RANT: Entitlement Is NOT Your Right Some things make my blood boil. Boiling blood typically leads to a rant.

Hey all of you "Gen Y"ers or whatever you are called. The 25-and-unders of the world. Those born after 1984, the later the worse. Listen up: You are NOT entitled to just about anything.. I know you think you are, but you are wrong. You are not guaranteed happiness, you are only guaranteed the pursuit of it. The government is not your long lost rich grandparents that will sweep your problems under the rug if you slack off or screw things up. By simply being alive in the United States, you do not necessarily get a free place to live. You do not get to reap of the nation's bounty and eat to your fill. It is not any government's job to take care of your children. School is not a daycare. Even if you stay at home with the kids, the government should not pay you to babysit your own.

Life is hard! Grow up and realize your own personal responsibility! It is the fault of nobody else that you did not study in school and now you aren't qualified for a high paying job. If you got pregnant at 16 years old - buck up and realize it is your responsibility and you really should have just left your panties on. Whoopsie.

What happens when 30 million elderly and needy are on so much expensive medication and hospitalization that Medicaid and Medicare starts costing the government 30 or 40% of the money it can possibly provide? Guess what? It's almost there. At some point the government can't just put a band aid on everything to make it all better. You can wait until the entire system collapses or you can cut out a little bit of what everybody seems to feel entitled to. Is it harsh? Yes - but better than the long-term alternatives.

Let's get back to the modern-day high schoolers and the even younger brats. Don't tell me about the exceptions, there are exceptions to every stereotype. Mommy and daddy don't have to get you everything. You actually don't need a cell phone - and you definitely don't need a texting package. You don't need brand name clothing to survive. Owning every video game system and game gives you bragging rights, but it is a lucky privilege. Driving a car is a privilege, not a right. Go cry about it - nobody is gonna get you a freaking pony.

What about schools that no longer post "Honor Roll" boards on the walls of the school because it will make Johnny or Suzy depressed that they couldn't make the grades. Boo-hoo. Sports that don't keep score so there aren't any losers. Now nobody has any motivation to achieve anything. Now nobody gains any character because apparently the average human has become too frail over the past couple of decades to handle any sort of hardship. If there are no losers then there are no winners. If nobody wins then there's no point to even playing. No wonder the masses are full of unmotivated zombies that aimlessly wander through "life". Everything has become ambiguous and numbed, dulled and jaded. Get off your lazy butt and doing something useful for once.

Labels: entitlement, poverty, rants, responsibility

  ¶ 10:43 AM 9 Comments

  What Would You Do As President? A bunch of people responded to the question What would you do as president of the United States of America?

I compiled a list of some of the interesting responses here (I'll be talking about a few of these in detail in a future post). I don't necessarily agree with all of these, but they are interesting to think about -- even if many are not feasible.

• Social Security and Medicare stop. You can stay on, but if you are under 40... you can forget ever using them. They are entitlement and bankrupting the government
• Congress now has a term limit. Lets say... 15 years.
• Cable lines are nationalized. Comcast et al can lease them from the government. Heck, you can use them for free. We need competition.
• Net neutrality is mandatory. If you degrade someone else's service because it competes with your own, you get fined BIG.
• Drivers licenses get harder to get and keep. Too many morons on cell phones that need to learn it's not a right.
• If you get caught in the country illegally, you get thrown out. Today. No questions... you're on the plane. Each time you sneek in, we send you farther away. If you've been here over 5 years and can speak English, you can stay. You're not a citizen. You're on a permanent visa. No voting. If you want citizenship, you can go back to your country and apply like everyone else.
• English is the national language. You want a government document in something else? Too bad, go to a country that speaks that language.
• Mandatory civil service. We can talk about giving you college tuition, but you serve. It can be military, or it can be civil (be a meter maid, that's fine with me). You will do something to give back to your country for a little while.
• Voting districts are now drawn by computer based on population and area. No more rigging that. You can't do it by race. You can't do it by party affiliation. If the seat isn't competitive, then we change the district to make it more competitive.
• Voting tests. They may have a really bad rap, but that's OK with me. Nothing complex, just some simple stuff. You have to be able to read at a 6th grade level. This discriminated against blacks because it was illegal to teach them to read. These days if you can't read, you can't participate effectively in politics. You also have to pass a ludicrously simple geography test. They will always change so you can't easily be taught to the test. If you can't find Canada on a map, you can't vote in the US.
• Able-bodied welfare recipients using benefits for greater than 12 months of the previous 4 years lose the right to vote.
• You can't get divorced without 6 months of good marriage counseling, preferable faith-based (you choose the faith, obviously). The one exception is abuse. If there is abuse, you can leave today. We'll help. But if you accuse abuse and it is proven that you lied, you're locked up.
• Also on the marriage front, you can't get married without at least a few sessions of marriage counseling. Talk about kids, values, in-laws, sex, where you want to live, religion, and everything else. The divorce rate is too high, and I see it as causing too many problems. These last two are designed to help lower that and improve things.
• There is a lot I don't like about the education system. We can try many different things to fix that. But if you cause too many problems schools should be able to kick you out. If you are that problematic your parents can educate you (or find someone else to). Stop ruining it for everyone else.
• Speaking of schools, let's partially privatize them. Similar to vouchers, the parents of the students can decide semester by semester where to send their kids. Schools get reimbursement based on their popularity and testing rates. Some privatization needs to occur to make education more efficiently run.
• If you don't like high school, that's OK, you can quit. As soon as you hit... let's say 10th grade... you can choose. You can continue on college prep (which is what most high schools are at this point) or you can go to a trade school. It's your choice. If you change your mind you can always get your GED later.
• File all the lawsuits you want. But if they are proven frivolous, you're paying for court costs (capped to keep things reasonable). You can't sue everyone, hope something sticks, and get away paying nothing anymore.
• Reverse laws that punish victimless crimes.
• Pardon and release non-violent drug offenders to help with prison overcrowding - stick 'em with a fine instead.
• Revise the tax code to bring fairness and relief to the working/middle classes
• Legalize ALL drugs (this includes regulation and taxation. Want to end the illegal drug trade? This is the fastest way.)
• Require all able-bodied citizens between ages 18 and 35 (male and female) to undergo military bootcamp. This is NOT a draft however; after going through bootcamp, you are not required to serve in the military.
• Abolish the two-party system
• Erase all censorship from all media...This includes: Internet, Television, print, video games, music, etc.
• Build a border-spanning fence. Every 75 miles, have a reinforced entry way in which people are allowed through.
• Require that any immigrants that enter the US to be able to speak English prior to being granted citizenship.
• Create a program that would be known as "If you can't feed em, don't breed em". Welfare drastically reduces for each additional child, hitting zero additional benefit after the third child.
• I would legalize hemp for industrial uses. There are so many great industrial uses for hemp that it is absolutely stupid not to be using it.
• Create a new government department who's purpose is to remove, regulate, or severly limit government programs and departments that are unnecessary, outdated, or are full of too much glut. Every government program gets increasingly bloated and expensive as time goes on, and it will continue to do so if there is not revolution or an active force combating it.
• Remove all religious persecution on the law books. The separation of church and state means faith-based institutions and leaders do not have direct political power. It has nothing to do with christmas trees, prayer in schools, putting a picture of Ghandi in a walkway, Halloween, or singing songs that may or may not have originated within a specific faith. It comes down to individuals and their beliefs, not institutions regulating these activities.

You can read more at slashdot

Labels: drugs, education, government, law, politics, rants, taxes, welfare

  ¶ 12:43 PM 3 Comments