"Entitlements?"

[Rider3]

Can anyone pinpoint the first use of the word "entitlement" used to describe our Social Security payments, etc.? I recently saw a friend who posted that it was the Dems that started to use that word, when I am POSITIVE it was the GOP and the Tea Party. Any thoughts?

[PeaceNikki]

1. Variations of the word are used in The Social Security Act of 1935. IT'S NOT A BAD WORD.

http://www.ssa.gov/history/35act.html

It means recipients are ENTITLED to the payments.

The right has bastardized it, but it's not a bad word.

[Wait Wut]

2. No kidding.

I am absolutely entitled to that friggin' money. I tell every Republican I know that very thing.

[PeaceNikki]

3. It drives me insane when the left says, "it's not an entitlement"

yes. it. is.

And further, it makes it seem like other social welfare programs should be cut. Like SS is good, WIC is bad.

The textbook definition of entitlement is: "A government program that guarantees and provides benefits to a particular group."

It *IS* an entitlement by definition. Denying it implies that "entitlements" are bad.

[TDale313]

6. The Right has vilified the word...

Much like "liberal". (Those greedy Seniors and their sense of entitlement to their, well, entitlements)

That leaves us on the left with pretty much two options. "Reframe" by looking for another word ("progressive" instead of "liberal&quot or "reclaim" the word (Hell yeah SS is an Entitlement. I paid in to it my whole life. I'm entitled to it)

I tend to be more a fan of reclaiming, but then what do I know? I'm just a silly Liberal

[Rider3]

7. Exactly!

Thank you for the post!

[Rider3]

8. Yes!

OK, I will stand my ground. Thank you.

[Bluenorthwest]

4. What's wrong with that word?

en·ti·tle·ment
/enˈtītlmənt/
Noun: The fact of having a right to something.

It's a fact we have a right to those benefits. Don't you agree?

[patrice]

5. What is our agreement with one another that universally & concretely makes us a nation?

Whether it's intended or not, Laws, the Constitution, apply more or less differently to different people.

Certainly "our" economic system is not Just; money is a cruel joke, because it's value is arbitrary & controlled by private financial powers and yet is the measure of all things public. We argue about public debt, but money itself is practically nothing but debt, managed by a private entity, the Federal Reserve. Fractional Reserve lending has made it so and we saw the effects of that rolling out of our toxic financial sector in September 2008, although our entire financial shows the same cycles of exploitation over and over.

Whatever money is, it is not one-to-one with value. All money is somekind(?) of value, but not all value is money.

Why shouldn't we decide for ourselves what the basic authentic values are that make us one nation? Why shouldn't we consider defining those values in the most concretely physical, least arbitrary, ways possible: health care, education, and a basic level of financial subsistance that is independent of PRIVATE manipulation? Whose country is this anyway?

Entitlements is not a bad word.