LydsBits #1: The true role of the social safety net

Idea courtesy of Camille Paglia

(Note: This is the first of what I’m sure will be many shorter posts comprised of brief ideas without enough substance to warrant a full post, in my estimation at the time of writing.)

“I say the law should be blind to race, gender, and sexual orientation, just as it claims to be blind to wealth and power. There should be no specially protected group of any kind, except for children, the severely disabled and the elderly, whose frailty demand society’s care.”

It deeply bothers me when pro-abortion ideologues say that children born with handicaps and deficiencies would be better off dead than living with those hardships. Camille Paglia, intriguing role model that she is, summarized the idea of society protecting those who are actually vulnerable nicely: In a sufficiently-advanced, wealthy culture, there is no excuse for putting those who seek special privileges on a pedestal while at the same time utterly ignoring truly frail members, actual victims of hardship, predation, and time, through no fault of their own. Worse than ignoring these true sufferers, though, modern American culture wants its elderly out of sight and out of mind in nursing homes, and its most deserving, innocent members (unborn children) actually dead.

It’s a stark sign of cultural decay how a civilization so wealthy could be so callous to the ones who need help the most — and I do not refer here to citizens who chose to have families out of wedlock, not to graduate high school, or to use harmful substances.

The most deserving of help are those who have no voice, firstly, and those who are naturally weak, not those who have a loud enough voice to silence others and draw attention to themselves.