You are absolutely correct about how the Democrat Party is using these programs as carrots to the recipients of government assistance, we have developed a dependent class, and they overwhelmingly support the 'plantation owners'.
I think you are wrong that it was deliberately designed this way. I believe it was designed by racist white men, characterized by the LBJ type, who believed the nation should be responsible for taking care of those who happen to be born with darker skin, because they can't help being 'niggers.' It is a patronizing benevolence that underscores a white man's belief that the black man is inferior, and requires assistance to 'even the playing field'. Liberal White Guilt... the basis for which, is inherently racist and prejudiced.
Most humane individuals have a compelling desire to help people who are truly in need. Especially such individuals with a spiritual faith background. Only a sick and depraved person would not care about people in distress. Yet we see the arguments framed all the time, the right 'doesn't care' about this group or that... every advocacy is based on the presumption that righties don't want to 'help' those in need. But the truth is, there is just a difference in our perception of what is 'help' and what is not helping in reality. Liberals don't desire for people in need to be shackled to government dependency the rest of their lives, that's the last thing they want. They just haven't understood the failure of their approach to 'helping' these people.
Over 70 years of liberal entitlements, trillions and trillions of dollars spent, building up slums, only to tear them down in 10 years and rebuild them again. Program on top of program, for every conceivable problem faced by any number of individuals, funded annually with built in increases in funding, continued boosts in funding and new implementation strategies... more layers of bureaucracy to ensure the "HELP" is being dispersed... all of this, for 70+ years, and our poverty level remains essentially unchanged.
If the original design was by racist whites in an attempt to show "compassion" and take care of the "poor nigras", the basic design would have adjusted by now to account for the modified general attitudes toward minorities. However, if anything, the design of assistance programs and federal government authority over such has gotten more insistent, more intrusive, and less possible to escape. Also, these types of programs were initiated long before the civil rights movement focused on Blacks. I invite you to investigate the history of federal government "support" and "assistance" on Native American reservations.
I understand where you are coming from, but the history of federal assistance programs does not support your "they are benevolent but stupid" explanation. After the democratic party lost their shorts in the civil rights movement, two major shifts occurred. First, the republicans stupidly decided to go after the southern white vote by taking advantage of the strong racism of the region. That left the door open for the democratic party to become the "champion" of Blacks, and later all minorities. But this second shift was not, in the slightest, motivated by genuine desire to assist anyone. The DNC of the time recognized the opportunity to attain a solid, long term voting block by championing minority issues while arranging their "help" to assure their victims (sorry, I mean "constituents") remain in need of help.
I agree, most people have a desire to help those who are less fortunate - that is where the democrats pick up a significant portion of their following from middle and upper class. And you are correct in that those who support big government assistance programs do not desire the recipients to be irreversibly beholden to those programs. Middle and upper class people who support those programs do not recognize the traps those programs can and do become because few ever experience them, so they don't see the struggle it often becomes to break free. What they DO see is that the majority of those dependent on the programs remain dependent on them, and all too often pass the same conditions on to the next generation. And, when seeing this, while not having the experience to recognize why, blame the symptoms on not enough help instead of looking at the fact that the programs themselves are deliberately built to prevent people from breaking free of them.
But those who support the idea of big government programs are not the ones who DESIGN those programs. When it comes to those who design the programs, which are sold as good ideas to the public, remember who and what they are. We're talking about politicians. FEDERAL politicians, specifically. Politicians who even the most enthusiastic lemmings admit focus more on getting reelected than they do on doing what is best for the country they supposedly serve. These are people (especially the
leadership of the parties) who are there because they love power, they love being in charge, and their main focus is securing their power and gaining more power. So you can bet whenever they come up with any idea, the first question in their minds is going to be how that advances their own desire for more power and control over other peoples' lives. This hold true (with a very few individual exceptions) for both major parties, and the more successful politicians of minor parties or independents. The various parties and philosophies simply use different (sometimes radically different) means to secure their goal of securing and gaining power. This is also why, despite rhetoric, you never see either party actually diminishing any authority - whether legitimate or usurped - of the federal government.
I've worked inside the democratic party system. I have seen how these ideas are developed, and the deliberate manner in which they are structured to keep the people they supposedly serve in a situation where they feel they must continue to vote for the people who designed the programs. I tried to work inside to change the way programs trap the people, and in the end got told to "shut (my) nigger mouth." That was the day I changed my registration to independent.