What Do You Think That I Owe You?

Posted Thursday, October 22, 2009, at 8:01 AM

The title question is one that I have asked people over the years when they fell on hard times, came to me for help through the rough spot, and then stopped trying help themselves, becoming dependent on me to provide for their subsistence while they used their assets for their enjoyment. We all go through rough spots in our lives where we need some help from other people, but when or if a person stops trying to make it on their own and begin to take advantage they no longer need help. At that point, they need motivation to provide for their needs and wants on their own. The best thing that you can do for them is to say "NO!" My asking of that question is my way of saying it and, to date, no one has ever been able to show that I am indebted to him or her when I ask it.

I ask it now as a member of the public to the people who have made welfare a way of life. What do we owe you if you are not going to help yourself? If you need a job, an education, or anything else to live, it is up to you to do it or starve.

I received welfare benefits during two periods of my life. The first time, I worked my out of the system and the last time I had to go on VA Disability but even now I could find ways of supporting myself at a subsistence level without a government check. I did something during my life to qualify for VA and Social Security benefits that I ended up needing, but it irks me to see people who appear to believe that the world owes them life with little or no effort on their part.

One of the arguments for "turning a blind eye" to illegal immigration is that these people do the work that Americans will not do. Why won't Americans work? Is it because they will be fed, housed, and otherwise provided for even if they don't? It doesn't take any education to pick fruit, chop cotton, or dig ditches, but after a few days of doing it to have a bowl of beans you will be motivated to improve yourself.

Americans, if you are fit and able enough to get off your butts, it is time to do so! It is time to be independent rather than dependent if you can. We, the public, are willing to give you a hand for a time, but there is a point where the handout stops. Some of you are way beyond that point.

What say you?

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I say that I totally agree with you Leo!!! Great Blog!

-- Posted by karenmeister on Thu, Oct 22, 2009, at 10:19 AM

Take the three minutes to read this.

Maybe he is wrong.

What if he is right?

His latest attempt to indoctrinate the children is TOO TELLING. JT

David Kaiser is a respected historian whose published works have covered a broad range of topics, from European Warfare to American League Baseball. Born in 1947, the son of a diplomat, Kaiser spent his childhood in three capital cities: Washington D.C. , Albany , New York , and Dakar , Senegal .. He attended Harvard University , graduating there in 1969 with a B.A. in history. He then spent several years more at Harvard, gaining a PhD in history, which he obtained in 1976. He served in the Army Reserve from 1970 to 1976.

He is a professor in the Strategy and Policy Department of the United States Naval War College. He has previously taught at Carnegie Mellon, Williams College and Harvard University . Kaiser's latest book, The Road to Dallas, about the Kennedy assassination, was just published by Harvard University Press.

Dr. David Kaiser

History Unfolding

I am a student of history. Professionally, I have written 15 books on history that have been published in six languages, and I have studied history all my life. I have come to think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is simply a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes these exist, but they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper focus.

Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it. Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for about ten to fifteen years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.

We demand and then codify into law the requirement that our banks make massive loans to people we know they can never pay back? Why?

We learned just days ago that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real oversight by anyone, has "loaned" two trillion dollars (that is $2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, but will not tell us to whom or why or disclose the terms. That is our money. Yours and mine. And that is three times the $700 billion we all argued about so strenuously just this past September. Who has this money? Why do they have it? Why are the terms unavailable to us? Who asked for it? Who authorized it? I thought this was a government of "we the people," who loaned our powers to our elected leaders. Apparently not.

We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our economy.. Why?

We have intentionally dumbed down our schools, ignored our history, and no longer teach our founding documents, why we are exceptional, and why we are worth preserving. Students by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or articulate. Parents are not revolting, teachers are not picketing, school boards continue to back mediocrity.. Why?

We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election (violently in California over a proposition that is so controversial that it simply wants marriage to remain defined as between one man and one woman. Did you ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago?) We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing unelected judges to write laws that radically change our way of life, and then mainstream Marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting system into a banana republic. To what purpose?

Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices are in free fall, major industries are failing, our banking system is on the verge of collapse, social security is nearly bankrupt, as is Medicare and our entire government. Our education system is worse than a joke (I teach college and I know precisely what I am talking about) - the list is staggering in its length, breadth, and depth.. It is potentially 1929 x ten...And we are at war with an enemy we cannot even name for fear of offending people of the same religion, who, in turn, cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so.

And finally, we have elected a man that no one really knows anything about, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big as Wasilla , Alaska . All of his associations and alliances are with real radicals in their chosen fields of employment, and everything we learn about him, drip by drip, is unsettling if not downright scary (Surely you have heard him speak about his idea to create and fund a mandatory civilian defense force stronger than our military for use inside our borders? No? Oh, of course. The media would never play that for you over and over and then demand he answer it. Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter and $150,000 wardrobe are more important.)

Mr. Obama's winning platform can be boiled down to one word: Change. Why?

I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children as I am now.

This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never, ever done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure. Change is indeed coming. And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again.

