posted on Jan, 1 2016 @ 02:20 PM
First of all, we cannot make war on poverty.
Ditch that silly paradigm. It's an oxymoron.
Neither can poverty be cured, because it's not a disease.
Poor people can be helped, and there is a lot we as individuals and a society can do.
First, we have to look at the causes of poverty. I have personally been poor much of my childhood, and my adult life, except when I was in the
military.
Individual Causes:
-Irresponsibility
-Laziness
-addiction (not just drugs, but other things can waste our time and money, like gambling, or people that play video games for 100 hours a week)
-Ignorance
-Lack of Discipline
-Mental Disability
-Physical Disability
Societal Causes:
-Classism
-Racism
-Sexism
-Predjudiced against physical beauty
-Predjudiced against physical unatractiveness
-Injustice
-faulty paradigms (such as the wage slave mentality)
Firstly, some people are poor, and it is partially or even fully their fault. I grew up poor because my parents are horrible at managing money, and
they would waste their extra money on dining out, going out for ice cream, and the movies. Both my grandfathers died when I was young, and the blew
their inheritances in a year or less each on mostly dining out. They also love network marketing schemes, and have wasted a lot of money on that #. My
father has always been a hard worker at his job (not network marketing.) And my mother was a stay-at-home mom until the youngest was in kindergarten.
I personally have been poor these because of physical disabilities resulting from chemical poisoning and a car accident which was not my fault.
Nothing can be done for people who are lazy, ignorant, or irresponsible. The individual has to fix those things about themselves.
As far as society, things like racism and sexism are obvious, and it's up to us as a group to change that which will take some time. Some injustice
can be altered with changing laws.
One of the biggest problems is taxes. I forget what country, I think one of the Scandinavian ones, they use a tax bracket for all taxes, including
sales tax, government fees, and everything else. People that are very poor pay no taxes. These flat taxes that are not considered taxes are really
hard on the poor. For example, in Hawaii, just to register your car every year costs $250 to $350 dollars, which is nothing to someone that makes
$100,000 a year, but if you are making $10 an hour, it's a financial hardship. The people making 100K a year should pay a $500 to register their cars,
and the people getting 12K a year, should only have to pay $30.
I like the idea of voluntaryism. In other words, you pay for your taxes voluntarily, and you earmark where you want your taxes to go.
We also need more freedom/liberty in general.
For example, I met an amateur musician who was arrested and thrown in jail just for selling her CD's on the sidewalk in Waikiki. Why? She wasn't
paying taxes. If she had a little kiosk set up, and was paying taxes to the city, then she would be "legit."
People selling weed get arrested every day in Merika, even though it's legal now in some states for recreational use.
People should be allowed to sell things like weed and CD's in public places without having to pay taxes or get arrested if they don't.