It's Morally Wrong to Trap People in Poverty With Welfare Programs

September 30, 2016

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The transition from using food stamps to cards that look like debit or credit cards has lessened the stigma of using government assistance. However, it's completely contrary to what Benjamin Franklin said about ending poverty:

I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed...that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.

"I don't and won't look down on somebody who is using a Lone Star card or welfare stamps . . . I won't do that. My father made that very clear to me when I was a kid: You don't look down at those people. You don't know their situation. But I do want them, when they pull it out, to go, I wish I didn't have to do this."

Read below or watch the clip for answers to these uncomfortable questions:

• What advice did Glenn's father give after his bakery went bankrupt?

• Why is feeling uncomfortable a good thing?

• Does the YMCA offer free cable?

• Did Vanderbilt do a disservice to his children by giving them money?

• Why hasn't $22 trillion ended the War on Poverty?

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors:

GLENN: I have to tell you, this bothers me so deeply, the -- what's the Texas card called?

PAT: Lone Star card.

GLENN: It really bothers me that we have made the Lone Star card just like a credit card. And there's no looking down at that. There's no shame when you pull that out. And I know this is hard and hash, but I'm quoting Benjamin Franklin: The best way to help people in or out of their poverty is to make them uncomfortable in their poverty. We make things so comfortable, that there's no reason to get out.

PAT: Uh-huh.

GLENN: Opt out, why? It's more of a hassle.

PAT: Just by design, of course.

JEFFY: Well, yeah. I mean, they can control what you purchase, though. There are times when --

GLENN: Yes.

JEFFY: I've seen this happen where they have things on their conveyer belt that the card won't pay for.

GLENN: Correct. Correct. But I remember there was -- you know, with food stamps, there was some bit of shame in that.

JEFFY: Having to get it out and --

GLENN: Yes, and it was a little bit of shame. And, look, I know because I've lived it. I have lived having no money. I worked in my father's bakery. My father went bankrupt with his bakery. You know, we couldn't make ends meet. We had, you know, powdered milk. We never got to the food stamp place because my father and my grandfather were -- were both raised, "You don't do that. You don't do that. You do that if you cannot eat and cannot work."

STU: Always a last resort because you didn't want to deal with it.

GLENN: Right. But you go out and you work and you take any job at any level --

JEFFY: Right.

GLENN: -- and you pay for what you can. And if it's only food, then you go -- this is my father, "You go live at the YMCA, and you work and you buy food and you dig yourself back out."

JEFFY: I mean, the YMCA has cable, right? Because I can't --

PAT: Right.

STU: And obviously saying -- advocating for shame is not --

GLENN: No, it's not -- I'm not. Because I know there's a lot of people -- for instance, there's a lot of people that, you know, their husband dumped them and they got kids at home --

STU: There's a real reason for that.

GLENN: There's a real reason for that. So I don't want to inflict pain on people. I really don't. I don't want people -- for instance, I don't and won't look down on somebody who is using a Lone Star card or welfare stamps when we had food stamps. I won't do that. My father made that very clear to me when I was a kid. "You don't look down at those people. You don't know their situation." But I do want them, when they pull it out, to go, "I wish I didn't have to do this."

STU: How do I end it?

GLENN: How do I end this?

STU: Because we, as a society chose -- because both of these things are true. We don't people to feel shame, so we've tried to make the policy as easy as possible.

PAT: We don't want them to feel any discomfort about anything. Safe spaces. Trigger warnings. Pathetic.

GLENN: Yeah, what we're saying now -- what I'm saying now has got to be viewed by some -- and I don't even know by how many now as outrageously horrendous.

STU: Right. And so the point here is we know there's a problem here. We don't want people to feel bad. But as a society, we've chosen to eliminate the feelings rather try to eliminate the poverty.

GLENN: Yes, yes.

