RateItAll: The Opinion Network

To associate conservatism with the view that welfare programs should be either narrowly defined or nobody gets anything is reckless and irresponsible. Conservatives have long been the advocate of those who need help the most, but because liberals choose to take the easy road when it comes to helping the poor (throw money at them and hope everything falls into place while portraying conservatives as heartless), conservatives are left with the daunting task of being the responsible parent in this whole mess. Once we bring down-scale the welfare system, we can make it easier for people to be held accountable for their actions and expected to work for a new source of income. Call it moral absolutism if you must, but I just call it common sense.

Seems to be a lot of discussion about semantics on here. I guess the idea here was that conservatives have traditionally been more restrictive of eligibility for welfare programs than liberals. However, not many conservatives that I've met are in favor of completely discontinuing all of Amercian Society's welfare safety nets. Maybe that's asinine, maybe it isn't. But I guess if you are going to quibble on this one, you may as well quibble on the Low Taxes item as well. (what the hell does that mean?)

This item is assinine. Narrowly defined? What the hell does that mean. Welfare programs need to be crafted skillfully to reach a virtuous end- that is the conservative position...unlike the liberal position which assumes incorrectly that human nature is malleable and responsive to simply external goods, and therefore all natural limitations are humanly solvable with any array of government program. ..and unlike the libertarian position that assumes the government can serve no positive function of welfare for its needy... the conservative position is that they need to reflect existential realities of human nature- both vice and virtue- to be successful. Unfortunatley politicians (both democrat and republican) have turned many Americans into trough feeding welfare recipients through various programs that reward vice not virtue for the sake of creating fixed voting blocks- whether they be welfare mothers or corporate farmers. ****Dick, maybe you should start doing some reading. Yes!!.. YES!!... YES!!! I forgot the government run program that runs on the premise it should only be given to those who appropriately deserve it! OH I GET IT NOW! And the government does a absolutely knock down job doing that!!! And the systemic changes that would foster such changes on the bureaucracies that live to expand their budgets would be??? Oh no Mr Senator, we've arrowly defined the needs of our recipients to reduce our budget and subsequently our positions in government. Yup you definitely are one astute observer of public works.

True conservatives want the federal government out of the charitable-giving business. Americans have long been the most generous people in the world, but when tax dollars are taken from them (under penalty of fines and imprisonment) and doled out to the poor, that is not generosity on either the taxpayers' part or the government's. The waste and corruption of any federally managed welfare system is staggering. Wouldn't de-centralized programs, more directly accountable to their donors, be much more efficient?