Since the news came out that the Tsarnaev family spent
years on welfare in Massachusetts, there have been a great many pundits
lamenting the lack of gratitude shown by the bombing brothers for all the
support they received from the government.
Other versions of the question why the brothers would attack a country
that had shown them such friendship waft through the blogosphere and the mainstream
media. The religious influence on the
brothers is one common answer, but it obviously is not a complete one. After all, there are hundreds of thousands of
other Moslem men of similar ages who live in America and who have not chosen to
kill and maim their fellow countrymen through the use of terror bombs. One factor which ought not be overlooked is
the very welfare support which many argue should have pushed the brothers in
the opposite direction.
Welfare was originally supposed to be a short term
assistance given to people who suffered unexpected misfortunes. Unemployment insurance lasted for a few
months while the wage earner found a new job.
Aid to single mothers helped them deal with the then rare and
unfortunate event of an out of wedlock birth or the loss of a husband and
father. Over the years, the government
has expanded the role of welfare ever larger.
Low income people can now get food, housing, medical care and even cell
phones from the government. All the
basic necessities are there to be given out without any real limitations.
In the worldview of the left, all of this government
largesse ought to make for some rather satisfied and grateful welfare
recipients. But it just does not work
that way. Very few who receive welfare
look at it as a gift from the government.
The payments are theirs by right.
They provide for an existence which can be endured, but which is far
from luxurious. The welfare payments
provide no exit from the system; welfare becomes a lifestyle. In short, the system removes all hope of a
better life and all reason to struggle for self-improvement.
Under the American free enterprise system, those who
achieved success were celebrated for a long, long time. Big and successful companies were icons, but
more than the companies, the entrepreneurs who achieved business success were
lauded for their endeavors. Calvin
Coolidge famously said “the chief business of the American people is business.” After the Depression hit in the 1930s, those successful in commerce and
industry lost their places on the public pedestal, but they were still there as
examples of attainable success. The
spirit of Horatio Alger spoke to folks all across the income spectrum. As the welfare state spread, however, those
successful in business became targets rather than role models. Large corporations were evil; they did not
care about people, or so America was told.
Just think of the current view of any large oil company; ask people
about them and you will hear that these companies want to rape the land,
pollute the water, heat the atmosphere and kill folks as a result just to
increase profits. How many movies have
told us that? One can argue at length
about the changing view of business in America culture, but there is no
question that the idea of entering the business world to gain advancement has
been tarnished for those who don’t really understand the dynamics of our
society. So for those on welfare, the
idea of moving ahead through business has little alure.
Then one needs to add on to this fact, the
reality that welfare itself offers no way out, no way to advance past
dependence. The old stories of success where
a poor child makes it big in business are no longer told. Now, the way to big success for poorer
children is through professional sports, the music business, or crime. None of those are reasonable alternatives to
the old model. There are around one
hundred and fifty million people working in America, so there are literally
millions of folks successful in business.
There are only a few thousand professional athletes in the country, and
there are even fewer rock stars or successful actors, so the chance of
achieving success in those fields is almost non-existent. What all this means is that for those on
welfare, there really is no way out, no exit, no pathway to success.
In years gone by, large numbers of people
moved from low income to high income, and many moved the other way as
well. Welfare takes that opportunity for
movement away to a great extent. Millions
of children grow up in homes where they get subsistence support from the government
and second rate education from the local public schools, and they see no way to
get past this life. Our liberal culture
teaches dependence not self-reliance.
The schools tell kids that their current culture is valuable and dissuades
them from adopting the common culture of America, the most basic step required
to gain success and to move up. In
short, the system takes all hope of a better life away from these children and
young adults. Gone are the days where
children were told that with hard work they could succeed in America. No, the schools cannot celebrate success
because then those who do not succeed might feel bad. The idea that failure might be a learning
experience seems to have been lost in the mists of time.
It was this environment in which the Tsarnaev
brothers were raised. America gave them
no hope. America gave no meaning to
their lives. So they turned to another
source for that meaning. The end result
was the Marathon bombing.
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