ABORTION

Some people are so preoccupied with the topic of abortion that they talk of little else on social media and elsewhere. Nearly every political and cultural conversation gets hijacked onto this topic, due to the tunnel vision of the abortion-obsessed, and I am tired of continually taking that detour, so I have written this statement of my position on this issue. From now on, every time someone tries to wrestle a conversation from the price of cilantro at my local market to THE HORROR OF ABORTION, I am posting a link to this blog entry and moving on without further comment.

I do not like abortion

I am not in favor of killing babies. I do not "support abortion." Abortion is horrible. DUH.

Nor will I abandon every commandment of Christ in order to vote for people who say or insinuate that they will make abortion illegal. Making abortion illegal was never a successful method of eliminating abortion. When you make it illegal, you only make it less safe. Because abortion has always been available to women and they will resort to it if pushed.

If we really want to eliminate abortion, we could make our country more family friendly and follow the examples of the rest of the industrialized world by making maternity and paternity leave available as well as free child care. Instead, we behave as if each one of us is in competition with every other American. We behave as if we hate one another and must fight each other to the death for limited resources.

We do not have limited resources. It is just that all the resources have been handed over to a tiny number of people while the wages of the workers that create the wealth are suppressed. When asked, women say that they get abortions because of MONEY. They can't afford to raise a child. It is IMPOSSIBLE. Most workers in our country do not receive a living wage.

The right wing uses abortion as a lure to capture voters when their real agenda is to accelerate this enrichment of the wealthy while they torment, starve and further impoverish the poor.

For instance: In the two years Donald Trump has been in office, Planned Parenthood, the biggest abortion provider in the U.S., has been funded by the government something like 9 times. He's seated one truly wretched supreme court judge, whom I firmly believe DID sexually attack Dr. Ford during a party. (In addition to my customary research, I watched all the videos of the hearings.)

The GOP treated Dr. Ford shamefully and, indeed, as I watched the debacle on television, I felt I was witnessing a second rape.

Watching Kavanaugh sputter and riot his way through a decidedly partisan, voluminous defense, his puckery red mouth, wet with the spittle of his outrage, made me want to retch. I vowed never to vote Republican ever again, when everything was said and done. Will Kavanaugh deliver the promised abolition of abortion? He is dishonest enough to renege on his subtle promise in that regard, but he WILL likely save Trump from being thrown into prison for criminal wrongdoing. The whole vile mess makes me sick.

Catholics are not required to vote Republican

The Republican Party, as it is currently constituted, stands for positions that are directly in opposition to everything Jesus advocated. The only quasi-Christian position on their platform is the supposedly "pro-life" position, which actually boils down to a very weak anti-abortion position that only makes it illegal, when illegality has never prevented abortions. It only prevented SAFE abortions.

Anyone that claims that Catholics "have" to vote Republican is lying.

Pope Benedict clarified this during his term as Pope. (See the quote below his picture.)

A catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation

in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for holy

communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a

candidate precisely because of the candidate's

permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia.

when a Catholic does not share a candidate's stand

in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes

for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered

remote material cooperation, which can be permitted

in the presence of proportionate reasons.

~Pope Benedict~

My opinion: Criminalizing abortion does not solve the problem

There is no corroborating research or statistic that supports the idea that making abortion illegal is a working method because, as history has borne out, women get abortions, whether legal or not.

American laws, generally speaking, reflect the will of the majority of the people, in concert with the guiding principles laid down in our Constitution.

Abortion is legal, but it is not mandatory. This isn't china, where parents are only allowed to have a certain number of children and are thereafter forced to abort subsequent children.

If no one wanted an abortion, we could have an abortuary on every street corner and they would be empty, and this fact relates to my central position.

The remedy must address the needs of both mother and child.

Pro-lifers and pro-choicers are equally vehement in their insistence on the rightness of their respective positions. Pro-lifers are advocating for the babies. Pro-choicers advocate for the mothers. It is a furious pitched battle between them, which is why we need a nuanced approach that advocates for BOTH.

How can we do that? Well, first of all, stop obsessing about whether or not abortion is legal. Even when illegal, is it STILL available, and pretending otherwise is just naive and unrealistic.

