Entitlement

Entitlement

by Liv | Published on September 15th, 2009, 7:27 pm | Life

Shan tells me of the story of how she goes to pick up a loaf of bread at Food Lion tonight and meets a man in line who rambles on about how this life is not the "Change" he wanted. Him and his wife complain about having to buy generic food in lieu of the brand name that they were able to buy before Obama. He then proceeds to toss a case of Budweiser up on the counter and complains about having to bag it himself. Shannon notices them on the way out to the parking lot and they hop in a spanking new 2009 mini-van parked in the Handicap space without a placard.

Okay.

Which really makes one think. What is one entitled to as an American. Most of us will immediately toss a glib remark "nothing", but that's not true. If we're all honest with ourselves, we all to some degree or another believe we're entitled to something. I think most Americans believe if they work, they should have the entitlement to at least own a car and a house. Maybe a TV? Maybe a Dog? Wait, now before you argue with me, think about how similar this is to the "American Dream"?

Of course the dream was just that, just a dream.

So take that away. Go to Americans and ask them. If you could live longer? Live fuller lives, get health care anytime you need, if we just traded in our cars and our homes for public transportation and an apartment? Would we do it? Hell no!!! We're Americans.

I would of course. But I'm not average.

The dream not coming true is now the fear of Republicans everywhere.

Oddly though, Obama isn't asking that. The fear is unfounded. But the bigger question, the one that really comes to light when you lay it all out like this is, why?

If we could all have better lives without the shiny new car, the huge 1400+ square foot home, why don't we?

For me, I wouldn't have to worry about broken coil springs, or bad brakes. No worries about gas prices, or huge electricity and water bills. I don't even have half of what most Americans feel they're entitled to, yet I myself see how our bloated and fat lives are in excess of what we need, and what most of the rest of the world has.

Why do Americans continue to feel they're entitled to such superfluous lifestyles when we could have more with less?

I think it's about choice. If you want to ride public transportation and I want to own a 30,000 house, in a land of freedom, we should each make our own choices.

I think the idea of the American Dream is vague these days. Standards have been raised to lofty expectations but salaries remain flat. Sure, one can make more money, but there is always a trade-off.

I think we need to start trying to live our own version of the American Dream, whatever that maybe, rather than someone elses (Madison Ave, Hollywood, the uppity neighbor, etc....)

The nuts simply have no patience with reality, and they completely fail to even notice the massive amounts of irony they generate in passing.

The other day, I saw a clip from Glenn Beck's show where he interviewed some yahoo who said "I've spent time being unemployed. I was on welfare and food stamps and no one helped me!"

He didn't notice the abject stupidity of what he said; neither did Beck. Though when you life is built around pure, concentrated hypocrisy, little things like logic have no meaning, I suppose.

Roch wrote:I think it's about choice. If you want to ride public transportation and I want to own a 30,000 house, in a land of freedom, we should each make our own choices.

I'm not sure that's true, not at the expense of everyone else. If we could all live better lives by "you" having less, wouldn't it be the right thing to do?

I'm not even talking "losing everything", I'm talking giving up the polluting SUV and we all ride pub. trans. so that all individuals can have a mechanism for going to work?

If we as Americans stopped thinking "What about me?" and started asking "What about us?"