Examples of the public backlash also appeared on Facebook. One person posted a link to the article along with the following commentary:
Person 1: "'I take care of my children.' 'It's my right to decide how many children I have.' Well, I hate to break it to this lady, but the taxpayers are taking care of these kids. We need population control over some people ( lol ) and I hate government interventions. Neverthless, we have so many ignorant and stupid people here in America costing the taxpayers trillions and their time (exchanging time for money to pay for these peoples 'Choices, Rights.') UGH...."
then a few minutes later they continued their sentiment...
Person 1: "The hospital doing this procedure is going to end up writing this piece of WT [shorthand for 'white trash'] a huge check. She was there having kids on the taxpayers tab, and now she's going to sue related to her free care. Hmmm, all policy holders premiums will go up to pay for the delivery, and the litigation costs and settlement. Did the hospital do the correct thing? No, they didn't have a legal 'Right' to do so. Do I think society should be able to decide? You BET I do! Government assistance shouldn't be used in this manner. I have a real problem with people milking the hard working taxpayers. But, then again....I'm just 'Judgemental' <--;) Any thoughts?"
In response, one person posted the following:
Person 2: "She started having kids at 14 and three of them arent even in her care. What does she plan to use her settlement money on?"
followed by...
Person 2: "There needs to be limitations on how many babies the government financially 'adopt'."
and...
Person 3: "About time someone sterilized her!! One down...millions yet to go!"
Unfortunately, as is my obnoxious habit, I could not sit idly nor quietly by. I had to voice my opinion...
Theodore Geisel: "What's next, forced abortions? Interesting though....this happened in MA, the model for Obamacare. Government bad, that includes the dole she's on (look up Reader's Digest Oct 1950 St. Augustine Gullible Gulls). Personal liberty good. She is a government created monster...let 'em sue. Her liberty has been infringed."
...and a small comment firestorm ensued.
I'll spare everyone all the boring details and try to just paraphrase some of the sentiment. She "wronged" society; She "steals" money from hard working "taxpayers"; If government wants to govern...this is where they should "intervene"; Government should "attack" these types of people; We should "force" population control; Draconian actions are "justified" because society is full of stupid people who make stupid choices.
Please don't misunderstand me. I wholeheartedly believe all of the anger, rage, resentment and righteous indignation the public has directed toward Tessa is both justified and extremely healthy. At least it would be healthy if it were channeled at the right target. Unfortunately, I wholeheartedly believe it is woefully misdirected. Allow me to explain myself. To begin, I feel obliged to include (for both of my loyal readers' sake...I've been a slacker and will try to write more faithfully) the parable of the gullible gull:
“In our friendly neighbor city of St. Augustine great flocks of sea gulls are starving amid plenty. Fishing is still good, but the gulls don’t know how to fish. For generations they have depended on the shrimp fleet to toss them scraps from the nets. Now the fleet has moved. …
“The shrimpers had created a Welfare State for the … sea gulls. The big birds never bothered to learn how to fish for themselves and they never taught their children to fish. Instead they led their little ones to the shrimp nets.
“Now the sea gulls, the fine free birds that almost symbolize liberty itself, are starving to death because they gave in to the ‘something for nothing’ lure! They sacrificed their independence for a handout.
“A lot of people are like that, too. They see nothing wrong in picking delectable scraps from the tax nets of the U.S. Government’s ‘shrimp fleet.’ But what will happen when the Government runs out of goods? What about our children of generations to come?
“Let’s not be gullible gulls. We … must preserve our talents of self-sufficiency, our genius for creating things for ourselves, our sense of thrift and our true love of independence.”
(“Fable of the Gullible Gull,” Reader’s Digest, Oct. 1950, p. 32.)
