Our current administration and its minions want to make the United States Of America into a European style Socialist welfare state run by a cabal of Left Wing highly educated elitists, who think they know what's better for us than us. Here in the Washington, DC area you find a large percentage of these Narcissists in the upper northwest sections and gentrified areas of Washington, DC, Montgomery and Howard Counties in Maryland, and the Northern Virginia suburbs. These highly educated, high salaried professional types want to safeguard their lofty perches in American society from competition from the masses through stringent government regulations that protect their upper middle class lifestyles, while throwing a bone to appease the working class and lower middle class chattel that they hold in contemptuous pitty. These elitists want to remake America into their version of Socialist Western Europe. There is only one problem. The average American is not going to go along with the program, because American think differently than Europeans. This is the main reason that Europeans tolerate high taxes and cradle to grave Socialism. The reason has to do with our comparative histories. Look at European history and especially the modern European history of the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries, which is where most of the the current European memory exists, even though the events that define Europe go back a thousand years or so. You will see, bloody revolutions, dictatorships and total wars that killed millions and millions of people. These events have made Europeans content, or for many, reluctantly complacent to rely on a strong central government for physical, financial and emotional security—the Nanny State...Not so with the average American.
Everything has a price. Europeans are willing to trade the higher standard of living that can be achieved through hard work and initiative, for a lower standard of living involving less effort propped up with a plethora of social benefits, for the non-elite, non-advanced degreed citizens that make up the bulk of their middle class. The average middle class European, not professional class or those that are in management positions in government, has a comparative standard of living that is just a notch above a welfare recipient here in the United States. That's not a very good standard of living. However, for many it is "good enough," because it means you can be relatively lazy. Europeans are bought off by their governments with social benefits that allow them to pursue a more leisurely lifestyle. Europeans get government run health care, mandated vacation time, state mandated salaries based on one's education level and job, mandatory retirement ages with generous pensions and benefits, endless unemployment benefits and a host of other expensive social programs. These programs are paid for with high taxes. One deep dark secret, however, is the fact that the salaries for advanced degreed professionals and high-end government workers are over inflated, so those professionals and the upper reaches of government employment enjoy a standard of living comparable to America's upper middle class despite those taxes. Despite the cradle to grave nanny state, however, Europeans still have their poor. They just keep them hidden from view so no one pays much attention to them. The media seldom report on the European poor, because it would show the failure of the Socialist system that the media are helping the Elites bring into fruition here in America.
Average Americans don't think that way. We are not victims. We are not helpless. Unlike many Europeans, most working class and lower middle class Americans believe that there is a direct connection between effort and reward. Unless you are extremely lucky, you can not be a slacker in America and succeed. Consequently, Americans have a strong independence streak. We don't need government social protection run by a bunch of Socialist elites that will define what is best for us. We don't need an "educated class" telling us how to live our lives, what to eat, what to drive and where to live. I like my greasy hamburgers, milk shakes, donuts and sugared soft drinks. I don't like tofu and wheat grass tea. You are not going to force me to consume the latter.
Everything has a price. Europeans are willing to trade the higher standard of living that can be achieved through hard work and initiative, for a lower standard of living involving less effort propped up with a plethora of social benefits, for the non-elite, non-advanced degreed citizens that make up the bulk of their middle class. The average middle class European, not professional class or those that are in management positions in government, has a comparative standard of living that is just a notch above a welfare recipient here in the United States. That's not a very good standard of living. However, for many it is "good enough," because it means you can be relatively lazy. Europeans are bought off by their governments with social benefits that allow them to pursue a more leisurely lifestyle. Europeans get government run health care, mandated vacation time, state mandated salaries based on one's education level and job, mandatory retirement ages with generous pensions and benefits, endless unemployment benefits and a host of other expensive social programs. These programs are paid for with high taxes. One deep dark secret, however, is the fact that the salaries for advanced degreed professionals and high-end government workers are over inflated, so those professionals and the upper reaches of government employment enjoy a standard of living comparable to America's upper middle class despite those taxes. Despite the cradle to grave nanny state, however, Europeans still have their poor. They just keep them hidden from view so no one pays much attention to them. The media seldom report on the European poor, because it would show the failure of the Socialist system that the media are helping the Elites bring into fruition here in America.
Average Americans don't think that way. We are not victims. We are not helpless. Unlike many Europeans, most working class and lower middle class Americans believe that there is a direct connection between effort and reward. Unless you are extremely lucky, you can not be a slacker in America and succeed. Consequently, Americans have a strong independence streak. We don't need government social protection run by a bunch of Socialist elites that will define what is best for us. We don't need an "educated class" telling us how to live our lives, what to eat, what to drive and where to live. I like my greasy hamburgers, milk shakes, donuts and sugared soft drinks. I don't like tofu and wheat grass tea. You are not going to force me to consume the latter.
