Critics of the welfare state, like Murray, prefer to talk about choice rather than hardship. Their general argument can be summed up as, "They made poor choices, and are now facing the consequences of those choices." The problem with this perspective isn't the profound lack of empathy, but rather a presumption that there exists a system of perfect information that everyone is tapped into.
Choices have consequences. But we rarely see the many possibilities a choice can yield, let alone the probable weightings of each one. Even granted the great presumption that everyone should be perfectly rational, it still depends on perfect information. "She shouldn't have had a child with the wrong guy," says Murray, and Maharidge seems to just accept this. The proper response would have been to dig deeper. Should she have made sure that she couldn't have children first before having sex? Should she have not had sex? How could she verify that that guy was the right guy?
And this still presumes that she had a choice in having sex with him in the first place. But perhaps more to the point, how would she have known each of those things? How would she have discovered that birth control exists? How would she have been afforded sex education and family planning strategies? This isn't a feminism/sexism issue, though I'm veering a little too close to that.
We know things because we learn them. We hear about them through rumor and this is filtered through whatever heuristics and analytical brain software we happen to have available. And yet these pathways for comprehending information and sifting truth are built on trial and error. We learn something; we believe it; we find that a certain part wasn't true after all; we adjust; we move on.
This process happens. We make mistakes. That's how we learn what consequences exist to the choices we make. Yes, we make bad choices, but this is frequently, virtually always, because we could not see with perfect clarity what consequences there would be. That's what experimentation is. Because at the end of the day, we don't really have a choice. We can't change the laws of physics so that a ball we throw into the air doesn't come back down. I might choose to throw the ball up, but I can't choose whether or not it comes back down. The limit of choice is reality, and we do not have a perfect understanding of reality.
By placing the burden of consequences on those who did not know them before making the choice, you ask them to supercede reality. That's something of a stretch in to call a reasonable expectation.
When you talk to hardworking poor people about their lives, you'll find that a common question is, "What could I have done differently? How could I have done better?" And I ask you this: if choice is the final word, why are these questions being asked?