Tuesday, September 4, 2012

MITT ROMNEY, PAUL RYAN, AND THE MYTH OF THE "HAND-UP"

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Recently, I’ve seen in the public arena, and particularly on message boards for comments and opinions on or about politics, news articles, etc., more frequent use of the phrase “A Hand-Out, and not a Hand-Up”  …. This of course was notably recently mentioned by Paul Ryan, if not gramattically verbatim, then in certainly in a description of the concept, and it may be people parroting this seemingly plausible ideal because of the powerful images it conjures. After all,  there is a potency and a seemingly inerrable logic to the saying: “Give a man a fish, and end his hunger for a  day. But teach the same man to fish, and never will he hunger again.”  

The problem is that equating ending the few existent functioning items in the social safety net with teaching a man to fish, by way of Paul Ryan’s “Hand-Up vs. Hand-out “ sound-bite is a myth and fallacy a thousand miles wide.

Its unfortunate but it seems around half the country, probably a hundred million adults, are deluded into thinking that the choice is as simple as Hand Up/Hand Out, which in their minds becomes the choice of offering the earning of an honest living vs. giving away someone elses money so that these people can stay inept and reliant on others. If you are one of these people, I ask you: Do they really think there are that many people who would prefer to have no job, or a dead end job, just barely scraping by with “minimal effort” rather then become self sufficient and “self-made”? Come on. There is no actual choice, just an illusion created to keep us divided, and to make you think the poor and they huddled masses are your enemy, and not your equal, but for the lot they drew in life.

………..THE “HAND OUT” IS  THE “HAND-UP”……..

The "Hand-Out is Unemployment or EBT Food Stamps that allow a family on the outs to maintain some semblance of normalcy while out-of-work primary breadwinners seek new jobs. Its Pell Grants, that allow the disadvantaged to go to college, even with no access to loans, collateral, or scholarships. Its the Earned Income Credit, which is only provided to the working poor, as incentive to keep working, even in lower income earning situations. Its federal Daycare Assistance, which helps towards people in both the seeking-a-college degree AND in the incentive-to-maintain  a lower-wage employment boat. Its the Mortgage Modification programs, which kept a million people in their homes directly, and many more millions indirectly, that you never hear reported on. (Lots of banks didn't want to be forced into government rules with the gov-funded mods, so you only hear about the million the government funded as a failure, but another 6-7 million have been modified by the Banks, under their own terms and their own funding that aren't counted towards the numbers.) Its CHIP, the Childrens Health Insurance Program, which covers kids when their parents jobs don't offer insurance. Its medicaid, without which teenage births, STDs, and God knows what else would be far bigger, scarier threats, because NOBODY poor would go to the doctor.

Tell me, please: How is the tea party/republican platform, which hinges on eliminating or vastly reducing  these assistance programs for the needy, low income children, the down on their luck, disadvantaged, minority, poverty-stricken, hurricane-ravaged, victims of violence, young mothers, and elderly, HELPING THEM? ....You must have a better answer then simply the fact that once you’ve removed any help we have for them, it will force them to "Pull themselves up by their bootstraps and discover their full potential, and realize the American Dream", right? Or is this the Alpha and Omega to the mythical fantasy concept of providing  "Hand Up", by taking away the Hand-Out?----How is this hand-up really supposed to help anybody? What about the millions and millions, who when "forced to do it on their own", rather then miraculously becoming a self-made entrepreneur with ZERO assistance, cash, resources, and often from a position of being sick, unhealthy, uneducated, young and pregnant, or from an area so stricken by poverty that the thought of "just getting a job" or "just starting a business" would be absolutely the most hilarious thing in the world if it weren't so cluelessly insulting?

And put another way: How is a handout not a handup? How is giving these people the finger and cutting their only lifeline, instead, this miraculous "Hand-up?" you speak of? I just can’t believe the cold heart or the incredibly fallible logic center, or the gullibility of some people. Probably a bit of all three in many. Its tragic what this thinking is doing to our country, where we used to care for our neighbors, and particularly, those less fortunate….