I like my Dodge 1500 Ram van. I despise the idea of being forced by government bureacrats to drive some roller skate with a lawn mower engine, because it's better for the environment and/or the "common good." You are not going to force me to ride public transportion. If I'm going to take public transportation, I'm going to do it out of my own free will. Personally, I like taking public transportation when I go into the city, and I'm not transporting band equipment. That way I don't have to drive when I don't want to, or try to find a place to park. However, no sanctimonius, holier than thou, Marxist Progressive is going to force me to take the bus while they tool down the Beltway in their Prius.
What we are now seeing in this country is the culmination of what the late Christopher Lasch wrote about in his books "The Culture Of Narcissism" and "The Revolt Of The Elites." The tool that these elites are going to use to re-engineer society for their benefit is health care. The "educated class" elites want to force government run health care down our throats for one reason. It's the ultimate control tool. They get to decide who lives and who dies. They will do this through denial of care to those that the elites consider to be expendable and/or their enemies. Denial of care based on the science of comparative effectiveness will become the norm. They will start with the elderly. After that will come the terminally ill. Following that will be "special needs" children. After that will be the mentally feeble. Next there will be denial of care to those that the government considers to be subversives, with dissent re-defined as a mental disorder; didn't I just say the mentally feeble? Finally, there will be forced abortions and infanticide in order to Eugenically "engineer" society for the benefit of the Left's vision of a Socialist utopia. Once the threat of eliminating you if you don't do as you are told is in place, all the other parts of the social engineering process can be brought into effect: where to live, what job you do, what car you drive, what you eat, what you drink, what you think...
Guess, what? It's not going to happen. The left, with President Obama at the helm, have woken up the sleeping giant. The "little people" as getting really pissed. The Tea Party movement is only the beginning. Americans relish freedom and as history shows, are willing to fight and die for it anywhere in the world including on our own soil.
Average Americans see themselves as the "doers" of the world. We despise elites with advanced college degrees telling us that we are stupid, helpless morons that need to be cared for by those same elites. We are not helpless people needing a Nanny State government taking care of us in high-end poverty. Most of us don't need therapy in order to cope with life either. Benefits in America are earned. Programs like Social Security, Medicare and military pensions and benefits, are rewards for a life time of effort. You receive a benefit because you've earned it. There is a difference between a benefit and and an unearned entitlement.
Most Americans despise big-government programs the put no connection between hard work and reward. The last thing in the world that we want is our tax dollars funding some lazy bastard that refuses to work. Originally, our welfare programs were started in the 1930s to keep widows with children from starving. That was a good thing. However too much of a good thing, becomes a bad thing. Starting in the 1960s with President Johnson's Great Society social programs, welfare became a huge "industry" rewarding mothers who didn't work, and had multiple children with multiple partners with no man in sight. In fact, if there was a man in the house or if the mother worked part-time trying to get ahead, there would be no welfare benefits. This also excused men from having to take responsibility for the children that they helped produce. Consequently, supporting welfare for slackers has become very unpopular with those of us that are stuck funding it.
Much to his credit, President Clinton understood the mindset of working class Americans who pay their bills on time, and go without because they can't afford things, when he signed welfare reform into effect 1996. Yes I know, I've heard about how he was forced to do it, because of a Republican Congress. Bullshit! He could have vetoed it but he didn't. President Clinton understood the mindset of the average Middle American, because he personally came from the lower middle class. Clinton came up the hard way through hard work in Arkansas. Arkansas is a state with vastly unequal income distribution. You have an elite ruling class of extremely wealthy families like the Waltons and the Tysons, a small professional upper middle class, and you have a majority of the population that is basically lower middle class and/or working poor.
We now have a nation that is governed by anti-Middle America elitists. President Obama and his minions along with the fellow travellers and useful idiots of advanced degreed, information age, meritocratic upper middle class liberals, wealthy hedge fund liberals and their ilk, look down on working class and lower middle class Americans as stupid victims of their own prejudices who need to be controlled for their own good; the "little people" would be better off dependent on government benevolence than on their own initiative. Most Americans don't see themselves that way and resent this sanctimonious condescension. We are also sick and tired of using the "pawns on the chessboard," all the special interest groups of the "victim industry," to advance Marxism in this country. You can only push people so far. I'm wondering when the straw that breaks the camel's back is going to happen, and I'm hoping that things get fixed before that happens. Fortunately, the 2010 mid-term elections are only 9 months away. America needs to come back to being America, and stop this slide into becoming like Europe. If you want America to be like Europe I have a great idea. Move there. I understand that it's a great place to have a whine and cheese party.
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