"Do-Gooders" and the Road to Hell

   Whoever ever coined the phrase, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" knew what he was talking about. Have you ever tried to help someone but only hurt them in the end? You thought that you were doing them a favor, but it only turned out that they would have been better off if you had just left them alone. America is full of "Do-Gooders".
   It's all right to help people, but just make sure that the people you are helping truly need it. Many times, however, those who want to help do not look beyond the helping stage.  The whole idea behind, "Feed a man a fish, you feed him for a day, but teach the man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime," is that you don't enable the person you are helping to continue along the same path they are walking, because if you do, they'll never learn to walk alone.
   For instance, the Welfare System was not meant to be a career for those who refuse to work. In 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) took the first steps toward a welfare state during the Great Depression when a quarter of the labor force was out of work. He made it the responsibility of the federal government to make sure that the unemployed were supported through the Federal Emergency Relief Act (FERA) with a $500 million relief fund. This program was the beginning of the progressive do-gooders.
    Next, in 1935, came the second phase of the "do-gooder" (the New Deal) only this time it was in the form of the Social Security Act, and it included a welfare system for the aged, blind and dependent children. From there it has only expanded into the monstrosity we have today called the Federal Government.
   I know during the Great Depression,  FDR and other great progressives believed they were really helping people when they handed over checks to those who were out of work, especially women who were having children without fathers in the home.  We don't want the children to go hungry, so we hand the mother a check, give her food stamps, and provide a place to live with very little rent. Now, that first generation has no incentive to get out and work, because why work when you can sit at home eating Bon-Bons and watching Judge Judy. President Clinton had practically cut the number of those on welfare by the time he left office, but in the past six years, it has more than doubled. Now, we have generations of welfare families, and the children from those families, unless something changes to make them get out and work, will turn into another generation of welfare recipients suckling from the "teet" of the federal government and the hardworking taxpayer. Don't forget that the federal government receives its paycheck from the taxpayers.
   Sure it's good to help, but that doesn't mean you offer up a lifetime of service to those who are able. Entitlements only encourage those who don't have, to continue to take from those who work hard and do have. Force the man to fish on his own and he will, but if you continue to hand the man a fish, why should he learn, when he knows you will give it to him? What happens when you can no longer provide that fish? What will he do then? Who will feed him now that you are gone, and there is no one to teach him to fish?
   So, before you step out to help someone, through yet another government program, look at what the consequences will be from it ten, twenty or even thirty years from now. That's a lesson for many of our politicians. Think about it, are you doing it to "toot your own horn," pick up a vote, or do you really want to help?