Five Finger Death Punch

So the shit heap called “health care reform” passed the House of Representatives by only a few votes. If Rep. Stupak and his group of 6 hadn't caved to a promise of relevancy, it would have died the death it deserves. But never doubt the ability of politicians to sell principles for peanuts. The reform bill, warts and fixes and all, will become law and we will, for the time being, have to deal with it.

But, in my view, the bill itself is not the problem. It's a big ugly tumor, but there's a underlying cancer eating away at the body of the American people: entitlements. The entitlements craze began under less than ideal circumstances. During the Great Depression, FDR thought the best way to help the economy was to help the people, or so we're told. A massive welfare state was created to give the masses some buoyancy. In a time of mass poverty and unemployment, it's understandable that people would embrace such programs, even if they ended up hurting the economy and prolonging the Depression. After the Second World War and the recovery of the American economy (in no small part due to the destruction of the rest of the world), the entitlements stayed and grew. Social Security ballooned, Medicare was created soon after, welfare expanded; the new wealth American was swimming in was turned into gifts from the state to the people.

But these gifts aren't free, as supporters and receivers like to think. EVERYTHING comes with a cost. EVERYTHING has a price. Your welfare check is money from taxpayers. Grandma's social security is paid for by today's young workers. From the President's salary to your neighbor's new tax credit paid car, EVERYTHING the government gives you is paid for by someone else.

That said, I understand, grudgingly, that our modern society requires some kind of social safety net. There will be people who need some help: the very poor, the very old, the very feeble, etc. There is good cause for a basic social safety net, but there is no cause, no argument, no valid idea that can back the bloated, feces covered, child eating monster that the modern American welfare state is. You can justify giving a check to a widowed grandmother having to raise her dead daughter's kids in a trailer park in Jena, LA. But you can't justify, AT ALL, giving out government checks to well-off seniors dancing the salsa with Palo the Pool Boy on a Caribbean cruise.

Not 3 years ago, the late Ted Kennedy was screeching for the expansion of SCHIP, the child version of Medicare, to middle class families. The middle class is the middle class because it can afford things like coverage for kids. It can afford to pay a mortgage. It can afford many things, just not all things, as the rich can afford. Why in God's name would you expand something made to cover the poorest and weakest of children and expand it to people who don't need it?

Control. Power. Votes. Stone headed ideology. Probably all three mixed in with personal crap we don't really care about. The point is that the entitlements and the social safety net they're based on are unjustifiable and unsustainable. When they first appeared, there were tons of kids to pay for it. The Boomers, my “favorite” generation. Today, the Boomers are getting old and dying off, and America's birthrate is dropping like Nancy Pelosi's cheeks. The crash of entitlements and the social net is unstoppable as long as we keep borrowing, keep spending and keep expanding. Greece, the grandfather of the West, shows what happens when you don't stop the government gravy train from speeding towards oblivion.

Yes, the health care reform bill is a massive mistake, but the real problem, the systemic cancer destroying the fabric of this nation minute by minute, is the culture of entitlement. The culture of wants being turned into needs. The culture of a greedy, narcissistic, unbelievable STUPID generation (and its children) trying to squeeze every benefit it can from the modern world before they pass on. There is no way, no how, no fucking chance that the government, let alone the economy, can handle any more without completely collapsing. I don't want it to happen. I like the world as is, but there needs to be changes, sacrifices and hurt if we're going to stop it from being any worse.

But with a government that thinks like this...

“In doing so, we will honor the vows of our founders, who in the Declaration of Independence said that we are ‘endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’  This legislation will lead to healthier lives, more liberty to pursue hopes and dreams and happiness for the American people.  This is an American proposal that honors the traditions of our country.“

*facepalm* *headdesk* *panface*

...it's going to be a long fight. A very long, hard and ugly fight.

In the clichéd words of Matt Damon's Roy Miller, “Get your game face on.”