Children of Men

The South gets a bad rap for being simple, but many times simple logic is best. My mother always told me “you can’t have your cake and eat it too.” While this saying is not exclusive to the South it does expose a flaw in the thinking of the average American. According to TODAY/Gallup Poll, most Americans want their government benefits to increase and at the same time want fewer taxes. What a wonderful example of wanting “cake and eating it too.” When I was a child I wanted my allowance but I didn’t want to waste my time on chores. Americans would love to see the economy improve and unemployment decrease from its record high numbers. But they do not understand their financial state is directly connected to the success of business. They want the government to open their magical white gloves and the dove of blessing to defend on their head (without any unwanted parting gifts it might leave). At the same time they proclaim freedom, they desire for themselves but want to rob corporations of their God given right to earn what is due to them. Wealth and status is not given but won through “blood, sweat, and tears.”Our country was founded by true men who understood this concept; Washington, Jefferson, and Henry, etc. They understood freedom was not free, it had to be earned. They went to war against the most powerful military in the world and won. Americans want the economy to improve and jobs to be created, but at the same time big corporations to suffer for their growth and wealth. When corporations grow and CEOs receive huge bonuses, jobs are created and the economy grows. How naïve and childish are Americans to believe that their parents can lose their jobs and they will not only receive their allowances but their allotments will increase. Let us not be foolish enough to “bite the hand that feeds us.” If big business is hurt, so are jobs. Using the parents and child example is one Americans do not view as business and employee, they see it as government and citizen. While I do not have the space to explain the contrasts that exist between these two ideas, I can say Americans must work hard and watch the money trickle down from top to bottom for the economy to improve, handouts will do incredible damage in the long run. Instead, Americans want their cake by reaching into a magic hat and then sitting down and enjoying it at governments trick card table. In the Bible belt we loved the line from Paul’s letters “tell your people if they do not work they do not eat.” America started as a country of men full of hope and ideas, men who realized freedom was the greatest ideal in humanity. Our forefathers dreamed big, realizing that freedom had only been fantasy of dreamers of the past and they sought out with the outrageous purpose to make the future a reality. Now Americans are eager to give away what our forefathers fought to earn for healthcare, redistributing of wealth, and government cheese to help them ease the guilt of U.S. standard of living. It is easier to be a slave in comfort then to work as a fighter in the trenches of freedom. Government must get out of the way and let the great men who run the free market do what they do best, work. This article is full of clichés. Sometimes the simple backwoods saying hold more logic than the speeches that ring from the once hallowed halls of the capital. The logic and common sense that America was founded on is fading away, it is lost for the most part of the last few generations. We live on the leftovers of our forefathers; we are the lazy freeloading children of our spiritual parents. We have two choices, be slaves for our bread or we can work so we may have cake for us all.