Shame on my Christian principles. Huh.

Hey, I contributed to Kinky in 2004. I’m STILL getting spam from that guy!

I promise, though…no more political ads.

I re-thought my last tome. I have oversimplified things a bit. However, I really do believe this is the land of opportunity and if a college dropout like me, with about half a brain and a serious case of A- D- D- (”attention-deficit-dat’s a nice tie you got on”) can manage to support himself, then anyone with a healthy body and the will to do so should be able to follow suit.

I have a great deal of compassion for people. Yes, I open my door to anyone and would give anyone who really needed it a job if they asked. I do it all the time. I have hired people on the spot to wash sidewalks or weed flower beds at my shopping center, even though I enjoy doing those things myself. I have a twice-convicted drug dealer building fences and doing other chores for me at the ranch; I hired him because he told me the truth about his past, showed me the letter from the DA demanding he pay back child support for his 7 kids…I’m not making this up….and I hired him. Not for minimum wage…I pay him almost double that, and give him extra money for fuel when I call him out for something special because he lives 18 miles away. I buy his lunch every day when I’m there and he’s working. None of this makes me a good person; I get value from his work. My point is, here’s a guy that could be on unemployment waiting for the government to help him. He just came out of prison having done 8 years so he has no job history. The tattoo on his neck, which he got in prison, would prevent him from working almost anywhere…you don’t often see WalMart greeters with Nazi sculls on their necks. But he’s my employee and my friend and I trust him because I believe he’s paid his debt to society and he wants to do something better for himself and his kids. After all, this is America.

My point is — and I’m sure you were wondering if I had one — is that the government isn’t there for us as a hammock; it’s a safety net. Hammocks are seductive, but not so great for permanent bedding.

People need the dignity of not being on government assistance if they’re able to work. A dollar earned is worth more than 2 dollars handed to someone.

That said, Rush Limbaugh is wrong when he claims every American should be able to either buy health insurance in a competitive market or do without it. The fact is, too many kids in too many poor families won’t ever have health insurance unless there’s a public option, a safety net for those who can’t help themselves. And this country is strong enough, even in its weakened condition, to do that for them. I don’t mind paying a little more, even having a little less perfect health care, to help make that happen… that doesn’t make me a very good Republican in some eyes, but I couldn’t care less. In fact, I might just care a little more.

Helen

I was talking with a friend today, who lost his job not long after I did. He has started night school to begin a new career and, in two years, he hopes to get a job that will pay him approximately 25% of what he and his family have become accustomed to living on. He’s fifty-three years old, with a mortgage and a kid in college.

And thanks for the generous offer to wash your windows, Kent, but even “a fair price” won’t really get me on the road to recovery. I’ve got a kid starting college this fall, too, and a mortgage, and I don’t really see polishing your cars as a pathway to a new and prosperous career. There’s a huge difference between taking whatever work you can find as a young man, whose only concern is some extra “school clothes” – and starting over in a carwash as a middle-aged man with a family to take care of. That may be why you’re getting “very few knocks at your door.”

So, for all of you still lucky enough to have your jobs, and are sick and tired of us freeloaders living the high life on your tax dollars, bite me! If you really think anyone prefers living on unemployment benefits to having a good job, get fired, file a claim, kick back and join us. See what you think. It’s free money. And you don’t even have to work for it. It’s really sweet!

Cuba has a huge middle class, free health care, and no horrible rich people cruising around in Bentleys.

Scores of Cubans die each year trying to paddle a raft to Florida.

Duh.

I like all three of those things.

Anyone with a dream, energy and passion can achieve success in America unless physical or mental limitations block that opportunity. We have 9% unemployment here, but we’re extending unemployment benefits to all those unemployed people for more than a year, and that ought to be enough time to start a business or find a job in America, still the greatest land of opportunity in the world. I have grass that needs cutting, cars that need polishing and windows that someone can clean, and I’m willing to pay a fair price for any unemployed person who asks me for the opportunity. I get very few knocks at my door, because it’s easier to draw unemployment than to lower your standard of living, start at the bottom, and work your way back, like I did as a young man. I washed cars for a living for a dollar an hour to buy school clothes, and it made me a better person.

Big picture: Economies, like the tides of an ocean, naturally ebb and flow both ways (dramatically and resolutely) like a pendulum. Whoever is in power gets blamed for the ebbs when it goes badly and credit for the flows when it goes well, but it’s not all their doing – - – not by any means. There’s so much blame on both sides of the political aisles for the current recession, that nobody can claim victory or defeat based on whether they’re conservative or liberal. Don’t even get me started on Barney Frank and “home loans for the needy” – - – so I won’t have to hear about Bush being the devil incarnate. Deal?

Caution, REALITY CHECK approaching > > > > > >

Please don’t tell me we need to look at all the wealth in America as “our (collective) abundance” and think it’s our job to start “carving it up equitably.” Russia tried that, boy….they really gave that thinking a chance to succeed…and it didn’t work over there. What makes you think it would work over here? That thinking is straight out of the Karl Marx play-book, and it may look good on paper but, maybe because people aren’t ants, it isn’t workable.

Take away a person’s motivation to achieve and eliminate the need to achieve and we will have a nation that sadly can’t achieve because it won’t achieve. Don’t take my word for it…look at any Communist country anywhere in the world, past or present.

Respectfully, your humble comrade,

Kent

For now, let’s not look at the number of people with mental illness or disabilities who living on the streets. Let’s talk about people who are capable of working and do not work because they want welfare (which by the way is a thing of the past.) In 1996 welfare was replaced with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). In this Bill Clinton plan, people who were unemployed were provided services to become employed. Twenty hours out of every week had to be spent at either seeking a job, seeking job skills, or taking classes.(Teach them how to fish.) These people are only allowed 5 years to take advantage of TANF. After 5 years they are not allowed to keep living on the “dole.” Did you know this? I did, because I have worked with helping people find jobs who are on TANF. Again look at today, not 1930. Socialism, communism are all fear tactics that so many conservatives push off as reality. What about the theory of abundance? Now we may have to define abundance according to Madoff or Mother Teresa? Now that is black and white.
Helen

Just kidding…but it’s the losers feeding them I’m worried about…lol

Anyway, below is something someone sent me recently which lets you know why I choose to be a conservative. I don’t want to me homogenized, pasteurized, and slathered with morter so I can be just another brick in the wall, to quote Pink Floyd*

*(this is for old people who know who Pink Floyd is).

This is what a friend forwarded to me yesterday:

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had
never failed a single student before but had once failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism worked and that no one
would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on
Obama’s plan”. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the
same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B.

The students who studied hard were upset – and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and
the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D!
No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted
in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed; to their great surprise! Then the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail becausewhen the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great ~ but when government takes all the reward away
no one will try ~ or even have a desire ~ to succeed.

(back to live action here) So, friends, it didn’t work for the USSR in the 50s and 60s and it won’t work here. Take away motivation and all you have left are bricks in the wall…

including a few “clinkers” now and then.

If the mortar fits, wear it.

All the best for America’s recovery and success,

Kent

PS Just read one of David’s articles “A Few Things they don’t tell you in Parenting Class” and it made me a little bit emotional…I knew that old bastard had a sensitive side, but I didn’t know I had one…. lol