Pity the poor working chump

Fifty years' worth of war on poverty has produced little benefit, save for a few valuable lessons. For instance, we've learned about the valiant struggle the disadvantaged wage against capitalist oppression. The homeless, the hungry, and the downtrodden are victims of free market greed. But there's one participant in Washington's war on poverty who's routinely ignored, one whose plight the pointy-headed elites never champion: the working chump.

Lest anyone get the wrong idea, a working chump isn't identified by their intellectual prowess but by their productivity. Their status ranges from the professional to the tradesman, the rich to the poor. Such people are driven to meet their own needs and become agitated when others shun that responsibility. While such productive people represent a declining socioeconomic class, they are indispensable. The entitlement wagon is overloaded with passengers who favor the free ride. Did someone not pull that wagon, it would stall. No one would get what they need, much less what they want. Working chumps are the mules who pull the wagon.

Leftists promote entitlement programs as necessary to meeting essential human needs, and there's an element of truth in their position, for there are essential human needs. However, leftists omit a key fact. There exists no right to receive life's essentials at another person's expense.

Voluntarily contributing to a neighbor's well-being is charitable. Being forced to provide for another's needs is a form of servitude. How else can we describe someone who is forced to relinquish their property -- expressed as the return on their labor -- for their neighbor's personal benefit? Just as charity isn't a vice, forced contribution isn't charity, even when the needs of the "entitled" are life's necessities. How much more when entitlement extends from essentials to convenience?

Perhaps you've heard of Assurance Wireless? If not, it's a program that provides clients with 250 minutes of free cellular service each month. More talkative Assurance customers can receive 500 minutes for $5 a month, and 1000 voice minutes plus 1000 text messages for $20 a month. But there's a flaw: Assurance isn't free. Someone must subsidize the free or reduced rates. That someone is the working chump.

Assurance is funded through the federal Universal Service Fund (USF). Basically, the USF is a tax that appears on phone and wireless bills. In theory, this tax is collected from communications companies to ensure affordable telecommunications services in remote or high-cost areas. In reality, customers pay the USF. Therefore, the working chump who pays the USF tax is subsidizing yet another welfare program.

Now, labeling Assurance Wireless a welfare program is a stern accusation, one in need of substantiation. Fortunately, confirming evidence is readily available. Qualifying for Assurance is as simple as participating in an approved entitlement program: Medicaid, food stamps, Temporary Aid to Needy Families, public housing, free school lunch, or low income energy assistance programs. To coin an old phrase, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. Likewise, when a program's qualifying criteria is participation in a welfare program, and the program's cost is covered or subsidized through government imposed taxes or fees, it's a welfare program.

The economy isn't technically in recession, but it's far from robust, causing many productive families to trim their budgets. One way to stretch their dollars is through no contract, or prepaid, cellular plans. While prepaid cellular options are sometimes limited, they are affordable. However, prepaid cellular customers work not only to maintain their limited services but also to provide the entitlement class with better cellular plans than they themselves can afford. Productive people are being played for chumps, working chumps. Count me in their number.

Successful cultures aren't built upon a premise where unproductive people have the right to necessity or convenience at another's expense. But more and more Americans perceive themselves entitled. Whether it's necessities like food and shelter or luxuries like cellular phones, working chumps continue to meet the demands of an ungrateful entitlement class.

The government, media, and intelligentsia are quick to defend those who ride in the entitlement wagon. Yet no one defends the working chump, whose productivity keeps that wagon rolling. But they can't pull the load forever. Someday the weight will become too great, and both the wagon and its riders will be left sitting by the side of the road.

This article first appeared at American Thinker: Pity the Poor Working Chump.

Litigation is risky for Sandra Fluke

Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) is one versatile individual. He proved his mastery of psychoanalysis when he diagnosed TEA Partiers as products of dysfunctional families. He's now issuing free legal advice to Sandra Fluke, urging her to sue Rush Limbaugh for "slander, libel, and whatever else might be involved."

A dangerous precedent is established when politicians openly promote lawsuits between citizens. Such misuse of governmental influence belies a key concept of American liberty, wherein government is compelled to consider everyone equally before the law. Hoyer's attitude drives an unnecessary wedge between the populace. While he's legally entitled to support Fluke, he's not ethically entitled to encourage civil litigation. He has compromised his office's integrity, violated the public's trust, and possibly led Sandra Fluke astray.

