. Of course they exaggerate the problem by cutting between images of pools in the backyards of affluent neighborhoods and sobbing minority kids at the press conference that have never even been in a swimming pool.

Their political insider sees the press conference and goes on C-SPAN the next day to plead for a war on drowning. A congresswoman pressures her colleagues to pass a bill that designates a one-size-fits-all guarantee against drowning. The new law forces more taxes out of swimmers and non-swimmers to build a pool in every low-income neighborhood and mandates that all pools in the country must have no more than two feet of water so everyone can get in without drowning. Common sense tells John Q. Public that it is a stupid law, but we all know that John Q. is really just trying to protect the pool in his all-white neighborhood. So the speech police must impress on John a new vocabulary in order not to cause offense since he is harboring racist feelings against the sobbing minority kids and wants to keep them out of his pool.

Of course John sees that with the new law no one can swim, not even the kids at the press conference crying about not knowing how to swim. That is because you are a racist, John. See how much trouble you cause by being a racist? How do you expect them to learn to swim and compete with your children when you have a pool at your home and they don’t?

*****

The culture of Uncle Sam’s plantation is fed by the misguided policies of the Left. As long as there are liberal ideologues in the halls of power, there is a long, hard battle ahead for those of us committed to seeing poor people emancipated from a paternalistic system that robs them of their initiative, their freedom, and ultimately their hope for the future. [emphasis mine]

And that, dear friends, hits the nail smack-dab on the middle of the head.