There's been a tendency down through the ages to romanticize poverty, and to equate it with freedom. Someone said to me not long ago in response to something I had said that they would prefer to live the life of a starving artist and have their freedom rather than compromise. Well, there might have been a time that I would have agreed with that, but I was much younger then, and hadn't really come to grips with what poverty really means. And I am afraid that I am very much biased against "choosing" poverty--unless one is prepared to face the consequences.
Poverty is not freedom. Poverty is slavery. Unless you are independently wealthy, which I doubt many of us here are, you are going to have to serve some kind of master, so choose wisely. I learned at a young age that whoever controls your money, controls your life. Yes, money is important, and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is a fool. Money may not be able to buy happiness, or health, but not having money is a sure guarantee that your opportunities for happiness will be limited. And as for health--I just finished reading a book called "Your Medical Mind" which explores how people make decisions regarding their care when they are faced with serious disease. Now, I am not saying this is not a worthwhile book, but it struck me that each and every one of the people the authors interviewed were people who had resources to look into the best medical treatment. They were not at the mercy of Medicaid or Medicare or their equivalents in other countries. When you are poor and ill, you don't have choices.
I have heard talk of incentive. Let's look at incentive. The real nightmare for those who are poor and/or elderly and who are unable to take care of themselves is to end up in a nursing home. There they will be taken care of (if that's an appropriate term) by people who work long hours at a job no one who has any real choices wants to do, a job that is nasty and difficult, and does not pay well. Most people do not say, "hey, I want to be a nurses' aide." No, there's no real incentive to become a nurses' aide. You only become a nurses' aide if you are unskilled and uneducated and have nowhere else to go. If you drop a patient in the bath and that patient has to go to the emergency room because they've injured their back (that happened to someone I know), oh, well. You aren't paid enough to care. You've got too many other people to look after. That's not to say there aren't good, dedicated nurses' aides. But they are very rare. The incentive to care just isn't there.
If you are poor and dependent on welfare, then your life becomes a battle of wits against the system. When the church people came to my trailer park to do their summer Bible study, they remarked on how distrustful the children were of them. I said, it is because these kids know that their parents are in many cases living "under the radar". For example, the situation next door. There are are at least two families (6 children, 4 adults) living in the trailer next door; supposedly one family is just "visiting" but that visit has stretched on for several months now with no sign of ending; and it's a pretty safe bet that they aren't paying rent. They are counting on everyone around them turning a blind eye to their illegal situation--and yes, it is illegal to have that many people in one trailer. I am not even sure if they aren't illegal aliens as well. I have heard people say, oh, they like to live crowded like that, they are used to it, but I don't quite buy it. I am quite sure, knowing what the housing market is, that if they had any real choices they would not live that way. In one real way, these people are at my mercy; all I have to do is call Child Protective Services and their lives would be thrown into havoc. In fact, the law is quite clear on the matter, that if I have first-hand knowledge of a situation (which I do) I have a responsibility to do so.
So: if you are poor, you are powerless. Because other forces, other people act upon you. Most poor people I know don't vote, don't participate in government (by that I mean going to community meetings), and so their fate is in the hands of those who do.
I could go on, but it should be clear by now that I have nothing good to say about poverty.
Poverty is not freedom. Poverty is slavery. Unless you are independently wealthy, which I doubt many of us here are, you are going to have to serve some kind of master, so choose wisely. I learned at a young age that whoever controls your money, controls your life. Yes, money is important, and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is a fool. Money may not be able to buy happiness, or health, but not having money is a sure guarantee that your opportunities for happiness will be limited. And as for health--I just finished reading a book called "Your Medical Mind" which explores how people make decisions regarding their care when they are faced with serious disease. Now, I am not saying this is not a worthwhile book, but it struck me that each and every one of the people the authors interviewed were people who had resources to look into the best medical treatment. They were not at the mercy of Medicaid or Medicare or their equivalents in other countries. When you are poor and ill, you don't have choices.
I have heard talk of incentive. Let's look at incentive. The real nightmare for those who are poor and/or elderly and who are unable to take care of themselves is to end up in a nursing home. There they will be taken care of (if that's an appropriate term) by people who work long hours at a job no one who has any real choices wants to do, a job that is nasty and difficult, and does not pay well. Most people do not say, "hey, I want to be a nurses' aide." No, there's no real incentive to become a nurses' aide. You only become a nurses' aide if you are unskilled and uneducated and have nowhere else to go. If you drop a patient in the bath and that patient has to go to the emergency room because they've injured their back (that happened to someone I know), oh, well. You aren't paid enough to care. You've got too many other people to look after. That's not to say there aren't good, dedicated nurses' aides. But they are very rare. The incentive to care just isn't there.
If you are poor and dependent on welfare, then your life becomes a battle of wits against the system. When the church people came to my trailer park to do their summer Bible study, they remarked on how distrustful the children were of them. I said, it is because these kids know that their parents are in many cases living "under the radar". For example, the situation next door. There are are at least two families (6 children, 4 adults) living in the trailer next door; supposedly one family is just "visiting" but that visit has stretched on for several months now with no sign of ending; and it's a pretty safe bet that they aren't paying rent. They are counting on everyone around them turning a blind eye to their illegal situation--and yes, it is illegal to have that many people in one trailer. I am not even sure if they aren't illegal aliens as well. I have heard people say, oh, they like to live crowded like that, they are used to it, but I don't quite buy it. I am quite sure, knowing what the housing market is, that if they had any real choices they would not live that way. In one real way, these people are at my mercy; all I have to do is call Child Protective Services and their lives would be thrown into havoc. In fact, the law is quite clear on the matter, that if I have first-hand knowledge of a situation (which I do) I have a responsibility to do so.
So: if you are poor, you are powerless. Because other forces, other people act upon you. Most poor people I know don't vote, don't participate in government (by that I mean going to community meetings), and so their fate is in the hands of those who do.
I could go on, but it should be clear by now that I have nothing good to say about poverty.
