Family Responsibilities

I just read an article on CNN that featured senior citizens complaining about what will happen if they stop receiving social security payments from the government.

Not every one is in the same situation so instead of generalizing, I'm going to comment on just one of the seniors who was interviewed:


"For some, a loss of Social Security income could mean a loss of independence.
Charles Tanner moved to an apartment near his daughter's home in Lexington, Ohio, after his wife died. It's important to the 81-year-old former welder to live on his own
But if he stops receiving his $1,400 Social Security check, he doesn't know how he'll be able to pay the rent in coming months. That means he'd have to move in with his daughter.
"It would be a sorry day if it happens," said Tanner."

Wel I disagree with Mr. Tanner. Maybe it would be a sorry day for him because he has a big ego and thinks that he should be able to take care of himself until his bitter end, but he's really just deluding himself. He's too old to work, and he depends on the government to pay his bills. Is that manly? He's an institutionalized freeloader. Does that show tough character?

Moving in with remaining family is EXACTLY what all seniors need to do when they cannot take care of themselves anymore. Their family is the first group with responsibility to take care of them.

I'm outraged that Mr. Tanner prefers to pay his bills with my tax money than to accept his daughter's help, and I'm outraged that we have a system that even gives him that choice.  I DON'T CONSENT TO PAYING MR. TANNER'S BILLS!!! Every day is a sorry day when the wealth of millions of Americans is redistributed to millions of others without consent.

I love my parents and I vow to take care of them when they are too old to do it themselves. When are they too old?  Well, in my case they are hard-working and responsible and they took care of me and my siblings so I'm going to let them decide when they are too old. When they decide they don't want to work anymore, they can move in with me, and use their savings to do fun things for themselves (and the grandchildren...) instead of pay bills.

At least Mr. Tanner HAS a daughter who can take care of him.  Not every senior citizen has remaining family, and that's sad.

I'm generally opposed to the government supporting poor people, old people, sick people, disabled people, mentally incompetent people, morally incompetent people (criminals)... I think that's a job for families, friends, and charities. And I'm generally opposed to the government supporting rich people. So really I'm generally opposed to the government supporting any subset of people because that's unfair to the people who are not in that subset. The government should be equally unsupportive of everyone so that it can expend it's resources effectively to uphold and enforce everyone's right to life, liberty, justice, own property, and equal opportunity. In order for this foundational charter of government to be executed well, we need to put aside special and discriminatory interests.

I do think about the consequences. If the government stops taking care of all these people, and their families and friends don't take care of them, and there aren't enough charities to take care of them, what will they do?  Roam the streets until killed by accident, starvation, or sickness?  Maybe. Or maybe we can provide easy work for seniors to give them choice. It can be clerical, supervisory, counseling, coaching, telling stories, anything that doesn't require hard labor or too many hours in a single day. Then anyone who has failed to develop a family or group of friends who will take care of them can still survive by doing light work. And everyone who chooses not to - well, we need to just let the consequences play out.  If individual people feel sorry for them then it is individuals who need to reach out and help. Cities and towns are not just collections of individuals - they are societies. So whenever we have the power to help each other, we should do it, because our time to need help is just around the corner.

I don't buy into the notion that ALL old people have benefited society so much that it's our duty to support them in old age. I say that most old people worked jobs and got compensated for the work they did. Maybe some of them volunteered in charities to help the needy. That's awesome, and I hope that younger people will do the same. But I don't owe them anything. If a senior person wants to retire but hasn't any family at all, hopefully that person has been a blessing to other people enough that they feel they should help to take care of him or her in old age. If not, well... insert your favorite adage about consequences here.

Some people have this notion that people shouldn't have to work until the day they die. Well, it's something that we wish for but it can't come true for everybody. Maybe we just have to accept the fact that not everyone is going to lead an ideal life. We have to accept personal tragedies and we have to develop a stomach for the real, and use that as a motivation to work to prevent ourselves from suffering the same misfortune as others, instead of rallying to unfair wealth-distribution schemes.

That $1400 that Mr. Tanner gets every month actually represents an even bigger loss to the rest of us, because there are overhead costs to administering such government programs and a lot of waste involved.  Yet if Mr. Tanner moved in with his daughter, she would be able to use her money to take care of him much more efficiently... the entirety of every dollar spent from her budget would be a dollar that benefits him.

I do think that we have a responsibility to take care of the elderly. But when I say that, I mean that each of us has responsibility to take care of our own elderly - our own family or acquaintances. Not of everyone else's elderly. And should any person refuse to take care of his own parents when they are too weak to work, that person cannot just dump the responsibility on the rest of us. That person must accept the consequences and the loss of the parent. And it's guaranteed to happen at some point ANYWAY.

I'm going to take care of my parents when they need it. I'll provide a place to sleep, food to eat, medicines, as much as I can afford. But the human body grows weaker in old age and the number of problems and complications just grows and grows. Even if I had all the money in the world there's a point after which I simply will not be able to keep my parents alive.  Dying is natural, and I hope that I will make my parents proud and happy before it's their time to go. But I will never expect anyone else (other than my siblings) to pitch to take care of them, because they are MY parents, and they are part of MY family responsibility. It would be unfair to burden anyone else with taking care of my stuff.

And if I am blessed to reach old age, I hope that through my actions between now and then my children and my community grow to love me and will want to take care of me when I cannot do it by myself anymore.

Well, that's why I'm so angry at people who let the government pay their bills. They are stealing from me.  I have the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and every dollar I pay in taxes that gets redistributed as welfare to some other person is a violation of my constitutional rights because the government is taking it from me by force - well, by threatening all the penalties for not paying taxes. It's wrong and perverse for the government, which exists to protect my rights, to violate them.