Are you sick of the unbelievable state of society these days?
You know what we’re talking about…the 20- and 30-somethings who were raised in the school system to believe “everyone’s a winner” and got trophies for participation, meaning slackers were left with the feeling that their lack of effort was equal to the serious effort put forth on the part of the exceptional; the way this has translated to full-grown, able-bodied adults believing that people OWE them a job and a paycheck with a “living wage” and that somehow, lack of experience, bad attitude and poor work habits won’t hold them back from keeping employment…that is, if they actually get out and GET a job, owing to the fact that “public aid” is so easy to get, especially through deception.
Well, we’re sick of it too. And in one very impactful editorial, we discuss it this month. Here now is your mid-afternoon Read the Lead, Foreign concept: Work hard, strive to be better.
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Two years ago in April, after jury selection was underway for the Brandon Jenkins trial in Richland County, Jack was babysitting the selection (as we call it) and I was tasked with handling courthouse crawls (as we call it) for the north region.
I had the Cruiser (and I mention this because it was the car, at the time, with the best sound system) and so while up in Jasper County, I popped in a new CD our IT guy Chris (yes, he’s still our IT guy, topix denizens. If people knew what we do to screw ONLY WITH YOU, they’d laugh their asses off at you just like we do) had just given me.
It was Christopher Cross. You remember that guy, right? The number one song of 1980, “Sailing”? “Ride Like the Wind” before that? “Arthur’s Theme” and “Think of Laura”? Yeah…that was back when music was still music, instead of (c)rap, kuntray or this electronic synth garbage I envision is created by some skinny, flop-haired, black-lipsticked kid sitting on a keyboard and attempting to play it with his buttcheeks.
Chris Cross (not the pop-rap group) had a CD out that year, and it really was the epitome of awesomeness. On it was a song, “I’m Too Old for This.” I was nearing 50; I was within two months of a serious health diagnosis; I wasn’t feeling “old,” not yet (that came later; see October Special Edition 2012 for THAT dissertation). But that song title sure was catchy. And Chris the IT guy had given me the CD specifically because, he said, he “heard the song and thought of me.”
In that song is a verse:
Folks in this country used to strive to be better
Work to be smarter so they could understand
Now we idolize the clueless and the mean
It’s hip to be stupid – just wear the right brand
I sound like a geezer, but it’s a disgrace
Try to discuss it and they get all in your face
It’s raining morons
And I’m too old for this
I remember laughing and laughing over that verse.
I’m not laughing so much anymore.
Working to be smarter? How gauche
I’m not going to wax loquacious over the Marching Morons theme again (I’m sure the topix idiots will wring their hands in glee over that, all two of them). The reference is just the lyric. The point I’m going to make has to do with the first two lines of the verse.
Because I’m really beginning to wonder why people don’t “work to be smarter”…and often, as a consequence, don’t “work” at all.
And I’m kind of horrified over the state of things in this country when it comes to betterment of oneself.
Jack and I watch people whom we consider our peers—business people, folks who’ve overcome intense adversities (such as corruption) to succeed, homeschool parents who are anti-vaccine and self-sustaining people who have gardens and small farms and know the importance thereof—struggle in the face of ignorance. We see them fight battles they shouldn’t have to fight, endure slander and name-slinging, pay more than their share of monetary costs to the powers-that-be because they “buck the system” (what’s wrong with not wanting to inject your newborn baby with formaldehyde, mercury derivatives and a host of allergens is absolutely beyond me, but we get eviscerated for being anti-vaccine).
Who eviscerates, slanders and otherwise gives folks like us a hard time?
Apparently, it’s the ones who want to “take it easy.” And by that, I mean they don’t want to do anything. They don’t want to work hard to strive to be better. They don’t want to work.
They want to live off us.
And I’m getting a little sick of it.
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To read the rest of the column, simply click on the headline link above the excerpt if you have an online membership to the e-Edition; or, if you don’t, click this link here to get started today! Or, if you prefer to have a copy of the paper in your hands, visit any of our 50 vendors across southern Illinois to pick one up…and hurry, there’s only a little over TWO WEEKS on this one, til the August-September issue hits!