Enabling

It doesn't take very long for the topic of enabling to come up that the word entitlement shows up. When we got back from Mexico, I was having a discussion about the building of homes and the question came up, "why can't we do that here?" - The consensus was, our poor wouldn't have a house like the one we built (nor would our codes allow it to be built...but government regulation is a different topic). I heard a lady on NPR a few days later...she was relocated to Texas during the wake of Katrina...and she was fired up about living in Texas...paraphrasing her words (with a somewhat undereducated venacular)..."I'm not from Texas, I don't like Texas, I'm from New Orleans, and I want to go back, but I'm stuck here in Texas." The examples are easy to find among our poor and downtroden, but frankly they get a free pass in my book. In many cases they are poor for a reason...they didn't choose the parents or DNA that runs through them, they didn't choose their elementary school, their neighborhood...in many cases the poor are poor because they're not very bright, and the lack of brightness would feed the lack of appreciation/entitlement mentality. But, I don't think there are very many in that segment of society...

The enabling/entitlement that REALLY bothers me is the kind that exists among upper middle class and rich people. It's so much more damaging to society. We have some who could be productive contributors, that don't need to because of some trust fund. We have charities and shelters drastically underfunded because the second and third generation need to live a lifestyle grotesquely better than the generation that earned the right to do so. We've got automatic "slots" being filled at our best universities and graduate schools by young people who will never reach their potential because they've been slotted for stardom since they were in pre-school. You've got wives and/or husbands in church counseling chambers who are smart enough, possess enough Biblical knowledge and understanding, and come from tremendous Godly heritages...but are so freaking selfish that they can't get past "what about me!"

You see, before we look at the less fortunate segment of society and lambast them for their poor choices, we need to look within and around our circle of friends and show some freaking leadership to those that look up to us. Let's fix America from the top down...it's how every organization flourishes.