Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Ask not what your country can do for you......
Ask what you can do for your country. John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Great quote! One of my favorites. And no one pays any attention to what he meant by that line anymore. No one seems to care about what one can do to help his country because most people are more concerned with getting something for nothing from his country. What can America do for me? Why should I pledge allegiance to this country, it isn't giving me what I need? Me, me me. Crap!
America owes no one anything! More specifically, our government owes no one anything! Why has this gimme attitude developed so strongly in the land of freedom and opportunity? When did the JFK attitude get buried? I have some guesses.
I think the change in people's attitude about what they think the government should be doing began in the early 1900s. The elimination of the appointment of Senators by the individual states and the switch to general elections by the people is one prong. This took away the representation of the states in our federal system and replaced it with the whims of the voters. At about the same time the Federal Government instituted the Income Tax, which gave them an amazing way to generate revenue and fund their ideas on how the Federal Government should control things.
A brief attempt to control the country's morals occurred with Prohibition but thankfully the outrage never died down and wiser minds repealed that failed attempt. It did lead to an organized crime scene that has hampered law enforcement ever since, however. Then came the Great Depression and Franklin Roosevelte. And with his leadership came the onslaught of demands of the government to protect its people's livelihoods and put in place a social safety net. Social Security, TVA projects, various forms of welfare and much of the control and responsibilty people used to assume for their lives became the domain of our protectorate government.
Even so, JFK made his statement in the early 1960s and the meaning actually resonated with the nation at the time. It had a foothold in our mentality but his death seemed to end all of that kind of thought. Lyndon Johnson followed behind him with his Great Society and huge increases in federal spending for all sorts of social projects. And I think it has been all downhill since then.
When I hear a person at, say a town hall meeting, ask the president of the United States why he can't lower the price of gasoline because it is hurting American's pocketbooks, I cringe. It is the mentality leading to the assumption that the government can and should do something about gas prices that makes me queasy. We seem to want to become a Nanny-State. Picture the lady who told Mr. Bush that she really didn't want to have to worry about her retirement. She wanted the government to just take care of that annoyance for her. It is beneath her to plan for her future retirement needs. Just give me what I need when I need it.
People are amazing! I have a theory I'm working on about how this country is destroying itself because our citizens are becoming increasingly stupid. We breed stupidity and encourage it daily. We don't encourage rational, independent thought, we encourage dependence on some agency of the government to handle all problems for us. We want what we want when we want it and we refuse to take responsibilty for creating the proper environment for it or doing the correct actions to make happen a certain outcome that we desire. It's not my fault.
How many times have I heard that excuse? It's not my fault. I didn't mean to jump on that girl from the stairway and kill her. I was just acting out like a professional wrestler does. I didn't know I would hurt her. It's not my fault. They should tell us that acting like a wrestler with a 5 year old girl would be harmful to her. How was I supposed to know that if the government didn't tell me?
Lack of responsibilty. A major, major problem in this country. A major problem throughout the civilized world, I venture, but it is this country I care about. Blaming someone else for your mistakes is so childish and so obviously wrong that I can't understand how this approach became so popular. It makes no sense to me. And I'm the one who came to the common sense scene later in life. I have never had a problem with taking responsibility for my actions. My parents raised me better than that.
So please don't tell me what you want from our government. Unless what you want is less government and less intrusion, I don't care. I can take care of myself and if I don't do a very good job, then I will take the blame for failing and suffer accordingly. No man is an island, he is a peninsula. We need the aid and comfort of our friends and family. We don't need no stinking Nanny-State. We need to make it on our own without asking for government help.
Is that asking too much?
OH
Great quote! One of my favorites. And no one pays any attention to what he meant by that line anymore. No one seems to care about what one can do to help his country because most people are more concerned with getting something for nothing from his country. What can America do for me? Why should I pledge allegiance to this country, it isn't giving me what I need? Me, me me. Crap!
America owes no one anything! More specifically, our government owes no one anything! Why has this gimme attitude developed so strongly in the land of freedom and opportunity? When did the JFK attitude get buried? I have some guesses.
I think the change in people's attitude about what they think the government should be doing began in the early 1900s. The elimination of the appointment of Senators by the individual states and the switch to general elections by the people is one prong. This took away the representation of the states in our federal system and replaced it with the whims of the voters. At about the same time the Federal Government instituted the Income Tax, which gave them an amazing way to generate revenue and fund their ideas on how the Federal Government should control things.
A brief attempt to control the country's morals occurred with Prohibition but thankfully the outrage never died down and wiser minds repealed that failed attempt. It did lead to an organized crime scene that has hampered law enforcement ever since, however. Then came the Great Depression and Franklin Roosevelte. And with his leadership came the onslaught of demands of the government to protect its people's livelihoods and put in place a social safety net. Social Security, TVA projects, various forms of welfare and much of the control and responsibilty people used to assume for their lives became the domain of our protectorate government.
Even so, JFK made his statement in the early 1960s and the meaning actually resonated with the nation at the time. It had a foothold in our mentality but his death seemed to end all of that kind of thought. Lyndon Johnson followed behind him with his Great Society and huge increases in federal spending for all sorts of social projects. And I think it has been all downhill since then.
When I hear a person at, say a town hall meeting, ask the president of the United States why he can't lower the price of gasoline because it is hurting American's pocketbooks, I cringe. It is the mentality leading to the assumption that the government can and should do something about gas prices that makes me queasy. We seem to want to become a Nanny-State. Picture the lady who told Mr. Bush that she really didn't want to have to worry about her retirement. She wanted the government to just take care of that annoyance for her. It is beneath her to plan for her future retirement needs. Just give me what I need when I need it.
People are amazing! I have a theory I'm working on about how this country is destroying itself because our citizens are becoming increasingly stupid. We breed stupidity and encourage it daily. We don't encourage rational, independent thought, we encourage dependence on some agency of the government to handle all problems for us. We want what we want when we want it and we refuse to take responsibilty for creating the proper environment for it or doing the correct actions to make happen a certain outcome that we desire. It's not my fault.
How many times have I heard that excuse? It's not my fault. I didn't mean to jump on that girl from the stairway and kill her. I was just acting out like a professional wrestler does. I didn't know I would hurt her. It's not my fault. They should tell us that acting like a wrestler with a 5 year old girl would be harmful to her. How was I supposed to know that if the government didn't tell me?
Lack of responsibilty. A major, major problem in this country. A major problem throughout the civilized world, I venture, but it is this country I care about. Blaming someone else for your mistakes is so childish and so obviously wrong that I can't understand how this approach became so popular. It makes no sense to me. And I'm the one who came to the common sense scene later in life. I have never had a problem with taking responsibility for my actions. My parents raised me better than that.
So please don't tell me what you want from our government. Unless what you want is less government and less intrusion, I don't care. I can take care of myself and if I don't do a very good job, then I will take the blame for failing and suffer accordingly. No man is an island, he is a peninsula. We need the aid and comfort of our friends and family. We don't need no stinking Nanny-State. We need to make it on our own without asking for government help.
Is that asking too much?
OH
# posted by OH @ 7:33 AM 
Comments:
<< Home
I hear what you're saying about the "It's not my fault" syndrome. Everyone's got a stupid excuse for why they do idiotic things. I once read a story about a guy who sued a lawnmower manufacturer because he had lost some fingers cleaning the blades of the lawnmower after they had gotten clogged with grass. The trouble was, he neglected to turn the lawnmower off first. Even though I personally think he should have been nominated for a Darwin award, he actually won his lawsuit because the manual that came with the lawnmower failed to warn him to turn it off before cleaning the blades. Only in America.
Post a Comment
<< Home
