Poker Perambulation

Well, that title sounds a bit pompous. Sounds like I’m giving the keynote at the upcoming convention or such. And, it is a lie unless I stick the adjective former in my self description. I’ve detailed in my various weekend type blogs my disillusionment that lead to that happening.

What I did was feel almost orgasmic when L.B.J. told us of the coming “Great Society” and doing away with all the evils associated with being one of the downtrodden. I was young and, frankly, gullible, It turned the graph of welfare perks into exponential mode. Now look around you. Listen to the evening news. Great society, eh?

I’ve blogged about my view from time to time. I try to limit that. Not because I’m embarrassed by my thoughts but because it typically includes examples citing black citizens. I fear that casts me in the light of a bigot. You know the type. Ones like Obama’s minister. (Cheap shot notice) We all watch what we say outside the local watering hole until by error or intent we get a peer review that is unattractive.

Well, I ran across an article that supports my premise that programs that show we as a caring society are about as destructive of the people served as any solution proposed under the third Reich. That overstates it but we need to start overstating the situation we find ourselves in.

If you bounced from my blog to the link above, you’ll see the type of situation that programs can create. It is the destruction of the family unit along with responsibility for oneself. England’s Yorkshire is hill country not unlike West Virginia or mill towns throughout our lands. There has been turmoil as jobs went away and government programs moved in to replace the former way of life. I associate those lovely Yorkshire hills with James Harriot and Tristan from the books that detailed post WWII English life through the eyes of a young veterinarian’s journey. But, the folks described above aren’t the gruff, gumbooted, yeoman farmers of Harriot’s tales.

Safety net is a term we often associate with these programs. That isn’t really accurate. A trapeze artist employs a safety net. When he falls, it intervenes to prevent serious damage to the person. That person then climbs back on the trapeze. Our programs ignore that phase. Without ‘clients’ our welfare system ends up on welfare itself. Government agencies first concern is propagation of their industry jobs so they don’t end up on welfare.

If you at least scanned the article, you ran across a rather sad tale that goes beyond its outward manifestations. The problem encountered is one every mother understands. And it goes back to the aging era of Poor Richard’s idioms. “Idle hands are the Devil’s plaything.” That overstates it a bit but Mom knew that to have children that she could be proud of required their being engaged and learning to be productive. In our being a Mommy State, that component has been ignored.

It is gratifying to think with our hearts. I’ve even done that with a stock pick or two to equally disastrous results. There are basic tenets to life that we cannot ignore. The problems of ignoring that transcend income level. That is brought home on entertainment reviews and in super market tabloids.

Our country was founded as a land of opportunity. Opportunity means self-improvement is possible. Welfare can strike that from the people involved. Yes, there is a multi-class system in our lands that seems very unfair. And, sadly, we are propagating it in our government programs.

ADDENDUM:

I’ll talk about some poker tomorrow. A quick update though on my .50-1 fiasco. It was the level I was losing my backside on. The BB/100 number was embarrassingly high. That’s shrinking and yesterday I got it nicely below $50 from its high in the mid 100’s.

P.S. Well the session at PokerStars that I was headed for worked. It looked grim. I was all in with a buyin and won. We capped 6th and I only had $2.10 left to get in on the river. My aces full beat his kings full. Got me close to even. Then ran well and left up about $15.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 at 10:10 am and is filed under Journal, Off Topic. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.