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Gettin' What's Comin'
Lewis
Goldberg
04/14/2003
You know...I really do try to
go about my business, being an ordinary joe at lunchtime with the rest of
the worker bees, but you can scarcely get [as the song says] "from the
cab to the curb" without having twelve varieties of socio-political
deviance stuffed in your face. Anyway, at the local Wal-Mart today, I saw
as I walked across the parking lot, a car in one of the handicapped spaces
that did me in. Across its rear window were those white stick-on 4"
letters spelling out "Healthcare is a right for prisoners - how about
for soc. security/disability recipients too?" Concentrate,
Lewis...salt...light bulbs...new trash cans...
This unrepentant sinner -
insisting on breaking both the ninth and tenth commandments in public, and
feeling pretty good about it from all indications - was sitting in his
conveyance at the time...no doubt waiting for his wife to return with his
free prescription drugs he gets with the rest of my tax money that isn't
already tied up in his bass boat.
I had a mind to approach him
and tell him, "No, buddy. You got it backwards. We need to take health
care away from the prisoners. Two wrongs don't make a right!"
But I don't like confrontation any more than most people, so I went about
my shopping trip, determined to vent the experience into a keyboard soon.
It is shocking how much of
public policy is based on logic no more advanced than "well...they're
doing it." No more do we see the kind of deliberation honourable men
used to put into their public service work - real statesmen like the men
from Virginia who founded this nation [shush now...if it wasn't for
Virginia, we'd have been a corrupt dictatorship from the get-go. And I'm a
native New Yorker, but Hamilton is no friend of mine.]
In 'normal' times, the only way
to effect change is to educate people as to the proper functions of
government, and then hope they elect representatives based on what they
learn. Our friend with the lettering in his window was doing just that -
educating people. Unfortunately, his message tends to resonate well because
it carries a potentially quick payoff. "Hey, someone's getting
something you ain't...better gripe so's you get you some too" is the
essence of it. In that man's eyes, likely my message says, "you may be
doing poorly, but you need to do with even less because I'd really like to
buy a new laptop, and I'm not too thrilled about paying your bills, even
though you're laid up."
Sadly, our well-meaning public
welfare policy has taught several generations to spit on their homes, their
ancestors, their communities, and their churches, that they may pursue some
mystic, individualistic pathway to social nirvana. We have allowed and
encouraged people to go through life burning their bridges instead of
treating those around them with love and consideration. A people that once
drew strength from home and family ties has forsaken its inheritance.
Whereas once we relied on each other in times of need and learned humility
through our mistakes, now we arrogantly demand our 'entitlements' from the
government. Where we used to forge deep bonds of friendship with a few
select people through sharing trials face to face, we now come anonymously
to the whole of America, saying not so much as a 'thank you' for the help
received - only a scowl that the assistance wasn't more.
America's so-called poor and
needy have lost all sense of shame. I speak not of the truly poor, for they
tend not to show up in the polls - they don't want to. Our 'visible poor'
are not really poor at all; there are other adjectives we could use... In
another time, the man at the Wal-Mart would have been shown to the city
gate, and heard it slam - but in 'democracies' these 'poor' serve another,
more sinister function: they are the people who elect Hitlers into power.
They are the stupid, the greedy, the covetous, the self-righteous, the
selfish, and the ones who are always on the lookout for a scapegoat to
excuse their pathetic selves. There's nothing poor about them...they have
plenty of stuff, and they always have a plan to get more stuff.
...and yes, I remembered
everything on my shopping list.
Your comments and questions are encouraged. [editor@patriotist.com]
Patriotist
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