"I'm Tired" by Robert A. Hall

"I'm Tired"

by Robert A. Hall

    I'll be 63 soon.  Except for one semester in college when jobs were scarce, and a six-month period when I was between jobs but job-hunting every day, I've worked hard since I was 18.  Despite some health challenges, I still put in 50-hour weeks, and haven't called in sick in seven or eight years.  I make a good salary, but I didn't inherit my job or my income.  I worked to get where I am.  Given the economy there's no retirement in sight, and I'm tired, very tired.

    I'm tired of being told that I have to "spread the wealth around" to people who don't have my work ethic.  I'm tired of being told the government will take the money I earned - by force if necessary - and give it to people too lazy or stupid to earn it.

    I'm tired of being told that I have to pay more taxes to "keep people in their homes."  If they lost their jobs or got sick I'm willing to help.  But if they bought their McMansions at three-times the price of our paid-off $250,000 condo, while earning one-third of my salary; then require the left-wing members of Congress who passed Fannie, Freddie, and the Community Reinvestment Act - which created the bubble in the first place - to pay them with their own money, not the money of Americans who have lived responsibly.

    I'm tired of being told how bad America is by the latest Hollywood entertainers-of-the-week and left-wing millionaires like Michael Moore and George Soros; all of whom live in luxury because of the opportunities only America offers.  If we take their advice, in thirty-years the United States will likely have the crime and violence of Mexico, the freedom-of-the-press of China, the economy of Zimbabwe, the freedom-of-speech of Venezuela, and the tolerance for Christianity of  Iran.   Won't "multiculturalism" be beautiful?

    I'm tired of being told that Islam is a "Religion of Peace" when every day we can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives, and daughters for their family "honor"; of Muslims rioting over some slight-offense in a child's cartoon; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren't Muslim "believers;" of Muslims burning  girls' schools; of Muslims stoning teenage rape-victims to death for their "adultery" of being raped; of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls - - - all in the name of "Allah" because the Qur'an and Shari'a law tells them to.  Religion of peace? 

    I'm tired of being told that "race doesn't matter" in Obama's post-racial world; when it's all that matters in government-mandated affirmative-action, lower college-admission & graduation standards for minorities (which, by the way, harms them the most), government-contract set-asides, and appointment of U.S. Senators from Illinois.  I believe, as Dr. Martin Luther King believed, that a man should be "judged by the content of his character, not by the color of his skin."  But so-called "tolerance" for the ghetto-culture of violence and fatherless-children hurts minorities at least as badly as the Klu Klux Klan. 

    It speaks well for America that we have a black president, and that a black child is doing her homework at the desk where Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation.  I trust "tolerant" liberals will forgive me for wishing America's black-president was Colin Powell or Condi Rice, two heroes in my book - or someone like them who believes in freedom of individual-initiative, and less in an arrogant, all-knowing, all-powerful government.

    I'm tired of a media-reporters who think Bush's fundraising and inaugural expenses were obscene, while Obama's, at triple the cost, were wonderful; who thinks Bush's daily-exercising was a waste of presidential time, but Obama exercising is a great example for the public to control weight and stress; who picked-over every line of Bush's military records, but never demanded that Kerry release his; who slammed Sarah Palin for being too inexperienced for Vice President, with her two-years as a very-effective governor of our largest state, but touted Obama as potentially the best president ever, with his three totally unproductive-years as a junior-senator from corrupt Chicago.  Get a clue.  Why are people dropping their subscriptions or switching to Fox News?   I didn't vote for Bush in 2000, but the media and Kerry drove me to his camp in 2004.

    I'm tired of being told that out of "tolerance for other cultures" we must let Saudi Arabia use our oil-money to fund mosques and madras Islamic-Schools in America to preach hate; while no American group is allowed to fund a church, synagogue, or religious school of any kind in Saudi Arabia to teach love and tolerance. 

    I'm tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming - which no one is allowed to debate.  My wife and I live in a two-bedroom apartment and carpool together five miles to our jobs.  We also own a three-bedroom condo where our daughter and granddaughters live.  Our carbon footprint is about 5% of Al Gore's.  If you're greener than Gore, you're green enough.