STU: And as Ben Franklin -- again, this is Ben freaking Franklin --

GLENN: Who started the first public hospital. Who started the volunteer fire departments. I mean, this guy -- who gave away his patent of the potbelly stove because it would help -- the number one cause of death in America for females was burning to death.

So he understood -- I don't need to make money on this. I have plenty of money. I'm going to give this away so everyone can make it and everyone can have the potbelly stove. So here's one of the most charitable men around, but he understood, the more you make people comfortable in their poverty, the more you strip them of the reasons of standing up on their own again. And that is morally wrong.

I believe we will have -- we will have to answer for the people we have crippled.

I had -- you know, my kids, my kids work for me. And when I had a new guy come in, John, who is president of my company, he said, "I don't want to manage your kids." And I said, "Why not?" And he said, "Are you kidding me?"

No. And I said, no, no, no, there's no different rules for them. There's no different rules. If they deserve to be fired, fire them.

"Right."

STU: Right.

JEFFY: Right.

GLENN: No, fire them.

JEFFY: You believe that, I know.

GLENN: What?

JEFFY: You believe that, I know.

GLENN: No, no, but I said to him, "And he'll be doing me a great disservice if he wouldn't be truthful with me." Moreover, he will be doing them a great disservice because you can't -- I talked to my kids just recently. I am so afraid that I am crippling them because they are working for me, and they like working with me. And they like, you know, being around and working as a family and blah, blah, blah. But I don't want to ever strip them of that -- like I won't -- I won't overpay my kids. You make market value.

STU: I mean, Glenn, you have been saying this since before some of them were born.

JEFFY: That's true.

STU: Literally, you believe this as a central part of your life. I still -- I would still be believing John.

JEFFY: Thank you.

STU: I would still be terrified by -- because you come into a new company. And the owner's kids -- I don't care what the owner says to you. I would be terrified about it.

GLENN: Yeah, but you know I mean it.

STU: But I know you mean it. Because you said it -- I mean, before Raphe and Cheyenne were even born, you were doing this on the air, talking about the Carnegies and going back to the --

GLENN: Vanderbilt.

STU: And the Vanderbilts. You know, talking about how they believed that they ruined their kids by --

GLENN: I tell my kids all the time, "You're not getting a dime." Because, A, dad is spending it all. But you're not getting a dime. I'm not leaving you stuff. I'm not leaving you stuff. You have to earn what you have. You have to.

And we cripple people by doing that. And there's no difference between -- I learned this, as Stu said, from Vanderbilt. I was standing in The Breakers, the Vanderbilt mansion. And there's this letter from Vanderbilt from his diary up on the wall of his bedroom where he used to write his diary. And I don't remember exactly what it said. But basically, the gist was: I fear I am doing my family a great disservice. The more I give them, the more I provide, the less incentive they have to be the person they were supposed to be.

And he did. He did a great disservice. And that stuck with me. And it's not just family. It's the country. If we cripple people, if you -- I'm an alcoholic. Anybody who -- and you guys know this. And I know -- Tania said, "You take a drink, I'm leaving you. I'm leaving you." And she means it. Any doubt in that one?

STU: Oh, no.

GLENN: She means that. I know you guys would be the same thing. You would not cover up for my drinking. You would not cover up for any kind of problem.

STU: We would exploit it for everything it's worth.

GLENN: Yeah, hello. Right? Because you'd know you were doing me a disservice. That's where we have to get. Compassion sometimes is really hard.

PAT: Yeah. We've spent -- we talked about this a bunch of times. We've spent $22 trillion on the War On Poverty. $22 trillion!

JEFFY: Where has that gone?

PAT: To make things better for poverty.

STU: That's a lot of compassion. That's a lot of compassion right there.

PAT: And all it's done is keep them in poverty. That's all it's done.

GLENN: And I think destroy the family.

PAT: It has. It has. Especially the black family.

