You captured it. I have been in this movie before, when I worked in South Africa. There, you really see how the poor are starved of liberty more than bread, even after winning the right to vote. It’s always a tough case to make; how sad that we have to make it again, after all this time, in the United States. But then again, how noble the cause!

You’ve done other pieces that were as timely, but I don’t know that you’ve ever nailed them as completely and as beautifully as you have done with this one.

Thank you for still being a contributor here, Caleb. Would you be interested in being the head of the RNC by any chance? They need someone desperately with your clarity of thought and purity of expressing it.

And I was dirt poor from the time I was born up until I was about 33 or so. And now that you mention it, I was in many ways handcuffed in the way I went about my business, in my choices of what I could drive and where I could live.

But I had vision and higher aspirations. And because of the natural makeup of America, I had the opportunity to make myself better, and did so.

In Obama’s America, the pressures would have been enormous to just accept the crumbs offered me by the government, eking by on next to nothing and not mustering up the courage to do what I would have had to do to escape the bottom rung.

You’ve touched on something grand here, absentee.

IT’S WONDERFUL, ABSENTEE.

It forced me to contemplate. And yeah. I absolutely agree…. Liberty from “Poverty Of Thinking”….. Yeah!

This is one of the best articles I’ve read on this site.

I’ve experience poverty first hand. I never went on any assistance of any kind but I was tempted. I once went 5 days without eating because I had no money. .

At my lowest, most depressed moment, I remember thinking it wouldn’t be so bad to give up and have the government take care of me.At least I would have a roof and food and somehow exist. I imagine I would spend my time reading at the library or watching sports on TV.

That would be the extent of my life.

As pathetic as that sounds, compared to how I was living, it was tempting.

I rejected it however.

Eventually, I learned a skill (related to the web) and worked my way up from some crappy jobs to some not so crappy jobs.

I eventually went into business for myself. By my standards, I’ve done well. I’ve gone way past the six figures income level and I’m hiring in this economy.

More importantly, I have a sense of worth that I would never have if I took the “easy” way out (which is really a much harder path).

Personally, I feel like government assistance chains the soul.

But I do think we have to take care of kids. I can’t believe as a society, we accept the idea of children without decent medical care.

Guess I’m a closet socialist

It goes to the heart of why I becamse a conservative after years of watching the lib dems exploit envy for class warfare to advance policies that further reduce the liberty avaialable to the poor and lower income families and America in general.

Envy is much worse than greed.

You also have discovered the “wonder of Rush”!

I will have much more to praise later!

and just can’t see the light but I don’t agree.
Everyone has limits. Now poverty has some challenges specific to being low income, housing and trasnportation but guess what everyone has their own struggles.I don’t agree with envy either. If you are taught to be grateful to God for what He has provided to you, there is no envy of others, ever, in fact you don’t even think about it.
Maybe you can’t drive to the store but you can walk or take the bus. Maybe your shoes have holes in them but you still have a way to cover most of your foot and you can get where you are going. I’m not saying hunger and cold and struggles complicated by a lack of money aren’t real but I don’t see them as holding someoen prisoner. Day to day responsibilities and struggles may keep someone from continuing their education or earning more but that doesn’t = same, fear and pain. There is still joy in providing for your family and children even if your wages are low. I think some struggles and doing without something you need make life harder but it also develops appreciation, determination, confidence and empathy. I agree wtih the other part about the conservative vs liberals but not the top part, especially this below. I think you are taking the total human out of the picture.

Poverty is no mere lack of money, it is often a lack of access, of mobility, of safety, and of order; and an attendant abundance of shame, fear, and pain. Poverty is a scourge.

poverty that keeps them down.

I really, really thought Obama was going to CHANGE the course of people that rely on government handouts……

He keep saying it during his campaign but I guess that he speaks in code with those in need and he said “I HOPE you will vote for me so that you don’t have to CHANGE the way you live”.