We must evangelize the culture

As religious people, we need to stop behaving as if we can (or should) try to force other people to obey our moral laws when it comes to sexual behavior.  Sexual immorality and the pregnancies that may result from it are beyond the pale of what Christians can expect to manipulate. We need to remember that Jesus did not force anyone to follow him. He invited them.  We should do the same by working to evangelize the culture to gain the hearts and minds of a majority, which is absolutely within the mandate given us by Jesus.

Thirdly, we have to be realistic about the limitations of the American legal system when it comes to impressing Christian norms on it. The separation of church and state has been a fundamental criterion from the very foundation of our country and, while I agree that the founding fathers probably did not anticipate that many Americans would one day belong to non-Christian religions (or no religion at all), the overriding conception of individual freedoms can't be ignored.

In the arena of abortion, even if the law were to recognize the rights of the unborn child, you cannot divorce the baby from the mother until it is born. The law will never again allow the rights of the unborn baby to circumvent the rights of the mother, regardless of whether or not we believe that an abortion murders a child. That ship has sailed.

If you want to make laws, enact laws that support moms and babies.

It is not logical to stand in the way of legislation that financially supports poor moms and their babies, either through direct money or services such as free day care, and at the same time pretend that we care about the babies that suffer because its parents are poor and we refuse to fund their relief.

Babies need food, shelter, utilities, clothing, transportation and day care. If a young woman does not have the income to give a child those basic things, abortion will be the only way out. Forget adoption. Most women know they couldn't give up their child, once they've given birth, and if they don't have the money to support a child, they don't have the money to get themselves through a pregnancy either.

Women do not "want" to kill their children, either through abortion or, in the alternative, through poverty, illness and disease. They are forced into this decision because financial difficulties are the primary reason women cite for choosing abortion.

Legislation doesn't solve every human issue

People who resent tax dollars being earmarked for the poor are resentful because they are selfish, first of all, but in the case of the American Christian, it is often the mistaken belief that supporting illegitimate babies will 'encourage" young women to have lots of children they can't afford. There is no proof of that and, even if it were true for some, the number would be quite small.

I would remind my fellow Christians readers that if there are a few "extra" babies in the world, it's not a bad thing. Right?

Hear this: There is nothing you can do about anyone else's larcenous heart or grifter tendencies. There will always be a small percentage of people who are like that. You can't do anything about it.

There is also nothing you can do about lazy people. I know a young, healthy woman, only 20 years old, who refuses to get a full time job. She says part time is "enough." When I ask her what she'll do if she has an emergency, she asserts that her mother will have to pay the bill! I wonder if she got her mom's agreement to that? (I know her mother. She has one full time job and one part-time job. I'm guessing she's not happy about any of this.)

In any case, nothing is perfect, and we cannot sacrifice a great good because it can't be perfect. Someone will take advantage of our generosity. Someone will steal. Someone will lie and cheat. We have to do the best we can. Here is what Saint John Chrysostom says about it:

"The poor man has one plea, his want and his standing

in need: do not require anything else from him; but even if 

he is the most wicked of all men and is at a loss for his

necessary sustenance, let us free him from hunger."

~St. John Chrysostom~

Obviously, a baby is entirely innocent and, even if I agreed with you that it is a bad thing to encourage immorality by supporting moms who are having sex outside of marriage, for instance, we would still have to support the babies, right? Part of supporting the babies necessitates supporting the mothers. You can't separate the two.

Don't scream at me.

Now, I can hear people screaming at me already, and I haven't even posted this yet. There are some of you who are singularly focused on the fact that abortion is murder, and you can't SEE anything but that, you can't HEAR anything but that, and you can't TALK about anything but that. Just know that, as long as you refuse to see, hear or discuss anything but the fact that abortion kills a baby, you will be a miserable failure in your attempts to win people over to your way of thinking. You cannot sway people over to your side by hitting them over the head with a hammer. That approach does not work.

Stop spreading superstitious lies about pro-choice advocates and talk to them instead.

I am sick of watching the right and the left fling insults at one another and lie about each other. The right says the left just "wants to kill babies." The left says the right "just wants to control women." They are both off base. Instead of imagining the motives of the other side, it is time to listen. Get on the same page somehow and start using the same language to have the discussion.

