"Culture of Dependency"

I was reading about Kansas recently. I cam across an article in The Nation about how Kansas deals with people who need help with their healthcare. It's pretty depressing. You see, Kansas had such

promise. Led ably by common-sense moderate Republicans for years, the state of Kansas was all set to demonstrate how a red state could be a pioneer in insuring most of its residents, using the Republican plan that was developed as a response to Hillary Clinton's Single-payer Healthcare system.

That's right, the "Obamacare" plan was largely designed by Republicans. It was the Republicans who wanted "market forces" to control health insurance for Americans, rather than have a federal program like Medicare simply take care of everyone (the Clinton plan). It was the Republicans who wanted everyone in the pool and wanted to fine anyone who didn't carry health insurance (the individual mandate). They're denying this now, but it is all true.

So they are, in essence, saying their plan is a bad plan. I do  not think that any other plan would be to their liking, either.

The specific wording that Republicans in Kansas are using to describe assistance from the government (even if it is a tax reduction, mind you) as something that creates a culture of dependency.

Let me just take issue with this whole "moral rejection of 'dependency'" that Brownback and the Republican Radicals talk about. Essentially, what they are saying is that if you need help at any time in your life for any reason, you are morally wrong, you have no morals and you are a problem. But here's the problem with this rhetoric. Kansas, itself, is a truly red state. The federal government receives 65¢ for every federal dollar that goes into that state. So, if that is the case, Kansas, itself, has a moral dependency problem.

So if it doesn't apply to states, it applies to people. And this is exactly like driving by someone standing in the street with the wreckage of their home all around them after a Kansas tornado and refusing to stop. Furthermore, it is like blaming the person standing there, surveying the ruins of their home for having the poor judgement of building their house there. If you help this person, you are not creating a culture of dependency, you are assisting in rebuilding a life. And you are doing a very good thing.

Another common myth that these Republican Radicals like to make believe is true is that our Revolution was a "tax revolt" and, somehow, lines up with their current rhetoric. As I have said elsewhere, nothing could be further from the truth,

but this raises an issue: From the very start, the colonies in America were dependent on each other. And the individuals in these colonies were, similarly, dependent on the governments they created to keep order, peace and provide a framework so that they could prosper.

As early as 1754, Benjamin Franklin ascertained that divided colonies here in the Americas would have considerable problems if they did not unite and did not act in concert. Later, during our Revolution, George Washington determined that the only way that New England could be freed from the British occupation in Boston was to march his Continental troops to the outskirts of Boston, overlooking the Harbor and force the British to evacuate. George Washington was a Virginia Planter and he brought troops from the south and recruited troops from the colonies south of Massachusetts as he traveled north to oppose the British. This unification of forces proved the concept that, if these United States act in concert, rather than creating a "culture of dependency" they would create a culture of interdependency that would create a new, strong nation.

Radical Republicans want us to forget this. They are wrong. They want us to rewrite history and ignore what Washington did. If your government offers you a subsidy, you are not—somehow—dependent. Instead, you are more independent. You are more capable. You can stand up for yourself, just as Boston did in the face of an unwelcome British military in Boston.