Morning Train of Thought: Society and Entitlement

I have come to believe that a society should be judged by its ability to support and lift all of its members, including those who are disadvantaged and those who have fallen on hard times. I don't necessarily believe in entitlements, because the word itself have come to gain a bad rep. Instead of being able to get something a society should be able to provide, it becomes synonymous with taking a handout. Interestingly, the way I despise the term entitlement is entirely different from how the Republican party would define it. They define it as handouts for the poor and the sick, and use it as a way to stereotype the disadvantaged as lazy and useless, when these people can teach us so much about life if we cared to look and listen. I associate entitlement with the already privileged, who feel and do receive more benefits than others because of their socioeconomic class and status - the forever widening of the income gap, the never disappearing phenomenon of poverty and hunger and inequality. People who are systematically denied life chances to begin with, quoting W.E.B. Du Bois, should not be asked to prove themselves out of nothing, out of this oppression, but should be given the chance for they have been denied and used enough throughout history. We play images of oppressed people, the poor and the hungry in perhaps what we considered enemy states - in communistic and socialistic countries, to self promote, to tell our people why there should always be an "us and them." And of course, these countries have issues from top to bottom just like any other - no one is immune from idealism and imperfection. But perhaps if we take a closer look within the clusters of societies, we may find a better sense of community, because people understand that it is their job to look out for one another. In America, problems from the top down are plenty. There is undeniable poverty and hunger. But we fool ourselves into believing we are the greatest country of all. This lie, this so-called American dream, if we don't wake from it, we will be fooling ourselves the rest of our lives at the expense of others'.