Where Do You Get This We Business?

So I'm reading this Newsweek article about how Bush changing advisors isn't really going to affect the White House's policies very much. And that's probably true. And then I get to this line, "We should be preparing for aging baby boomers." I'm sorry, we? We should be preparing for aging baby boomers? Where do you get this we business? Do you have a frog in your pocket?
Don't think of me as cold hearted. Perhaps sometimes I am, but I don't want you to think of me that way (that's supposed to be mildly amusing). I'm all for helping people out. Really, I am. My mom isn't getting any younger and I try to help her out as much as I can. I recently had a friend that went several months without a job. We'd meet for dinner every few weeks to catch up and see how his job search was going. I'd try to make sure I picked up his tab. I give faithfully to my church and occasionally other organizations. I have a trip this fall planned to do some mission and/or humanitarian work. Last year after hurricane Katrina I personally delivered hundreds of gallons of water and gasoline along with food, generators, and other supplies to friends and family that I have still living in the affected areas. I'm all for helping other people out. I just don't believe other people should live their life as if they expect it.

It kinda reminds me of an email forward I saw a long time ago. Upon digging through my email archives, I find it dated 2/10/1999. Yes, I actually have email from that long ago.

It's titled simply "Folk Tale."

THE ORIGINAL VERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.

MODERN AMERICAN VERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

CBS, NBC, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can it be that, in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Then a representative of the NAGB (The national association of greenbugs) shows up on Nightline and charges the ant with green bias, and makes the case that the grasshopper is the victim of 30 million years of greenism. Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when he sings "It's not easy being green."

Bill and Hillary Clinton make a special guest appearance on the CBS Evening News to tell a concerned Dan Rather that they will do everything they can for the grasshopper who has been denied the prosperity he deserves by those who benefited unfairly during the Reagan summers. Richard Gephardt exclaims in an interview with Peter Jennings that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share."

Finally, the EEOC drafts the "Economic Equity and Anti-Greenism Act," retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of greenbugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government. Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal hearing officers that Bill appointed from a list of single-parent welfare moms who can only hear cases on Thursday's between 1:30 and 3 PM. The ant loses the case.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he's in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him since he doesn't know how to maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow. And on the TV, which the grasshopper bought by selling most of the ant's food, they are showing Bill Clinton standing before a wildly applauding group of Democrats announcing that a new era of "fairness" has dawned in America.

I don't want a grasshopper to starve while I live in abundance. I really don't. But I don't think anyone wants to be the ant working hard all summer while the grasshopper plays all the while sticking his tongue out at the ant and making faces chanting, "you're gonna have to gimme some of your food." There's no justice, fairness, or equality in that. None whatsoever.

Now some people may dismiss that as a silly little story. And in some ways it is. For one, it's certainly not just the Democrats that would wildly applaud an era of such fairness. It's anyone running for re-election. My point is sharing the story is that neither version is really correct. A balance needs to be found between helping those in need and removing the incentive for hard work.

I believe in social safety nets. I just don't believe in welfare. The social safety nets of our country are the good people of our country. The social safety nets are the people who give individually, collectively through charitable organizations, churches, and often anonymously. In order for this safety net to exist it's also very important that the government get out of the business of providing a safety net. Just like in this story when the grasshopper knows the ant is going to take care of him he doesn't work, people are often times lulled into a false sense of security when the government steps in and tries to do the job of the people. People take on, and understandably so, the attitude of, "Why should I give this person my money? Aren't there government programs for that?" Or maybe, "Why should I help them? Won't someone else?"

There's a balance to be found between helping someone who needs a hand and making yourself so available to help anyone and everyone that people take advantage of it. That's what happens with institutionalize welfare. Not everyone, but very large number of people take advantage of it. If these decisions are made instead of at a federal or even a state level at the community level or even the household level then there's a much greater degree of discretion I who I want to help and why. And if I don't want to make my decision individually there are numerous churches and other nonprofit organizations that would love to help me decide what to do with my charitable giving. And since I'm the one making the decision, I'll never have to wonder where do you get this we business.