Nadya Suleman, also known as “octomom,” has become nothing short of a lightning rod in the public discourse of late. Indeed, her case seems to have generated almost as many impassioned feelings as has the battle over the stimulus bill that carries with it the very fate of our nation. Most who heard about the delivery of the octuplets…the result of aggressive fertility treatments… in its earliest moments seemed to feel rather benignly about the whole thing, until unsettling details emerged about Suleman’s profile that made her the poster child for the anti-welfare brigade. We quickly learned that she already had six children, no husband, lived with her parents, and had no job. That was just the beginning. We further learned that she paid for her fertility treatments in large part from the $165,000 she received as a disability award following an on-the-job back injury (a back injury which, despite the size of the award, didn’t seem to keep her from carrying eight babies at once to term), and has been receiving food stamp assistance and Social Security disability payments…after she claimed that she was not on the taxpayer dole.
The expression of public outrage is more than understandable. She has supposedly been receiving death threats, but even if she hasn’t, it’s clear that public opinion is nearly unanimous against her and what she’s done. In a world where incalculable numbers of working couples are up at 5:00 a.m., sore backs and all, to ready for the arduous working day ahead, struggling to live within their means and doing so with little room to spare, it’s easy to understand the vitriol directed squarely at Suleman.
That said…there is a bigger issue here, and it’s one that suggests ominous overtones for the future of America.
You see, Nadya Suleman is over 18 and is a citizen of the United States…which means she can vote…and for every Nadya Suleman you hear about, there are untold thousands of others who have a kinship, of sorts, with her: people who, like her, don’t feel that the food stamps and Social Security payments they receive should really count as welfare (she actually said that), people who feel they are entitled to whatever economic support they need for their idiotic lives and lifestyle choices…and have the power to vote for any pandering, pro-communist politician who promises to give it to them.
The difference between 1929 and now is all the freeloaders we have in the country these days, which is what makes this economic mess so worrisome. Now, instead of being able to rely on a present-day version of what Tom Brokaw called our “Greatest Generation” to pull us out of this mess, we are instead burdened by what may be one of our worst: A generation of voters who proudly wear their entitlement mentalities like a beautiful new fashion accessory, and who are only too happy to vote themselves whatever government support is dangled in their faces as they head to the ballot box. Nadya Suleman may be the face of that generation at present, but make no mistake, there are many more faces…and votes…besides hers, and it is the totality of those that threatens to doom us all.
Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor-At-Large www.ChristianMoney.com
Nadya Suleman has only one moral course open to her. Give the new-born babies up for adoption.
That will provide loving parents for the new-borns and stop stealing from taxpayers to provide for them.
Anyone can make a mistake. She made a big one and should now take the only option open to her... adoption (many mothers have taken this step when they found they couldn't take care of their baby).
Posted by: J | March 07, 2009 at 01:59 PM