    I'm tired of being told that drug-addicts have a "disease," and I must help support and treat them and pay for the damage they do.  Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white-powder up their noses while they tried to fight it off?  I don't know if gay people choose to be gay, but I'm damned-sure druggies chose to take drugs.  I'm even more tired of harassment from "cool" people treating me like a freak when I tell them I've never tried marijuana.

    I'm tired of illegal-aliens being called "undocumented workers" - especially the ones who aren't working but are living on welfare or crime.  What's next?  Calling heroin or crack-dealers "undocumented pharmacists?"   And, no, I'm not against Hispanics.  Most of them are Catholic, and it's been a few hundred years since Catholics wanted to kill me for my religion.  I'm willing to fast-track for citizenship any Hispanic person who can speak English, doesn't have a criminal-record, and who is self-supporting without family on welfare, or who serves honorably for three years in our military.  Those are the citizens we need. 

    I'm tired of latte-liberals and journalists who would never wear the uniform of the United States - or worse still, let their entitlement-handicapped kids near a recruiting station - trashing our military.  They sit at home with their kids and bad-mouth better people than themselves, never having to make split-second decisions under life-and-death circumstances.   Do bad things happen in war?   You bet.  Do our troops sometimes misbehave.  Sure.  Does this compare with the atrocities that were - and still are - the policy of our enemies for the last two centuries?  Not even close. 

    So I'll make this deal with my latte-liberal friends:   I'll allow myself be subjected to all the humiliation and abuse that was heaped on terrorists by our misbehaving troops at Abu Ghraib or Gitmo, if in turn the critics will let themselves be subject to captivity by the same Muslims who tortured and beheaded Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, who tortured and murdered Marine Lt. Col. William Higgins in Lebanon, who ran the blood-spattered Al Qaeda torture-rooms our troops liberated in Iraq, or who cut-off the heads of schoolgirls in Indonesia because the girls were Christian.  Then we'll compare notes.  As author and historian, Stephen Ambrose observed, British and American soldiers are the only troops in history that civilians come to for help and handouts, instead of hiding from in fear. 

    I'm tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers, and politicians of both parties talking about their "innocent, stupid, or youthful mistakes" - when we all know they think their only mistake was getting caught.  I'm tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.  Speaking of poor, I'm tired of hearing people with air-conditioned homes, color TVs, two cars, and fancy computers and cell-phones I can't afford being called "poor."  The majority of Americans didn't have that in 1970, but we didn't know we were "poor."  The poverty-pimps have learned to keep changing the definition of "poor" to keep their dollars flowing. 

    I'm really tired of people who don't take responsibility for their lives and actions.  Nobody forced them into a lifetime-practice of skipping school, spending more than they earn, and never saving anything for a rainy-day or retirement.  Nobody held a gun to their heads and forced them to max-out 6 credit-cards for high-priced junk I didn't even know existed.  Nobody forced them to move into over-priced homes that anyone who took 8th-grade arithmetic would know they couldn't afford.  I'm tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination, or big-whatever for their problems.

    I'm tired of people telling me their party has a corner on virtue, and the other party has a corner on corruption.  Bums and crooks are bipartisan.  Read the papers.  And I'm tired of people telling me we need bipartisanship.  I live in  Illinois, where the Illinois-combine of Chicago-mob Democrats have looted the public for years, and who also provided the tax-cheats in Obama's cabinet.  There is no "bipartisanship" permitted in Chicago.     

    Speaking of government - I'm especially tired of Senators such as Chris Dodd, and Congressmen like Barney Frank saying I should re-elect them to "save" the economy they wrecked.  They were the geniuses who engineered the banking rule-changes during the Clinton administration which eliminated the separation between banks and investment-institution, and made those foolish and untenable "no-doc, "no down-payment," loans possible.  It didn't take a rocket-scientist to know that couldn't end well.   

    Yes, I'm damn tired.  But I'm also glad to be 63.  Because, mostly, I'm not going to have to see the world these people are making.  I'm just sorry for my granddaughters.

Robert A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam-veteran who served

five terms in the Massachusetts State Senate.