I really hate to see what has happened to this country. I know what you are going to say, “stop living in the past”, “things were not that great in yesteryear”. But just in my life time, I have seen a country that had an attitude that said we are the best, smartest, hardest working, and freest country in the world. A country that put a man on the moon who now has to rely on others to do the heavy lifting.
Now we are being told that we have gotten rich, fat and lazy. We produce very little and more and more folks are depending on government for their daily living. Generations have been brought up on government handouts and subsidies becoming a way of life for families, for generations. More than half of the population really pays no income taxes at all. Oh yah, they take money out of your weekly pay check but when you total all the income taxes you paid against what your income tax return is after April 15th, many get more back than they paid in and those folks no matter how they look at it, pay no income taxes to live in this country.
Most of these government handout were never intended or even thought of by our founding fathers. Nowhere in the constitution does it say that a living is to be provided by the federal government. Most current government programs like Social Security, Welfare, Unemployment Insurance, and even the collection of Federal Income taxes has happened in the past 90 years.
My family for the most part and I have traced it back in most lines to before 1700, were poor farmers. We lived and prospered without these government handouts. When I was a kid we were poor. My father was poorly educated and his employment was very limited, yet he nor my family would have ever accepted or sought out any government welfare type programs.
My dad picked fruit, chopped wood, sold door to door, worked as a handyman and any other legal thing he could find when he was out of his normal line of work. Many holidays and hard times churches, fraternal organizations and other charities would leave food, clothing and other things at our house to help our family. Our extended family, grandparents etc. also helped in lean times. We did it without government charity just the charity of folks who cared to do a good thing.
Now we are being told that we have gotten rich, fat and lazy. We produce very little and more and more folks are depending on government for their daily living. Generations have been brought up on government handouts and subsidies becoming a way of life for families, for generations. More than half of the population really pays no income taxes at all. Oh yah, they take money out of your weekly pay check but when you total all the income taxes you paid against what your income tax return is after April 15th, many get more back than they paid in and those folks no matter how they look at it, pay no income taxes to live in this country.
Most of these government handout were never intended or even thought of by our founding fathers. Nowhere in the constitution does it say that a living is to be provided by the federal government. Most current government programs like Social Security, Welfare, Unemployment Insurance, and even the collection of Federal Income taxes has happened in the past 90 years.
My family for the most part and I have traced it back in most lines to before 1700, were poor farmers. We lived and prospered without these government handouts. When I was a kid we were poor. My father was poorly educated and his employment was very limited, yet he nor my family would have ever accepted or sought out any government welfare type programs.
My dad picked fruit, chopped wood, sold door to door, worked as a handyman and any other legal thing he could find when he was out of his normal line of work. Many holidays and hard times churches, fraternal organizations and other charities would leave food, clothing and other things at our house to help our family. Our extended family, grandparents etc. also helped in lean times. We did it without government charity just the charity of folks who cared to do a good thing.
I used to see folks using food stamps or cashing welfare checks at the grocery store and look away in embarrassment for those folks. I thought how ashamed they must be to have others see them forced to take a handout. Now it is kind of a normal thing and nobody even notices.
I know what you are saying, you are old and probably getting social security checks. Yes I am. I did not want to participate in social security and in fact worked for quite a time for employers who did not participate in the program. Try to find that today. Anyway I was forced to take part and paid my money. Now the government had taken some of my freedom away and some of my self reliance. Instead of planning and saving for retirement I had the government doing it for me. I did save in addition but many folks have nothing but social security these days. Once you are trapped in a government program it is very hard to get out of it and that is the plan in my opinion.
Today folks like us would be lined up outside the welfare office looking for a government handout just like our moms and dads did, as did our grandparents. Children are being raised with this expectation. They think this type of life style is normal and they get accustomed to the life. They accept that there is little need to try as the government will take care of them. They think they are entitled to have government take care of them. But deep down inside there is resentment and the feeling that “the man”, is keeping them poor and down.
In my opinion, this is building a kind of class status in this country. The lower class welfare witch, redneck trailer trash society. Cruel words aren’t they, but most people have said them at times to describe these folks. Then you have “the put upon” middle class who are just hanging on to keep from slipping into the lowest class. Then of course you have the rich. I guess the rich are those people who make more than you do and are to be hated. Instead of working to be like them we think it is the duty to make them share what they have with us less fortunate folks. In fact we elect political representatives who say they are going to get them and tax them and make them show charity to us poor folks.
I realize it is discouraging to see the guy driving by in his new BMW going to his multi-million dollar home and know there is no way in hell you will ever be like that at your age. I know that there are many folks who would love to have a good job, any honest job that would at least make it possible to acquire those things for our families that make life really worth while without getting government handouts. But after years of looking and trying those good jobs are just not there anymore. The question is Why?
Tell me why in your opinion this is the case if it is the case. In my next blog entry I will tackle the WHY.
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