Placing Yourself In Danger and Blaming Others for What HappensPosted on 05/23/2010
Further development planned.
Forgiving Student Loan Debt—How the Fed Teaches Us to Forsake Personal Integrity and Escape Our ObligationsPosted on 05/23/2010
College kids on a budget are always looking for a cheaper pizza. Now they can get cheaper federal student loans.
President Obama on October 27, 2011 fast-tracked a 2014 plan approved by Congress last year that lowers the interest rates on federal student loans from 15 percent to 10 percent, based on income; the legislation also shortened the time that debtors could drag their feet repaying the loan—now, loan payments can be forgiven after 20 years, instead of 25.
Out-of-work college graduates and jobless dropouts could pay 10 percent of nothing on their student loans for 20 years, at which time the government will transfer responsibility for repayment to the taxpayers.
Financially struggling Wall and Main Street Occupiers, angered by government bailouts of financial, investment, and insurance firms, and indignant about the government’s corruption and collusion with influential corporations, endorse free federal money and potentially free higher education for themselves and those like them. They’ve been complaining that student loan debt should be forgiven because, well, because the economy’s bad (though unemployment rates for college graduates are less than half the national average and the average salary offer for graduating seniors is almost $50,000), or because a few politicians take money from lobbyists and campaign contributors who work for super wealthy corporate CEOs, or because the government’s already thrown money down a rathole to bail out less deserving criminal enterprises, or because the rich invest their money rather than pay their fair share in taxes, or because the top 1 percent of earners just plain make too much money compared to the other 99 percent.
When the cost of higher education combines with a disappointing job market, the freely made choice of taking on student loan debt starts looking like a bad deal. When our debt exceeds the value of the items we’ve purchased, we must accept two realities: market values change, and we made a poor decision in our purchase based on our rosy vision of our financial future stability. Those asking for loan forgiveness instead seek relief in the scapegoat of blame: “No one told me about the possibility of future economic recessions, so that’s just like lying to oppress me with massive debt.” Debt becomes “slavery,” a justification for the kind of taxpayer socialized bailouts that the public has seen as commonplace for corporations but not for individuals.
Honoring our good faith debt used to be a sign of our integrity, our maturity, and our character. In another time, not honoring one’s debt, and even asking for a loan, induced shame. Now, it’s commonplace to make audacious and patronizing demands of relief from repayment slavery, as if a student’s lack of ability to earn a living after college is an extenuating circumstance that was written into a clause of the loan agreement; it wasn’t.
For the ignoble, any excuse not to honor a hard obligation will suffice.
Divestment of Personal Responsibility in Rehab TherapiesPosted on 07/05/2010 (from novel in progress)
I needed advice to help a friend who was becoming an alcoholic. I cracked a few books, and then I attended a church-sponsored meeting designed to give loved ones of those with addictions tools for alleviating the addict's pain and changing the addict's behavior patterns.
My disagreement with the support program's methods became a scene in my latest fictional work, the story of a neighborhood crystal meth dealer who pretends to affiliate with a church and its rehab efforts as a cover to deal drugs. The following scenes are the main character's internal thoughts in response to statements that the pastor of the church makes in a support session and then in a sermon.
Wrong Path in Support Session Therapy
“I wish there was a little more faith in you,”
Reverend Cannelli tells me. “You might not feel like such a fraud at these
sessions. It’s not mandatory that you attend.”
“Lack of faith isn’t what you see in the sessions,
Reverend. Just disagreement about philosophical direction.”
He holds the door open to the conference room, and I
enter and take a seat in the row against one of the walls.
“I’m glad to see so many of you made it today with your support buddies. We must sacrifice a little of our time if we are to fully show our love for the afflicted members in our family. Just as poverty can’t be eradicated in a capitalistic, class-structured society, the disease of alcoholism can’t be cured, only controlled and handled compassionately.”
There’s no difference between a metaphor and a lie, and Reverend Cannelli doesn’t understand that alcoholism isn’t a disease or a moral dilemma that requires God’s patience. It’s escape. There are no literal ghosts or demons of guilt haunting people, forcing them to drown their fears in Vodka. The choice is freely made.
As I listen to some of the worst advice I can
imagine, I try to summarize Reverend Cannelli’s view of drug rehabilitation. He
sees the abused substance as the cause of disease. It’s morally wrong to infect
others by providing or even condoning the substance, which is freely available.
He sees support as imperative, and moral judgment and castigation during an
addict’s lapses as so negative that the addict will get straight again to
reacquire support. His rehab philosophy is to make family and friends
responsible for conditioning the addict, offloading personal responsibility for
the addict onto the support team. Fundamentally anti-self-sufficiency at its
core, the philosophy of trading addiction to drugs and alcohol for dependency on
social and external praise manipulates the addict’s addictive personality traits
rather than eradicating them at their cognitive source.
Most of the time, what’s expedient is also what’s
morally right. What’s practical is what works. What forces us to make decisions
about running our lives is good. The precipitating events that convince a meth
head or an alcoholic to get clean and sober provide valuable life guidance,
though some choose to cheapen that insight by flushing their remaining stash
down the toilet or pouring their booze down the kitchen drain, symbolic acts
that destroy the substances of a vice but provide a stark admission that one’s
will power isn’t strong enough to overcome the substance’s luring existence. It
would be so much smarter to donate the substance of vices to friends in exchange
for money or future favors, thereby informing friends of one’s intentions, so
they can provide support.
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