TANSTAAFL
(There aint no such thing as a free lunch)
When talking about religious organizations, this cuts both ways. Yes, religious groups exchange community services for the opportunity to recruit and yes, they use these services as advertising copy to solicit donations. Still, if secular opinion (what I think of as “reality”) ever replaces god belief and afterlife mythology, what infrastructure (if any) should be put in place to fill the social mission of organized religion? Anarchists and Libertarian types might argue that these social programs are undesirable, and should not be institutionalized, especially as part of the government. They have a point. Such programs often resemble a lottery system at best, and a path to power and influence peddling for a petit bureaucrat at worst. Here’s the “but”. There are many children of poor circumstance. These circumstances are usually beyond the control of these children. Not all of these children are going to be top athletic or academic performers, so they will have to find a more difficult “way out” of poverty. Sometimes a little thing can make a big difference. Sometimes it is just knowing that you are not ignored by society or a cultural group, that somebody cares what happens to you. All these children grow up. Not all will be good citizens. If the socialization and nurturing factors are missing in the family, and the neighborhood is full of negative influences, how should society at large handle the situation?
When talking about religious organizations, this cuts both ways. Yes, religious groups exchange community services for the opportunity to recruit and yes, they use these services as advertising copy to solicit donations. Still, if secular opinion (what I think of as “reality”) ever replaces god belief and afterlife mythology, what infrastructure (if any) should be put in place to fill the social mission of organized religion? Anarchists and Libertarian types might argue that these social programs are undesirable, and should not be institutionalized, especially as part of the government. They have a point. Such programs often resemble a lottery system at best, and a path to power and influence peddling for a petit bureaucrat at worst. Here’s the “but”. There are many children of poor circumstance. These circumstances are usually beyond the control of these children. Not all of these children are going to be top athletic or academic performers, so they will have to find a more difficult “way out” of poverty. Sometimes a little thing can make a big difference. Sometimes it is just knowing that you are not ignored by society or a cultural group, that somebody cares what happens to you. All these children grow up. Not all will be good citizens. If the socialization and nurturing factors are missing in the family, and the neighborhood is full of negative influences, how should society at large handle the situation?
Picture from here
posted by breakerslion @ 6:46 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
The problem with any hard-lined political stance is that there's always going to be some people who get screwed by it in some way. For anarchists and libertarians, a lot of poor people get the shaft in a bad way. For communists, the hard-working get pwned. In the end, there's always going to be someone hurt, which is why politics exists. Theoretically, if a human is making policy decisions, he wouldn't be as likely to decide something that could hurt others... theoretically.
pixelation brings up an excellent point. The problem with politics today is we think there is a one shoe fits all solution to running a government. But that is not the case at all. What we need instead is a mixture of different systems so that the government can be flexible.
I like DOFs idea that we need a Liberal President, a conservative senate, and a libertarian house. Or some mixture of the different systems we have. The two party system is really just destroying our country and needs to be changed fast.
1. We have created a culture in which there is very little for a lot of people to do. Jobs? Doing what? What needs doing (like childcare, cleaning up the environment, teaching, etc.) doesn't pay very much.
2. The world is overpopulated and there are too many people competing for fewer and fewer resources. Holy crap, even people in this country shouldn't be having so many kids. "We're not keeping up with India!" So what? China has too many people and they've imposed a one-child rule (which gets broken all the time) for years.
Not all of these children are going to be top athletic or academic performers, so they will have to find a more difficult “way out” of poverty.
3. We're breeding a generation of fucking morons who know how to play video games, etc., but don't know much else. They're growing up with a lifestyle that they expect but won't have.
I don't think we have to worry about what to do if secular society replaces religion until that happens. But at present, religion isn't addressing these very real problems anyway. It starts with birth control, but you can't tell the anti-abortionists that. It starts with population reduction, though it doesn't end there.
I'm afraid that if we don't reduce the population through voluntary birth control, nature will impose its own, and I don't want to see that, but I think we will.
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