Options

Learning to accept responsibility, true responsibility, for my own life has made choice a very present and active process in every moment. Surrendering all trappings of being a victim is a first step. Some people in minority communities learn to parlay the role of victim into cash. This erodes a sense of worth and responsibility in a life.

Playing the victim comes from being a victim in childhood, usually. Those who have been neglected or abused as children often fail to proceed psychologically to a truly adult identity. These individuals become very adept at manipulating systems and authority, as they manipulated abusive parents to survive. Giving up this survival mechanism is very hard and usually requires a great deal of practice and/or therapy.

Generational poverty is the end result of the failure of grown individuals to proceed to true adulthood. Deprived and undeveloped children having children who will be deprived and prone to lack of development. The Ayn-Rand Libertarian would simply cut off social supports to these individuals in the name of helping them. This is absurd, of course. Corroding funding to public education, diminishing proper nutrition and shrinking companies to hire fewer and fewer people are the other brilliant ideas of these Tea-Party types. How can you help someone who is deprived by further depriving them of resources? Makes no sense.

On the other hand, there is the New Liberal approach of providing an endless, placating buffet of options without adequately providing remedial education/therapy for the core problem of neglect and abuse by family. This is like handing a $1000 can of caviar and a soup spoon to someone who usually eats in fast-food restaurants. These Liberals see addressing family dysfunction and damage as politically incorrect or "judgmental". Wasting time and money simply enabling dysfunction is stupid in my judgment.

Options are always nice. However, options, once chosen, need to be accompanied with responsibility for the consequences of choosing those options. The undeveloped individual who rips through government entitlement programs without any results should be held accountable. Holding this individual accountable in some form could be the first step at helping him/her devise more intelligent and responsible behaviors.