Just Stuff

By Gary Arrington

I seem to be jinxed. Although life has went well for many years, and I am not complaining today, everything it seems is more challenging now. I chose to make the bulk of my income in real estate, auto sales and the stock market. Now I say the bulk but you have to understand that the bulk was really not that much. One can make it sound really good by saying the bulk but a little is still a little no matter how one dresses it up.
Now on top of not making that much money, it seems that the government wants to take more of what ever it is that I was left with. It is simply not right. Why, if I have been a fairly responsible individual over my life, am I being forced to pay the costs of those entities that have been foolish.
Houses, lets talk houses. I always wondered how those people in the city were buying all of those fancy, nice homes on golf courses and I wondered what they did to make that much money to be able to afford them. I knew that I could not have afforded one of them when I had kids at home so how are they? Now we know that they weren’t. And now we all suffer as we help bail them out. Not only are they spending our money, our homes are now worth much, much less. Ouch.
Cash for clunkers, what a sham. Why is our government paying to make people buy cars? All that has happened here is that people that were buying in the future bought now and now there may not be a future if you are a car dealer. And now the customers with the clunkers are hit with another bad deal. Everyone who got a federal rebate will receive a 1099 form stating that you must pay taxes on the free money. Ouch and ouch.
And now health care. We are in such a hurry to pass a health care bill that we do not take the time to even read the bill and to even know what the heck is in that bill. We do not need a change just to have a change. We need intelligence and much deliberation put into any effort made on this subject. We need the government to do the right thing.
And now the scary thing. I have an older sister who is not exactly of the same conservative mindset that I am. In fact, one might say that we are polar opposites of each other on most issues that make the national news. We do not see eye to eye.
We recently had a family reunion and I left it alone for a long time but finally I could not bite my tongue any longer. I spoke up, I mouthed off, I started a political discussion. I expected opposition, I expected something but I did not get it. I felt sad because I was looking forward to the discussion that I knew that we would have. It did not occur.
And why not? Because I did not see it coming, she agreed with me. I was shocked, I was dismayed, I was sad. How could this be? My sister agreed with me. My sister did not want socialized health care either. My sister does not have much money, but she was on my side. In fact, the more we talked the more we were the same. How did this happen?
I do not want the government to take care of me, I just want to take care of my self. I want to be left alone so that I can succeed or fail on my own. And so it is with my sister, the liberal. Ain’t family great.