It's OUR Job...

I came across this bit of numbers from Pew, and thought I'd pass this on. According to a recent study, 57% of Americans either mostly or completely agree that it's the government's job to care for the needy.


I want to clarify one thing. It's NOT the government's job to care for the needy. That implies that it's "someone else's" job. It's all of our jobs to care for the needy. All of us.

This is about as preachy as I'm willing to get, but I despise the notion that conservatives somehow have it in for the poor, the less fortunate, minorities in difficult situations, etc. when that's not usually the case. What is the case is that there is a strong mistrust of the government's ability to create and administer effective programs for the kind of relief that's needed that will most promote permanent extraction from a bad situation.

That being said, we cannot nor should not allow the existence of such problems to provide an excuse for not doing our part, nor should we assume that the government bears that responsibility alone. It's our job.