Featured Image: Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) painting by Joseph Duplessis, Wiki Commons

Globalize the Intifada? Why Mamdani’s plan spells DOOM for America

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

If New Yorkers hand City Hall to Zohran Mamdani, they’re not voting for change. They’re opening the door to an alliance of socialism, Islamism, and chaos.

It only took 25 years for New York City to go from the resilient, flag-waving pride following the 9/11 attacks to a political fever dream. To quote Michael Malice, “I'm old enough to remember when New Yorkers endured 9/11 instead of voting for it.”

Malice is talking about Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist assemblyman from Queens now eyeing the mayor’s office. Mamdani, a 33-year-old state representative emerging from relative political obscurity, is now receiving substantial funding for his mayoral campaign from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

CAIR has a long and concerning history, including being born out of the Muslim Brotherhood and named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror funding case. Why would the group have dropped $100,000 into a PAC backing Mamdani’s campaign?

Mamdani blends political Islam with Marxist economics — two ideologies that have left tens of millions dead in the 20th century alone.

Perhaps CAIR has a vested interest in Mamdani’s call to “globalize the intifada.” That’s not a call for peaceful protest. Intifada refers to historic uprisings of Muslims against what they call the “Israeli occupation of Palestine.” Suicide bombings and street violence are part of the playbook. So when Mamdani says he wants to “globalize” that, who exactly is the enemy in this global scenario? Because it sure sounds like he's saying America is the new Israel, and anyone who supports Western democracy is the new Zionist.

Mamdani tried to clean up his language by citing the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which once used “intifada” in an Arabic-language article to describe the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. So now he’s comparing Palestinians to Jewish victims of the Nazis? If that doesn’t twist your stomach into knots, you’re not paying attention.

If you’re “globalizing” an intifada, and positioning Israel — and now America — as the Nazis, that’s not a cry for human rights. That’s a call for chaos and violence.

Rising Islamism

But hey, this is New York. Faculty members at Columbia University — where Mamdani’s own father once worked — signed a letter defending students who supported Hamas after October 7. They also contributed to Mamdani’s mayoral campaign. And his father? He blamed Ronald Reagan and the religious right for inspiring Islamic terrorism, as if the roots of 9/11 grew in Washington, not the caves of Tora Bora.

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

This isn’t about Islam as a faith. We should distinguish between Islam and Islamism. Islam is a religion followed peacefully by millions. Islamism is something entirely different — an ideology that seeks to merge mosque and state, impose Sharia law, and destroy secular liberal democracies from within. Islamism isn’t about prayer and fasting. It’s about power.

Criticizing Islamism is not Islamophobia. It is not an attack on peaceful Muslims. In fact, Muslims are often its first victims.

Islamism is misogynistic, theocratic, violent, and supremacist. It’s hostile to free speech, religious pluralism, gay rights, secularism — even to moderate Muslims. Yet somehow, the progressive left — the same left that claims to fight for feminism, LGBTQ rights, and free expression — finds itself defending candidates like Mamdani. You can’t make this stuff up.

Blending the worst ideologies

And if that weren’t enough, Mamdani also identifies as a Democratic Socialist. He blends political Islam with Marxist economics — two ideologies that have left tens of millions dead in the 20th century alone. But don’t worry, New York. I’m sure this time socialism will totally work. Just like it always didn’t.

If you’re a business owner, a parent, a person who’s saved anything, or just someone who values sanity: Get out. I’m serious. If Mamdani becomes mayor, as seems likely, then New York City will become a case study in what happens when you marry ideological extremism with political power. And it won’t be pretty.

This is about more than one mayoral race. It’s about the future of Western liberalism. It’s about drawing a bright line between faith and fanaticism, between healthy pluralism and authoritarian dogma.

Call out radicalism

We must call out political Islam the same way we call out white nationalism or any other supremacist ideology. When someone chants “globalize the intifada,” that should send a chill down your spine — whether you’re Jewish, Christian, Muslim, atheist, or anything in between.

