I wrote previously about Romney’s 47% comment, and how hegot it all wrong, but not necessarily in the way Democrats want to portrayit. Many of these 47% are ardentRepublicans, even if they are suckling at the government teat. Romney was wrong, but not for the reasonsDemocrats portray.
But he was right that if we end up in a society whereeveryone petitions the government for aid, we will be in a whole host oftrouble. And this idea was driven hometo me shortly after I wrote the last piece, by a phone call from a friend inNorthern Virginia.
We used to have a cleaning lady. Heck, we used to have a lot of things. Hiring a cleaning lady is a sure sign of laziness or that you owntoo much home. But I don’t want todigress yet again on another topic. Butlet’s just say there are a lot of people who watch four hours of television aDAY, while paying $50 to $100 a week to have someone come in an clean for fourhours - once a week. It is a foolish waste of moneyfor the middle class.
I was never comfortable having “servants” as I do not likethe idea of exploiting or even employing others. This is why I no longer employ people. It is a hard thing to do, and there is a reason why managers getpaid a lot to do it, particularly if they are effective.
We paid our cleaning lady and issued a 1099 form for her,and did it all above-board (others were not so keen about this). Since she also cleaned my office building, Iput her on our group health plan and also made her eligible for our 401(k)plan. Again, others are not sogenerous. When she needed anapartment, after a dispute with her slumlord landlord, we bought a condo forher to live in, charging her a modest rent.
Before you think I am a total patsy, that condo, which cost$38,000, is now worth $150,000 and was paid-off a long time ago. She continues to live there, paying thecondo fee and taxes, which is OK with us. Although increasingly, I am thinking that we are losing some potentialrental income on the place, and the overall amount is pretty staggering.
She is getting older and she said, at one time, that she wouldreturn to Mexico when she became infirm, and live with her children. She owns ahouse in Mexico, which she just deeded to her kids. Not in some slum, either,but in tony Cuernavaca, in a nice neighborhood.
Anyway, I get a call from one of her employers – one of thefew who declares her income. She ishere legally, of course, on a green card, and she now qualifies for SocialSecurity and Medicare. The 401(k),which ended up totaling about $7000, is long gone. Once she realized she could cash it in, she did, no doubt to sendmoney back to her family, as well as pay off her staggering VISA bill. She is not good with money.
Her employer arranged to get her Social Security and Medicare,and is now trying to get her SSI – Supplemental Income, which is a form ofwelfare for the elderly. I have mixedfeelings about this. If you are one ofthe legions of immigrant-haters, you might be thinking that it is time for thislady to go back to Mexico, rather than continue to live here on the governmentdole. But of course, Social Security isan entitlement, and since she paid into the system (thanks mostly to mydeclaring her income - still sure that having immigrants work under the table is a bad thing?) she gets paid back – even if she moves back to Mexico.
What is starting to gall me, however, is how she continuallyputs herself in peril and then asks others to bail her out. This is no doubt because that is how peopleare raised in Mexico. You want ajob? Ask the government. You want a house? Ask the government. Youwant food? Ask the government.
Dependency and learned helplessness is ingrainedearly on. So it is no surprise that sheacts this way, as it works out for her, pretty well, and she ends up betteroff, at least in her mind, than by taking care of herself.
A friend of mine, who is a Cuban-American (or just plainAmerican, if you don’t go in for hyphenation) is bi-lingual and works with thechurch to help many immigrants with various legal and other problems. He helps them to close on the trailers theybuy, for example, in some of the poorer parts of our town. They pay cash for these trailers, oftentrying to show up with wads of $20 bills at closing – many of which areforgeries that check-cashing stores hand out. He takes them to the big, scary bank, to get a cashier’s check for theclosing. It is a simple thing, but theyclaim they cannot do it, and they play the passive victim and hope the churchor someone helps them out.
Myself, I was never comfortable throwing my fates to the higherauthorities and hoping they would have pity on me. Why? Because people arenot trustworthy, and they are inconsistent and arbitrary. In many cases, if you do not appear victimenough, you don’t get the swag others get. And even in systems that are supposed to be quantified andnon-arbitrary, this is often true.
