![Hold Back the Dawn [DVD] Charles Boyer; Olivia de Havilland; Paulette Goddard](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41AkExBJQsL._SL75_.jpg)
The beatings will continue until morale improves
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 04:44PM 
Not to flog a dead horse but I have one or two more post-election horror stories to share with you.
You know how we're labeled bitter haters by the left because we think people ought to work for a living instead of subsisting on government handouts?
Well.
This brazen new world we're living in has spawned a subset of welfare recipients that, upon contemplation, may just require you to apply duct tape to your skull lest it explode.
I refer to able-bodied single young men (as in, under the age of twenty-five) with no dependents, who have jobs and yet still accept welfare to augment their lifestyle.
Case in point: TG and Andrew, while hanging out together on a recent weekend, decided to do some man-style shopping.
(Which being interpreted means, a brief, carefully planned, non-spontaneous foray into the retail universe.)
Andrew needed some new dress shirts and there was a sale at a local well-known men's haberdashery chain.
The one where if you purchase a single suit you get three more suits, five shirts, twelve ties, a long-handled shoe horn, a case of Ramen noodles, and a pet ferret for free.
While there they fell into conversation with the store manager, who waited on them.
Good man; retired military.
Since I was not present I don't know how the subject came up, but at some juncture the store manager told TG and Andrew about one of his part-time employees.
A young man of college age who is in fact a college student (his employer believes the fellow is attending school on a Pell grant), who works not one but two part-time jobs.
And gets three hundred fifty dollars a month in food stamps.
TG and Andrew were laughing as they told me the story.
Andrew remarked, I make good meals for myself (one of them, a recent chicken-and-whole-kernel-corn feast, is my phone's wallpaper because the boy was so proud of himself for cooking, he sent me a picture of it) and I don't know how I could spend three hundred fifty dollars a month on groceries.
TG and I looked at one another. After a brief conferral we agreed that we eat far better than we strictly have to, and it's doubtful we spend much more than three hundred fifty dollars in an average month on groceries.
And that's for both of us.
When the men's furnishings sales clerk revealed this information to his boss, apparently they got into a small discussion about our entitlement-heavy society and what it is costing the ones who have to pay for it.
According to the manager, he asked the kid: "You do know that food stamps is considered an entitlement program, don't you?"
The young man agreed that he did know that, but added that he feels he "deserves" the food stamps.
When his employer asked him why, the boy responded: "Because my parents are divorced."
?????
Mmmmkay. By that criteria ... never mind.
Suffice it to say, this young American male is unfazed by the fact that he has his hand out to accept food money from the government, while millions in the workforce who have never been on the dole -- and yet have many times gone without necessities, not to mention luxuries -- labor to pay the bill.
The story reminded me of a conversation I had with a man of sixty-plus years old who has been a personal friend for a long time.
My friend and his wife have been gainfully employed all their adult lives. She is now retired due to health issues but he works diligently to maintain a small business that he himself built.
They have one child: a boy of around twenty-five who has had a lot of difficulty both finishing school and holding jobs.
His longsuffering father told me that there's a new wrinkle in the never-ending saga of his son's many ups and downs: although he has a job, the boy accepts food stamps.
Of course my friend could see by my face that I found that idea as repugnant as it is ludicrous.
To his credit, he shared with me that he is ashamed his son would do such a thing. "I love my son but I do not approve of his lifestyle," my friend said.
You see, his son smokes cigarettes and drinks alcohol -- habits that can be costly in more ways than one -- and is known to frequently ... shall we say, party hearty.
I know what you're thinking: my friend was and perhaps still is lacking somewhat in effective parenting skills.
Although I would tend to agree with you (and my friend probably would too), that's another blog for another day.
But consider: A twenty-something male with a strong back and no health problems applies for and gets food stamps even though he makes enough money at a job to sustain two unhealthy vices.
I guess that's why he has a job in the first place. Priorities.
It makes me wonder how many welfare recipients save their money for beer and smokes while letting you and me take care of their grocery expenses.
Photo: Erica Weber
But of course we right-wingers are consistently characterized by the liberal media (pardon my redundancy) as bitter heartless racist haters because we think folks ought to get out of bed every morning, figure out a way to be productive, and pay their own way, doing without some luxuries if need be for the sake of integrity, decency, personal accountability, and that old standby, the greater good.
Not to mention, we're led to believe that all this welfare is for the benefit of that poor beleaguered figure glowing softly but insistently at the very core of our society, who had nothing whatsoever to do with her plight.
I speak of that most sainted and sacrosanct of American icons, the single mom.
And of course her children, who wouldn't know what to do if a meal appeared in front of them that didn't come directly from a bag or a box via McDonald's or the microwave.
(Not to mention the depth of their confusion if one of Mama's babydaddies walked through the door.)
Apparently we've all been taken for a ride on that oft-beaten equine unit.
Welfare: it ain't just for unemployed husbandless mommies and their smart-phone-textin'-EBT-card-totin' progeny anymore.
So this Thanksgiving, with the turkey and the stuffing and the cranberry sauce and the sweet taters and the green bean casserole and the yeast rolls and the pumpkin pie, perhaps we all ought to put a little plate of baloney -- or worse -- off to the side.
