John Edwards is right: there are two Americas...

...but just not the two Americas that John Edwards believes exist in his crooked, slimy liberal heart.  The disgraced former VP candidate made his claim to fame with his 'Two Americas' speech during the 2008 campaign depicting one America consisting of fat cat 'haves,' and the other of deprived 'have nots' (or as Karl Marx would call them, the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat, basically the same concept).

Nope.  Indeed, there are two Americas, but the distinction is not of haves and have nots, but of producers and non-producers.  Of go getters, and of slackers. Of people in the wagon, and of those pulling the wagon.  However you want to characterize this divide, these two Americas are coming to blows, and there will be some fallout in the coming years as to who defines what the ultimate one prevailing America shall be.

Witness the Wisconsin state battle of these two Americas: on the one side, you have the tax paying public getting gouged, hammered and skewered by enormous property, sales, and other taxes to support an unsustainable population of Americans on the dole from the state and the federal government that produce nothing, but suck the living breath out of the local economy, and demand ever more every year.  And the courageous Wisconsin Governor, Scott Walker (R) fulfilling his promise to reign in the abuses of that parasitic other America that simply wants to lay sideways in the public trough and provide nothing for the common good. 

These are the two Americas that are at loggerheads: one of them will win, the other will lose.  In Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida and Indiana to date, the moocher Americans have been dealt a series of blows, and their slovenly way of life is at risk.  In response, since these slovenly slobs know no other way of life other than to suck the food of of others' tables, their panicked reaction is expected: the end of the world is near, and life as they know it will come crashing down upon their slacker heads.

The Two Americas theme that John Edwards rode to national prominence is a reality.  And we are seeing the beginnings of the battle between these two Americas.  The America I live in is one where each individual has personal responsibility to maintain a lifestyle that not only benefits them and their family, but also benefits society as a whole.  The America that my enemy dwells in is one that lives off of the table of their fellow American, and not only are they ungracious at the largess extended them, but actually seem to angrily demand more from that table, arguing that taking the food off of their neighbors' table is a right.

Let this fight rage on in earnest.  I think I know how this will play out in the long run, and once the responsible America defeats the slovenly America, the two Americas will finally return to the one America: the one that promises life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to any who want to put forth an effort to achieve the American dream.

John Edwards was right.  Just not in characterizing the sides that are vying for prominence in the 21st century. 

Old people should die in their kid's spare bedroom

...and not in their luxury condos in Boca Raton, Florida.

In the good old days, before American taxpayers went broke supporting old people in luxury for the last 25 or 30 years of their lives, Americans used to live together as extended families, where grandma and grandpa lived upstairs, in the spare bedroom of their daughter in law or son in law's house.

Accordingly, grandma and grandpa would come down every evening to the supper table, grandpa would say Grace, and their sons, daughters, grandsons and granddaughters would enjoy a meal together with their family. 

And back in those good old days, grandma and grampa understood that they were eating the food put on the table by the daughter or daughter in law, as provided for by the son or son in law, and they would not gripe and whine about their progeny's life decisions, or how bad the food was: they held their tongues, lest discord fester within the household. 

Not anymore. 

Now that the government has mandated that we all cough up our hard earned tax dollars in order that we provide all senior citizens over the age of 62 a luxury retirement, free from want or need.  Their condos in Florida are paid for courtesy of their Social Security monthly stipends, their medicine and health care needs taken care of by Medicare and Medicaid, in addition to virtually free medicine via government provided pharmaceutical and prescription plans.  These outlays used to be borne by the oldster's progeny, but not anymore.  The government is now the supporter of our oldest citizens, not the sons and daughters.

As such, these oldsters live the remainder of their golden years in luxury, removed from the extended family where they are free to bad mouth their progeny at length for every grievance, real or imagined, and not have to endure the scorn heaped upon them should they have remained within the extended family under one roof and continued to bad mouth the daughter in law.

And now they are living out their golden years at all of our expense: and our economy is collapsing because of them.  Old people now die within the confines of their luxury suites in Miami, and the U.S. taxpayer pays all the bills.

