Re: Oh, yes, I'm a homophobe. And a statist.

Of course, there were some caveats: this social safety net was based on kinship and friendship and relied on voluntary actions taken by individuals and private groups, and such private groups ranged from secular societies to (most commonly) churches, and could be local, regional, or even international in scope. The local nature also made it difficult for obvious cheats to milk the system for long. One real downside was that unpopular persons were sometimes excluded, even if the reason for their unpopularity was not their own fault - but even this was not necessarily a great problem in areas of larger population where there were more layers of overlapping services.

A lot of that is still in effect where I live. Unless you were born here and/or you go to a church here somewhere, it's virtually impossible to get help from others. However, if you were born around here and have a lot of family in the area . . . well, the locals look out for each other. It's a very provincial mindset. But if you're not a Christian or a local by birth, you might as well forget it. You may as well be a leper. The only assistance you're gonna get is the gov't kind, and even then it's like pulling teeth. (Except for food stamps/EBT, of course, which is easy to get anywhere in the U.S.--they won't let you starve, but you could still be homeless. I have to live on EBT myself--thank you antis for getting me fired and for paying your taxes. Very much appreciated. Anyway, bottom line: they don't really want you around here if you're not one of them and would just as soon you moved on.)

This government system, which inculcates a sense of entitlement among healthy persons of working age, has led to a culture of arrogant dependency - a sort of mirror-image to the system of slavery once in place - in which anyone who tries to do right and provide for their families has a portion of their income taken from them for the support of the two parasitic classes - the government poor and the government rich. It is, paradoxically, largely a product of the more socially individualistic northeastern states, where ties of family and community are weaker.

I balk at calling the lower classes parasitic. It implies they all want to leech off the system, which is true of some but certainly not all of them. I am about as poor as they come without being completely broke. I must live on the generosity of both the state and the person with whom I live, who luckily does not expect rent or I'd be out on my ass. I'm not happy about this arrangement at all, but it is what I've been reduced to.