The articles in newspapers and online keep appearing, “proving” it’s Liberals who creates classes. It’s all our fault. My fault. I’ve done it by sucking the economy dry with all the benefits I get, all my entitlements. In the view of conservatives and most of the GOP, if we were all conservatives, there would be no classes. All men (but not women, I suspect) would really be equal.
It worked brilliantly for Louis XVI, so it ought to work in the U.S.A., right?
I have a flash for conservatives trying to prove the unprovable. Classes didn’t start here. They existed long before this country’s birth. Before there was even the concept of democracy, before elections or political parties. To say anything else is absurd and displays a level of willful ignorance that’s hard to accept. Well, hard for me to accept, anyhow. But then again, I’ve read a few books, know a bit of history. It’s obviously warped my point of view.
Reality Check
Classes exist in the United States because:
- Some people have a lot and too many others have little or nothing
- Our shameful legacy of slavery, genocide and oppression of all non-white and non-Christian people
- Laws are not enforced equally and never were.
- Classes exist. Always have, always will.
This quote from a popular columnist in the Washington Post makes me grind my teeth. Apparently facts, history, logic and reason are irrelevant:
The real tension in America today is not about black versus white but about liberalism versus conservatism.
Liberalism is about government as a political agent, not as a protector of individual freedom. By it’s very nature, liberalism creates political classes – whether based on race or gender or business interests. Those that get the goodies are happy. Those that pay for them are not. Tensions and animosities get worse, not better.
In the end, we all suffer because giving politicians more power means less growth and prosperity.
Things will never get solved until we finally take “e pluribus unum” seriously – that American diversity can only be finally united through one set of values, under God (Note: Whose God? Yours? Mine?), that enable freedom, one set of true (Note: Define true, please.) values for all.
Really? I thought it was about poor versus rich, haves versus the have-nots. You know, the way it’s always been throughout history. Or have we decided that anything that didn’t happen before the last presidential election no longer counts? Shall we exclude all history that fails to agree with this single point of view?
Get the goodies? What goodies? Wait a damned minute. To what goodies do you refer?
You mean the Social Security and Medicare for which I paid for more than 40 years? I thought this was my money coming back to me as promised. My husband and I during our working years paid more in taxes than most people earn. Than most couples earn. We paid without complaint because that’s the way it is. And shockingly, we paid without complaint because we could and knew there were plenty of people who had nothing. We never minded sharing the wealth. How weird is that, eh?
Are they referring to free public education? Paved roads? Medical care so I don’t have to worry I’ll die for lack of money to pay the doctor? What other goodies do I, or anyone else, get? You mean food stamps so really poor people and their children don’t starve? Those goodies? How about educational programs to help people develop skills to earn a living wage? Are those the goodies creating classes in this country?
What piece of the government’s infrastructure should we eliminate? How about student loans? State colleges? Hell, let’s just get rid of all free or subsidized public education. We can follow China’s fine example and put those lazy six-year olds to work in factories. Let’em eat cake, I say.
Let’s return to those Dickensian days of yore when only the wealthy could afford an education. Bring back workhouses, eliminate child labor laws, ban labor unions, dump the 40 hours week and go back to the good old days when the boss had all the power and working people no power or legal recourse. Let’s reset the clock to restore the dominion everybody by the rich and privileged few.
I am so tired of hearing about my entitlements. My husband and I worked our butts off for 40 plus years. The little bit we get back now will never equal the amount we contributed, but I’ll shut up about the unfairness of that if you’ll shut up about my “entitlements.” As a matter of fact, please, just shut up. Your silence would suit me well.
Until you have walked in my shoes, or better yet, until you have lost your shoes and had to walk barefoot and hungry, shut up.
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