And old people are perfectly OK with this arrangement.  They are a shame to our country.  When the country is better off when you die (as SSN payments stop, Medicare and Medicaid end, in addition to all of the other goodies oldsters get), you should perhaps reflect on your parasitic ways.

But these geezers won't give it a second thought, as they wreck our economy and take another sip off of their government provided Mai Tai as they lounge by their government provided poolside in their government provided condo in Boca Raton.

Shame on all of you geezers. 

Who gets the blame for this debt mess? Old people.

They have many names: geezers, codgers, old timers, gummers, old farts, elders, seniors, battle axes and baby boomers.  Regardless of what you call them, these folk over the age of 60 (born 1951 and earlier) are the primary cause of this country's debt problems. There is really no argument against this undeniable truth: old people are wrecking our country. 

Of the $2.3 TRILLION dollars that come into the treasury every year, 6 out of 10 of those dollars are doled back out to old people, mostly in the form of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and medical prescription benefits.  If you round up, that's almost two out of every three dollars taken from tax payers are given to these oldsters.  And why?  Because they vote on legislation making this theft legal.  And they vote religiously and regularly in huge blocks. 

Sure, some of the bucks paid into the treasury are taken out in the form of FICA taxes over the years, and are then paid back in montly stipends to the geezer, but it is rare if never that a living SSN recipient ever pays more into the system than they take out.  Only in the case where the recipient dies prematurely will that be the case.  And we are not talking about dead people at the moment, only old people, and accordingly those dead guys are excluded from blame.

Even though most (but not all) geezers know that this system is unsustainable, they don't care.  They care not a whit that money paid to them to allow them their retirements in luxury is costing their grand kids and great grand kids a life of posterity.  They only want what they want, and they want it right now, regardless of the chaos it is causing.  Geezers who think this way (and there are millions and millions of them) are greedy, selfish pigs.  The lot of them

In fairness, not entirely ALL of the blame for our debt crisis can be laid at the gummer's feet.  The gutless politicians (mostly Democrats) who promised these geezers all of this cash in exchange for votes can also share the blame, but it is the geezers who demand the lion's share of the treasury's intake, despite the damage to the long term economy, these old timers are the ones to blame at the moment, and not the dead gutless politicians who made them those unkeepable promises lo these many years ago.

When you walk down the street and see an old, crippled geezer ambling down to the super market, Social Security check in hand, just know that they are the enemy of us all.  They are killing our country.  

And they know it, but don't care.

Democrat president gives up on pursuing greatness

This is just another typical example of Democratic presidents giving away the American store.  NASA ended its manned space program today, with nothing on the drawing board to get us back into space.

President Obama's view as to America's place in the world seems to mirror the same philosophy as that of past recent Democrats in the White House.  He believes that the U.S. should not lead the world in anything: he is presiding over the collapse of the greatest economy on the planet, and happily so.  In his heart of heart, he doesn't believe in American greatness and thinks we are just part of the global crowd.  Let someone else lead, he suggests.

We are now second or even third in the world in space technology, behind Russia and Japan.  Who would have thought this a mere decade ago? 

But this slacker president is nothing new in Democrat circles.  Recall Bill Clinton authorizing Loral to sell our missile guidance technology to the Chinese.  It's only fair, he suggests, to have a 'partner' in technological innovation.  Unbelievable, simply incredible the way Democrats think.

Recall Jimmy Carter giving away the Panama Canal, a U.S. possession that was the greatest engineering feat ever accomplished by man.  Now in the possession of a banana republic that is not exactly America's best ally, thanks to this incompetent dreamer, who cared not a whit about the greatness of America.

And what engineering achievement eclipsed that of the building of the Panama Canal?  Reaching the moon, of course.  And now that achievement has been diminished greatly by this current cowardly administration suggesting that the money we no longer spend on NASA can be better put to use by transferring it to crack addicts in ghettos, encouraging them to proliferate.

All at the expense of American greatness.  When will the voters of this country learn that when we elect Democrats to the presidency, we suffer as a nation?

The way things were 'back in MY day.'

