“The Democrats Have Been Good to Me”

The story you are about to read is true. The names have been changed to protect the author: The wife and I had a visit recently from a member of the family whom we shall call "Cousin Johnnie". Cousin Johnnie hails from a heavily-democratic northeastern state. It had been a number of years since we had seen Cousin Johnnie so we had a great deal of catching-up to do during his visit.

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Don't get me wrong; Cousin Johnnie is a great guy - lots of fun with a keen sense of humor. He's your typical New Englander in his mid-50s. He pulled up to the house in a very nice late-model Acura TSX. We got around to talking about life in general and learned that Cousin Johnnie is receiving one hundred percent disability from Social Security. He did not appear to be in ill health to me, even though he is a bit overweight. Neither did he appear to have any mobility issues although he did undergo hip-replacement surgery several years ago. During his five-hour visit, he consumed ten 12-ounce cans of beer and a number of cigarettes. He also showed us photographs of his grown children and their families on his new laptop computer. So Johnnie does not appear to be hurting financially. During Cousin Johnnie's visit, the topic of politics entered into the conversation. I believe that my wife and I were able to make it known to Cousin Johnnie that we were conservative. Cousin Johnnie's response was so profound that I decided to devote an entire article to it - he said, "The Democrats have been good to me." Well, of course, Cousin Johnnie's situation is not unique; as a matter of fact, folks like him are far more commonplace than they once were. I have known a number of people over the years that are in similar circumstances. It is becoming more and more a part of our culture with the increasing "nanny state" mentality of our society. The passage of Obamacare is only going to further enhance this mindset. There are law firms out there that specialize in assisting people that have been denied Social Security disability "benefits". The prevailing attitude - and the attitude of Cousin Johnnie - is, "I've paid in to Social Security for (fill-in the blank) years and I'm just getting my share." I certainly do not begrudge benefits being paid to citizens that are truly disabled. But, as I noted earlier, Cousin Johnnie, while not a poster child for physical fitness, is far from being an invalid. No one can convince me that Cousin Johnnie could not work in an office environment where physical labor is not required. What people fail to realize is the fact that, for every Cousin Johnnie out there that is sitting on his backside collecting Social Security disability payments or other forms of public assistance, there must be another productive human being working to help to support Cousin Johnnie. Hardworking, productive Americans such as my wife and myself are becoming increasingly fed-up with circumstances in America today. The nation has literally millions of Cousin Johnnie's out there be they late-middle-age individuals like Johnnie or younger welfare recipients that contribute nothing to society's productiveness and basically do nothing but draw a monthly check from Uncle Sam - meaning from taxpayers like us. This helps to explain the fact that nearly fifty percent of Americans pay nothing in federal income taxes. They are merely "suckers off the public *** (mammary gland)" as my high school American Government teacher used to refer to them over thirty years ago. He would certainly be aghast at the state of his country if he were still alive today. Under the current system, the takers continue to take and the politicians continue to give. It is a vicious cycle – the more the politicians give, the more the takers take and continue to vote for these same politicians. Unless and until we can somehow break this cycle, I fear that our nation will continue on its current death spiral toward financial catastrophe. Sooner or later, America’s day of reckoning will come. But what Cousin Johnnie and the rest of the takers fail to realize is that it is not the Democrats that have been good to them - it is the taxpayers. What remains to be seen is how long we the taxpayers allow all of the Cousin Johnnies to continue sucking off of OUR public mammary gland.