The left may try to shame you into silence with words like “Islamophobia,” but the record is worn out. The grooves are shallow. The American people see what’s happening. And we’re not buying it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

How private stewardship could REVIVE America’s wild

Jonathan Newton / Contributor | Getty Images

The left’s idea of stewardship involves bulldozing bison and barring access. Lee’s vision puts conservation back in the hands of the people.

The media wants you to believe that Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is trying to bulldoze Yellowstone and turn national parks into strip malls — that he’s calling for a reckless fire sale of America’s natural beauty to line developers’ pockets. That narrative is dishonest. It’s fearmongering, and, by the way, it’s wrong.

Here’s what’s really happening.

Private stewardship works. It’s local. It’s accountable. It’s incentivized.

The federal government currently owns 640 million acres of land — nearly 28% of all land in the United States. To put that into perspective, that’s more territory than France, Germany, Poland, and the United Kingdom combined.

Most of this land is west of the Mississippi River. That’s not a coincidence. In the American West, federal ownership isn’t just a bureaucratic technicality — it’s a stranglehold. States are suffocated. Locals are treated as tenants. Opportunities are choked off.

Meanwhile, people living east of the Mississippi — in places like Kentucky, Georgia, or Pennsylvania — might not even realize how little land their own states truly control. But the same policies that are plaguing the West could come for them next.

Lee isn’t proposing to auction off Yellowstone or pave over Yosemite. He’s talking about 3 million acres — that’s less than half of 1% of the federal estate. And this land isn’t your family’s favorite hiking trail. It’s remote, hard to access, and often mismanaged.

Failed management

Why was it mismanaged in the first place? Because the federal government is a terrible landlord.

Consider Yellowstone again. It’s home to the last remaining herd of genetically pure American bison — animals that haven’t been crossbred with cattle. Ranchers, myself included, would love the chance to help restore these majestic creatures on private land. But the federal government won’t allow it.

So what do they do when the herd gets too big?

They kill them. Bulldoze them into mass graves. That’s not conservation. That’s bureaucratic malpractice.

And don’t even get me started on bald eagles — majestic symbols of American freedom and a federally protected endangered species, now regularly slaughtered by wind turbines. I have pictures of piles of dead bald eagles. Where’s the outrage?

Biden’s federal land-grab

Some argue that states can’t afford to manage this land themselves. But if the states can’t afford it, how can Washington? We’re $35 trillion in debt. Entitlements are strained, infrastructure is crumbling, and the Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, and National Park Service are billions of dollars behind in basic maintenance. Roads, firebreaks, and trails are falling apart.

The Biden administration quietly embraced something called the “30 by 30” initiative, a plan to lock up 30% of all U.S. land and water under federal “conservation” by 2030. The real goal is 50% by 2050.

That entails half of the country being taken away from you, controlled not by the people who live there but by technocrats in D.C.

You think that won’t affect your ability to hunt, fish, graze cattle, or cut timber? Think again. It won’t be conservatives who stop you from building a cabin, raising cattle, or teaching your grandkids how to shoot a rifle. It’ll be the same radical environmentalists who treat land as sacred — unless it’s your truck, your deer stand, or your back yard.

Land as collateral

Moreover, the U.S. Treasury is considering putting federally owned land on the national balance sheet, listing your parks, forests, and hunting grounds as collateral.

What happens if America defaults on its debt?

David McNew / Stringer | Getty Images

Do you think our creditors won’t come calling? Imagine explaining to your kids that the lake you used to fish in is now under foreign ownership, that the forest you hunted in belongs to China.

This is not hypothetical. This is the logical conclusion of treating land like a piggy bank.

The American way

There’s a better way — and it’s the American way.

Let the people who live near the land steward it. Let ranchers, farmers, sportsmen, and local conservationists do what they’ve done for generations.

Did you know that 75% of America’s wetlands are on private land? Or that the most successful wildlife recoveries — whitetail deer, ducks, wild turkeys — didn’t come from Washington but from partnerships between private landowners and groups like Ducks Unlimited?

