Thursday, April 11, 2019

This needs reading in full

I put my phone down and continue to look around. I see people talking freely, working on their MacBook’s, ordering food they get in an instant, seeing cars go by outside, and it dawned on me. We live in the most privileged time in the most prosperous nation and we’ve become completely blind to it. Vehicles, food, technology, freedom to associate with whom we choose. These things are so ingrained in our American way of life we don’t give them a second thought. We are so well off here in the United States that our poverty line begins 31 times above the global average. Thirty. One. Times. Virtually no one in the United States is considered poor by global standards. Yet, in a time where we can order a product off Amazon with one click and have it at our doorstep the next day, we are unappreciative, unsatisfied, and ungrateful.

Our unappreciation is evident as the popularity of socialist policies among my generation continues to grow. Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently said to Newsweek talking about the millennial generation, “An entire generation, which is now becoming one of the largest electorates in America, came of age and never saw American prosperity.”

Never saw American prosperity. Let that sink in. When I first read that statement, I thought to myself, that was quite literally the most entitled and factually illiterate thing I’ve ever heard in my 26 years on this earth. Now, I’m not attributing Miss Ocasio-Cortez’s words to outright dishonesty. I do think she whole-heartedly believes the words she said to be true. Many young people agree with her, which is entirely misguided. My generation is being indoctrinated by a mainstream narrative to actually believe we have never seen prosperity. I know this first hand, I went to college, let’s just say I didn’t have the popular opinion, but I digress. 

3 comments:

Sailorcurt said...

Their idea of "prosperity" is the top 1%, or perhaps 5% at the lowest.

When I was a teenager, my parents were in their peak earning years and, although solidly middle class, we had a pretty flush life. I understood, however, that my parent's income didn't equal me having everything I wanted. When I moved out of the house I took very little with me...some clothes, my (9 year old) car (not my parents car they let me use...it was mine) and a few possessions that were gifts or I'd purchased myself. That's it.

Everything else was on me and I knew it going in. That's the way life is.

Kids these days expect to be able to instantly have everything their parents have as soon as they graduate school. They don't remember the years of using cardboard boxes as furniture. Of having no TV and relying on library books for entertainment. Of eating ramen noodles and peanut butter sandwiches every day for two weeks because that's all we could afford. Of shopping for clothes at the goodwill store and yard sales not because we wanted to, but because that's all we could afford.

Because they don't remember those times, they seem to think they never happened and they shouldn't have to earn their own way. That the world OWES them a comfortable lifestyle with the latest smartphones and big screen TVs and 8 speaker surround sound.

And because the world OWES them this and they can't afford it, there's obviously something wrong. Not with them of course...with the world.

If I'm supposed to have this and I don't, it MUST be because someone's keeping it from me. Must be those damn rich people.

Rob said...

I'm living in the Golden Age, right now, this very minute!

I can still walk, I know who I am, the roads are good, gasoline is available, all the stores have food, I have the internet & the worlds knowledge (sort of) at my fingertips. I still get a social security check every month!

The poor in America... so far ahead of the rest of the world's poor and nobody knows it... Nobody cares either.

Dan said...

EVERYTHING Occasionally-Conscious say is dishonest.... because she is a PUPPET.
Virtually everything she says is scripted for her by her handlers. On the occasions
She speaks "off the cuff" without a script it becomes GLARINGLY apparent that she
doesn't have the brains of a turnip because she says something of the STUPIDEST things
ever uttered by anyone in or out office.