And in arbitrary systems, like families, it is evenworse. My brothers were always subjectof concern to my parents. One was sentto a psychologist, as he was tagged as being “troubled” early on. The other was pushed to go to law school,with the admonition, “We’ll pay your way, if you want to go!” When I asked, “What about me?” theyreplied, “You’re OK, you can take care of yourself!”
And so I muddled on, without child psychologists, andfinding a way to work my way through law school. Perhaps the expectation that “you can take care of yourself”became a self-fulfilling prophesy. When you are told you can do something, you often can.
It was like my time with General Motors. A wet-behind-the-ears pothead of 18, I wasthrust into a busy and dangerous factory, handed a clipboard, and told tomanage a crew of 10 men. No one askedme if I could do it. They told me to,and that was that. Expectations areeverything.
And perhaps that is what Romney was trying to get at. When we tell people they are victims andthat their only recourse is government assistance, well, they tend to seekassistance from the government.
And the victim mentality – and the desire to “help” otherswho may not be in need – is rampant. You all remember that lady who was a bus monitor who cried on a YouTubevideo, after some kids teased her. Weall felt sorry for her – heck, I did. After all, we have all been teased at one time or another, maybe on theschool bus, and know how humiliating and painful that can be, even if you arean adult.
So people opened their pocketbooks and sent her money. $800,000 later, she retired as a busmonitor. I am not saying she wasn’t avictim (although some would argue that her job was not to cry, but to knockheads together) but $800,000 for crying on a bus? That is a bit out of line. I wish her well, and hope she rubs those kids' nose in her eight-hundredgrand. But I don’t think it is quite inproportion.
She was successful (and not by her design, but by virtue ofa YouTube video) of being portrayed as a victim. If it were me in that situation, people would laugh and say, “abunch of kids? You’re a big guy! Knock their heads together!” But of course, if I did, I would be accusedof “child abuse” as back-slapping a kid is now considered to be on a par withleaving them chained up in the basement. So either way, I would lose, which is why I would never be a busmonitor, teacher, or any other job like that – the kids have you by the shorthairs, as they are the victims in our society.
I suspect in a Mormon household, kids taste the back ofMitt’s hand on occasion, which is why they are so well-behaved. But that is mere speculation on my part.
But this rambling diatribe illustrates why it is so hard toput this issue into 100 words or less – and why Romney bungled it sobadly. The victim mentality is adangerous trend. It would not be so badif real victims (and by that, I mean real victims, not 10-year-anniversaryKatrina “victims”) were helped by our society. But that is often not the case – people who don’t deserve orneed help end up living off the labor of others, while others in need end upwith nothing, as they don’t appear to be victims.
And again, if you tell people that if they look like victimsthey will get help, many will do just that. And if you tell people they can do OK by themselves, well, you’d besurprised how many “victims” become self-actualizing.
A recent ad on public radio in Western Virginia was for areading of a play at a local venue. Itwas interesting, as they played an excerpt from this play. The play was a re-write of the classic fableof the Ant and the Grasshopper. Youremember the story – the Ant works all year long to put away food, while theGrasshopper goofs off and does nothing. Come winter, the Grasshopper demands his “fair share” of Ant’s food,even as he did nothing to contribute to it.
In a perverse twist on this tale, we are lead to believethat the Grasshopper “contributed” to Ant’s wealth by making things more jollyand cheerful with his antics. Grasshopper, we are told, is an artist and should be compensatedfor his efforts – and the amount to be compensated is not to be determined byAnt, but by some governmental art agency.
A scary thought. Butof course, Public Radio does not have a liberal bias, and I know this, becausea soul-searching piece on NPR examined the issue in-depth and came to theconclusion that Public Radio is neutral in content. Makes sense to me.
Ahh… but Public Radio! The only place where you can be a “victim” of a hurricane a decade afterit has flooded you out. If it were upto the Left, Katrina “victims” and their descendents, would be eligible forvictim assistance into perpetuity. Perhapswe should give them land and let them open casinos and sell tax-free gasolineand cigarettes?
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