Wednesday, October 19, 2011

What Grounds Me

A friend posted a "sign" in the spirit of the 53'ers on facebook, and a friend of his made a comment calling the guy who wrote the sign (and held it in front of his face, unsigned) "narccistic" for displaying the fact that he sacrificed for what he has, and that he thinks others should, too.

What's on that paper is not narcissism. It's a sign that says "quitcher bitchin'" to the OWS people out there calling for free college education or to have a bank pay off his student loans because "that's what I want" and calling to replace "Capitalism" with "a more just economic model" while your friends interject and plead with you not to articulate just what it is you mean in front of a TV camera.

It's all fine and good to say "everybody deserves 'The American Dream'" and then go define some pie in the sky baseline for it. But somebody has to pay for it. And somebody has to do the producing to provide the goods and services with enough left over to turn around and buy it for you because you think you deserve it just for being an American.

As the Nace Brothers put it, "There's a lot of people in exotic places who spend all day tryin' to feed their faces. They'd love a shot at what you've got, so you better hold on while you can"

I lived within my means and worked for what I got and didn't buy more than I worked for. I don't have a lot of sympathy for people out on the street tweeting to each other about Corporate Greed on their iPhones, crapping on cop cars and burning American flags, stripping naked and painting their bodies garishly to get attention and garner praise for their "awareness" and "activism".

It's less about protesting than being seen protesting, because it's the "it" thing to do.

If you want to know who the narcissists are, it's precisely the ones out there doing the "occupying".

Here's the thing that grounds me.

Cavemen had food and shelter and worked all day to get it. Anything beyond that is gravy.

If I have food and shelter and people around me who love me, what do I care that someone else has eleventy trillion dollars, 60 yachts, and a space ship?

As long as he can't take my food and shelter and family, and my ability to work for more and actually get to keep it and share it with whom I please.

3 comments:

nightfly said...

Waitaminute...

We have lefites, toadies, their hangers-on, and their bellweathers braggging about how horrible their lives are because of other people, who should damned well be doing more...

We have a President with messianic delusions and very thin skin...

He was elected largely because voters thought that they'd get tons of largesse for it ("he'll pay my mortgage"), or else because they were using him as an avatar for themselves (and this was noted as a positive selling point by the media at the time!)...

Because he has made nearly everything measurably and plainly worse, many of those same are now spending all their time whining about it in public...

...and the kid who anonymously explains that it can be done otherwise - THAT KID is the narcissist?

You're right, Severian. "Dude - WHAT THE FUCK?!?"

philmon said...

[philmon likes this]

Yup. That about sums it up.

DWTF T-Shirts, anyone? Cafe Press! Severian can have his own Blog Merchandise!

(I know. "Capitalist!!!!!")

Cylar said...

Whoever wrote all that on a piece of paper, is a better man than I was in college. I graduated with tens of thousands of dollars' worth of student loan debt, and many thousands more in credit card debt. And my grades sucked in college anyway because I didn't study much.

But hey, my hat's off to this fellow.