When Welfare Was a Dirty Word

Tea Party Tribune ^ | 2012-05-14 22:55:42 | Bill Colley

When Anna Nicole Smith died a reporter paid a visit to the woman's home town and recorded some of the reaction to the news. I recall reading the quotes made by a waitress working at a local diner at the edge of Smith's hometown. The waitress wasn't at all sympathetic, saying Smith never shared any of her wealth with people back home. I'm not endorsing the way Anna Nicole Smith lived and there is a larger point to the story. How can someone who knew her peripherally claim an ownership stake in the woman and her estate? It appears Smith fled her hometown with a belief there was something better somewhere else. She took her demons with her and died tragically and young. Her story suggests she had few attachments back home long before she ever left.
I come from what I suspect is a very similar small town. I've also witnessed on rare visits home growing attitudes similar to the one reported from the waitress. It wasn't always the case. As a boy in small town America welfare was a dirty word. It was often a slur. An uncle referred to some of his deadbeat customers as "wellies" and he would shake his head side-to-side making the pronouncement.
It wasn't as if everyone getting government assistance was mocked. There was an understanding some people found themselves in dire predicaments through no fault of their own, however. If your disability was temporary then it was expected your time at the public trough would also be brief. Then the liberals found a new marketing campaign. Calling someone out for taking welfare was mean-spirited. The media echoed the admonishment. Do you remember a televised public service announcement from the 1970s where an elderly couple are setting the table and talking about dinner? The husband turns to the camera and says, "Food stamps, they're good for you!" To try and further the social message the couple was black. The latter fact didn't carry much of a wallop where I lived. Most of the people getting help from the government where I grew up were white.
Mocking people on welfare became politically incorrect. Broach the subject on a radio talk show and the liberals call as if assigned and recite the talking points. "I thought you claimed to be a Christian?" is one of the usual angry responses from liberals who haven't been near a church since the 1980s.
Some years ago I attended a high school class reunion and an alumni banquet and remember speaking with a woman who attended my high school. She explained her family had been on welfare throughout much of her childhood. Not that I'd ever given it any thought but it wasn't a surprise. Since school she and all her siblings have gone on to spectacular success. The motivation was fear of public scorn. The children knew people whispered behind their backs when food stamps were presented at the grocery check-out and sometimes it was much more than a whisper. Now that they've made some money in their lives I don't believe the siblings are in any way required to drop by the diner and hand a bankroll to any waitresses (unless they work a Presidential security detail).
The siblings earned what they've got. The liberals will argue they were horribly and emotionally scarred by the whispers and insist the next social engineering project is to eliminate the whispers. Will that eliminate future motivation? Like the anti-bullying campaign now enshrined in liberal dogma, the efforts to wipe away thousands of years of hardwired social interactions continues. If the lefties are so married to concepts like evolution then why are they messing with nature? Isn't it usually the charge lodged against the rest of us for driving behind internal combustion engines?
I've spent about as much time in my hometown these last 25 years as Anna Nicole Smith spent visiting her home. Would you blame me if I said I'm concerned I'd be asked to empty my pockets when I go out for breakfast? Also I'm greatly concerned the number of people living on government benefits has grown exponentially and now it appears it may be a permanent condition. Did some academics and government actuaries see this day some forty years ago and begin planning? Was it intentional in order to create a needy class and to make the need culturally normal and respectable? Then was it intentional to set the wards of the state against the producers?
About the same time I saw the food stamps public service announcement on television during the 1970s I saw the comedian Jimmy Walker on the Mike Douglas Show. "The other day I read where there are 3 women for every man in this country," Walker explained. "I'd sure like to know who has my 3 women!"
Now substitute money for women and you'll see a whole new paradigm.
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