Illustrated - The Inherent Flaw of the Welfare State

I was fully prepared to post my thoughts on the disaterous effect (yes, words chosen carefully) of the welfare state, and to illustrate the fact that if you haven't found the means to empower yourself, and you're depending on someone or something to bail you out of any conflict in your life, you need to change your way of thinking. Not just because of what's happened, but because of all that CAN happen if you take charge of your life.

The beautiful thing about America is that opportunity abounds, and as members of a free society, we all have the ability to transform opportunity to personal security. Sadly, there are some who simply see the opportunity and others who sieze it.

We all make choices.

We all live with the consequences of our choices.

Dwight Billingsly in today's Post-Dispatch:

I think there are two lessons we need to take away from the Katrina fiasco:
First, the people we saw rioting in New Orleans are America's flotsam, and they exist in every society. Other than the physically disabled, young children and seniors 80 years old and up, the people we saw holed up in the Superdome and elsewhere are the perfect demonstration of what happens to people who choose (yes, choose) to lead third-world lives in a captialitst society.

They were accustomed to living off a government check every month, accustomed to subsidized housing, accustomed to food paid for by food stamps. They've elected politicians like Mayor Ray Nagin and Gov. Kathleen Blanco to make them comfortable in that third-world existence, and now they have neither the resources nor the political leadership to survive in a time of crisis. Such has been the case throughout history for people who don't take charge of their lives.