Entitlement

Today, my Death Star laser targets the population. America may be the best nation in the world in many respects, but we have recently (say, in the last hundred or so years) kicked ourselves in the knees so much that Uncle Sam has to drag himself by his arms, which are thankfully very strong thanks to a few thousand more pages of government. Our paraplegic Sam, bewildered, has crawled into a corner of society that has slowly grown, a corner he can feel comfortable and at peace, an umbrella of wealth.

            This glorious corner of reality is the government, the thing our great forefathers did not want it becoming. Sometime in the last hundred or so years (I don’t listen in History classes, sue me), the country has slowly, ever so slowly, warped from a society appalled by accepting aid to a society that expects it. We’ve warped from a country full of people who want to be the best to a country of people who want the best to give them their best cuts.

I’d like to say this cultural backslide is simply a result of American Greed, but the origins of this strange movement started probably back in the 1930’s, when the Great Depression hit. Ultimately, the government tried to help people by expanding government, for if government controlled the money, it could help the country in need. It was a noble ideal.

Thankfully, after a world war, America became one of the handful of nations that could supply the world with things. America grew into the image of “the” nation, “that” nation, you know, “that” nation. The one people look up to. We were (are) amazing. We stormed Normandy (along with the other nations), we dominated Germany and Italy. We dropped nukes after napalming and storming the Japanese. Before it surrendered, we already started building more nukes, ready to use them on more targets. We were the biggest stick amongst twigs.

Shortly after the war, as said before we realized we were the only nation who could readily sell things. We had all the stuff you needed. For all intents and purposes, we were the present equivalent of China. With all this new money, we launched an expensive campaign against communism. This was the part of the History I slept through.

After we conquered communism, we went back to focusing on the poor. By this time, everybody loved America, and there was a bunch of nationalism. More importantly, we became accustomed to the government handling things. I’m sure one of the various talking heads have talked themselves into a shallow grave over this period. I’ll only say two words for this period: Medicaid and Welfare. Let’s throw the former out for now (save it for another post) and stick to the prior.

Welfare grew out of the 1930’s sentiment. The government would help a man in need. There were veterans who were crippled for life, a multitude of people with horrible life-altering circumstances, and down-on-luck peoples who needed to get better, and these people needed a hand up. At first, the only people who were glad for this were veterans (their bodies shielded us from harm, it’s the least we can do). It was shameful back then for people to take free money; it was a stigma of poverty.

Sadly, over time, enough people got on this stigma that it soon became common. People, as I said before, have changed from being abject to aid to feeling “entitled” to it.

Okay, I need to vent here. If you have a friend on a government aid system, this is where you’d throw your chair at the monitor.

Today, people are abusing this system. This entitlement class is sadly proportioned of people who’ve found that, with food stamps paying for their food, they can sit in front of a multimedia device with their vice and live off of governmental generosity. The people that make money make it for charity to the “disenfranchised”, the impoverished. “Jblancs, you’re going to grow up with a few friends who’re going to go through life drinking and eating pretzels,” a wise (anonymous) teacher of mine remarked, “and they’re going to wonder why they can’t get a job. When they don’t get a job, you’ll end up paying for them. Get used to that now.”

I may be a bit dense, but I feel this isn’t what America was founded upon. The very basis for our country- the glorious Capitalism- weeps silently as this bastardized spawn of charity and exploitation works its way deeper into our society. Life for the entitlement class is easy; it’s almost hassle-free. No job stresses, no worries. People look for ways to hurt themselves so they can “sue” someone over (again, another post).

Meanwhile, I look forward to a life of toil and trouble to pay for people who don’t understand why I’m pissed that I’m looking forward to a life of (coercive) charity and (forced) selfless giving.

I’m only slightly biased in this opinion. (Also, some of you wondered why I took down the post about Space a week ago. The Space post, after a query regarding it, was found to be almost completely unfounded. In shame, I removed it. This post, though, I will not remove).

So, to the entitled citizens of the United States of America: my proposal is as follows:

I will give you the bare minimum. No vices, such as booze, cigarettes, lotto tickets, or multimedia will be available to you at the income I will supply you with. Your food stamps will be for cafeteria grade food, and your toilet paper and razors will be mass-produced in an old Soviet Union factory – they’ll be half-ply thickness and one blade. Understand this: you are not entitled to these, I am being incredibly nice by giving you something, because I would really not enjoy somebody dying on my front lawn of starvation. But what I am not doing will let you want to stay unemployed. I’ll make you feel poor. I’m sorry, but I did not go off to college for four years and get into a successful career just to have 30 to 40 percent of my blood and sweat go to you so you can drink booze. Tough love, buddy.

<insert rage here>

If that horrified you, then take this last paragraph, reduce the bitter bias and hatred by a factor of thirty, and then add the percent tax you pay to the result.

Fortunately, it feels good to give. I myself, not having a payroll of my own, feel a better charity is to give your services. A helping hand, a smile, a referral… these are the kind of charity I believe in. but this Coercive Charity is not what capitalism, not what America was born with. America was born with the mentality that you help a brother out, expecting him to bounce back fast. Today, that accountability has gotten its knees kicked in, and is following Uncle Sam into the corner. So hold your fellow Americans accountable for their wallets. For, unless we do such, America won’t last too long.