To answer yesterday’s musing I would say that, no, pessimism does not rule me.  It merely pervades me and seeks a permanent home.

Sorry pessimism- I cannot be ruled, least of all by you.

I don’t worry so much for myself, really.  I have had a lot of years on this planet and most of them have been good ones, some even great.  I owe so much to so many; I owe so much to this country.  And I wish I could repay it, I really want to do that.

Just pay more taxes.

Okay, do you really think that helps?  No more so than giving a drink to a drunkard.  You know that’s true.

More money hasn’t helped education.  It hasn’t helped reduce poverty.  It hasn’t helped to erase the animosity between the races.  Perhaps it has helped in our national defense and against terrorist attacks here at home.  They say it will help in the care of our health- only with the end result of better, more accessible care and more and better doctors.  Think that will be happening?

No, I think that more money only leads to the need for more of the same.  Where does it go?  Where do you think?

If you are, well, what’s the right, proper word- oh yeah, stupid; if you are stupid enough to believe that it goes to where they tell you it goes then you are also likely to overdraw regularly on your checking account; hold a high balance on your credit cards; give money to anyone holding an old, gross piece of cardboard; give gobs of money to your church just because they tell you that you should; send a lot of donation dollars out of your own country (who sends it here to us?); and you also are likely to lend blindly and often to relatives and friends who will never pay you back.

Okay, maybe stupid is harsh.  Maybe it’s just more naiveté.  Okay, maybe it’s all either, some of each or some of both.  If this is the way you want to handle your own finances, fine.  But please make sure it doesn’t have an affect on me and especially not on my family.  And don’t ever tell me what my fair share is unless it’s a family matter.  You just don’t have that right- how dare you.

I don’t worry so much for me as I said as I do for the youth of our country- my kids and their friends.

Just as we never imagined we would suffer the responsibilities placed upon us by our grandparents (social security for example), or parents (Medicare, Medicaid), or even ourselves (bailouts and stimulus and social programs and healthcare)- we were not wise enough to wake up in time- so too are you young folks likely to ignore it as well.

But the heaviest weighted end of this load will not fall to us- it will fall to you my young friends.  And maybe that isn’t fair since you didn’t directly approve of any of this or maybe you “just didn’t realize.”  Sorry, those are excuses that, while true perhaps, will not serve any purpose in the future, in YOUR future.  Ignorance is not bliss and it is certainly no longer a valid excuse if you want to survive.

The only power you have is with whom you put into elected office when you vote- and you should vote and know who and what you are voting for, without fail and without excuse.  You need to wake up and wise up.

And then you need to rise up and be heard.  Yours can be the greatest generation and, actually, it needs to be because ours, certainly, has not been that.

For that I am truly and forever sorry.  We have no excuse for what we have done or allowed to be done to us, none at all.