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Uncle Sam is not a genie for the masses
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With all due respect to Benjamin Franklin - who asserted that only death and taxes are life's guarantees - I've found two phenomena at work in life.

1). Life seems to go by much faster the older one gets.

2). People generally tend to get more conservative the older they get.

I can testify to both.

In the late 1970s - I was in high school and beginning college - I was a bona fide liberal. Living off my mother's income, I read books which teachers recommended and I hailed Ted Kennedy as a hero for championing universal health care. I simply didn't have the life experiences that molded the way I think today. Looking back at that young man, I wasn't educated well in critical thinking and it was reflected in my political philosophy. Not helping matters was that my family was apolitical but I heard them speak fondly of FDR.

I voted for Jimmy Carter in 1980 - this is embarrassing to admit but I attended his 1977 presidential Inauguration - and when Ronald Reagan defeated him, I was in near tears. I couldn't tell you why I supported Carter other than I believed he represented the common man. In my head, Democrats were still like Harry Truman and John Kennedy. I wasn't thinking about his positions nor paying attention to the fact that our country was suffering from a national "malaise," double-digit inflation, long lines at the gas pumps and humiliating weakness toward captors of Americans in Iran.

In 1991 the light came on and I crossed over to the "other side." The more I heard from those on the right, the more I realized that conservatives were for the working man. Conservatives, after all, believe in letting me keep more of my money, are less apt to be intrusive in my life and believe that all life is sacred. They are more about empowering parents than the state. They are also not bought and paid for by unions. All those years I should have been paying more attention to James Madison or John Adams and less to Eric Hoffer or Friedrich Nietzsche (of "God is dead" fame.) The quest of our founders was to make this the land of the free, not the land of the overtaxed and government harassed.

Does it trouble you - as it does me - to see a growing segment of Americans expecting ever increasing expectations of their government, like it's some kind of genie in a bottle (with bottomless funds) which can care for all our ills? Does it trouble you that we have a president who wants government to be a societal Robin Hood, to steal from the rich and give to the poor?

The young waiter or waitress who believes that income distribution is good might be taught a lesson by announcing his or her tip will be transferred to the homeless guy outside the restaurant. Or, tell the young student with an entitlement mentality, that he must forfeit his A's and B's to be distributed to the dullards with D's and F's just to make things fair.

In the era of our grandparents, Americans worshiped God at church instead of bowing down at the altar of government as god. Instead of reliance on self and God, Americans rely on government to do it all. Case in point: This sound byte of Peggy Joseph, the black woman who responded euphorically to Obama's election: "I never thought this day would ever happen. I won't have to worry about putting gas in my car. I won't have to worry about paying my mortgage... If I help [Obama], he's gonna help me." If the warning bells don't go off in your head after hearing that, perhaps you're so immersed in that culture of thought that you can't see the reality that voters like Joseph are behaving more like sheep led to the slaughter, contributing to our nation's financial ills.

Can we for once stop and look at what our candidates are saying rather than how they look and sound? Are we really just all about what he or she can do for us? We've indeed strayed far from JFK's clarion call to "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." We've collectively abandoned his call for service and fight to "get what's coming to me."

We now demand that government produce an unqualified guarantee about life itself. Our Founding Fathers spoke of equal opportunities but we expect equal outcomes. Thus, the non-achiever who doesn't get a proper education, work hard or take risk wants the same wealth as the one who does.

We want to be able to own a home when we can't afford one.

We want great pay for non-skilled labor like burger flipping.

We want Big Brother to regulate Happy Meal toys instead of feeding our kids nutritious meals at home.

We mindlessly make credit purchases for luxuries and expect a bail-out when we can't afford our promise to pay.

We want everything - and want it now - and will whip out the plastic to do it, our family budget's be damned.

We want to tax companies of their profits and wonder why they've taken their jobs to other places where there's less regulations and taxes.

We want to behave recklessly in the bedroom and be shielded from unwanted pregnancies or diseases.

We want lower gas prices but we won't allow companies to perform off-shore drilling.

We want lower gas prices but we want to tax those evil companies because of their "obscene profits." (Haven't all those taxes been thrust onto us at the pump?)

We plead leniency for those who illegally cross the border as our public treasuries are depleted of billions for dollars extending services to them.

While one party seeks to restore fiscal sanity to out-of-control budget deficit spending, Congress people like Maxine Waters scream that Republicans want to seniors to eat dog food and women to die.

We demand church and state be separated while our youth lose all hope and shoot up our homes and family members out of need to belong.

We see a member of Congress shot in Tucson and renew demands for gun control instead of realizing laws can't outlaw nut jobs.

We want our kids to be safe but we're unwilling to be the one who cares for them.

We want to be a free society without defending our freedom.

How do you feel? Let Jeff by e-mailing him at jeffb@cerescourier.com