I was recently shopping around for a suitable replacement for my aging Ford F150 4X4 pickup truck (13 years old, and starting to cost a fortune to keep in reliable shape).  While kicking the tires on a Chevy 2500, I asked the sales guy 'says here 6.0 liter engine, what's that in cubic inches?' 

The sales guy looked at me like I had three heads.  He then replied, 'you should probably know that one, that's the way they USED to measure displacement way back in YOUR day.' At 56 1/2 years old, I started thinking he was right.  I SHOULD have known that little tidbit.  Turns out that a 6.0L engine is 377 cubic inches, but that is not the only thing that is now different in today's world from 'back in MY day.' I just stopped paying attention and never noticed that engine displacement terminology switched to the metric system.

As a 5 year old in the summer of 1960, I vaguely remember waiting for the 'iceman' to show up in the projects down the street from me, where me and other kids would hang around hoping he would have a few shards of ice for us that had broken off the blocks of ice he delivered to folks too poor to afford those new fangled 'refrigerators,' and still depended on ice boxes to keep their cold cuts cold.

I was in junior high school when the milkman still delivered milk to our front door, and retrieved our empty quart bottles that we set out for him the night before.  When did that stop?  That service was kinda handy, as I recall.  Now, you have to drive to the Piggly Wiggly, schlep a gallon of the stuff from the Piggly Wiggly shelf to your car (or in my case, truck), and then from your car to your new fangled refrigerator. 

And as a grade school kid during the summer, my mom would kick me out of the house with instructions to go play and not come back until dinner time.  With my Murray-brand knock-off 'Sting Ray' bike with ape hanger handlebars and banana seat (my folks were too cheap to buy me the real deal, a Schwinn Sting Ray), we had parental authorization to ride as far away from home as our little legs could pedal, and nobody gave that a second thought.  Just as long as we made it back home in time for dinner.

Now a little 8 year old boy cannot walk 6 blocks home from summer camp without getting abducted, murdered and dismembered by a sick, evil weirdo in Brooklyn, New York.  Things ain't the way they used to be back in MY day, no siree Bob.

Yup, things were a whole lot different, way back in MY day.

Public sector workers continue to 'phone it in.'

For all of you who receive money from the public as your sole source of earned income, I have a question for you: exactly how much of your daily efforts actually benefit the public?
 

We, the public, want to know.  Since you are on our payroll, we expect results for our hard earned dollars that you are collecting.  And if you are a member of a public sector union, this question is manifestly important.  Your union organizers have a plan each and every year during contract negotiations with us, the public, to decrease your workload, increase your benefits and bullet proof your exposure to any pain during economic recessions.  This bullet-proofing includes no lay-off provisions in addition to any salary, wage or benefit reductions for any reason.

 Once your union has come away with guaranteed comfort for you in your working life, as well as your retirement (starting at age 52, perhaps), most of you public employees are feeling pretty good about life: guaranteed jobs for life, and no accountability for your job performance, since lay-offs are no longer on the table.  Accordingly, why work very hard?  There’s really no point to it, since it is irrelevant as to whether you perform well or not.  If you excel at your job, there is no additional compensation to reward your efforts, since your union bosses have already carved in stone your wages, regardless of your performance, based on how long you’ve been sitting in your chair, merit be damned. There’s really no accounting for your performance, so why not just ‘phone it in,’ once you have secured your public service gig?

 Public sector jobs are now the only available gig in the country that never have to cut back in hard times or do without when the economy turns south and in general share the pain of the rest of the population during hard times.  You are exempt from all of that.  And you never have to perform at even a modicum of decent output on the job. 

 In the private sector, the question is always on the table (whether it’s stated or implied): “just what have you done for us lately?”  To sit on one’s laurels and coast works great in the short term, but once the boss walks in and asks this question, there better be some production in the ol’ hopper or you’ll be sacked like a bag of dirt quicker than you can say ‘where’s the unemployment office?’  Every successful sales person who works in the private sector knows this.  It doesn’t matter that they were ‘salesperson of the year’ last year, and got huge commissions to go along with their great sales production.  The next year, they start out with zilch, zero nada on the books and have to produce, just like the next schmoe regardless of how great things went for them in the past.

