Entitlements and Obligations

There are lots of things that fall into the category of entitlements. An entitlement, to me, is where something of benefit is given via the governments hands to you. I won't go into whether any or all of the entitlements are reasonable, fair, or justified. What is justifiable to one person is not justifiable to another. For example, some people feel it is a right to have free schools. Others would say, that since government schools are doing such a bad job, let us take the money and give it to the people we want educating our children. Both thoughts are right and wrong, depending upon which side you take on the issue. What I will talk about today is the argument that if you get something in the form of an entitlement, it also means you simultaneously acquire an obligation. Many people don't feel that you owe anything for those "free" services, called entitlements. I disagree with that school of thought and will give some examples.

The first ones I will deal with are the easy ones, protection from illegal activity and harm by others, fires and medical transport. We pay for our police, fire and ambulance services. Most people don't consider this an entitlement, but please give me some slack here. It was my first choice as a basic explanation. We are entitled to have them show up in a reasonable period of time and do their best to provide the necessary services. In each of those cases, we also have obligations too. Most people don't see those obligations as just as important to the proper functioning of the service. Without people reporting crimes, offering testimony, participating in juries, the whole area of crime becomes impossible to manage. Without changing batteries in our smoke detectors, reporting smoke from a neighbors house or making it easy to find our houses with bright, easy to find numbers, we are failing in our obligation to make this work. Often people complain the police don't want to show up at a crime scene or a fire is out of control before the fire truck arrives. Why is this happening? Because "nobody saw nothin' or you don't snitch" traits abound. I will blame media for part of this by glamorizing the criminal element via gangster movies and other sources. I do not understand how people can complain about slow service, when they make it impossible to perform the service. If you don't fulfill your obligation to provide basic assistance in fighting crime, don't be surprised if when the crime happens to you, that no one saw nothin'. If your house is engulfed in flames, could it be that you let junk cluster where it shouldn't? Did you forget that if police aren't safe in your neighborhood, then the fire personnel probably have the same feeling, in spades? If you are one of the few in the neighborhood that fulfill your responsibilities, then it behooves you to make sure others follow suit because you get services based on the company you keep.

Next, lets talk about much harder ones. Aid to Families with Dependent Children and other child related social services and the resulting obligations. Children can't help being born to parents that are irresponsible. We have some duty to make sure that they get some food and some basic medical treatments. The only way for people to move forward our of poverty is to give them a chance. At the same time, I do not understand why those children being given free breakfasts, lunches and medical care are not the smartest bunch of kids around. Sounds crazy but many of those kids have parents that are unemployed, on welfare or other assistance. This means they must be home when the kids are out of school. So why aren't they the ones demanding that their children, do their homework, study for tests, read with their children, attending PTA meetings, taking the kids to the library, etc. They have the time but they are not fulfilling their obligation to put their children first to help them rise out of poverty via a good education.

Many people would say that these parents probably can't read, or don't read well and can't help out their children. I counter that argument by stating that what better use of their time is possible than to educate yourself at the same time your kids are learning. I recently had to help my grandchild in her math homework. It was difficult for me to understand the work but I fumbled through it. If you go through the work at the same time as your child, you will keep up and be learning too. If you are spending time with your child, he/she is less likely to become involved in trouble making activity and you can provide a positive guidance to him or her. Who doesn't want their child to succeed? Obviously those parents that assume that all learning happens at school and kids need time to play video games. If parents receiving support and were unemployed would put the same emphasis into helping their kids out that they put into their personal pursuits for self gratification, their own lives would be better (maybe find a job easier because your basic skills were better) and their children would be in much better shape.

Now lets talk about Social Security disability. People become disabled and people chose paths that are devastating for their health, via drugs or alcohol. Now there are people with disabilities that cannot work and those people are to be helped. That is what society should do for it's sick. But there are also people with limited disabilities or disabilities that are continuously self inflicted that receive full disability payments. Our system appears to have a short attention span with respect to disability. I am sure several people you know are on disability but for some strange reason, once disabled, it is difficult to become un-disabled. I am guilty of this myself. The man I bought my 1st house from was disabled after getting his back hurt on the job. He received a large settlement and continued to receive checks. He also was performing carpenter work, built an addition on his house and did other things, all while receiving his disability payments. He took his salary in cash to avoid paying taxes. I would think that someone that could do carpentry wasn't disabled or at least was not fully disabled, yet he is still getting his govmint checks to this day, 25 years later.

Why does our Social Security group not see the fraud associated with that activity. Technically, SS does have a fraud department but it would take a "snitch" to advise them of the fraud. Unless the fraud is enormous, they don't re investigate adequately. They do not look and see that someone that can't lift 60 lbs may be able to sit at a desk 3-5 days per week. I personally believe that everyone should be re-evaluated periodically for disability payments until they reach SS age limits of 65-66 and that might need to include a discussion with your neighbors, if there is any question. Sounds a bit big brotherish to me, but how else will we catch fraud like this?

It also seems that the rules of the hood apply to my subdivision. I never thought of turning my neighbor in, yet I complain loudly when I see my $6K/year going into SS, paying his disability check and worrying that I won't get a penny back when I retire. It seems that I am also just as much a failure in my obligations as the next man/woman. I hate it when my own argument applies to my own inaction.

So, where are we going wrong? We all fail to do what we should be doing, which is help enforce the rules of the system and change the rules so that there are actions required for receipt of an entitlement. We let people allow their children to fail by not insisting that the free lunch requires that you teach them at home too. Part of your free lunch should be requiring that the parents participate in the learning process too. Sounds complicated until you realize that millions of uneducated kids will generate millions more uneducated kids. It magnifies with each generation and is already scary. It has to stop someplace.

We complain that police don't solve crimes in our neighborhood, yet we fail to report our neighbors kids busting in the other neighbors door. We ignore people we know that don't pay taxes because "everyone cheats on their taxes." We are all failing in our obligations to earn our entitlements.

I am just as guilty as the next person. I will think of those things that I can do to make sure I am not adding to the costs of these entitlements. I will start out easy, because an easy 1st step means that I might stick with it longer, just like dieting.

Now.....where are those 9 volt batteries for the smoke detector? I can't have the firemen coming late to my fire just because I forgot to do my part. I might have had to complain about a slow response time....

Next I will work on the children. My wife already does some of that and I am proud of her efforts. I need to join her.