Am I in Hell?

Lately I've been looking around and wondering what happened to the world that I grew up in. Most of the old faces, places and names are still there but everything has changed. Sometimes I wonder if I died or traveled through a black hole into a parallel universe. I hardly recognize anything familiar around me.

The city where I grew up was a typical mid-western community with thousands of manufacturing jobs where one could start and maintain a decent life if you were willing to show up and work every day. After a few years you could get married, buy a house and have children. The local government picked up the trash, maintained roads and sent criminals to jail. Civility and common sense prevailed in the public domain.

Most of the manufacturing jobs in my city are gone and with them the wages that start a good life. A home and marriage is out of the question for most young people , so out of wedlock children are the rule. Courts make the decisions and government pays the bills for children.
Meanwhile, government struggles to pick up the trash, maintain roads and annoy criminals a little before making excuses to put them back in society.

Public shame prevented most irresponsible behaviors. It was shameful to get pregnant out of wedlock, get divorced, get fired, go bankrupt, commit crimes or ask for a handout. Both family and community expected you to do your civic duty. If you behaved irresponsibly, you would suffer.
Now shameful behavior is sought-after for fortune and fame. Popular songs are sung about criminal and whorish acts. Boogers and shit are wiped on the walls of public facilities while the courts release roadkill sodomites back on the streets. We live in a cesspool.

In the 1970s, everything started to change for the worse. Irresponsible behaviors such as out of wedlock birth, divorce and drug abuse became common place. Hiring quotas put women and minorities into jobs that they couldn't or wouldn't do, making it impossible for employers to enforce workplace rules and discipline. In response, employers began replacing people with technology, eliminating good paying jobs.
Public handouts became institutionalized and common. It was no longer shameful to abuse drugs or alcohol, have a baby out of wedlock or get a divorce then ask for a public handout. Eventually, irresponsible behavior became a career choice for many women and minorities. Now business, local government and your neighbors all line up with their hand stretched out, asking for other people's money. The social contract that served us well for a couple hundred years is shredded on the floor.

In 2009, irresponsibility rules. There is no shame whatsoever. Do your thing. Never mind the consequences, someone else will clean up the mess. If it even is a mess.
Banks gamble investors savings, corporate executives loot their own companies, governments lie to the public while suburban teenage girls post videotape of themselves sucking gansta cock on a whim: then all demand respect.

I didn't even recognize Thanksgiving this year, as my grandsons were shuffled around to meet their court ordered holiday custody obligations. We squeezed in a late dinner for tired and full boys. No time for after dinner chat, as everyone had things to do that evening or in the morning. My wife worked for hours to create a dinner that lasted less than an hour.

Talking with coworkers Friday, their Thanksgiving experience was similar. A family get-together is rare because there are few conventional families anymore. Just bits and pieces with court ordered obligations and temporary connections.
Mostly my coworkers talked about mass hysteria shopping that they had done before work or would do after work. Good deals for them or gifts for the bits and pieces that they hoped to see for a few minutes at Christmas. Most were shocked that I wasn't going shopping, thinking it was irresponsible of me to miss all those great deals on things no one needs.
Perhaps our culture should rename Thanksgiving to EatBeforeShopping and Christmas to BuyABunchOfCrap. Both names would be more descriptive of the meaning of the holidays.

I'm a stranger in the land of my birth. Everything I was raised to believe in is gone. What is left looks like my old world but is changed into something I no longer recognize. Am I in hell?

No Flag over the Bruig

I hauled down my American flag today, had my wife wash and fold it respectfully and put it in a storage tote. There it will stay until we get our republic back from the likes of the grovelling shoeshine boy to the left. I am just disgusted by this metro-sexual piece of dog shit. El presidente calls me a tea-bagger while he bows to the Japanese emperor and, earlier this year, to the Saudi king.

My wife had argued previously that we should keep the flag up for what it used to stand for. But even my non-political wife agrees that this country has become something different. The flag is boxed up with things from our past.

My grandson and I watch the Goodnight Show on Sprout TV, a offshoot of PBS, where Nina teaches American children that they need to learn Spanish words. Over on Nick, the newest cartoon heros are Dora the explorer and Diego the animal rescuer. They too are insistent that little gringos learn to speak Spanish. Dragon Tales added a wise little latino boy to help the stupid American cartoon kids figure things out. Why do American children need to learn Spanish? Are we planning on becoming a province of Mexico?

El presidente just can't seem to make a decision on whether he should follow military advice and beef up the number of troops in Afghanistan or just let them get picked off a few at a time until we withdraw sometime down the road. Since the shoeshine boy doesn't want them to kill the enemy, I think he should just bring them home where they might be safe unless a American army jihadi decides to start shooting them like fish in a barrel on a US base. But he doesn't want to rush to judgement like he did with the racist Cambridge police. Tis better to dither while Americans die.
But el presidente will rush forward at lightning speed to pass soviet-style health care legislation or nationalize American assets. After all, the real enemy is racist white folk that must be demoralized, humiliated, looted and killed to set history right.

I want my republic back.

Our American Soviet Government

Reading the news this week, I'm starting to believe that I'm living in country whose leadership wants to re-create the Soviet Union.

House democrats want to pass legislation that requires Americans to buy congressionaly approved health insurance or go to prison. The insurance coverage that congess is mandating would cost $15000 per year for a married couple. Employers would be forced to provide mandated insurance, increasing their costs in the midst of a near economic depression. For many employers, this will mean staff reductions. For employees with health insurance, this will most likely result in higher monthly premiums and copays. For those already on government sponsored insurance, the status quo will continue. But the self-employed will suffer and many will go out of business.

Our government is treating us as children who must be told what to do, what to buy and what to think. Americans are no longer responsible, adult citizens that can look after their own best interests. Instead, we are children that must be ordered about by the nanny state.

The deaths of 13 US soldiers at Fort Hood was the result of our politically correct, nanny government forcing Americans to abandon common sense and allow the enemy to serve in our military. Could you imagine the military being forced to enlist Nazis during Word War 2? All the signs that Hasan was a jihadist were there for anyone to see but no-one acted because of political correctness. The soldiers that died were in fact murdered by the US government.

Meanwhile our dear leader dithers while the military situation in Afghanistan deteriorates. In my mind, every death of an American soldier because of idiotic rules of engagement is blood on the presidente's hands. This jackass couldn't run a group of referrees at a youth soccer game let alone the US military. Bring them home now so they can at least die on American bases at the hands of jihadists.

Meanwhile the government was surprised that unemployment exceeded 10%. Yep, surprised. This news undercuts their spin that the economy is improving. Some think we are in real trouble.
I agree with pundits who believe that the real unemployment rate is closer to 20% when you consider under-employment. Many people are working fewer hours for fewer dollars or have just retired early when they would have liked to work longer.
The government considers me employed even though I'm a contract employee with no benefits making 2/3 what I was worth two years ago. The government won't be harvesting big tax receipts from me based upon what I'm earning this year. And if things don't improve, they will never see benefits of my labor.

So, we have a government that lies to us, tells us what to do and think, threatens us with prison and kills us with political correctness. Sounds like the Soviet government. I didn't sign up to be communist slave. Push is coming to shove and when it does we will see if the American people are made of the same stern stuff as our ancestors. I don't know, but we shall see.