Wimps and Whiners

By Shaun Pierce

Former Senator Phil Gramm took some heat for saying the United States was only in a “mental recession” and that it had become a “nation of whiners.”

How dare he? We are not a nation of whiners. We are a nation of wimps AND whiners who want the government to ride in and fix everything. I have news for you, they can't fix the problem they created.

I don't like paying more for groceries. I don't like $4.00 a gallon gas. It makes me mad, but I have to eat and there are places that I must drive, so I pay the bill and watch my money in other areas.

The old saying "what goes up must come down" is true and it applies to the economy. I'm no expert, but I do understand that there are "market corrections" and every bubble at some point will pop. What that means is, if times are good enjoy them, but do so knowing that the winds of change will blow and you better be ready.

There was a time when every office had a typewriter. The typewriter guy was on top of the world. How many of those things do you think they sell today? Was the government expected to bailout the typewriter industry?

The majority of people losing their homes are people that bought beyond their means. They dove in to dangerous loans and got bit. The banks gave money to people that are not able to pay it back. They bet and lost. Boo hoo Uncle Sam save me.

That fact is, despite all the doom and gloom, we have it pretty darn good here. I may not have prime rib every night, but I do have food to eat and I bet you do as well. Yes, some of my wants have been pushed aside for needs, but I do have a roof over my head. I bet you do as well.
Politicians always want to "feel your pain". My pain is a minor cramp and not an axe in the head like some would have you believe.

President Bush just lifted the ban on oil drilling. Great, but why was there a ban to lift and why did it take so long? We had a gas shortage in this country in the 1970's. We should have been pumping oil for the past 30 years. There never should have been a ban in a free market economy. They handcuffed American companies. The blame for high oil prices goes back to every congress and presidential administration since Jimmy Carter.

Years ago we decided it was easier to write a check for oil then to get our own. The middle east gang pumped oil to us and we pumped zillions of dollars out of our country. Now that OPEC has by the gonads and threatening to raise prices to unthinkable levels if we drop a bomb on the head of wacko Iranian president Yaba-Daba-Do, people gasp. Well good morning Rip Van Winkle!

Put the American poor next to the poor in any third world county and we look like royalty. You have food stamps, shelters, subsidized housing, disability, welfare, job training & education, medicare, the list goes on. Working people pay for all this and it's stifling. Some really need help, others curl up to the federal mammary gland and never leave. That's destructive and wrong.

It's time we stopped moaning and groaning. If you want things to change stop bowing before the tree-huggers who would like to eradicate human kind so our flatulence doesn't upset the spotted owl. Stick a pipe in the ground in Alaska and let the polar bears fend for themselves. Plunge a drill into the sea bed and wave goodbye to OPEC. Don't vote for any person who won't get of their buttocks and get out of the way of American ingenuity and enterprise. The government is almost always the problem, not the solution.

The American people are the solution. We invented the car, the computer, space travel, the light bulb, telecommunications. We need to realize that government represents us, but they do not control us. When we forget that, we cease being productive and our dependence becomes lethal to the American Way. So let's get back to work and stop being a nation of wimps and a whiners.
Thank you Sen. Gramm for the reminder.