 But not public sector folks, no siree Bob.   Once they get their foot in that door, it’s Fat City from that point on.  Especially if they are a member of a union.  Phoning it in is the way it’s done.  No negative consequences for bad performance or even no performance.  Just keep cashing those paychecks, courtesy of the tax money collected from us producers out here in the public.

 And you would think that these folks on the public payrolls would be grateful.  Nope, they are angry that they are now coming under scrutiny and demand that the rest of us just shut up and keep our wallets at the ready.  See this for yourselves as those ingrates form mobs to yell down the legislators who want to change this unsustainable system in Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida, Ohio and Indiana. 

 We’ll see if this scrutiny as to exactly what we get from these parasitic public employees will change any behavior on the part of these blood suckers.  I suspect not, not until we eliminate their unions and demand that these ingrates start to perform, with accountability for under performance, as well as rewarding superior performance.

 Until that happens, these public sector slackers will continue to ‘phone it in.’

Would America be better off...WITHOUT YOU?

Did you ever consider asking yourself this question: is my existence a net gain or a net loss to my country?  Since you have never considered outright asking yourself this question, you probably  have not thought of how you fit in to our society.  If you are a titan/captain of industry, a small or medium business owner and entrepreneur, you know the answer to this.  You are a big, meaty net gain on our our country's profit and loss statement (or more commonly known as a 'P&L' to you liberals out there) and are the cornerstone of our economy.

If you have never worked a day in your life, and are on public assistance, food stamps, welfare and think government cheese is like manna from heaven, you also know the answer to this: you think you are ENTITLED to every measly scrap of government largess you can lay your sponging hands on.  And think you should get MORE. And you think you are the reason that America exists, and of course your value to society cannot even be measured, it's so huge.  In other words, you are clueless. 

This question doesn't take a lot of soul searching or staring at navels to obtain an easily objective answer.  Pull out your calculator, and start punching buttons:

• If you have a public sector job, subtract $100,000.00
• If you have a public sector job and are a member of a public sector union, subtract an additional $100,000.00
• If you are retired from a public sector job and retired in your 50's, subtract $750,000.00
• If you are retired from a public sector job, and retired in your 60's, subtract $500,000.00
• If you are retired from a public sector job, and retired in your 70's, subtract $100,000.00
• If you are retired military, but have a private sector job currently, add $100,000.00
• If you are retired military, and are 'double dipping' (have another government job), subtract $200,000.00
• If you are retired military, and have retired from your second government job, and are now collecting two government pensions and SSN (triple dipping), subtract $500,000.00
• If you have a private sector job, and have a 401(k),and don't plan on retiring until your 70's, add $1,000,000.00
• If you have a private sector job, retired and now have your savings and SSN: add $250,000
• If you have a private sector job, retired and are collecting a pension with SSN: add $100,000
• If you never really had a job, have always been broke and collect SSN, Medicaid and other public assistance, subtract $500,000.00
• If you are retired profession politician and have never worked a day in the private sector, subtract $1,000,000,000.00 (1 Billion). 

Now look at the number in the calculator's register: if it is negative, you are a drain on society.  If it is positive, you are benefiting society.  Pretty easy stuff to cypher.

There are lots and lots more scenarios, but I think most of you except liberals and professional moochers (and I am being redundant, liberals are by definition professional moochers) get the picture.

If you contribute more to society than you take, you are a net gain to our country, and we salute you.  If you take more than you contribute to our country and society as a whole, you are a net drain and subsequently a detriment to your country.  And you teachers, firemen, policemen, military and other public sector employees of this nature, feel free to calculate your benefit to society over your working years by the number of lives you have saved, lives you have effected positively and dedication to public service that you have rendered.  Only YOU know the answer to this and assign the value it deserves. 

In that case, after punching the buttons on your calculator and you find that you suck more out of our economy than you put in,  do your patriotic duty:  do your country a favor and drop dead now. 

I mean it.