At present, the pro-choice people are just as disgusted with you as you are of them, and it isn't because they are, supposedly, evil. it is because the anti-abortion people refuse to see the issues that bother those on the left.

The peculiar quandary in which we find ourselves is that both sides think they are arguing for the greatest good and that the other side is malicious. This is an impossible impasse that we must overcome if we are to make any progress in lessening the numbers of abortions.

Somehow we have to arrive at solutions that respect and dignify every human person. The rights of the mothers and the babies have got to be supported at the same time. At present, the pro-choicers advocate for the rights of the moms while the anti-abortion crowd speaks for the babies. We need a comprehensive approach that supports both.

God save us all

Silver Rose

THE DUMBEST GIRL IN THE ROOM

My modest garden

I've noticed since becoming disabled and retiring from salaried work that people have started treating me as if I am the dumbest girl in the room and, 15 years into retirement, it is starting to grate on my nerves.

The disdain of some is demonstrated by refusing to listen, discounting my opinions, telling me what to do, say or think, or dismissing my concerns with an imperious air usually reserved for pre-teens who have grown to big for their britches. I have reached the limit of my patience with this nonsense.

I was just as aggravated, at age 20, when people who customarily would not give me the time of day were crawling all over me, begging to be "my friend" as soon as I sold my first story to an episodic television series. That is the opposite side of the same coin. I gave up writing for television many years ago and, although I am not the slightest bit interested in people fawning all over me, I likewise object to being dismissed.

Recently, I spent the day with an acquaintance who I met subsequent to becoming disabled and who continues to treat me as a lesser being. When she arrived, I had to tell her 4 times in the span of 90 seconds to PLEASE stop petting my dog when I'm trying to discipline it. She continued to interfere, and I finally had to put the dog in the kennel. Later, she attempted to dictate how I should interact with others in several different venues.  During lunch, I politely paused to ask for her opinion about a topic, and she blurted out the most nonsensical, disjointed and unhinged stream of words that I realized she wasn't paying the slightest attention to anything I said. I pretended not to notice that she had not been listening, though it did give me a hitch in my giddyup. I couldn't imagine her behaving like this with any of her other friends and I had, indeed, seen her interact with a mutual acquaintance.

Multiply this experience a zillion times, and you will get a picture of a typical day in my life. Thank God for the few friends I have who are generous with themselves and don't treat me like I am a developmentally disabled child who is incapable of discursive thought and needs to be directed.

During my conversation with the acquaintance mentioned above, this woman let me know that she was under the impression I was on the dole and that, when my Social Security kicks in sometime during the next couple of years I would get a "bump" in income, and my finances would improve, which is completely wrong.

To put it simply, if you have substantial work history, such as I do (with 30 years under my belt), disability is simply drawing on the Social Security Insurance into which I have paid my entire working life. It is the same Social Security Insurance into which the rest of you are paying with every paycheck.

Essentially, disability causes one to begin to receive early Social Security retirement benefit. Only the monies that you've already paid into the fund are considered when determining your monthly retirement amount. The average Social Security benefit is $1,000 a month. Just try to live on a thousand dollars a month, with no help from any quarter. It is almost impossible. (I do have some friends who have adopted me as family and contribute very kindly, but it is still very difficult.) A huge number of seniors, especially those left without a mate, are struggling to survive on the pittance that Social Security gives us.

Silly Goose

You could easily do everything "right" throughout your working life, and still end up poor poor poor when it comes time to retire, giving the lie to the idea that if you are poor you have done something wrong.

If you haven't made much money in your lifetime, and your Social Security benefit is less than about $700 a month, and if your assets do not exceed $5,000 - then the government will step in with a little monthly stipend to get you up to that $700 a month. That hundred or two hundred dollars a month that the government contributes is a type of welfare, but it disappears if you get income or assets from elsewhere.

Not only do I not receive any government assistance in addition to my Social Security benefit, I also do not qualify for any other benefits except some really lousy slow internet service and a small discount on my rent in a bad part of town.

There are so many stupid and bigoted ideas floating around now about people "on disability." Most Americans are ignorant of what is meant by that. They imagine, wrongly, that all disabled people are living on WELFARE, and that is not the case. It is also wrong that people who ARE receiving welfare are cheating the system and are freeloaders.

