Connections between Coontz and Currie

We always stood on our own two feet: self-reliance and the American family by Stephanie Coontz brought a lot of new interesting facts to the table (new to me at least). What I think she is trying to say is that American families think they can succeed on their own but in reality when we look back how society was, it all started with some help. Help should not be looked down upon because we all will need it sooner or later and to think one can conquer everything on their own is just foolish to think. One quote that really caught my eye in this article was when "Politicians are especially likely to fall prey to the convenient amnesia that permits so much self-righteous posturing about how the "dependent poor" ought to develop the self-reliance and independence that "the rest of us" have shown." I do not comprehend why anyone would say this and not think for one second that he or she did not receive any help what so ever. As a society we can't think like this because that is when I feel that hate starts to appear in our minds when we think about poor people. So now this is when The Futile War on Drugs by Elliott Currie comes in. The belief that the individual has failed in moral character, changes in society as a whole, and other things I guess that leads them to drugs because they think it will solve some problems. Failing morally and because some can't adapt to the society as a whole is crap. Society has not changed to better poor people, it has changed to keep them poor. This country has lost billions of jobs over the years and we think the problem of people selling drugs are their morals? We clearly have a problem understanding why people have escalated to the point were they think they need to sell drugs. Just to make things clear now, I'm not justifying the act of people selling drugs. It is illegal and it is wrong, we get that. But when we connect this to the Coontz, apparently their are people that think some should develop some self-reliance because that is an American value. Obviously many more factors are involved with subjects like this but I honestly think that as a society, things as set up for others failures. Maybe one day things will change but for now things will be the same for the LONG time.