The Right-Wing Rules of Poverty

            
                                 for David Brooks

 

These are the right-wing rules of poverty:

   The social contract is in disrepair.

The poor eschew upward mobility;

   They’re not kept down—they simply like it there.

There’s always crime when kids learn every day

   To hate the drug but love the shooting gallery.

A healthy neighborhood is a ballet

   But God forbid the dancers want a salary.

When losers learn to scratch where they can itch,

   The world is run the best way that it could be—

The dirty poor won’t blame the filthy rich;

   They’ll blame themselves—which is the way it should be.

      God pays hard cash for moral discipline.

      The poor are poor because they’d rather sin.

 

Copyright 2015 Matthew J Wells