entitlement

[Geoffrey Nunberg]

There was evidence of the recent fortunes of the word in a jan. 15 NYT article  about the Wisconsin recall campaign:

One of the worst things that’s happened in this state is how divided it’s become over this, even inside some families,” said Marlene Ott, who was gathering recall signatures last week inside the airport. Several people holding boarding passes spotted her portable stand and stopped to sign. But another passer-by, clutching the hands of two young girls, called out angrily, “This is disgraceful, absolutely disgraceful!” “Why,” the man, Henri Kinson of Whitewater, asked afterward, “should my granddaughters pay for these entitlements they’re calling rights?”

where "entitlement" = government benefits that groups have unjustifiably asserted a right to.

Geoff


> From: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Date: August 1, 2012 8:40:49 AM PDT
> Subject: Re: entitlement
>
>
> OT WARNING:
>
> Multimillionaire Joan Rivers was on TV a few weeks back railing that she
> doesn't want her tax dollars going to "take care of people with 12 children
> that don't even know who the fathers are. ...[G]et a job.... I will not
> subsidize someone [who's] got 92 children and is sitting around all day
> long, third generation on welfare.”
>
> Slut-mom welfare dynasts with an average of 57 children do have it
> made. Everywhere I see their stately piles built on the backs of the rich.
>
>
> JL

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