Song Lyrics

Oh, people look around you the signs are everywhere. You've left it for somebody other than you to be the one to care. Jackson Browne, from Rock Me on the Water

Browne would cringe at my interpretation of those lines, but that's what Progressives have done to American society. Nobody has to care anymore because it's Uncle Sugar's job. Creeping nanny-state idiocy, costing billions simply to administer, by union protected bureaucrats, has co-opted the process.  Prior to the social destruction wreaked by Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, family, neighbors, local governments, and charities provided the safety net for our citizens. How did this work? Let me report that the dead did not - I repeat - did not stack up in the streets back then.

The Nanny State violates nature; hence, must fail. All life must strive to survive. No competition? No progress. Something or someone else in your realm chooses to compete and you don't? Extinction. Progressives figured out a (short term) winning formula years ago. Tell voters they have a "right" to things most could earn for themselves if they were willing to make choices and sacrifices. At the same time, demonize those "more fortunate" (implying luck, not industriousness) as mean-spirited, greedy, and undeserving. I'm always amused that these initiatives were championed early on by trust-fund parasites like the Kennedys and Rockefellers.

Progressives even changed the language. "Welfare" became "family assistance," or my all time favorite, an "earned income tax credit." Think about that bit of P.C. asininity. Employees (I refuse to call people workers.) below a certain income receive a check from the federal government, and it's called "earned." Huh?

I recently heard an ad on the radio where a gleeful woman introduced herself as a government staffer whose entire job was to spread the word about the Earned Income Tax Credit. She said people could use the money to fix their homes, pay down credit card balances, or - and I swear to Allah this is true - take a much needed vacation! Overpaid bureaucrats whose only job is to cheer-lead people into guilt free self-indulgence. Madness.

It feels like voters are ready to stand against the looters and let Nature get back into harmony. Might as well close by horrifying one more lyricist. The times they are a changin'. Bob Dylan