Tuesday, February 08, 2005
On the Occasion of the SOTU
Dear George,
I’m sorry I missed watching your SOTU Address last night; I was outside cleaning up poop. I also fixed a fence yesterday, cleaned a coupla toilets, hauled some wood, bucked some hay and a 50# bag of grain, vacuumed, swept and washed my floors [with a hot-water rag on my knees] I’m sorry doing all those things prevented me from seeing you tell Americans, and the world, that there are jobs that “Americans won’t do.” Boy—do I feel like an absolute sucker, now!
And to think—I chose this life that has these chores. I didn’t realize that, as an American, it was beneath me to muck out stalls, clean toilets, make beds and wash floors. Wow—I’d better quit learning how to build stuff, too, cuz I guess using a Skilsaw, hammer and nails martillo y clavos is also beneath me.
What a dunderhead I’ve been! Not to mention my Dad and Mom. Daddy put up power poles for 33¢ an hour during the Depression despite his college education. And Mom, with her college education and finishing school skills, pulled up wire out of the fields after WWII, when metal was scarce, to create pens for her platinum fox ranch. I guess we’re a whole family of dupes and dopes, eh?
If we’d only realized that Americans aren’t supposed to do those difficult and/or nasty jobs—that we’re supposed to let those little brown people who refuse to obey the laws of our country do that work!
Wow—a whole new two tiered society! What an idea. Wait… I’m suddenly struck with a thought; maybe there are more than two tiers... Dang… Wish I had more time to think about that but I’ve gotta go rent the steamer to strip some wallpaper, rip up some carpeting, re-do those floors and re-tile a bathroom.
I guess being a dupe is habit-forming…
----
AND MORE—response to comment:
Helley—check your taxes. Somewhere in that $30 billion that is spent on illegal immigrants ever year is some o’ your money. [Spanish-speaking classrooms, health care, bi-lingual signs/ballots, jails, police, not to mention that we’re hemoraging cash directly into the Mexican economy [wages mailed home] without any return.]
I completely disagree that unwillingness to do menial work is a consequence of the “ownership society.” I think willingness to do what needs to be done—no matter how distasteful —is the backbone of an “ownership society.” And of a Free Society.
The boss hasta be able to do any job that she hires out—better than those she hires. [with the exception of specialized things like nuclear physics and taxes...] That is the essence of the American Dream: 1] build a better mousetrap, 2] make them in your garage until you can rent a bigger space and hire someone else, 5] become one of the Fortune 500. Or work for that guy emptying mousetraps [eww] until you work your way up to plant manager.
Disdaining hard, icky work as being beneath one is the prime demonstration of an effete lack of character [so John Kerry] that leaves one at the mercy of the less educated/less intelligent but more willing. [Think Howard Roark.]
“I don’t do windows,” is the visceral opposite of what our Armed Forces are doing right now, and what The Yanks did in WWII, etc. We are not too good to wade in and get our hands dirty doing what needs doing. The French were—repeatedly. [see the consequences of “let them eat cake,” the logical end of “I don’t do windows."]
If we become a culture where it is acceptable to refuse to do our own dirty work, or to start at the bottom and work upwards, we will become a culture that is unwilling to do the dirty, nasty work of fighting socialism / facism / terrorism. And we will soon be a dead culture; taken over by those willing to get their hands dirty.
Image blatantly stolen from Helen Wells
[*click* image to see more]
Statistics
This page has been viewed 6645826 times
Total Entries: 4321
Total Comments: 3461
Total Trackbacks: 714
Most Recent Entry: 08/28/2008 04:54 pm
Most Recent Comment on: 08/28/2008 11:04 am
{/if}
