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Lemme just say somethin' here.
I grew up poor. Not "living in a box" poor, but not always far from it either. My mom, at the HEIGHT of her earning power, around 1986, took home around $600 a month. My dad had been mangled in a car accident in 1978, and for a variety of reasons, some stupid, never really recovered from it. We had some bad debt incurred trying to help out a friend.
There were many times when the only reason I had chicken on my rice, or sometimes, even rice, was because of Food Stamps. My mom worked up until the day she went on Social Security, and yet, sometimes we needed help. My country was there for us. My fellow citizens, not so much. I vividly remember my mom stopping me from going medieval on the ass of some redneck jackass who called her "a lazy bitch who should get a fucking job and not be a welfare sponge on the back of good working people" like him. She yanked me back and said "People like that are so sad and pathetic on their own, we don't need to do anything to help them. Ignore them, and they'll go away". This was on the way home from her job. We walked. Because we didn't have a car.
Every morning my Mom woke up, and either walked or if she worked far enough from home, took a bus or two to work. But mostly she walked. In Miami. Then she'd walk home. If we had to get groceries, we carried them. we lived about a mile from the nearest grocery store. That's how she rolled.
But when times got too tight and her family needed food, even though we had no money for it, she'd swallow her pride and ask her country for help. By and large, she got it.
When I was a 19-year-old fuckup who had flunked out of college because getting drunk on South Beach was more important than studying, I made a deal with my country. It'd help me pull my head out of my ass, feed me, give me a place to live, and I'd go live in North Dakota and work on B-1Bs. I wasn't happy about the ND part, but such is life.
When *I* needed it, my country was there for me.
My entire life, I've had to be independent. Only child, my dad died before I was 30, my mom died when I was 32. There was no will. No endowment, no trust. Just some pictures, a set of Indy 500 glasses, and a shitpot of stubborn and attitude.
When I've needed help, that last resort, my country, has always been there.
The last few years, the last decade really, has been good to me. I'm making more money than my parents ever DREAMED of making. I have a nice place to live. If I choose to buy my house, as part of the ND deal, my country will be there and help me get that house, and guarantee that if I can't, they'll pay that debt, even though it's not theirs.
So if you think for one minute, that I'm going to whine and bitch and complain because I'm not only expected to pay TAXES but pay MORE because I'm doing well, you're fucking stupid. No one likes taxes, and we could do a better job with them...but a long time ago, someone else's taxes put food in my belly. Less long ago, someone's taxes helped me become more than I would have ever been on my own.
Bitch about it being my turn to step up and maybe pay so that someone else gets what they need to become more? Fuck that shit.
This country has been too good to me for me to pay it back by being a whiny, petty, cheap, shithead at a teabag party.
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