Usually, I am not the type to sit around and watch commercials during television shows. I’ll typically either have several programs that I flip between, or I channel surf, until something strikes my interest. Today was different though. I was watching “Hannity and Colmes” on Fox News, and I was enjoying the debate that was interrupted by a commercial break, so I decided to stay tuned so I wouldn’t miss any of it when it came back on.The first commercial aired during the break was for Bayer Back and Body Pain. It showed a man, clearly in a great deal of pain, as he was slouched over, with one hand on his back, and the other trying to reach up into a cabinet. Standing next to him was a woman, who asked, “Need some help?” He said that he did, and instead of reaching up into the cabinet to get whatever the man was reaching for as was expected, the woman hands him a box of Bayer Back and Body Pain.
“So what”, you say. Just bear with me here. To put this all into perspective, just think of the woman as the government and the man as a citizen (or group of citizens) in need of some help, financially or otherwise. Thought of this way, think about what it is the government does when they are asked for help, or in some situations offer help before they are asked for it. We see programs that offer short term solutions to long term problems, such as welfare, unemployment compensation, and a multitude of others where the government offers handouts to pacify those in need of a helping hand.
The reason why people crawl to the government in search of a handout, is because people have grown to expect the government to offer aid in certain circumstances. Every time the government hands beggars something for nothing, they are offering a short term solution (like if the woman reached into the cabinet for the man), to a long term problem that remains unaddressed (like the man’s back pain). Now you can’t blame the government in all cases for people asking it for help, because there ways for them to help themselves. What you can do is blame the government for making it easy for people to not help themselves. Sometimes helping yourself won’t be the quickest solution, but it almost always is the most permanent solution. Not handouts.
The Bayer commercial didn’t show what happened after the woman gave the man the box of aspirin, but to continue with my analogy, let’s pretend that the man took the box of Bayer, turned around, sat down at the table and took some of the aspirin. While the woman was still standing right near the cabinet, she still did not reach into it to get the man what he was looking for. She went about her business around the house, leaving the man to the morning paper while he waited for the aspirin to kick in. Finally after a short period of time the medication kicks in and the man is able to stand up straight to retrieve the item from the cabinet. Now why is this better than the woman just reaching into the cabinet to help the man?
It’s better because the woman’s solution to the problem allowed the man to fend for himself. It’s better because the man isn’t going to expect help the next time something like this happens, and will learn to solve his own problems. It’s better because hopefully the long term problem is fixed, and the man won’t have to ask for help anymore.
Put back into context with my analogy, government policies should focus on helping people find solutions to their problems, not giving them money when they can’t or don’t. This will cause people to rely less on the government and more on themselves. “How so?” you might ask. Well if the government had an official “hands off” policy in regards to helping people find jobs, or whatever else they give handouts for, people would automatically have an incentive to help themselves, since no one else is going to do it. This solution is far better than any social welfare program out there, because it attacks the problem at it’s root, and will hopefully eliminate it altogether. You see, if the woman had just taken the item that the man was reaching for out of the cabinet, his real problem (his back pain) still wouldn’t be solved.
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