I get it now. You can lead a person to the voting both but they really don’t want CHANGE for themselves. The CHANGE Obama was talking about was CHANGE for the producers.

My grandparents were dirt poor farmers in Kansas during the depression. These people knew how to not only survive but live. My grandfather & grandmother taught us so much and being self-reliant was one of those traits they taught us. If you were hungry you plucked and cleaned a chicken. But you had to raise it first. If you wanted vegatables you could go out in the garden and pull them out of the ground but you had to raise them first. If you wanted a self-reliant child that does not expect handouts then you have to raise them properly and in an environment that let’s them succeed.

The government has not allowed these people looking for handouts to succeed. They are nothing more than hamsters in a cage.

I would only add one thing—democrats/liberals have succeeded in inspiring class envy not only in the poor, but also in the middle class. My experience with poor people is that they are generally too focused on survival to dwell that much on envy. It is the middle class where class envy is making surprising strides. Obama could not be president if not for the envy of middle class Americans.

Make no mistake about it, Obama is trying to do to the middle class what Roosevelt and Johnson did to the underclass.

Once we have socialized medicine, liberty will be a premium that only a few can pay. Once your neighbor pays for your health care, they will tell you what you can eat, drink, drive, etc.

I am pumped…hot coffee and Rush coming up later on…..

5! Caleb

Great diary

Unfortunately those buttons don’t show up on this article. Great article! I wonder if the WSJ editorial page might print it. I know National Review or Weekly Standard would.

“A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.” –Alexander Hamilton

Study at Redstate University

I confess to being quite put off by the Dickensian description of “the poor” in the first two paragraphs. Particularly as applied to “poverty” in the present US, where the greatest health problem of the “poor” is obesity. I, too, have had exposure to areas of the world where “poverty” means a constant, day-to-day struggle for mere existance. Where the concept of liberty is beyond the ken of those who struggle simply to remain alive. I have trouble applying the concept of “justifiable envy” to those in this country whom the statisticians have chosen to describe as below the “poverty level.”

Nevertheless, the remainder of the post very clearly describes the source of the percieved helplessness (lack of liberty) that afflicts many in that circumstance. It is the attitude of the media and of the politicians who insist that the poverty cohort is static (it is not!) and without hope or ability to change their lot. It is by inculcating this poverty of thinking that the liberals create the type of dependency that gives them power. Once you become convinced that you, individually, lack the ability to change your circumstances, you become fair game for some “community organizer” to provoke envy and invoke political action to better your lot. And, of course, this action must be directed toward getting, or forcing, others to “share their wealth.” If the liberal ever admitted that new wealth could be created, it would undermine his whole theme that the poor are helpless and must be cared for, by liberals.

It is this poverty of thinking that conservatives must oppose.

You were able to put succinctly and with great insight the ideology of the “left” and the “right.”

At that point, we will all be declared rich.

Once you become convinced that you, individually, lack the ability to change your circumstances, you become fair game for some “community organizer” to provoke envy and invoke political action to better your lot.

I disagree with that. You are equating poverty with character traits. Many people that realize things won’t change much as far as income and they still have values and they despise socialism, envy, theft and apathy. I can’t stand the way character judgements are places on someone based on how much they earn or their potentional or lack of it to earn more. Being poor and in a situation where your income realistically is not going to change much does not mean you are easily led into being a communist because of some scheming liberal presents it to you.

