October 22, 2012
I also realize”although I don”t claim to fully understand”the fact that changes in the global economy, in America’s demography, and in technology have rendered a lot of low-skilled peasant-style labor obsolete. But my guts tell me that government checks and government pills aren”t the answer to the problem.
I have no interest in parsing the statistical accuracy of Romney’s undeservedly notorious comment. I specifically object to the idea that Social Security is an “entitlement,” at least for those who”ve paid into the system their whole lives and will likely never receive an equivalent payback. My concern is with those well-funded puppets who claim it’s a “myth“ that many people “are dependent upon government” and “believe that they are victims.”
I”ve seen too many of them with my own eyes to believe it’s a myth. And I’m not talking about people I see on TV, because I don”t own a TV. I’m talking about people I”ve known personally. I”m here to tell you that not only do such types exist; they seem to be multiplying. I feel as if I”m witnessing the emergence of an entire society that suffers from a failure to launch.
I can”t relate to those who wake up at noon, cash their check, pop a pill, watch TV, call it “funemployment,” and bristle if you call them what they are”a dependent fuckup wearing invisible adult diapers. This nation doesn”t enjoy some healthy sense of mutual cooperation, it suffers from a toxic strain of codependency. And from my experience, dependence brings out the worst in people.
There was a girl I knew in Portland”able of body but weak of character”who purposely pissed all over herself for days before wearing fake deer antlers at her SSI interview to scam a check for mental disability.
There’s the able-bodied guy in his mid-30s who’s been receiving disability checks for “anxiety” and is poisoning his brain and destroying his will with government-provided psychiatric medication because he “needs” it.
There’s an able-bodied family member I recently let stay at my house for over a year”for free. He never got up before 2PM, and then only to play video games. He gobbled daily megadoses of government-provided morphine, Vicodin, muscle relaxers, anti-anxiety pills, anti-dizziness pills, antidepressants, and sleeping pills because he “needed” them.
There are so many people who were once close to me whose brains I”ve seen turn to jelly and whose sense of pride has been obliterated through government pills and government checks.
And any one of them would throw tantrums if I so much as suggested that they weren’t acting like adults. So it’s hard not to believe in a nanny state when I see so many babies around me.
More ominously, all this is happening at a point in our history when the government and their millions of hapless taxpaying vassals are least able to afford it. What will happen when there’s no blood left for the leeches to suck? I”m not sure what will be worse”when the country runs out of food or when it runs out of psychiatric medication.
I fail to see how forced collectivism doesn’t harm those who have their act together to the benefit of those who don’t. That seems screamingly obvious, which is why I think so many feathers were ruffled at the “47%” comment.
People need to learn the difference between a safety net and an opium den. Weaned on the sour milk of the public teat, the USA teems with people who want the world”and want it now”but couldn”t give you one good reason why they deserve it.
Some people appreciate generosity. Others expect it. I now make it a point to avoid the latter. When you ask nothing of people, that’s exactly what you get.
