by Melissa Brown

Created on: November 09, 2008   Last Updated: December 04, 2008

Our welfare system has gotten way out of hand. There needs to be a halt to generation welfare recipients. However, at the same time, it is critical that we recognize that there are people who truly need the temporary help of welfare. Temporary is the key factor in this.

Many of us have driven through some of the saddest reservations in our western most states. And, maybe we've stopped at the roadside stands and looked at the beautiful things they made, and nearly always bought something. It's really sad to see the hovels they live in out in the desert; especially after having visited the lush cities and towns. These people have to haul water to their homes.

Our forbearers stole the land from the American Natives, corralled them in the most inhospitable parts of the country. They took the land along the most beautiful and hospitable of parts of the country along the rivers and lakesides. They killed buffalo for sport. And, because the American Indians had no more food, and they wanted their land back, our forbearers gave these Native Americans fire water and guns to pacify them. Many people scoff at them and label them incompetent, lazy and dirty. This isn't the only culture in our United States that is in this shape.

Africans were brought over to this continent for the purpose of slavery; that was just as deplorable. They were taken from their own continent and stripped of any identity and dignity. The black slaves were eventually set free to fend for themselves in a land that was hostile to them. Great waves of discrimination and violence have resulted in this.

It doesn't stop there. Irish and Chinese immigrants were "employed" as slave laborers. As most of these immigrants stepped off the boat at Ellis Island on the east coast or Angel Island at San Francisco they immediately sought work. Many started working as indentured slaves just to pay for their transport into the United States. Men worked on railroads, in the fields and in mines. Women worked as maids, cooks, launderers and even as prostitutes when they could not find other work.

Many of these descendants of these immigrants that ended up as slave laborers are only slaves to themselves. They seem to want to hang on to all of that as an excuse for bad behavior or just not working. Our present government feeds into that, which, in turn, encourages a culture of people living off of other peoples' endeavors. I don't personally owe them that. Do you?

Here's the deal. We contemporaries were brought up in a world

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