A lot to agree with here, but I have one caveat. I cannot in good conscience accept the liberal premise of liberty representing results of social status or monetary wealth. If we grant that a poor person has less “liberty” than a wealthy person by virtue of his available options, then we accept the entire premise of “equality of results.” All of a sudden our God-given right to “liberty” includes the right not to be poor, since that infringes on our updated definition of liberty. We are endowed by our Creator with liberty, not wealth or material status. Looking around the world we find that poverty is the norm, and wealth the exception that begs explanation. This line of reasoning opens the way for Government to guarantee a certain level of prosperity to all citizens. That means controlling the economy, and as Reagan said, the Government cannot control the economy without controlling people. That translates to less liberty for everyone. It’s a bad slope to slide down, so let’s keep liberty defined as the freedom from forcible oppression, the so-called “equality of process.”

as typical of those that try to control the means to upward mobility

From what you have seen in the third world, is like here where many people’s condition would be improved with stronger families? Do you think it is harder than necessary for them because of family breakdown? (Single woman with children, elderly without children caring for them, children left to the state care instead of relatives to help them whn their parents aren’t there, etc)

There is lots of variance in lifestyle levels even in poverty, I am just wondering if stronger families would help, or are they already strong from what you have seen? I am sure it would help here.

However, Leopard 1996, some historical information. Since the 1860′s, the Russian government had been moving, in fits and starts, towards more economic freedom and, even slower, towards political freedom.

The Tsar did not own everything in Russia and there was an emerging middle class as well as peasants and other non-noble individuals who were very wealthy.

In Cuba, although political freedom was restricted, there was economic freedom. Cuba, under that evil man Batista, was one of the most prosperous countries in Latin America.

Lenin and Castro could not spread the wealth so they spread the poverty. It took the Soviet Union 70 years to fall and Cuba, once the formost sugar porducing country in Latin America, now imports sugar.

you’re still the same eloquent, loquacious guy who actually managed to get me to vote for Sen. McCain over my dead body (no mean feat).

What a beautifully written treatise on the true cost of the liberal, socialist mind – the subjugation of the soul. Your prose is exceded only by your content. While there may be some in this thread who have angst over their perception that you are denigrating the poor, I believe it is only because they’re failing to see your overarching point – that the dogmatic premise that government alone can rescue the downtrodden which leaves the soul in chains unable to see the blazing beauty of freedom.

Well done, my friend.

Wow, wow, wow.

Great work. You are bookmarked.

And hubby’s funny little comment for this is: There’s no disgrace in being poor. It’s just unhandy as h###.

Proper grammar saves lives.

Let’s eat Grandma.
Let’s eat, Grandma.

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Activists Taking Action: Unified Patriots

I am not a fear monger and I would never do this if the evidence right now doesn’t show this is coming.

We are headed for the Greater depression if the leadership doesn’t start opposing this Guy damn soon. I love REDSTATE, but we need to start screaming or we are all going to be deathly poor through wealth destruction or inflation destruction.

GET THROUGH YOUR DENIAL STAGE AND GET ANGRY!

BO and Geithner are doing this on purpose to destroy any economic opposition in the future from any enterprise. This is why they are incredibly absence and letting the crash occur + all the Limbaugh distraction.

THIS IS NO JOKE! I’ve studied every recession including the Great depression. This looks worse. Why? Because back then there were no other enterprise countries to replace our role + the government was not intentionally trying to destroy us.

Intentionally? Yes

Remember back during the election when BO was asked if he would raise taxes during a Recession. He was advised by 10 of the best economists who said that it would be a death nail to do that. BO said he would consider the circumstances and thought it would be a bad idea. Did anyone listen to Geithner’s testimony over the last couple of days. It was all about raising taxes – during a recession to boot!

CAN YOU SAY DOUBLE DEATH NAIL!!!!!!!!
The patient isn’t even dead yet and they are nailing that coffin shut

China and Russia can easily supply the world with goods and energy and our financial structure which we outsourced to the rest of the world and replace our role.

All that will be left of America is the vision of a debtor squatter not unlike that of these ACORN Protestors trying to save a Home for a NINJA borrower who should have gone into foreclosure back in 2007

THEN IT WILL BECOME MANDATORY TO PRAY TO THE MESSIAH, They call “The One” in order to get your Government handout!!!!

I am going to have to dig up my Fedora in my attic so that nobody recognizes me in the bread line.