Medical and mental illnesses are private matters, and no one is obligated to reveal any of it to anyone. Many people will expend a great deal of effort to hide mental illnesses, especially, and they would rather the public believe they are freeloaders than to have anyone know the nature of their illness. Having gone through the disability determination process myself, I am confident that "fakers" are few and far between. The criteria is rigorous. Recently, countless stories of people with serious, verifiable illnesses that cannot get approval from the medical board have come to light. Apparently, it is becoming harder and harder to get assistance, and many Americans become completely destitute, then fall into homelessness while waiting for benefits.

Americans criticize other cultures for caste systems and class systems, but we are the worst hypocrites about this topic. The underlying belief of most Americans seems to be that you are less of a person if you aren't financially well off.

No matter why one is poor, it is assumed that you must be stupid, because if you were smart, you would be rich. Calvinism is very strong in the hearts of many Americans. They tend to believe that good people are rewarded financially. If you do not have money, then you must not be good - or intelligent - or worthy.

Being egalitarian by nature and philosophy (as well as the lessons of Christ), it is my firm conviction that we should treat everyone with equal respect, whether rich or poor and regardless of the source of their income. Human beings are not animals, contrary to the proclamations of Donald Trump (who keeps calling immigrants "animals" these days.)

The happiest countries on the planet, for many years running, are the Nordic countries that have very strong social programs that guarantee you will retire on 80% of your former salary (instead of the 20% we typically give.) They also have free college, day care for the children, free medical care, etc. These people do not have to compete against one another for their basic survival. They are better educated, healthier and more prosperous, as a whole, than we are. If "love thy neighbor" is the mark of a Christian nation, then Finland, this year, is the MOST Christian nation of all. America is not even on the chart for that award. If I had known about this when I was younger, I could easily see myself moving to Finland or Denmark, which captured the award for 3 years running.

America is undergoing a huge revolution. While the current American leadership is more corrupt, dishonest and vulgar than we have ever seen, it HAS done us the favor of bringing a lot of ugliness to light. People with bigoted, racist and classist ideas have heard Trump's dog whistles and, sensing that it is safe to crawl out of the dark, have become emboldened in their prejudices, flinging the covers aside in an appalling display. After Trump said that the Nazis were also "very good people," white supremacist groups were responsible for a sudden uptick of violence. Now that they have been flushed into the clearing, we know the job that lays ahead of us.

Having grown up in they 60's - the era of peace, love and equality - I really had no idea there were so many people with such despicable opinions. Now that we are aware, however, we can work together to restore our American dignity of purpose and philosophy.

So, puhleeeze, people - if you happen to interact with someone who is a different color, or disabled, or older, or in some other way different from you, don't assume that they are less intelligent, less valuable or have less to offer the world than you do. Don't assume that someone who is poor is living on "welfare." We need to treat every other person as our peer, regardless of financial status.

We have a lot of work to do in our Christian walk.I will continue to try to educate the arrogant and advocate for the poor, even if I am the stupidest girl in the room. Please join me.

Silver Rose Parnell
Copyright (c) 2018
All rights reserved.

EDUCATION IN AMERICA

I have been wondering why the alt right have gotten hysterical about American colleges and why they've been hollering about "snowflakes" and "crybabies." I could not understand what was fueling this animus toward the educated, nor why Donald Trump would appoint someone to run the Department of Education who had no education in education...and no experience either. In fact, Betsy deVos has spent many years and a lot of money trying to dismantle the Department of Education. Why her, I wondered?

After reading the Washington Post this morning, I am beginning to get a clue.

The alt right, represented in this article by Frank Antenori, "a former Green Beret who served in the Arizona state legislature" believes that public colleges and universities should only be funded if they teach courses of study that result in a degree with which a person can make an appreciable income. An art degree, for instance, is a "junk degree." Culture means nothing to them.

According to Antenori, the current situation is that students go to major universities to "get brainwashed and learn how to become activists and basically go out in the world and cause trouble."

The hammer headed "solution" for this alleged problem, according to Republicans, is to cut funding for education, which they have done. Nearly every state has had to cut funding to public colleges and universities since the 2008 financial crisis, according to this article. Exactly how this is supposed to fix the problem is a mystery to me, since all it does is prevent poor and middle class kids from having access to a college education.

