A Matter of Fact Not Opinion

 [NOTE: Someone called me a liar a couple of days ago –– oh not in so many words, of course  –– but that was the thrust of the orotund phraseology with which I was attacked.  My critic was obviously filled with tremendous rage that I had dared to say something that contradicted his own bitter, cynical, haughty, puffed up, mean-spirited, profoundly ungrateful view of life. Because my story was incongruent with his way of approaching things, I simply had to be both a liar and a fool. Since an entire blog post was made of his libelous critique of my autobiographical remarks, I think it proper to restate what I said in a blog post of my own in hopes of freeing my reputation from the grip of his slimy tentacles. What you want to make of it is entirely up to you.]

I do know what I'm talking about, because I'm describing my own REAL LIFE experiences -– not quoting statistics from a liberal or conservative propaganda mill to bolster a preconceived point of view drilled into my skull by an educational system bent on killing individualism and replacing it with a society made up of obedient, quasi-robotic automata.

This Parallel Universe phenomenon never ceases to amaze me. How "my" world could be so different from "your" world and vice versa strains the bonds of credulity. Yet, I am sure that neither side is actually lying.

I am in my seventies, lived most of my life from my twenties through my fifties in "statistical poverty," yet I never FELT poor, and always managed to live well, because I believe I was blest with good parents who instilled good values in me, and I have known instinctively how to prioritize the activities in which I've participated, and to be realistic about what I could and could not afford.

When I say "statistically poor," I mean I was making between eight and twelve thousand a year.

I got caught without health insurance when I moved to another state and stupidly didn't realize I wouldn't be permitted to take my Blue-Cross, Blue Shield with me.

I'd had a couple of frightening experiences with panic attacks that led me to the ER where I was diagnosed with irregular heartbeats. It was not a serious problem, and was quickly resolved once I understood what it was, but it was enough to disqualify me from getting Blue Cross when I moved from one state to another. As it turned out, I had to wait three years before I could get health insurance again.

Nevertheless, I always managed to keep my head above water, and never failed to pay the ever-increasing rates for health insurance once I regained it, because IT got top priority along with the monthly mortgage payment.

I always ate well, enjoyed the company of any number of friends, but "wine women and song" stayed last on the list, which was why I was able to manage so well.

People today seem to resent even the merest HINT that they ought to restrain their impulses, exert discipline on themselves and adopt a policy of voluntary austerity to combat the high cost of living.

I guess we're all living in "Wonderland" these days. Common Sense has been virtually forgotten, and everyone seems to think he has a "right" to have everything handed to him on a silver platter simply because he is alive.

I come from a family of immigrants on one side who were very poor when they arrived in the USA –– theirs was the stereotypical immigrant saga –– and a hardscrabble Yankee working class existence on the other.

Everyone did very well by working very hard on his own. No government assistance was available, and if it had been, the family would have been much too proud to take it. They were active in the Church, and derived much benefit from that in myriad ways.

There was no income tax and no capital gains tax in those days either, which meant that if you were smart, robust, ambitious, worked hard, saved money, bought property and invested judiciously in the stock market, you could do astonishingly well.

All the male members of my mother's family graduated from college –– practically unheard of a hundred years ago –– and within the span of one generation the family had an aggregate net worth of several million dollars.

That kind of unprecedented opportunity was the main reason so many millions participated in The Great Migration from Europe in the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth.

This ruinous notion that putting ourselves in the power of an almighty kleptocratic government that systematically robs us of our money so it can "give" us the things IT believes we need most, and deprive us of the things IT believe we ought NOT to have is in my mind the absolute ANTITHESIS of the radical libertarian ideals on which this country was founded.

We have becomes a nation filled with weaklings, crybabies, arrogant beggars and militant morons as a result of liberal-progressivism. The WORST part of it is that the more we GET from government, the more we DEMAND, and the ANGRIER, more SELFISH, more SULLEN more UNSOCIABLE and more IRRESPONSIBLE we become.

The poor people of my grandparents and parents generation were good humored good sports for the most part, and they knew how to have FUN. I saw it and experienced it, myself. They enjoyed each other's company, shared modest pleasures freely, and managed to live much better than people with a great deal more disposable income than THEY ever had do today.

Despite all its challenges and difficulties, life was more enjoyable and more rewarding before collectivist thinking started to dominate the nation.

That's not an OPINION it's a FACT.