Free at last, free at last: celebrating the right to free-LOAD, at last

Friends, let me begin by congratulating Barack Obama for freeing the American public from the burden of labor that for too long has trapped citizens into slavishly “providing” for themselves and their family. Prior to the Affordable Care Act, far too many Americans, locked in employment, paid a heavy toll for trotting to work each morning, unable to think or act for themselves.

Now, however, they’re free, a new day has dawned (is Obama’s star-sign Aquarius?) in which people, liberated to their devices (and vices), are materially provided for by job-lockees. No longer a “product” beholden to labor, health insurance will, henceforth, be provided, no questions asked, to those who understand: they need not work. And that’s the whole point---DO NOT! Make too much money - more than $25-K a year - and government will stop freeing you from slave labor, water-cooler gossip, and, of course, false dignity. Real dignity is progressive! That benefit, that subsidy, is, in fact, the birthright of every American who ever hyphenated their heritage.... African-Americans. Hispanic-Americans. Transgender-Filipino-Part-Czechoslovakian-Croatian-Dual-Bathroom-Using-Shreck-Fan-Americans... A RIGHT!! Yeah, it’s paid for by schmucks who work, but that’s their problem. Remember, you’re FREE---and it isn’t as if you’re just laying around. For every hardworking boob making less than those he’s subsidizing, there’s a former iron-worker discovering his inner-Proust, an ex-account manager backpacking across Borneo.

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Speak of benefits! Imagine all the unwritten poetry tragically stifled because job-locked Americans have had to work to provide. Imagine how many extra tables at the weekend Crafts Fair will present to the public the fruits of New Wizardry. People are now liberated to pursue “balance,” to be WHO THEY ARE. So don’t listen to those voices crying it’s a “trap,” who claim (falsely) that punishing people who make too much discourages aspiration, motivation, and success---these are the voices of anarchists and barbarians! The same people who support child labor, arguing that children, through work, become “responsible.” LOL! Absurd. These zealots exploit, lie, and use racist dog-whistles like “effort” and “work ethic” in order to line their pockets! How dare they assume that labor is required to improve one’s circumstance! Aspire to toil, aspire to toil LESS---see how that WORKS! Perhaps if more people stayed home to write poetry, other countries wouldn’t hate us, wouldn’t fly planes into buildings... Just sayin. Indeed, it’s good. Good that people who prefer labor to more meaningful and fulfilling artistic pursuits will FINALLY be made to pay their “fair share” in order to unbind the American Dream. Indeed, it will be a great day in America when artists get all the funding they need and the Pentagon is forced to hold a bake-sale to buy bombs! So, do it---write that novel, paint that rock... Make birdhouses! Blow glass! Find your calling while there remains time to call! Don’t be the guy who, on his death bed, says “I wish I’d let my hardworking neighbor subsidize my health insurance, food pantry, and Netflix in order to pursue my inner-Milton.” The Government is in the business of ensuring equality, a “level field” for anyone who values Whitman over work, toying over sowing, and chilling over drilling. Look no farther than medicine itself---physicians, who work too hard, are bugging out... Quitting! Are you smarter than your podiatrist? Your obstetrician? If medical experts, who spend thousands of hours to become expert, are quitting, why should people, with HALF their brains, work? The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, while aptly titled, could as easily be named the Do What You Want, No Worries Act. Or, the Art Freedom and Emancipation Act. Or, the Iambic Pentameter Explosion Act. It’s a lot of things to a lot of people, but at its heart is freedom which unlocks potential, which in turns creates peace. To be sure, signed-up and signed-on, I’ve already done it: purchased a beret.... Began a journal. And, no kidding, submitted a poem---the entry cost of which would not have been available absent my subsidy! So it’s not simply about having free time, but about possessing resources to use that time wisely. I plan on entering several contests - up to twenty - each with a different poem, and mind you, three days prior, I didn’t know they existed, and certainly didn’t have the extra A. Jackson! So, already, I’m a fuller, more complete person. In fact, I’m geeked about unlocking my potential. And isn’t potential what makes America go? Isn’t potential the best I can be?