[fintstone]

Humane treatment is not giving healthy people handouts. It is less equity where results are the same, regardless of performance, but equality allowing people to achieve as much as their hard work and good choices allow (not support them so that their lifestyle is the same as others that have worked longer, harder or smarter). If poor decisions do not impact a person/family, they are doomed...in fact, trained/conditioned...to always make them. "Poor" people today have very similar lives to the middle class. They have phones, TVs, cable, internet, video games, cars, etc. Their homes are heated and cooled. They eat in the same restaurants, live on nearby neighborhoods, kids go to the same schools, go to the same colleges, etc. They have tons of leisure time, often much more than the hard-working middle class. It was not that way when I grew up. Poor people worked multiple jobs and generally raised most of their own food and gathered fuel to keep their home relatively warm. They did not have air conditioning, nice cars, or luxuries like TVs, VCR, etc. They worked all the time (including weekends)...and taught their kids to do the same...so they would not have to live the same tough life as an adult. They were frugal and saved every extra penny to build a better life, send kids to college some day, etc. Folks today are soft and lazy. That is why socialism is so attractive to some. They want to do nothing but enjoy the fruits of other's labors. They need to put on big boy pants and make their own way in life...and we need to stop enabling them.