I should have intuited the "problem" about education before this. You just have to "follow the money" when trying to understand overblown right wing anger.

For those on the extreme right, the solution to any alleged problem is to cut funding to everything that helps poor and middle class Americans, while giving tax breaks to the wealthy. If they can gin up anger toward some aspect of a public program, no matter how small, that is what they do. They spread lies about "massive fraud" in the welfare system, then cut funding to programs that feed children. In a bid to cut Social Security benefits, Republicans would also have you believe that a large number of disabled people are liars and cheats, when there is no factual basis for this complaint whatsoever.

The inconvenient fact (for the "alt right") is that there are liars and cheats in every walk of life. The percentage is about the same, whether you're a 60 year old disabled veteran in a wheelchair or a billionaire. The only difference is that the billionaire steals more money from the public pocket and is therefore a more successful criminal.

The process of disinformation begins like this. Take a minority of a minority of a minority. For instance, students who are also activists. It is a small number, but in order to whip up the Republican base, you have to turn something into a problem, then exaggerate both the number of miscreants involved and the cost to Americans of whatever behavior is being inflated.

Instead of actually addressing the wisdom of that one class on "climbing trees" Republicans want to dismantle the government agency that regulates educational institutions while at the same time cutting funding. Once again, they are taking a giant hammer to a gnat, and missing the gnat.  They never cared about the gnat to begin with. That is why they miss it...again.

If Republicans really cared about the state of our educational system, they would do something that actually fixes the imagined "problem." That would be the role of the Department of Education.

There are many reasons why an art degree or an English literature degree is not "junk" and why funding the educations of our poor children is crucial to the continued success of the American way of life. It should be obvious that institutions of higher education do not exist for the sole purpose of turning out human machines that produce consumable products, especially since those type of degrees are not EXCLUDED from courses of study.

There is room for every type of person in America, and there is no reason why our educational system should not teach everything on the spectrum, from the artist who makes towers out of tin cans, to the corporately inclined student of business administration.

I do not care for art made from tin cans or cow carcasses. My tastes run to the traditional, but I do not presume to tell other people that their taste has to conform to mine. The sign of a real "nanny state" would be one in which only the left-brained, commerce-inclined children would be fed, while all others are starved.

As a final note, I would remind the reader that the rest of the civilized world provides free education to all its children.

Silver Rose Parnell
(c) copyright 2017
All rights reserved.

THE TRUTH ABOUT ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS AND WELFARE

Hispanic men at a homeless shelter in Los Angeles

ABC News report

2446  "Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is 

to steal from them and deprive them of life.  The goods 

we possess are not ours, but theirs.  The demands of 

justice must be satisfied first of all; that which is already 

due in justice is not to be offered as a gift of charity."...

"when we attend to the needs of those in want, we give 

them what is theirs, not ours.  More than performing 

works of mercy, we are paying a debt of justice"  

Catechism of the Catholic Church

It never fails when I prove someone wrong in this never-ending slander against the poor, I am told that I am "entitled to my opinion," when I have actually demolished someone's lies with facts.  It has become obvious to me that a great number of people do not know the difference between opinion and fact, so I start my post with a short tutorial:

The primary definition of "opinion," at least the one with which I am dealing here, is:

"A view or judgment formed about something, 

not necessarily based on fact or knowledge."

The definition of a "fact," for the purposes herein, is:

"1.  a thing that is indisputably the case; and,    

2.  a piece of information used as evidence or 

as part of a report or news article"          

The peculiar North American definition of "Welfare" is:

"financial support given to people in need."

Notice that "opinion" isn't necessarily based on the truth of a thing, while a "fact" IS. Therefore, if someone says:

"I am tired of illegals getting welfare,"

they are expressing an opinion (being "tired of it") based upon the supposed fact that "illegals get money from the government."

This opinion is based on a lie and is promoting that lie to other people, whether in social media, mass media or private conversations.  I am going to make yet another stab at providing the factual information about undocumented immigrants in our country.  

"Undocumented immigrants do not qualify 

for welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, and most 

other public benefits.  Most of these programs 

require proof of legal immigration status and, 

under the 1996 welfare law, even legal immigrants 

cannot receive these benefits until they have been 

in the United States for more than 5 years."  