To begin with, Ms. Savicki does not steal from the taxpayer. She could never take a dime from any of us, taxpaying or not, without the government's help. Rather, it is the government who steals money from the taxpayers every day and gives it to Ms. Savicki, and others like her, in the name of imagined rights which do not exist in the Constitution. She's an unfortunate gullible gull who has willingly allowed her self-reliance to be sapped by government handouts. She's not guiltless, but she's not the problem either...she's the symptom not the disease. A massive government that has usurped power from the people far beyond the original intent of the classical liberal social contract is the true thief. Well-meaning, yet flawed, liberal/progressive policy with it's inevitable unintended consequences is the root of the evil. Government compels us to pay for her...she doesn't. Government compels us to help those who can, but won't, help themselves.
Now, wait a minute! We the people are the government. We, elect these representatives and senators to form policy and laws in our interest. In other words, she steals from the government. I am the government. Therefore, she steals from me — Simple deductive logic.
Granted, but let me draw my argument out a little further. I absolutely agree that "we the people" comprise the government. But all that really means is that we are the true enablers. "We the people" lazily hang back while telling ourselves, "all politicians are bums," and then we don't hold them accountable and remain uninvolved. We erroneously think, "my vote doesn't count," and we stay in our dry, cozy homes on the 2nd Tuesday in November while another corrupt bum gets re-elected. We the people sit stupidly and quietly on the sidelines believing, "government doesn't really affect my life," while they tax us through the nose (e.g. Uuuuuh, but I got a tax return last year. [pause] I think it went to eleven). Until we stand up and seize our government back from an active progressive minority who has gradually eroded our freedoms and vastly expanded the scope of government beyond it's original bounds over the last 100 years, this governmental abuse will continue. Tessa's abuse is our fault — the uninformed, unengaged, non-voting, political correctness-believing, cowed and silent-majority sheep that allow this travesty to continue. She steals from us because we passively allow an arrogant, but, ironically, too stupid to see it, liberal/progressive minority to compel us through government to do so. She remains the symptom, government is the disease and we the people are the rats that carry and continue to spread the disease.
Benjamin Franklin wisely posited, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety [perhaps economic security] deserve neither liberty nor safety." I argue that those who ignorantly allow other people's self worth, dignity and essential liberty to seep slowly away are even less deserving of "safety". Shame on us. Tessa is the natural consequence of our inaction.
I worry that people get irritated with Tessa instead of with themselves and the dirt bag politicians they continue to elect — that their anger is mislead and misdirected. The only way abuses such as Tessa's will become less, rather than more, common is to take back the liberty and representation we have surrendered to our government. "We" the people need to focus our anger on government (elected officials at all levels) and strive to help other "we the people" use their new-found outrage to become, first engaged, and second properly focused on the bloated enemy. Incidentally, both political parties are equally guilty. Blind ideology does not correct, but, rather, exacerbates the problem. We need to expel unnecessary government programs, entitlements and foolishly imagined non-existent rights from our system. We accomplish that goal by searching out, electing and then supporting honest, clear-thinking politicians that both share and represent American principles of moral law, thrift, hard work and self-reliance. Unless we rally to the principles and causes exemplified and fought for by our founding fathers and properly focus our anger on the real enemy, we can expect gullible gulls and corrupt, tyrannical government to be the rule rather than the exception. If we mistakenly focus our anger on Tessa and dictate to her, or anyone else, matters of birth control, sterilization, family size, energy-consumption, parenting methods, diet, exercise or where and whether or not people smoke cigarettes, we become the very same progressive enemy we fight. Regardless of the "ends", compulsion is still the "means", and compulsion is NEVER freedom.
A man once reportedly said, "I teach them correct principles and they govern themselves," (Joseph Smith). Regardless of the authenticity of the quote, the sentiment is spot on. What we the people lack is knowledge of correct principles of governance, whether personally or nationally (e.g. Follow my, "What's wrong with America? ....Americans," link above). That is why we continually find fewer people capable of governing themselves and consequently we sacrifice more personal liberties to our government in a vain hope that government can make all our problems, even Tessa, go away. We don't need to go after Tessa and control her life based upon the prisms through which we view our own lives. We need to dismantle the programs that have set her up to fail, teach her how to govern herself and allow her to face the natural consequences of her decisions. Symptom...disease...rats. Let's stop being disease-spreading rats and let's stop simply treating symptoms...it is time to eradicate the disease.