Private stewardship works. It’s local. It’s accountable. It’s incentivized. When you break it, you fix it. When you profit from the land, you protect it.

This is not about selling out. It’s about buying in — to freedom, to responsibility, to the principle of constitutional self-governance.

So when you hear the pundits cry foul over 3 million acres of federal land, remember: We don’t need Washington to protect our land. We need Washington to get out of the way.

Because this isn’t just about land. It’s about liberty. And once liberty is lost, it doesn’t come back easily.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

EXPOSED: Why the left’s trans agenda just CRASHED at SCOTUS

Anna Moneymaker / Staff | Getty Images

You never know what you’re going to get with the U.S. Supreme Court these days.

For all of the Left’s insane panic over having six supposedly conservative justices on the court, the decisions have been much more of a mixed bag. But thank God – sincerely – there was a seismic win for common sense at the Supreme Court on Wednesday. It’s a win for American children, parents, and for truth itself.

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s state ban on irreversible transgender procedures for minors.

The mostly conservative justices stood tall in this case, while Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson predictably dissented. This isn’t just Tennessee’s victory – 20 other red states that have similar bans can now breathe easier, knowing they can protect vulnerable children from these sick, experimental, life-altering procedures.

Anna Moneymaker / Staff | Getty Images

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, saying Tennessee’s law does not violate the Equal Protection Clause. It’s rooted in a very simple truth that common sense Americans get: kids cannot consent to permanent damage. The science backs this up – Norway, Finland, and the UK have all sounded alarms about the lack of evidence for so-called “gender-affirming care.” The Trump administration’s recent HHS report shredded the activist claims that these treatments help kids’ mental health. Nothing about this is “healthcare.” It is absolute harm.

The Left, the ACLU, and the Biden DOJ screamed “discrimination” and tried to twist the Constitution to force this radical ideology on our kids.

Fortunately, the Supreme Court saw through it this time. In her concurring opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett nailed it: gender identity is not some fixed, immutable trait like race or sex. Detransitioners are speaking out, regretting the surgeries and hormones they were rushed into as teens. WPATH – the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the supposed experts on this, knew that kids cannot fully grasp this decision, and their own leaked documents prove that they knew it. But they pushed operations and treatments on kids anyway.

This decision is about protecting the innocent from a dangerous ideology that denies biology and reality. Tennessee’s Attorney General calls this a “landmark victory in defense of America’s children.” He’s right. This time at least, the Supreme Court refused to let judicial activism steal our kids’ futures. Now every state needs to follow Tennessee’s lead on this, and maybe the tide will continue to turn.

Insider alert: Glenn’s audience EXPOSES the riots’ dark truth

Barbara Davidson / Contributor | Getty Images

Glenn asked for YOUR take on the Los Angeles anti-ICE riots, and YOU responded with a thunderous verdict. Your answers to our recent Glennbeck.com poll cut through the establishment’s haze, revealing a profound skepticism of their narrative.

The results are undeniable: 98% of you believe taxpayer-funded NGOs are bankrolling these riots, a bold rejection of the claim that these are grassroots protests. Meanwhile, 99% dismiss the mainstream media’s coverage as woefully inadequate—can the official story survive such resounding doubt? And 99% of you view the involvement of socialist and Islamist groups as a growing threat to national security, signaling alarm at what Glenn calls a coordinated “Color Revolution” lurking beneath the surface.

You also stand firmly with decisive action: 99% support President Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to quell the chaos. These numbers defy the elite’s tired excuses and reflect a demand for truth and accountability. Are your tax dollars being weaponized to destabilize America? You’ve answered with conviction.

Your voice sends a powerful message to those who dismiss the unrest as mere “protests.” You spoke, and Glenn listened. Keep shaping the conversation at Glennbeck.com.

Want to make your voice heard? Check out more polls HERE.

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