CNN Money Article (1)

[Emphasis added.]

The above quote presents the factual circumstances of this issue, which facts are repeated by countless credible sources that can easily be found on the internet, yet scores of people have argued with me incessantly, vigorously and loudly, claiming that undocumented immigrants are given welfare as soon as they enter the country. 

I suspect that something that confuses these people is the fact that, if a person is born in this country, they are American, which means that, if the illegal aliens have babies in our country, then those babies are Americans and they are entitled to a small amount of government assistance.  These children are sometimes referred to as "anchor babies" that serve to allow the foreigners a tenuous foothold in this country.  Even so, the amount of money given to these children is so small (about $550 each, plus food stamps), it is a marvel to me how much certain people begrudge the food that goes into the mouths of these little ones.

What I hear continually from angry Americans, is that they resent their taxes being spent on the poor because of this false impression that illegal aliens are raking in big bucks.  They also accuse the disabled of faking their injuries, but that is another topic for another day.  The angry Americans are widely under the mistaken impression that they are spending huge amounts of money on "welfare" for illegals and other poor people.

As of 2012, a person who earns $50,000 a year only pays $36.82 in taxes for food stamps and $6.96 in taxes for welfare per year.  It seems like an awful lot of squawking for $43.78 PER YEAR IN TAXES EARMARKED FOR WELFARE AND FOOD STAMPS, especially when you compare that figure to the $4,000.00 a year they spend on corporate subsidies.  Below is a tax breakdown using $50,000 per year income for one tax payer. These tax figures are provided by the White House and government agencies, collected by commondreams.org. (3)

If we step back and look where all of the entitlement monies are spent after you have paid your taxes, the elderly, the disabled and the working poor account for the majority of it. Using the above model of the tax payer who earns $50,000 a year, his taxes for unemployment insurance, food stamps, welfare, retirement and disability to government workers and Medicare amount to $346.25, per year, added to which would be approximately $3,500 per year of Social Security taxes, making a grand total of $3846.25 paid into so-called "entitlement programs."  These monies are spent out in the following percentages:

These figures were obtained from the U.S. Office of 

Management and Budget, the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, 

the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the 

US. Dept of Labor, and the U.S. Census Bureau.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities [February 2012] "more than 90 percent of the benefit dollars that entitlement and other mandatory programs spend go to assist people who are elderly, seriously disabled, or members of working households - not to able-bodied, working-age Americans who choose not to work.  This figure has changed little in the past few years."

"Federal budget and census data show that, in 2010, 91 percent of the benefit dollars from entitlement and other mandatory programs went to the elderly (people 65 and over), the seriously disabled, and members of working households.  People who are neither elderly nor disabled - and do not live in a working household - received only 9 percent of the benefits.

"Moreover, the vast bulk of that 9 percent goes for medical care, unemployment insurance benefits (which individuals must have a significant work history to receive), Social Security survivor benefits for the children and spouses of deceased workers, and Social Security benefits for retirees between ages 62 and 64.  Seven out of the 9 percentage points go for one of these four purposes."

The remaining 2% include able-bodied people who "choose" not to work (many of whom are suffering from undiagnosed and/or untreated mental and emotional illnesses): hardly the vast conspiracy of fraud and corruption that uninformed and angry Americans claim are bankrupting our country.

In the past, I have heard the angry Americans discount facts by falsely labeling them "statistics," rather than raw data, and claiming that statistics can be skewed to suit the situation.  While that perception of statistics could be true, I would point out that I am not providing "statistics," but raw data instead.  The definition of statistics is:

"The practice or science of collecting and analyzing numerical 

data in large quantities, especially for the purpose of inferring 

proportions in a whole from those in a representative sample."

The definition of "raw data" is:

"Raw data (also known as primary data) is a term for data

collected from a source.  Raw data has not been subjected 

to processing or any other manipulation."

The information I have provided consists of raw figures provided by primary sources from which no inferences of proportions have been made.  No manipulation of the data has been done.  These are simply the facts of the law and the direct numerical (monetary) figures of the matters discussed.

I present these facts in an effort to curtail the cruel myths that are circulating throughout the internet and to begin to direct the attention of the angry Americans to the truth of this portion of the discussion about welfare in America.

