What can my country do fo rme?

[CCTAU 3,346]

Here's a little commentary on the subject.

THIS IS GETTING DEPRESSING

I think that we should give this election a theme. Now I know that the politicians are all using the "change" word. That word was tested in front of focus groups around the country and really rang the bells. Hillary, Barack ... change, change, change. How pathetically stupid. If someone tells you they're going to "change" something, wouldn't you be just the least bit curious as to what in the hell they are going to change from and to? But wait .. that would take a sense of inquisitiveness, wouldn't it?

So .. we need another theme. May I propose that we call this the "What can my country do for me?" election?

* Give me health care.

* Give me prescription drugs.

* Make them raise my salary.

* Make them bring my job back.

* Give me lifetime job security.

* Pay my heating bill

* Make my gasoline cheaper

* Pay for my kid's college education

* Give me a comfortable retirement

* Give me free transportation

Just listen to these candidates. They never talk about freedom. They never talk about self-reliance. They only talk about all of the great and wonderful things that they will do for you if you just give them the power of government to get those things done. And do you know why this is? It's because that seems to be all we're interested in; what the government can do for us.

This morning I heard the National Anthem being played on a radio station at 6:00 . "Land of the free and the home of the brave?" Well, OK .. there's certainly some left. But more an more we're becoming the "Land of the secure and the home of the dependent." We're turning America into a giant assisted living center.

I'm really sorry to say this, but this nation is in trouble ... much like a beautiful home infested with mold. The mold just relentlessly spreads with no abatement in site. How long before we have to tear things down and rebuild? The mold? Government dependence. Mitt Romney referred to it as a sickness ... Government dependence is a sickness. Well, the sickness is spreading.

Just listen to the election rhetoric. Here's what I want the government to do for me. You'll certainly hear much more of that then you will any call for freedom and independence.

Really sad.

I THINK THIS REALLY DRIVES THE POINT HOME. WISH I HAD WRITTEN IT!

This alert came from a listeners. He was reading "The Bad Boy of Baltimore" a biography of H.L. Mencken by Marion Elizabeth Rodgers. On page 409 of that book he finds the following"

"By the mid-1930's, thanks to the New Deal, all that self-reliance had changed, prompting Mencken to declare: 'There is no genuine justice in any scheme of feeding and coddling the loafer whose only ponderable energies are devoted wholly to reproduction. Nine-tenths of the rights he bellows for are really privileges and he does nothing to deserve them.' Despite the billions spent on an individual, 'he can be lifted transiently but always slips back again.' Thus, the New Deal had been 'the most stupendous digenetic enterprise ever undertaken by man.... We not only acquired a vast population of morons, we have inculcated all morons, old or young, with the doctrine that the decent and industrious people of the country are bound to support them for all time. The effects of that doctrine are bound to be disastrous soon or late.'

When someone asked, "And what, Mr. Mencken, would you do about the unemployed?" He looked up with a bland expression. "We could start by taking away their vote," he said, deadpan. Mencken was not surprised when the majority disagreed. "There can be nothing even remotely approaching a rational solution of the fundamental national problems until we face them in a realistic spirit," he later reflected, and that was impossible so long as educated Americans remained responsive "to the Roosevelt buncombe."

"Buncombe," by the way, means either a county in North Carolina, a city in Illinois or another word for "nonsense."

Please ... cut and paste the Mencken quote. It is so very much more relevant to what's going on today than it was in Mencken's time. Send it to your friends ... send it far and wide. Post it on your blogs. Get it out there. Wonderful stuff.

LINK

[Auburn85 432]

i must say that i agree that this is getting very depressing

it's like alot of people who are contributing to obama and clinton's campaign are putting a down payment toward all of these goodies.

Yet, they (obama and clinton) aren't really going into much detail on how to pay for ALL of this.

Government just won't be big enough for them.

Yay for garnishing wages

[autiger4life 3]

CCTAU,

I think I....hold on I need to gather my thoughts.....

I think I may partially agree with you on this.

I do agree with the part that Americans seem to be becoming less and less self-reliant and more and more reliant on others, whether it be the government or their job, or something else.

There seems to be a thought among many that they are not good enough and that someone else must help them to do it. Here is my view as to why this might be happening.

We have all talked about the change from kids not making the team, to it seeming like everyone makes the team, and everyone is included, no one is a failure, no one is dumb, etc.

The theory is that is a kid never fails it will increase his/her self-confidence making them believe they can do anything. However, if you talk to any successful entrepreneur(read a self-reliant person) they will always talk about the failures they had and how much that helped them later.

When a kid tries out for something and everyone makes it that doesn't teach them a thing. But when they try out for something don't make it and then work hard and make it the next year that shows that they can accomplish things. If they try out and don't make it and then work hard and try out again and don't make it that can teach them that sometimes things just won't work out. No matter what you do sometimes bad things will happen but you must perservere through them. Either way they learn a valuable lesson. I guess we will see how this pans out in the next few years.