Hoyer's disregard for his responsibilities as a Congressman doesn't mean a defamation suit against Limbaugh has no merit. A libel attorney can highlight two reasons why Sandra is on solid legal ground. For starters, she's a private citizen victimized publicly by a powerful figure. Also, Limbaugh's disparaging remarks about her sex life established false statements of fact. But there are also flaws in this reasoning that could make litigation a risky path for Ms. Fluke.

Is Sandra indeed a private citizen? When an activist publicly presents their opinions as expert testimony before Congress in an attempt to influence a particular legislative outcome, that person has entered the public forum Rush Limbaugh. But her public activism renders her a public figure of sorts. Therefore, hiding from criticism behind libel law is in question.

What about the insults? Establishing Sandra as a public figure doesn’t open the season for character assassination.

That's true enough. However, a libel suit could be Sandra Fluke's undoing. Instigating legal action entails arguing the case before a judge and jury. Settling out of court for a cool million from the well-heeled Limbaugh would be a smart move. But taking the case to civil court, where sworn testimony is presented, opens a can of worms that's best left closed. Sandra Fluke's background becomes fair game in court, including her sex life. Don't think the Limbaugh defense team wouldn't try to prove Sandra the biggest tramp since Mata Hari.

Limbaugh can afford the highest flying legal eagles money can buy. They'll peek in every closet and look under every rock. Fluke's classmates, friends, and lovers -- from high school until now -- will be interviewed. The most damaging associates will be subpoenaed as witnesses for the defense. If Sandra Fluke is the least bit promiscuous we'll learn every intimate detail, right down to her favorite acts and preferred positions.

Public opinion favors Sandra today. But the goodwill goes out the window if court testimony proves her everything Limbaugh said she was. Her lawsuit will be lost, the potential windfall of an out-of-court settlement gone, and her public reputation legitimately besmirched.

That's the risk Sandra Fluke runs if she follows Steny Hoyer's advice. If she sues Limbaugh for libel and loses she'll appear even worse than Rush portrayed her. Maybe she should then sue Hoyer for bad legal counsel, and for attempting to build his political capitol at her expense.

Judge Judy tackles entitlements

Arguments persist over just how America arrived at insolvency's precipice. There may not be a single reason, program, agency, policy, or bureaucracy to shoulder the entire blame. The fact that we're here is the culmination of a methodical, long-term process. However, there's one culprit that is central to nearly all government expansions, and thus to our fiscal deterioration. It's one that every productive member of society from the street sweeper to the CEO should blame . . . the bum.

A bum is everything the name implies, from irresponsible slacker to societal parasite. However, America is afraid to blame bums for their lowly condition; it's politically incorrect. People who were yesterday's bums, loafers, and freeloaders are today's disenfranchised and less fortunate. They are the losers of life's lottery, relegated to poverty because someone else stole a disproportionate share of America's prosperity.

Thank God for television's Judge Judy. She isn't afraid to blame the bum for being, well, a bum. Her public courage has earned my respect and gratitude. She should earn yours, too. Watch the video and you'll agree.



Judge Judy is 100-percent correct in her assessment of both the plaintiff and defendant. The two parties in this case exemplify greed in its purest form, the "me" attitude that hampers America's economic growth and leads to fiscal insanity. Their general disdain for self-sufficiency reflects the core of the entitlement mentality. One sues to collect rent that she herself never paid. And the other considers government grants and subsidies a birthright. These two people, and millions like them, are drains on society, contributing nothing while believing themselves entitled to their heart's desire.

According to a quote attributed to economist Arthur Laffer, "When you tax something you get less of it. When you subsidize something you get more of it." Liberal politicians have done a thorough job of taxing productivity and subsidizing unproductiveness. Therefore they have generated an ever-increasing segment of the population with no compunction about living off the production of their neighbor, as the two people in Judge Judy's court demonstrate. And Judge Judy wants to send the aforementioned video to Congress, as if most members care?

Congress, through 40-plus years of various welfare, entitlement, and Not-so-Great Society programs, created the parasites in her courtroom, people who believe they're entitled to enjoy life's necessities, pleasures, and perks at someone else's expense. Such entitlement parasites are the liberal voting base, and an exponential expense to the rest of us. Not only has the entitlement mentality become a drain on federal revenues, it has deprived the marketplace of what the entitlement recipient would've otherwise produced. We lose on both counts.

Go ahead and send the video Judge Judy, with my blessings. But frankly, you're wasting your stamp.