June 4, 2007
WHEN THE #1 PROBLEM THE POOR FACE IS OBESITY, POVERTY IS RELATIVE:
Is poverty relative?: We pitch Civitas's David Green against the New Policy Institute's Guy Palmer to discuss just what we mean by poverty in today's Britain (David Green And Guy Palmer, 30 May 2007, New Statesman)
'Relative poverty' might be accepted by politicians on the left and right these days, but that's a worrying thing. The concept is wielded by authoritarians with a command-and-control approach. They have repeatedly redefined poverty to allow an ever-increasing number of people to be identified as the class requiring political action on their behalf: first it was physical efficiency; then the line was the benefit level; then a percentage of average or median income, and then it became ‘exclusion’ from the dominant lifestyle. At each step the intention was to exploit the sympathy that the term ‘poverty’ evokes.
It would be strange indeed if statists did not seek to increase our dependence on the state. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 4, 2007 7:29 AM
I will never forget the time I heard a poor, rural Indian in a PBS documentary say that America must be a wonderful place because even its poor people are fat.
Posted by: Rick T. at June 4, 2007 8:05 AMRick, I heard a citizen of a third world country make similar comment on TV during the Watts riots. He couldn't understand why the natives were burning down their neighborhoods which, to his eyes, were riches beyond imagining. He couldn't get over it. Even the poor own their own homes, have flower gardens, new clothes, new cars and household appliances, their kids have new bikes and toys, etc., etc.
You don't need to wonder why they hate us.
"Relative poverty" is a never-ending grasp for wealth, perpetual the way "diversity" is perpetual affirmative action. In each case, an ameliorative of corrective measure is morphed into an open-ended estate.
Here we should insist of the rectification of names. "Relative poverty" is the sinful condition of covetousness. The actor has enough to eat, to wear, a place to live. He is not in need, he merely desires to reap where he has not sown.
What is the scam here? Why it is a ploy to despoil the followers of values which succor the poor for the benefit of the political clients of those twisting the words. As Confucious taught, when words are twisted, good govenment is impossible. Never forget that the scammers are speaking only of so-called "relative poverty."
Posted by: Lou Gots at June 4, 2007 11:23 AM