It could serve to keep us humble and to remind us that the left's full-frontal assault on our morals, our motives, and our money has just begun.
And still, there's so much to be thankful for.
Happy Monday! Happy Week!
Reader Comments (10)
I do not understand this whole situation! I don't understand how someone could feel they deserved this, I don't see how they can just take it and I don't understand who approves people getting it! I think we need some common sense people to review those who are recieving.
Good grief, how have the qualification criteria become so lax? Don't answer that. I merely screaming it out to rid myself of pent-up frustration. I am so disgusted with the freeloaders.
My husband and I have a friend (I use the term loosely) who recently had his hours at work cut back so drastically that he realized he could make more on unemployment and food stamps than working 5-10 hours a week.
The problem is, he was "laid off" because he has allowed himself to become so ridiculously overweight and unhygienic that they determined he looked like the rehab clients he was supposed to be working with.
What has he done to change his situation? Absolutely nothing. He now lives off unemployment, food stamps, video games and junk food, and lives in a room in a house that *I* found for him because he could no longer afford his apartment and would have found himself on the streets had Isaiah and I not stepped in (though I argued quite hard to simply let him reap what he has sown). As far as I know, he isn't looking for a job, or trying to lose weight so he can find a job. He's a mere 1 year older than I am (I may or may not be 29).
It's an epidemic called LAZINESS. Pure and simple - laziness.
Suffice it to say I stay away from this "friend" as much as possible because I fear I won't be able to keep my trap shut.
@Mari ... I'm as confused as you. We need answers.
@ Donna ... I'm as frustrated as you. We need answers!
@Angi ... UNREAL. I heard a similar story just the other day. Youngish married man whose wife works too, loses his job due to impending Obamacare. He now stays home and collects unemployment. I'm aware he's not breaking any laws but the amazing thing is the LACK OF SHAME in these people. An able-bodied man can find work if he is determined to find work. It's bad enough that those who have never BEEN productive are as parasitical as ever; now those who ONCE WERE productive may NEVER be again! And yet SOMEBODY has to go to work to pay for the food stamps! THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT GENERATE INCOME EXCEPT THROUGH TAXES!!!!! Wake up, folks. Time to wake UP.
Sad to say, but those who maybe were once productive have been "dumbed down by getting on the gravy train, so to speak. Some of the people that are still working to pay for those who aren't are my age( of which I won't reveal) , but suffice it to say we really could retire completely. We aren't afraid of an honest days work! And I eat well, as anyone could tell just by looking, and nobody else pays for my food. DISCOURAGING!................G.
Excellent. I don't know anything about the rules and regulations (cough) for eligibility to receive welfare, food stamps, etc., but there must be a minimum income requirement surely. We do know that the abuse, the failure to investigate eligibility, etc. is rampant. What is the answer?
I must regretfully say I am disgusted and discouraged. I have no hope any more that Conservatives can win an election or have a Conservative nominee, after this recent election.
Realizing the voter fraud, the "gimmie" mentality of so many voters, what makes anyone think things will change in four years? There will be even more on the government gift express.
I wish I could be more positive.
@ G ... nobody will be able to retire now. We'll have to work on the day of our own funerals, and half a day on judgment day.
@Debbie ... I'm not exactly sanguine about our prospects either. I don't know how any thinking person could be. The GOP "leadership" are too comfortable and too safe and too moderate to do us any good now. Only God can undertake for us and I pray He continues to show mercy in abundance.
Amen Girl!! Another great and truthful post!!
Happy Thanksgiving!
hughugs
The answers are simple; but a part of the population would deem those answers to make me a "bitter hater" and a racist, because that's all they have in the way of an argument to defend societal laziness, deceit and fraud. For in those useless traits do they see their guaranteed 'voter base'. And in us, they think that we are to labor on and feed their ever-growing population of lazy, deceitful and fraudulent 'entitlees'. We "owe it to them", according to the Left.
I never had a problem with the idea of welfare when it was meant to be 'a hand up' when one was needed. But to the Left, it became 'a hand out', an 'entitlement', and a base from which to build dependent voters.
When I've lost a job in my lifetime, I've gone and got another. Not only am I very employable, but I have and demand from myself the kind of work ethic that most employers appreciate. One that the Left discourages in their 'entitlement worldview'.
Yes, the answers to the problem of the growing population of 'entitlement-mentalitied lazy' are simple enough. In essence, we have to elect the kind of politicians who have the stones to apply some 'tough love' -- like welfare-for-work requirement, drug-testing for welfare recipients, and enforced criminal penalties for welfare fraud and abuse.
That isn't 'bitter haters'; that's applying the old adage "Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime".
Granted, the Left wants to change that adage to "Give a man a fish and he should be ashamed; teach a man to fish and PETA will be coming for him".
*End rant* Happy Thanksgiving.
@Donna ... thanks luv, you too! Happy Thanksgiving.
@Skunky ... you dark horse you! I have no doubt you're eminently employable. If all else fails you could find work as a conservative pundit! I agree with all you said and it was well said. Happy Thanksgiving to you.