Helpful sources:

(1)  CNN Money Article

(2)  LIFE BEFORE SOCIAL SECURITY
(3)  COMMON DREAMS
(4)  CENTER ON BUDGET AND POLICY PRIORITIES

God bless us all,

Silver "Rose" Parnell
(c) 2015

GIVING ALMS TO THE POOR IS NOT CHARITY

"Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal 

from them and deprive them of life.  The goods we 

possess are not ours, but theirs.  The demands of justice 

must be satisfied first of all; that which is already due in 

justice is not to be offered as a gift of charity."  "When we 

attend to the needs of those in want, we give them what is 

theirs, not ours.  More than performing works of mercy, 

we are paying a debt of justice."

~ CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, No. 2446

Once again, the tide of hateful rhetoric against the poor has risen, and I have to write another post to remind Catholics of what our faith teaches us, which is that whatever money or assets we possess beyond which is necessary for our own survival belongs to those who do not have enough for their survival.  Read the catechism.  "Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life."

The internet can give us a horrible glimpse into the darkness of evil, where the poor are characterized as "lazy and just waiting for a handout."  In some Facebook posts, people complain that their tax dollars go to help the poor, robbing them of the ability to decide from themselves who is worthy and who is not.  They advocate for the removal of the already inadequate systems we have in place to feed children, the elderly and the disabled and claim that individuals and the church will take over the care and feeding of millions of people.  This is a fantasy.

Before Social Security and its associated social programs, individuals and churches already had the opportunity to take care of the poor and they didn't do it.  Unless we want history to repeat itself, it is best to leave in place those systems that have prevented our country from looking like India, with millions of people living and dying on the street or in tiny shacks made of corrugated tin.

I exhort my brothers and sisters to stop worrying about whether or not some "lazy" person will slip through the system and receive the gigantic sum of $240 a month, which is the amount of welfare paid to able-bodied persons in New Mexico - a sum they have to pay for by working at least 20 hours for the state.

Millions of people are under the ridiculous assumption that scores of able-bodied people are making a killing on "welfare."  It simply is not true.  If you are an American citizen who is able-bodied and you have a child and the household is poor, then the child can receive about $540 a month, food stamps and Medicaid, but the parents, if able bodied, receive NO MONEY other than the afore-mentioned $240 a month, for which they must work.  If poor enough, they may receive food stamps of about $80 per person, but even the spending habits of those with food stamps are criticized right and left.  Have you been to the grocery store lately?  What, exactly, can you buy with $80?

The reason why that woman paying for groceries with food stamps is wearing a piece of jewelry or has a cell phone is that someone else purchased it for her.  Family and friends have to step in and supply some of the needs of the poor because the miserly sums they receive are simply not enough.  In my case, nearly everything I own was given to me or left behind by the previous tenant in this apartment.  My apartment is adorable and I have internet and cell phone, thanks to my friends Jane, Betty, Kathy, Debbie, and others.  I have a car, thanks to my friend Judy, who GAVE me her old car when she bought a new one.  Although very low income, I don't qualify for food stamps, so some of my friends help me with some food items.  I can't imagine what it is like for those whose income is less than mine.

We have more than 40 million poor people in our country right now.  More than half of them are elderly.  Another 20% are severely disabled.  At least 18% are what is called "the working poor" who are living on minimum wage.  Less than 3% of people who received entitlement income are able-bodied people that are not in the previous three categories.  Within that percentage is contained the vast number of unemployed in our country who are receiving unemployment insurance.

The most shocking statistic of all is that one out of every four children in America goes to bed hungry every night.  I am going to repeat that so you can meditate on it.   One out of four children goes to bed hungry in America every night.  

When you criticize the poor, you are making it more difficult for these children to get the food, housing and education they need.  When you criticize the poor, you encourage people to be more stingy.  When you criticize the poor, you paint a huge number of people with a brush that only belongs to a tiny minority.

Where are these lazy people who are just sitting around waiting for a handout and then buying luxury items with the boatload of money they get from the state?  I will tell you where they are.  They are in the imaginations of people who lack charity and generosity of spirit.  Some of them, sad to say, are Catholic.  Participating in this poor-bashing that is so popular right now is participation in the plan of Satan.  Just stop it.

Silver Rose Parnell