<p>I disagree with social Darwinism (the idea that letting the ‘weak’ die preserves only the ‘strong’ and allows for a more favorable pool), but that’s only because my idea of humanity involves supporting fellow humans. </p>
<p>Take our domestic situation of poverty, for example. (Get ready for a rant.) Many people think that the homeless are generally lazy people who are making no effort to escape their destitute situations. They think that welfare should be abolished because people on welfare use their checks for alcohol and drugs, not for food to help them to survive or as a resource in finding a job. </p>
<p>Adherents of this beliefs like to exploit the idea of the ‘American Dream’: that anyone is capable of escaping poverty with hard work. They use the example of Andrew Carnegie or even of J.K. Rowling to support their beliefs – “see, any poor person can work his or her way to the top. All it takes is hard work.” However, they fail to take into account that these people are the exception rather than the rule. As a population, we fail to realize that our system inherently keeps the poor down. Poverty, as it is, is close to an inescapable vicious cycle. Picture a child born to an impoverished mother. This child may have to work under the table for hours a day, starting at age six, in order to make enough money to feed himself and his mother. Obviously, he can’t get an education. His employers will take advantage of his situation and refuse to give him more money (they know that he’ll work for anything) or to promote him, so he’ll never be able to work his way up in the corporate world. As he grows up, in addition to not even having an elementary school education, this person will be too poor to even afford nice enough clothes or a cell phone to aid him in getting an above-minimum-wage job. </p>
<p>Such examples support the inescapable nature of poverty. I read this amazing real-life story (on an internet forum XP) of a man who got kicked out of his house by his crazy mother at age 11 and was forced to live on the streets – he was eventually fortunate enough to be taken in by a family nine years later and build a comfortable lifestyle for himself, but he acknowledges that he was lucky and that had this not happened, he may have never escaped. His detailed story helped me understand just how vicious a cycle poverty is – he described how he couldn’t afford nice enough clothes for a job interview, how although he spent his spare time reading and educating himself to a high level he could not get any job but manual labor due to his situation, etc. </p>
<p>Our current system does not afford an opportunity to everyone to rise in the world. The American Dream – work hard and you can rise, despite your circumstances – is a farce. I’m not discrediting the merit of the amazing people who do manage to escape poverty, either domestic or international (e.g. Liist’s story of his father escaping poverty in China by educating himself or the story of my boyfriend’s parents, who worked their way from middle-class in India to upper-middle-class in America): these people are admirable in every way. I just don’t believe that poverty is necessarily an obstacle that can be overcome through hard work. </p>
<p>The problem is, I don’t have any ideas. I don’t have a magical solution that would grant opportunity to everyone in the world. I just know that as things are right now, not everyone does have an opportunity. Would the solution be to pour more money into welfare? Probably not. Would it be for the government to further support organizations that aid the poor in getting jobs? That would be my number one choice. But I don’t know. I don’t know how to make the fallacy of the American Dream into a truth. </p>
<p>Why do I even consider the American Dream an ideal? I’m not so pretentious as to consider my personal morals (in this case, the idea that people should help one another) morals that should be forced upon the world. Adherents of social Darwinism would disagree with me, saying that it’s a dog-eat-dog world: every man for himself. But I believe that ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ – American virtues – obligate us to support, as individuals in a nation, everyone else in the nation. </p>
<p>And this is just domestic. How do we deal with poverty on a larger scale, the topic addressed in this thread? See, I’m against America meddling in other countries’ businesses. So I have this internal conflict going on – should we pour money into other nations’ economies? Should we institute anti-poverty measures in other countries? Or should we pursue an isolationist policy and mind our own business? I don’t know. I don’t know if my idea of humanity – supporting one another – applies in every situation, because what if other countries don’t want our help? And if we do allow ourselves to support other countries financially, what if we don’t stop there? What if we try to interfere in other countries’ governments like we did in Iraq? That, I’m sure, was not our business. </p>
<p>I think that the best thing for us to do is give opportunity to people in other nations. We should keep our doors open to refugees, because closing our doors in the name of our own self-interest is selfish and goes against our American ideals. And then we’re faced with the issue of domestic poverty… but I’ve already expressed the opinion that we should try to make poverty escapable in the U.S. In my opinion, this is the best course of action. Do what we can to give everyone in the world a chance. </p>
<p>Sorry this was, like, a novel. Feel free to disagree or whatever. This is just my opinion. :]</p>