Sometimes I think that folks who are anti-welfare or anti- any kind of government-funded social support just suffer from a failure of imagination. It’s like they’ve never stopped to imagine what it would be like if they were born into a family with great work ethic but perennial bad luck. If they got sick or injured just badly enough to survive, but never work again. If they happened to look like whatever phenotype society hates the most that quarter.

Not all problems can be fixed by a willingness to work and a stiff upper lip.