According to Merriam-Webster:Thrive 1 : to grow vigorously : FLOURISH
When a living organism gets to a point where there is no desire to do the basic things required to sustain life we say they have a failure to thrive. This can be seen particularly in the elderly population and sometimes in the mentally ill. For some reason, they do not wish to continue living so they don’t eat, drink, or interact and eventually they wither and die. As stated, there are many reasons for this. People are terminally ill, they have had a loved one die, or they are mentally ill and can not help themselves.
Unfortunately, we as a society create people who lack the will to thrive. We continue to give and give until people lose the desire to do for themselves. A wise man once said that you get more of what you subsidize. We have paid people not to work for so long that people are content not to work. They are not willing to do the work that is available. Special note to those offended by President Bush’s remark that we need worker visas for people who will come here to do work Americans don’t want to do. This is not because Americans are better than those people and it is absolutely untrue that we have a high unemployment rate. The fact is, there are Americans who will not work for lower wages because they make more off the government. Unemployment could be even lower than it is if we just get these people up and put them to work.
Add to this the idea that we need to have large scale wealth redistribution (socialism) and you have the makings of a disaster. We can give even more people the simple message that if they just wait they can have some of the money others have worked for. The idea that we can solve our problems by taking money from the more affluent and giving it to the less is just plain stupid. In addition to making people at the low end work less we will force people on the high end to find ways to keep their wealth. This could mean that they stop doing what ever productive work they are engaged in and just live off their amassed wealth. No more productivity means less money to give to the less affluent.
The government has created a portion of society so dependant upon the government that votes of these people are assured for generations to come. We now have so many people drawing money from the government that these entitlement programs make up the bulk of the money spent. Your tax dollars go to pay those who fail to thrive. Not only that, but your tax dollars are creating more people without the desire to “grow vigorously.”
There are those who think that we should pay for everyone to have as much in life as the next guy. They espouse the view that you do not have to work hard for anything so long as the next guy works hard for you both. We have people who think it would be great for the government to tell us what jobs to make and how much we may earn from those jobs. We have people who think that the government should live our lives for us. These misguided people live in a free country with the most enduring form of government yet they want us to change to socialism so everyone can live the same lives. These are the same people who tell us they are entitled to an opinion because if we all thought alike life would be bad. Why is it that these same people think it is OK to all make the same amount of money and have the same kind of lives? Why is it OK for us to make people who fail to thrive?
Organisms grow and thrive when challenged. We all do better when we have something to strive for. All people will do much better when there are goals and difficulties. All people will do better and feel greater satisfaction when they achieve on their own. We can not expect to have this as long as we subsidize those who do not thrive.