Reclaiming Ourselves

Helping your fellow man. Why You Need to Do It and Not the Government.

Below you will find a rambling article. It quickly poured out of me and I wrote it down before it went away. I thought to post my reflections now because I wasn’t sure when I would have the time to go smooth it out. Please excuse types and random thoughts. I'll fix it later.

Perhaps one of the biggest distinction between the Republican and Democrat parties is their view in the role of the government in helping the downtrodden. The Democrats have championed the parent government that cares for all. The Republicans have pushed for a smaller government. This has led to the mistaken impression that Republicans do not care for the poor or the disadvantaged. The reality, however, is that the Republicans care (perhaps more than Democrats) but they see the individual as responsible for helping not the government. Conservatives give more to charities each year than liberals (documented fact – survey after survey with the same result). I wonder at this phenomenon and Liberals are always the one pushing for bigger and bigger government to help everyone. If they think so many people need help, why aren’t they doing it themselves? Instead, Liberals pass the buck to the government. They demand the government fix it. In part, I think, so that they don’t have to worry about and don’t have to feel guilty about not helping the less advantaged. What the real reason is, I can only speculate and as I don’t have a degree in psychology, it wouldn’t be the best use of my time.

Whatever the reason, the Liberal approach is going to lead to some serious problems. The belief in the parent government leads to problems. It leads to a disconnect between those who have achieved and those who have not. It removes role models from the inner cities where they are desperately needed. If the government handles it, the individual feels no need to intervene. The reality, however, is that societal problems must be solved by members of the society. Pushing it on the government just seems to make it worse. Just look at the ever increasing out of wedlock birthrates in this country. The increasing collapse of our schools. The culture of victimhood and despair that thrives in our inner cities. Money will not solve these problems (some of the worst schools in the country spend some of the highest rates per student). A government will not solve these problems. People will. Parents going into schools and demanding a better education for their children, Parents sitting with their kids at night helping them with their homework, teachers who care and stay late – these are the things that will fix our schools. Encouraging safe sex, Empowering Women to be secure in themselves, teaching Boys to be men and giving them role models that respect women – these are the things that will lower the rate of single mothers and kids raised in poverty.

A liberal paternalism has developed where they push through issues because they think they will be better for the poor without actually talking to the poor about what will happen.

A great example of this would be the recent payday lending issue in Ohio. I listened to my friends say a variety of reasons as to why the payday lending rate should be lowered to 28%. Things such as “They should just learn to live within their means. The poor are using these places to buy flat screen TVs and these places take advantage of them.” Or such things as “A crappy credit card has about 28% interest, I don’t know why a pay day lender can’t survive at these rates. The poor people will be better off. Right now they are borrowing from one payday lender to pay another and are getting deeper and deeper into debt.”
I remember one friend who had went to a debate on the issue and came away insulted. One of the men opposing the lowering of the interest rate stated that many in the room wouldn’t understand because their skin wasn’t the right pigment. My friend was insulted that this man would feel that she wouldn’t understand. Now, while I don’t think understanding is linked to pigment color, the man was more right than wrong. The sad fact is that more minorities than whites are poor in Cleveland. These poor rely on payday lending locations. They are an integral part of their lives. A place they can turn to help through a rough patch when no one else will help. The passage of this issue is going to disproportionally affect African-Americans. They are the ones that are going to suffer all so that a few liberals can feel good as their paternalism runs amok.

My friend, however, didn’t understand and part of that stemmed from who she is. She never had to face not being able to qualify for a credit card. She had never had to closely monitor a budget where being a dollar off meant bouncing a check and not making rent. When she was short on cash she just moved back home with her parents and they helped take care of her, periodically bringing her out to nice dinners and helping her lease a new car when her old got ruined in an accident. However, if you are relying on payday lending places, this is not likely the type of family you have. Your parents are likely as poor as you are and you turn to payday lending so that you can make rent.

Now, I am not an expert on payday lenders, but a few things are quite obvious if you pause for a second and remove your holier-than-thou I know better than the poor what they need hat and think. These assertions ignore the basic reality that payday lenders cannot survive at 28% interest. The people they lend to have poor credit and many of them have poor credit for a reason. The default rate is high and 28% interest just won’t cover the pay day lender losses from people who refuse to pay. Quite honestly, I’m not sure if it’ll even cover the over head costs of the store and its workers. This means that payday lenders are going to close. People will lose jobs and people will have no legitimate place to turn when they come up short.

The reality is that without the payday lending places people are now going to bounce checks and pay much more in fees to the bank than they ever paid to the payday lender. And many of the poor are now going to seek out drug dealers or turn to crime to get the money they need when their paycheck just doesn’t stretch as far as it needs to one pay period.

Now I am not going to say that 391% might be too high and that pay day lenders couldn’t survive at a lower rate. What I am going to say, however, is that 28% is too low.

That is not to say that their aren’t some people that are irresponsibly using payday lenders to buy stuff they don’t need or are shifting from one pay day lender to another because they simply aren’t making enough money for their expenditures. However, there are some that are using them for what they were intended and who do need them. And these are the people that will unfairly suffer. At some point we as a society must say that we are willing to let the irresponsible suffer so that those who are trying their best don’t. If you use a pay lender to buy a flat screen tv and can’t pay it back. Too bad. You are an adult. Live with your choices. I am ok with you suffering so that some poor woman with three kids can make rent if she runs short before her next payday. And the reality that is their decision to make, not some right kid from the suburbs who has always had a safety net who will never quite understand true poverty because they have never lived it.

The government is not a parent. If we make it into one, we all become children. At some point we need to cut people off and say BE AN ADULT. Live with the consequence of you choices. If you screw up, too bad. A slippery slope develops when those in power think they know better than the masses. That is the type of philosophy that leads to dictators and death. There is a reason that America has thrived and survived for so long. There is a reason that no matter how bad it gets America can make it through it and come out the end better than the rest of the world. That reason is because in the end we trust the individual more than we trust the government. We empower the individual more than we empower the government. That is why we ALWAYS have more job creation than all of Europe combined. That is why our middle class is shrinking – many of them are moving up!!! Our middle upper to upper class range is growing!! More people are achieving the American dream. Even in the current economic crisis, we are fairing better than the rest of the world. If our government just leaves us alone, we will weather this storm just as we have weathered worst storms in the past (some studies show FDR’s policies extended the Great Depression by 7 years!!). We will bind together and pull ourselves up and reach out to our fellow man and pull them up to.

And this leads me back to the premise of this discussion, helping others. The Republicans trust themselves, charities and those who truly work with those in need to understand the needs of the disadvantaged. We trust these charities to work to help in the best way possible while not turning those it helps into helpless children. We want to help others, we just think it is our individual responsibility to do so and it is not appropriate to pass it on to the government. Because if the government takes over we stop helping. We lose our connection with those who are less fortunate. We become wrongly paternalistic and hurt those we are trying to help.

If we stop helping our fellow man, are we any longer the great human race that God created us to be? Or do we become children playing grownups in a world run by the parent government who dictates to us our every thought and removes from us the self reflection that makes us human? That crushes that innate American spirit that pushes us towards better things?

Do I want to live in a society where my government is my parent and where I have become the child? Do I want to live in a society where a failed government policy could ruin all of our lives? Do I want to live in a society where the government has so much power where we are one bad election away from creating a dictator? Do I want to live in a society where we have destroyed the American dream? Do I want to live in a society where we the let the government take our money and then decide how to spend it as though we have no stake in what we have rightfully earned? I think the answer to all of these questions is NO. And I think if you think about it long enough, you might agree with me.