the scriptorium

Thursday, January 03, 2008

I have long held that the last thing we need to do as a nation is to continue to create more and more "entitlement programs" that tend to keep people in poverty rather than give them the skills and education required to get out of their situations. One of several radio talk shows I listen to is a local show called The Pulse with Leland Conway. He has written an excellent editorial for our local paper (which requires money to access archives, so I linked to the article from another source) on this very subject. I can remember some time ago visiting with some church friends from another city, who were lamenting the fact that some tax levy or other was voted down. I told them then what Conway says in his editorial--basically, that if the church (and by that I don't necessarily mean the institutions of the church, but its members severally) was doing what it should be in the way of helping those in need, whether materially or spiritually, then government would not need to get involved, and that it really isn't the government's purview to be involved in helping the poor in any case. Read the Constitution, and you will find nothing about the government's requirement to "take care of" the poor. The closest thing you might find is the bit about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I'm cool with government being involved with education, although these days they are apparently not doing as good a job with it as they once did, if you go by the verbal competence of some of the students I have come into contact with in my recent return to the college scene. The student who could complete a sentence without once saying "like" or "you know" was rare, indeed. Anyway, I'm straying from my point. Read Conway's editorial, and tell me what you think.

Labels: church, politics, poor, rant