And that is only the beginning..

As a serious student of history, I thought I would never come to experience what the ordinary, moral German must have felt in the mid-1930s In those times, the "savior" was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing. What they should have known was that he was associated with groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom they disagreed; he edged his way onto the political stage through great oratory. Conservative "losers" read it right now.

And there were the promises. Economic times were tough, people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he smiled and frowned and waved a lot. And people, even newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fear that his "brown shirts" would bully and beat them into submission. Which they did - regularly. And then, he was duly elected to office, while a full-throttled economic crisis bloomed at hand - the Great Depression. Slowly, but surely he seized the controls of government power, person by person, department by department, bureaucracy by bureaucracy. The children of German citizens were at first, encouraged to join a Youth Movement in his name where they were taught exactly what to think.. Later, they were required to do so. No Jews of course,

How did he get people on his side? He did it by promising jobs to the jobless, money to the money-less, and rewards for the military-industrial complex. He did it by indoctrinating the children, advocating gun control, health care for all, better wages, better jobs, and promising to re-instill pride once again in the country, across Europe , and across the world. He did it with a compliant media - did you know that? And he did this all in the name of justice and .... change. And the people surely got what they voted for.

If you think I am exaggerating, look it up. It's all there in the history books.

So read your history books. Many people of conscience objected in 1933 and were shouted down, called names, laughed at, and ridiculed. When Winston Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s while seated in the House of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he was booed into his seat and called a crazy troublemaker. He was right, though. And the world came to regret that he was not listened to.

Do not forget that Germany was the most educated, the most cultured country in Europe . It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories, and universities. And yet, in less than six years (a shorter time span than just two terms of the U. S. presidency) it was rounding up its own citizens, killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents, and neighbors against neighbors.. All with the best of intentions, of course. The road to Hell is paved with them.

As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have a choice: I can either believe what the objective pieces of evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe with disgust); I can believe what history is shouting to me from across the chasm of seven decades; or I can hope I am wrong by closing my eyes, having another latte, and ignoring what is transpiring around me..

I choose to believe the evidence. No doubt some people will scoff at me, others laugh, or think I am foolish, naive, or both. To some degree, perhaps I am. But I have never been afraid to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I believe-and why I believe it.

I pray I am wrong. I do not think I am. Perhaps the only hope is our vote in the next elections.

-- Posted by IHMagnum on Thu, Oct 22, 2009, at 11:28 AM

So IHMagnum what does your Glen Beck type rant have to do with Leo's Blog?

-- Posted by BackHomeAgain on Thu, Oct 22, 2009, at 2:54 PM

I think he is trying to say: "Those who do not revere history are doomed to repeat it." Then, he proved it to us with just that, real history.

-- Posted by karenmeister on Thu, Oct 22, 2009, at 5:44 PM

But I say again... other than a rather political rant it does not answer what Leo is asking.

Yes, I agree that history is a cycle. There is very little new in politics since ancient Greece and Roman times.

Read about ancient Greece and the birth and near death of our representitive system of government. Read about ancient Rome and see the corruption and vote buying that went on in the Senate.

What I get from Leo's Blog is the lack of personal responsibility that he decries. I Agree with him this time. Welfare has gone much too far IMHO.

We have gone much too far in paying people not to work. Yes I agree with Unemployment payments, Social Security and Medicare because these are programs that I have paid for in my pay checks over a long period of time.I am not getting something for nothing.. Is there waste and fraud?

You bet and it needs to be addressed if out politicians had any backbone.

What I disagree with is the Welfare State that we seem to have become. This is something that both political parties have not controlled.

Yes people have hard times.. At 70 years of age I have experienced some myself. But you have to work out of them... Not just give up and be rewarded for it. Welfare should be a very short term program to help those who really need help. Money wasted on excess welfare should be put to work in jobs creation. Welfare recipiants who are physically able should be required to work in community service. Lots of infrastructure improvements could be made in our local area.

Will any of this happen??? Don't hold your breath. It requires thinking outside the box. Too much of the old ...But we have always done it this way mentality...

O.K. thats MY rant for the day.

-- Posted by BackHomeAgain on Thu, Oct 22, 2009, at 7:10 PM

I LOVE your rant BackHomeAgain! Great, great points! Excellent!

-- Posted by karenmeister on Fri, Oct 23, 2009, at 12:32 AM

The piece in IHMagnum's comment was not written by Dr. David Kaiser. Snopes has documented this here (hopefully the link posts, search for Dr. David Kaiser and the piece will entry will come up) http://www.snopes.com and Dr. Kaiser distanced himself from the piece in his blog here http://historyunfolding.blogspot.com/

-- Posted by resonator on Fri, Oct 23, 2009, at 10:30 AM

IHMAGNUM............... Dr, David Kaiser, Dr. Timothy Wood, nor Pamela Geller wrote the article that you posted although Ms. Geller has stated that she wished that she had wrote it. Dr. Kaiser states that the first two sentences is from one of his works, but the rest is the work of someone else and "Its views are in many ways the opposite of mine." According to Snopes.com, the article originated as a post to a blog by a person identified as TPS in November of 2008. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/p...

