Social Welfare, Helping the Butterfly

Our Pastor opened this morning's Sunday School lesson with a story of a boy that found a butterfly that was just getting out of its cocoon and it was struggling. This boy had a heart of gold. He thought that he could go inside and get a pair of siscors and cut the cocoon so the butterfly would have an easier time of getting out. So he did. But he came to find out latter that he had just cursed this butterfly to a life without flight. Because of this charity, the butterfly never had to struggle to come out of the cocoon which just happened to be way that the butterfly gained strength and bloodflow to help him develop the large beautiful wings that carry it in such majestic manner. So this loving boy with the big heart unwittingly changed the fate of this butterfly from a creature that helps nature, continues to pro-create and most of all, brings a beauty to nature that is not always there, into a creature that most likely became toad food within a few minutes of falling from the tree.

The Pastor here went off on Ephisians 5:15-16 and my mind, like always, went in a totally different tangent. My tangent is the affect of the Great Society on the people this program was supposed to help, the poor. In the "Does One Great Man Out Weight 1000 Criminals" post I did a few weeks ago, I tried to show that in the end, I believe that the great society had more to do with the high crime rates starting from the mid 1960s. And now I also want to state that it is also the cause of many other issues that have arisen since, such as the perpetual poverty, high illigitamace rates, and continued racial issues.

This is a repeat of the Boy and the Butterfly. In the 1960s after the long battle to help racial equality our leaders felt this good intentioned need to cut the cocoon and create an assistance to help the poor. Believing that the poor needed help to climb out of poverty, LBJ and congress created a program that gave money to the poor and they magically would become middle classed by having a steady income. But what happened was the "Butterfly" never flew. The checks came and nothing changed. Many problems developed from this. One problem was that the program was setup as an assistance to un-wed mothers only. So the incentive for having legitamite children was gone. Sure they have three squares, but little else. The childern grew up with little hope for the future, boy's had little leadership from fathers and so they replaced that with leadership from the men of the gangs. The rise of gangs caused a rise in crime and as can be seen in the middle of the 1960s on, crime rate increase corrolates directly to the begining of this "Great Society".

So what went wrong with this Great Society? I believe that the premise that it was created with was the problem. I think the framers had seen the great strives in the Civil Rights and wanted to continue it to better the plight of the lower income blacks. They used the tool that they believed to be the best to do this, Government. I don't think they realized that government was not what gave them the victories in the Civil Right fights, it was the Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, and all the people that followed them. It was the struggles to get out of the cocoon that created this great change, not government. So what do we do now? Most importantly we restore hope. With all the government assistance, people never had something to look forward to except a check. Cool, we can live one more week. But what can they look forward too? I think we as a society need most is to give hope to the needy. The problem is that the government can't give hope. Hope only comes in knowing that things will get better. Only then do people stop being angry. Only then do they start looking at how they to better there life. I believe that only the Churches, Mosques, and Synogoues can start the revival of Hope. It's time to return this issues back to where it belongs, the people that give hope not just money. Let us give each American the vision and hope that Martin Luther King gave in his "I have a Dream" Speech;

"...I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together..."

And the butterfly takes flight!!