After waging War on Poverty for 50 years, let's not surrender

[nmgauss]

I am not happy with the current set-up, and also have suspicions about it, but that doesn’t mean that we should just throw up our hands and say, They’re poor because they made stupid decisions, so let’s just leave them alone!"

I think that wisdom and prayer need to be brought to bear against the problem, and a recognition that different people have different needs, including, sometimes, the need to feel the consequences of their actions.

I am a fan of the TV program “Judge Judy” in which stupidity is portrayed by ordinary people. Many want justice yet they have infractions of the law in their records. Judge Judith Scheindlin has no patience with these kinds of people and says that if they want justice, they should be clean before they enter the courtroom.

Often dead-beat dads appear and have no feeling of obligation to support their out-of-wedlock children. Single women with children are made to feel by Judge Judy that if they cannot support children, don’t have them. Yet I seldom see any sense of responsibility on either the mothers or fathers of these out-of-wedlock children. The fathers sleep with whatever woman they can induce to go to bed with them, and then use no contraceptives. The women often have boyfriend after boyfriend producing baby after baby and wonder why they live in poverty. And there is never a feeling of contrition that they made unwise decisions.