General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Joe Manchin Privately Told Colleagues Parents Use Child Tax Credit Money On Drugs [View all]Caliman73
(11,766 posts)Liberals are typically for equalizing opportunity, even if that means giving direct aid to some and not to others. I am okay with that.
Conservatives are Calvinists at heart. They believe that poverty is a moral failing, and not a situation of a confluence of factors. You are rich because you are better. You are poor because you are inferior. Funny how they presume (many of them at least) to be Christian, but the way that Christ was depicted in the Gospels is that even as God, he chose to be among the poor, the outcast, and the criminal rather than in luxury as a wealthy person. Every interaction with a wealthy person was to tell them to renounce wealth and vanity, and to give to the poor. Yet, these people have turned that on its head and promoted the idea that being rich is the actual virtue and looking down on the poor is moral.
This is a major reason why I came to accept that religion is a sham. A method of social control and not a path toward personal and social improvement.
Entitlement simply means accepting that something is owed. It can be true entitlement (I.E. I am entitled to my salary because I work for it. or I am entitled to Medicare when I retire because I have paid into the program). It can be a false entitlement (I.E. Wealthy people deserve special treatment because they are "better" than the average person). Manchin is using Conservative code saying that people have a false entitlement to "the general welfare" even though it is actually in the Constitution, and one of the main functions of Government.