Other than that, the history contained in it is fact.

-- Posted by Leo L. Southworth on Fri, Oct 23, 2009, at 10:41 AM

I must say that I wrote the blog article with some people I know in mind; however, there are many like them. There are people on welfare that are working their way out of the system every day and there are people in the system who are there due to circumstances beyond their control, bad information, or one poor choice.

In 1991, that is how I ended up going on welfare. I had a trucking accident that, to this day, appeared to defy the laws of physics and took it as God telling me to quit driving. There was little work in the area that I lived in and my mother told me there was plenty of work here. There was plenty of work for truck drivers, but little else. I worked several short-term minimum wage jobs with no benefits before my wife, of the time, became pregnant. Shortly after my son was born, I hired on with Columbia House. All through 1990 and 1991, I looked for employment almost constantly, even while holding down a minimum wage job that barely sustained my family.

The words of John F. Kennedy still ring in my ears whenever I reflect on the situations of some people. To "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" apparently has never occurred to them. The old saying that there is no such thing as a free puppy obviously hasn't either as many of these people seem to think that they should be rewarded for doing nothing as long as someone else pays. When you ask them why they are not trying to improve their situation, their reasons or excuses always have the words "I can't because..." in them, as in "I can't because I didn't get a high school diploma, ...I don't have transportation, ...I don't have childcare, etc. ad infinitum. That brings to my mind something I heard a drill instructor scream at a recruit, "In the world as you now know it, Maggot, the contraction "can't" and the word "cannot" no longer exists! The letters, "C", "A", "N", "T", spells the word "cant" which means, basically, to lean and if you are leaning, then you aren't doing what you need to be doing! Now move and get it done!!!" I took out the cuss words for those with sensitive ears and shortened the DI's two or three minute spiel, but you get the idea. People spend more time finding excuses than trying to do something. It is one thing to fail in the attempt, but it is inexcusable to fail to try!

-- Posted by Leo L. Southworth on Fri, Oct 23, 2009, at 11:30 AM

BackHome Again.......... LOL.........The "But we have always done it this way" mentality. I've met with that almost all of my life. I've noticed that it is used to stop progress by people with closed minds that cannot open up to new ideas even when the facts show that the old way isn't working as it should and the new approach would. I've heard insanity explained as doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results and have wondered if people who will not try something new when the old way fails repeatedly should be examined for it...........LOL!

-- Posted by Leo L. Southworth on Fri, Oct 23, 2009, at 11:42 AM

I have nothing to say because it was said very well before I got a chance to read this post. Jeez! Give me a little elbow room people! Good blog Leo. I'm not a Marine but I remember a very similar butt chewing being administered to a young troop once. All I ever saw after that was buttocks (gump's way) and elbows. Clean version for gentle ears. Lol!

-- Posted by michael.galloway1 on Fri, Oct 23, 2009, at 3:38 PM

You give this speech about morals,values and independence and then a week later you write a negative opinion about the COPE program that brings the habitual or incorrigible behavior of the youth in our schools (and society) and makes them and their parents accountable for their actions. Your debate involves the 15$ charge for these offenders and the food it takes off their table (and then hoping for a 15$ welfare gift to pay court cost). Do you think the school system and court system might be saying "NO" to the mentality that 3 days out is just a vacation and preferred by these habitual offenders. You send crossed signals about independence and responsibility and then write how 15$ is more important then teaching values and morals that there parents and grandparents have not instilled. OUR WELFARE STATE is full of this kind of thinking and it is ruining our country. Leo stand for something and quit waffling. I think when you talk all that MARINE BS you give the appearance of honor and integrity but when you take 2 different sides of the same issue just because the school system and the court systm are involved reeks of hypocrisy and shortsightedness. I know my name is Mrs. Positive but to see this blog and the opinion you wrote today really burns me and I have to call you out for your hypocrisy and shortsightedness.

-- Posted by Mrs. Positive on Mon, Nov 2, 2009, at 3:34 PM

Mrs. Positive, great response. Just wondering though, when did they change placing the dollar sign ($) on the left side of the numbers to the right side??? I must have missed that. :)

-- Posted by I. M. Lee Thall, Esq. on Sun, Nov 29, 2009, at 4:46 PM

I dont really think you know what you are talking about i know you were on welfare for a long time before you got your va and i know your ex wife worked her butt off to support you while you sat on your butt and let her and you talk about people taking advantage well i think u should take a look in the mirror.

-- Posted by kay022581 on Tue, Dec 1, 2009, at 9:10 AM

AND NORTHVIEW STILL NEEDS A GYM.

-- Posted by GO HOOSIERS on Tue, Dec 1, 2009, at 6:19 PM

Leo,

Where are you.....it's been 6 weeks since you have put anything out in the blogs or a response to an article! Are you well?

-- Posted by Proud of My Country on Thu, Dec 3, 2009, at 1:16 PM